HOLIDAY-MAKING WITH A GPS MAP

"Words fail to describe my feelings when, during a visit to Germany, I stopped on the roadside of a very good European motorway and installed the GPS system on the roof of my car.  A minute later, after connecting all the cables, I could see myself as a big blinking dot on a blind branch of the highway on the electronic map of a pocket-sized display.  It worked.  I was overjoyed.  It was a miracle.  I drove my car and my GPS receiver told me to turn right, turn left or keep to the right, all the way to the hotel."

Ilkin Quliyev, an Azerbaijani tourist, drove around Europe in this way, visiting Amsterdam, Utrecht, Paris, Vienna and many other cities and towns.  And when his friends in Amsterdam sent him their home address in an SMS message, he simply typed it into his GPS receiver, received a very detailed description of the route, with all the instructions, and arrived right at the entrance to their home.  This smart device always knows which are one-way streets, and will never take the traveller where he is not supposed to go.

A navigation device for a traveller is an instrument whose importance is hard to overestimate.  Ilkin ordered a GPS receiver and a set of maps of Western Europe from a German online store before his vacation.  Soon the mailman delivered two boxes with compact disks.  Unfor-tunately, there was no way to test how the system worked because the map of Azerbaijan was not listed among the maps available and you got into the coverage area only after crossing the Polish border.  But Ilkin realized how useful a "talking" electronic map can be in Germany, when he installed the receiver in the car which he had rented to travel in Europe.

GPS in Azerbaijan?

As we can see, the integrated electronic GPS system works smoothly and is not only useful for travellers.  It is good that the system already works in Azerbaijan, Sanan Ismayilov, general director of the Caspian NavTel company, said in an interview with R+.  In his words, the company currently provides these navigation system services to city dwellers and also to businessmen, civil servants, tourists, people leaving the capital of Azerbaijan and - as a surveillance system - to parents who want to know where their children are at all times.  Ismayilov stressed that the Caspian NavTel company is the first organization in Azerbaijan to offer navigation systems for different purposes.

"GPS (Global Positioning System) navigation is a system of satellite navigation which determines the position of a moving object, and is accurate to within several metres.  The satellite navigation system was designed in the United States and was initially used by the military-industrial complex.

On 1 May 2000, the US Government cancelled special limitations on the use of the GPS system, and the technology became available for civilian use.  Installing a GPS receiver enables the user to monitor the position of an object using the GPS navigation system.  This system is useful for monitoring the position of objects like a yacht, a motor boat, a railway train or a car.  Many large transport companies receive information on the exact location of their vehicles via GPS navigators.  For example, if you install a GPS navigator in your car, you will always know where your car is.  The satellite navigation system enables the dispatcher or the onboard computer to advise the optimum route to any destination.  GPS navigation is also important in providing timely assistance in emergencies, both on land and at sea, and also in finding lost tourists," said Sanan Ismayilov.

At present, the Caspian NavTel work group is busy updating the digital vector map of Azerbaijan, which is incorporated into the general system of GPS.  Today, it is the most detailed map of our country, which will show even very small settlements in the remotest areas of our country.  An electronic map is a geographic information system, a database of sorts, which includes information on optimum routes, addresses and different points of interest, but also about the road signs which the motorist or pedestrian will encounter along the way.  No government organizations were involved in developing the map, which took one year and a half.  Simultaneously, work is being done on updating the map of Baku, because the capital is effectively being rebuilt into a new city, the specialist stressed.  And Caspian NavTel can claim that it has the most detailed map of Baku today.  This means that the company provides quality services to introduce navigation systems in Azerbaijan.

Eventually, the company plans to introduce GPS technology in many areas of work in the country; after all, the system has quite broad coverage, and transport companies and motorists will be able to use it for their own purposes.  "We have already introduced it into the tourism sector, GPS tracking of company vehicles, cargoes and so on.  Motorists will be able to use GPS technology to better handle heavy traffic in the city.  The electronic map gives information on facilities, shops, companies, and a degree of adaptation of different routes for travel by car and so on," Ismayilov said.  The company delivers equipment and devices from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.  There are special editions of the software for mobile phones.

The head of Caspian NavTel believes that at the current stage of the introduction of GPS technology into Azerbaijan, there is a need for an intense public awareness campaign to familiarize customers with the nature of this product.  As for contacts with government bodies, Capsian NavTel currently works with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ismayilov added.

How does it work?

The satellite navigation systems use the principle of measuring the distance from the antenna on the device whose position is to be determined to a satellite whose exact position is known.  The table of positions of all the satellites is called an almanac and every satellite receiver should possess this information before it can begin a measurement. The receiver usually keeps the almanac in its memory from the last time it was switched on, unless it is outdated, and immediately puts it into use.  Every satellite transmits the entire almanac in its signal.  So, knowing the distance to several satellites in the system and using simple geometric triangulation, the position of the object can be established using the information in the almanac.

The method of measuring the distance from the satellite to the receiver's antenna uses the speed of radio waves.  To calculate the time it takes the radio signal to reach the object, every satellite in the system transmits exact time signals as part of its signal, using an atomic clock which is precisely synchronized with the system's reference time.  When the receiver is switched on, its clock is synchronized with the system time and, when the next signal arrives, the time lag is counted between the moment the signal was transmitted - which is received with the signal itself - and the moment it is received.  Using this information, the navigation device calculates the coordinates of the antenna.  Additionally accumulating and processing this information for a certain period of time, it becomes possible to calculate parameters of movement like speed (current, maximum, average), distance covered and so on.