On February 14, 1989, a Delta II rocket was launched from the Cape Canaveral air force base to put USA-35, the USAF’s second-generation navigation satellite into earth orbit. The satellite, also known as GPS II-1, is the first satellite in a 27-satellite global positioning system. Over the next 30 years, GPS became an indispensable part of people’s lives. With the popularity of smartphones, GPS also led to the birth of several industries. No other space technology has had such an impact. Let’s take a look at how GPS has changed our lives.

1.Physical monitoring
In the past, our running speed, distance, and time were calculated by means of a stopwatch and road conditions, which may not be accurate. Nowadays, these indicators can be quickly calculated with GPS sports watches, fitness trackers, smartphones, etc., and can also monitor some aspects of the body, such as heart rate, sleep and so on.

2. Child custody
In the past, parents needed to call neighbors or friends to know how their children were out. Parents now can easily monitor their children’s location and other things by installing GPS on their mobile devices. For example, a GPS watch, worn on children’s wrists, can be used as an ordinary watch, but also as monitoring devices. Parents can also send text messages to children and set geofence. Once their children are out of geofence, the alerts would be triggered.

3. Suspect hunt
GPS real-time technology center can dispatch the nearest law enforcement officer to make a quick decision and track down the suspect in a timely and effective manner. US criminal justice system also uses GPS tracking bracelets to track the location of the offender to ensure that they comply with parole terms, such as staying at home after a specific time each night. They seem to offers attractive options to replace prisons and opportunities to get along with their families. GPS makes law enforcement more intelligent.

Whether it is tourism, field survival training, or geological survey, oil exploration, you can send a distress signal through GPS in emergency situations to provide security monitoring. Your GPS on your phone or in your car makes it easier for rescuers to find you. It also helps even if your location changes.

Put a GPS collar on your pet, the GPS chip will send you the location and help find your loved pet if your pet is lost or stolen. This allows you to track your pet in real-time without worrying about its safety.

6. Golf Assistant
GPS can help you navigate through the golf course, record your golf scores and statistics. It is also able to calculate the exact distance between the ball and the hole. Golf balls with small GPS chips insides liberating golfers from finding balls all over the place.

7. Transportation
The GPS vehicle management system utilizes global positioning technology, wireless data transmission, and computer software to manage various static and dynamic information of the vehicle. It not only compensates for the limitations of the traditional system for dynamic data processing statistics but also greatly improves the applicability and scalability of the GPS positioning device. Transportation companies can use GPS to track their drivers, allowing them to optimize routes that use the least fuel and take the shortest time, track the cargo status, and check driving behaviors.

8. Special elderly care
For seniors with Alzheimer’s or dementia, GPS trackers allow caregivers to track them in real-time while they’re out, prevent the loss of the elderly, seize the prime time to find them in emergency cases and ensure their safety.

9. Mobile games
Many people are familiar with Pokemon Go. By GPS and powerful mobile processors, this mobile game attracts players from indoors to outdoors, making them have fun in the sun.

10. The military
GPS provides precise targets for intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and various precision-guided weapons. Even in strong winds and other bad weather, missiles can follow a predetermined path. Various weapon systems use GPS to track enemy ground and air targets to ensure precise target locking. Military aircraft use dedicated GPS to find ground targets from the air. In terms of search and rescue, the GPS receiver can quickly find the pilot who crashed. In addition, the use of GPS can help with drawing and reconnaissance.

11. Ship navigation
Sea navigation requires precise navigation to ensure the safety of sailors. GPS technology can accurately navigate ships through satellite imaging and ocean depth detection equipment. With the continuous establishment of the marine beacon differential GPS (DGPS) abutment, the positioning accuracy using the GPS C/A code can be increased to the meter level. Therefore, DGPS or GPS navigators can also be used to improve the performance of the radar, determine the radar ranging, direction-finding accuracy, and make up for some limitations of the radar in collision avoidance and anchor monitoring.

12. Item tracking
If you often forget or loss items, GPS technology would help you a lot. Items such as keys, wallet, bag, umbrella, can be located by GPS without worrying that they will not be found if they are lost.

13. Agricultural production
With the advent of GPS, agricultural production has undergone tremendous changes. These GPS devices in agriculture can help farmers increase productivity and efficiency. They can also work under low visibility and keep track of things like fertilization and so on.

14. Power system
The positioning function can be used to identify the key equipment in the power system, such as substations, poles, transmission lines, etc., and use this information to regulate power facility management and maintenance work management. The location of the electric emergency repair vehicle can also be automatically forwarded to the command center within a few seconds. These position information realize more efficient dispatching and commanding decisions, timely reporting the location and fault conditions, effectively shortening the fault relocation time and improving repair timeliness. Each station of the power system can receive GPS signals synchronously by GPS as a time proofreading reference, which can achieve high-precision synchronization of its system time. The GPS synchronous clock successfully solves the time error problem of the power system.

15. Travel & Mobility
Today, even the taxi drivers who are most familiar with the cities often rely on GPS to find their destination and the most suitable route – after all, not every passenger goes to the landmark building. Uber and Didi are more advanced. They collect three pieces of information- the location of the passenger, the location of the driver, and the location of the destination. Based on these three locations and some other information, the car service will send the driver to the right person. Now a ride-sharing feature has been added to line up passengers automatically on their way. This would not have realized if the passengers and drivers’ mobile phones could not provide GPS location information at any time.

16．Diet
When order a takeout, DoorDash, Grubhub.ect deliver orders according to the location information of riders, merchants, and users; Also，when have no idea what to eat, we often use the diet platform and look for a nearby restaurant.

GPS can also be used in experiments training, such as zoologists installed GPS trackers on Northumberland’s sheep and theorized that individuals always expected to reach the center of a flock. The royal veterinary college has done the same for domestic cats to let owners know how greedy their cats actually are. Teams in Manchester city and Liverpool, for example, use GPS to help train footballers, monitor their running speed and distance from their teammates.

Some apps on the phone that seem no need map are also built on GPS actually. For example, open an app to check the nearby cinema, the delivery truck feeds you the lastest transportation information of your goods, a social app push post/users notification that in the same city and so on. In daily activities, almost not a single item can off the GPS.

GPS technology is playing an important role in many other aspects and is affecting our lives more deeply. If you have other ideas, please feel free to discuss it with us.