Gosmore in berlin with winCE on transonic 6000

An automotive navigation system is part of the automobile controls or a third party add-on used to find direction in an automobile. It typically uses a

satellite navigation A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pr ...

device to get its position data which is then correlated to a position on a road. When directions are needed routing can be calculated. On the fly traffic information (road closures, congestion) can be used to adjust the route.

Dead reckoning In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating current position of some moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and then incorporating estimates of speed, heading direction, and course over elapsed time. ...

using distance data from sensors attached to the

drivetrain A drivetrain (also frequently spelled as drive train or sometimes drive-train) is the group of components that deliver mechanical power from the prime mover to the driven components. In automotive engineering, the drivetrain is the components o ...

, an

accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acc ...

, a gyroscope, and a magnetometer can be used for greater reliability, as GNSS signal loss and/or multipath can occur due to

urban canyon An urban canyon (also known as a street canyon) is a place where the street is flanked by buildings on both sides creating a canyon-like environment, evolved etymologically from the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan. Such human-built canyons are made ...

s or

tunnels A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A Pipeline transport, pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used ...

. Mathematically, automotive navigation is based on the shortest path problem, within

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conn ...

, which examines how to identify the path that best meets some criteria (shortest, cheapest, fastest, etc.) between two points in a large network. Automotive navigation systems are crucial for the development of

self-driving cars A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...

History

Automotive navigation systems represent a convergence of a number of diverse technologies, many of which have been available for many years, but were too costly or inaccessible. Limitations such as batteries, display, and processing power had to be overcome before the product became commercially viable. *1961: Hidetsugu Yagi designed a wireless-based navigation system. This design was still primitive and intended for military-use. *1966: General Motors Research (GMR) was working on a non-satellite-based navigation and assistance system called DAIR (Driver Aid, Information & Routing). After initial tests GM found that it was not a scalable or practical way to provide navigation assistance. Decades later, however, the concept would be reborn as

OnStar OnStar Corporation is a subsidiary of General Motors that provides subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security, emergency services, turn-by-turn navigation, and remote diagnostics systems throughout the United States, Canada, China, ...

(founded 1996). *1973: Japan's

Ministry of International Trade and Industry The was a ministry of the Government of Japan from 1949 to 2001. The MITI was one of the most powerful government agencies in Japan and, at the height of its influence, effectively ran much of Japanese industrial policy, funding research and d ...

(MITI) and

Fuji Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate primarily involved in both terrestrial and aerospace transportation manufacturing. It is best known for its line of Subaru automobiles. Founded in 1953, the company was formerly named ( ...

sponsored CATC (Comprehensive Automobile Traffic Control), a Japanese research project on automobile navigation systems.''Cartographies of Travel and Navigation'', James R. Akerman
p.279
/ref> *1979: MITI established JSK (Association of Electronic Technology for Automobile Traffic and Driving) in Japan. *1980: Electronic Auto Compass with new mechanism on the

Toyota Crown The is an automobile which has been produced by Toyota in Japan since 1955. It is primarily a line of mid-size luxury cars that is marketed as an upmarket offering in the Toyota lineup. Introduced in 1955 as the Toyopet Crown, it has served ...

. *1981: The earlier research of CATC led to the first generation of automobile navigation systems from Japanese companies

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a producti ...

, Nissan and

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

. They used

dead reckoning In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating current position of some moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and then incorporating estimates of speed, heading direction, and course over elapsed time. ...

technology. *1981: Honda's

Electro Gyrocator The Electro Gyro-Cator was claimed to be the world's first automated commercially available automotive navigation system. It was co-developed by Honda, Alpine, and Stanley Electric Co.. Unlike most navigation systems of today, it did not use ...

was the first commercially available car navigation system. It used inertial navigation systems, which tracked the distance traveled, the start point, and direction headed. It was also the first with a map display. *1981: Navigation computer on the

Toyota Celica The is an automobile produced by Toyota from 1970 until 2006. The Celica name derives from the Latin word '' coelica'' meaning 'heavenly' or 'celestial'. In Japan, the Celica was exclusive to the '' Toyota Corolla Store'' dealer chain. Pro ...

(NAVICOM). *1983:

Etak Etak, Inc. was an independent US-based vendor of automotive navigation system equipment, digital maps, and mapping software. It was founded in 1983. Its original headquarters were in Sunnyvale, but the company later moved to 1430 O'Brien DriveVi ...

was founded. It made an early system that used map-matching to improve on dead reckoning instrumentation. Digital map information was stored on standard cassette tapes. *1987: Toyota introduced the World's first CD-ROM-based navigation system on the Toyota Crown. *1989: Gregg Howe of Design Works USA applied Hunter Systems $40,000 navigational computer to the Magna Torrero Concept Car. Originally developed to locate hydrants for fire departments, this system utilized both satellite signals & dead reckoning improving overall system accuracy due to civilian GPS limitations. This system also boast a color raster scan monitor, rather than the monochromatic vector mapping displays used by predecessors. *1990:

Mazda Eunos Cosmo The is an automobile which was produced by Mazda from 1967 until 1995. Throughout its history, the Cosmo served as a "halo" vehicle for Mazda, with the first Cosmo successfully launching the Mazda Wankel engine. The final generation of Cosmo ser ...

became the first production car with built-in

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

-navigation system *1991: General Motors partnered with the American Automotive Association, Florida Department of Transportation, as well as the city of Orlando to create TravTek (short for Travel Technology) which was a computerized in-car navigation system. A fleet of 100

Oldsmobile Toronado The Oldsmobile Toronado is a personal luxury car manufactured and marketed by the Oldsmobile division of General Motors from 1966 to 1992 over four generations. The Toronado was noted for its transaxle version of GM's Turbo-Hydramatic transmissio ...

s were rolled out with the system with 75 available for rent through Avis' Orlando International Airport office, the other 25 were test-driven by local drivers. A computer system was installed in the trunk of the vehicle with a special antenna mounted in the back and was hooked up to the video screen in the Oldsmobile Toronado (an option in the standard Toronado) to display the navigation. TravTek covered a 12,000 square mile area in Orlando and its metro areas, as well as contained listings for restaurants, AAA-approved hotels and attractions. *1991: Toyota introduced GPS car navigation on the

Toyota Soarer The is a Personal luxury car, personal luxury Grand tourer, GT coupé produced from 1981 to 2005 by Toyota and sold in Japan. It was available at both Japanese Toyota dealerships called ''Toyota Store'' and ''Toyopet Store'', and it debuted with ...

. *1991: Mitsubishi introduced GPS car navigation on the

Mitsubishi Debonair The is a four-door executive sedan introduced by Mitsubishi Motors in 1964 to serve as their flagship passenger vehicle in the Japanese market. The word "debonair" means gentle, courteous, suave, lighthearted, or nonchalant. __TOC__ Overvi ...

(MMCS: Mitsubishi Multi Communication System). *1992: Voice assisted GPS navigation system on the

Toyota Celsior The is a full-size luxury sedan ( F-segment in Europe) serving as the flagship model of Lexus, the luxury division of Toyota. For the first four generations, all LS models featured V8 engines and were predominantly rear-wheel-drive. In the f ...

. *1993: The Austrian channel ORF airs a presentation of the software company bitMAP and its head Werner Liebig's invention, an electronic city map including street names and house numbers, using a satellite-based navigation system. bitMAP attends Comdex in Las Vegas the same year, but doesn't manage to market itself properly. *1994: BMW 7 series E38 first European model featuring GPS navigation. The navigation system was developed in cooperation with

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

(Philips CARIN). *1995:

Oldsmobile Oldsmobile or formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it pro ...

introduced the first GPS navigation system available in a United States production car, called GuideStar. The navigation system was developed in cooperation with

Zexel Zexel is a Japanese auto-components manufacturer. It was founded in 1939 as Diesel Kiki Co., Ltd., under a Bosch license, for domestic production of fuel-injection pumps for diesel engines. Originally established with an investment from Isuzu Mot ...

. Zexel partnered with

Avis Car Rental Avis Car Rental is an American car rental company headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey. Avis, Budget Rent a Car, Budget Truck Rental and Zipcar are all units of Avis Budget Group. Avis Budget Group operates the Avis brand in South Afric ...

to make the system widely available in rental cars. This provided many in the United States general public with their first opportunity to use car navigation. *1995: Device called "Mobile Assistant" or short, MASS, produced by Munich-based company ComRoad AG, won the title "Best Product in Mobile Computing" on CeBit by magazine Byte. It offered

turn-by-turn navigation Turn-by-turn Navigation is a feature of some satellite navigation devices where directions for a selected route are continually presented to the user in the form of spoken or visual instructions. The system keeps the user up-to-date about the best ...

via wireless internet connection, with both GPS and speed sensor in the car. *1995: Acura introduced the first

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

-based navigation system in the 1996 RL. *1997: Navigation system using

Differential GPS Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPSs) supplement and enhance the positional data available from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). A DGPS for GPS can increase accuracy by about a thousandfold, from approximately to . DGPSs c ...

developed as a factory-installed option on the

Toyota Prius The is a car built by Toyota which has a hybrid drivetrain, combining an internal combustion engine with an electric motor. Initially offered as a four-door sedan, it has been produced only as a five-door liftback since 2003. In 2007, ...

*1998: First

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

-based navigation system introduced on the

Toyota Progres is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 m ...

. *2000: The United States made a more accurate GPS signal available for civilian use. *2003: Toyota introduced the first

Hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

-based navigation system and the industry's first DVD-based navigation system with a built-in

Electronic throttle control Electronic throttle control (ETC) is an automobile technology which electronically "connects" the accelerator pedal to the throttle, replacing a mechanical linkage. A typical ETC system consists of three major components: (i) an accelerator ped ...

*2007: Toyota introduced Map on Demand, a technology for distributing map updates to car navigation systems, developed as the first of its kind in the world *2008: World's first navigation system-linked

brake assist Brake assist (BA or BAS) or emergency brake assist (EBA) is a term for an automobile braking technology that increases braking pressure in an emergency. The first application was developed jointly by Daimler-Benz and TRW/LucasVarity. Research c ...

function and Navigation system linked to

Adaptive Variable Suspension TEMS (Toyota Electronic Modulated Suspension) is a shock absorber that is electronically controlled ( Continuous Damping Control) based on multiple factors, and was built and exclusively used by Toyota for selected products during the 1980s and 19 ...

System (NAVI/AI-AVS) on Toyota Crown *2009: With a release of mobile navigation app from

Sygic Sygic ( ) is a Slovak company of global automotive navigation systems for mobile phones and tablets. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Bratislava, Slovakia. It became the first company to offer navigation for iPhone and sec ...

for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

new era of a mobile device navigation systems had begun gaining in popularity since

Technology

The road database is a

vector map The Vector Map (VMAP), also called Vector Smart Map, is a vector-based collection of geographic information system (GIS) data about Earth at various levels of detail. Level 0 (low resolution) coverage is global and entirely in the public domain. L ...

. Street names or numbers and house numbers, as well as

points of interest A point of interest (POI) is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting. An example is a point on the Earth representing the location of the Eiffel Tower, or a point on Mars representing the location of its highest m ...

(

waypoint A waypoint is an intermediate point or place on a route or line of travel, a stopping point or point at which course is changed, the first use of the term tracing to 1880. In modern terms, it most often refers to coordinates which specify one's posi ...

s), are encoded as

geographic coordinate The geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or ellipsoidal coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on the Earth as latitude and longitude. It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the various ...

s. This enables users to find a desired destination by street address or as geographic coordinates. (See map database management.) Map database formats are almost uniformly proprietary, with no industry standards for satellite navigation maps, although some companies are trying to address this with SDAL (Shared Data Access Library) and

Navigation Data Standard The Navigation Data Standard (NDS) is a standardized format for automotive-grade navigation databases, jointly developed by automobile manufacturers and suppliers. NDS is an association registered in Germany. Members are automotive OEMs, map dat ...

(NDS). Map data vendors such as

Tele Atlas Tele Atlas is a Netherlands-based company founded in 1984 which delivers digital maps and other dynamic content for navigation and location-based services, including personal and in-car navigation systems, and provides data used in a wide range ...

and Navteq create the base map in a GDF (

Geographic Data Files Geographic Data Files (GDF) is an interchange file format for geographic data. In contrast with generic GIS formats, GDF provides detailed rules for data capture and representation, and an extensive catalog of standard features, attributes and r ...

) format, but each electronics manufacturer compiles it in an optimized, usually proprietary manner. GDF is not a CD standard for car navigation systems. GDF is used and converted onto the CD-ROM in the internal format of the navigation system. CDF (CARiN Database Format) is a proprietary navigation map format created by

. SDAL is a proprietary map format developed by Navteq, which was released

royalty free Royalty-free (RF) material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales. Computer standards ...

in the hope that it would become an industry standard for digital navigation maps, has not been very widely adopted by the industry. Vendors who used this format include: *

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

Clarion Clarion may refer to: Music * Clarion (instrument), a type of trumpet used in the Middle Ages * The register of a clarinet that ranges from B4 to C6 * A trumpet organ stop that usually plays an octave above unison pitch * "Clarion" (song), a 2 ...

* InfoGation

Navigation Data Standard (NDS)

The

(NDS) initiative, is an industry grouping of car manufacturers, navigation system suppliers and map data suppliers whose objective is the standardization of the data format used in car navigation systems, as well as allow a map update capability. The NDS effort began in 2004 and became a registered association in 2009. Standardization would improve interoperability, specifically by allowing the same navigation maps to be used in navigation systems from 20 manufacturers. Companies involved include BMW,

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...

, Daimler,

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufacture ...

, ADIT,

Aisin AW is a Japanese corporation that develops and produces components and systems for the automotive industry. Aisin is a Fortune Global 500 company, ranked 359 rankings. Aisin is a member of the Toyota Group of companies. Aisin was founded in 1965 ...

Alpine Electronics is a Japanese consumer electronics subsidiary of the Japanese electronics component manufacturer Alps Electric, specializing in car audio and navigation systems. Established in 1967 as Alps-Motorola — a joint venture between Alps Elect ...

Navigon Navigon GmbH was a Würzburg, Germany-based manufacturer of GPS devices and GPS navigation software. The company was privately owned, until in June 2011, it was announced that Navigon was to be acquired by Garmin and become a subsidiary of the co ...

, Navis-AMS, Bosch, DENSO, Mitsubishi,

Harman International Industries Harman International Industries, commonly known as Harman (stylized in all-uppercase as HARMAN), is an American audio electronics company. Since 2017, the company has been an independent subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. Headquartered in Stam ...

, Preh Car Connect formerly

TechniSat TechniSat is a German manufacturer of direct broadcast satellite receivers. The company produces televisions, car navigation and entertainment systems as well. Together with Loewe and Metz, it is one of the few remaining independent consumer elect ...

, PTV, Continental AG,

, Navteq
Navinfo
,

TomTom TomTom N.V. is a Dutch multinational developer and creator of location technology and consumer electronics. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Amsterdam, TomTom released its first generation of satellite navigation devices to market in 2004. ...

and

Zenrin is a Japanese map publisher. Founded in 1948, the company is known as a maker of residential maps and software used in personal computers and Automotive navigation systems. It is a leading Japanese company in the production of mapping software. ...

Media

The road database may be stored in solid state read-only memory (ROM), optical media ( CD or

), solid state flash memory, magnetic media ( hard disk), or a combination. A common scheme is to have a base map permanently stored in ROM that can be augmented with detailed information for a region the user is interested in. A ROM is always programmed at the factory; the other media may be preprogrammed,

download In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

ed from a CD or

via a computer or

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

connection (

bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

), or directly used utilizing a

card reader A card reader is a data input device that reads data from a card-shaped storage medium. The first were punched card readers, which read the paper or cardboard punched cards that were used during the first several decades of the computer industry ...

. Some navigation device makers provide free map updates for their customers. These updates are often obtained from the vendor's website, which is accessed by connecting the navigation device to a PC.

Real-time data

Some systems can receive and display information on traffic congestion using either TMC, RDS, or by GPRS/3G data transmission via mobile phones. In practice, Google has updated Google Maps for Android and iOS to alert users when a faster route becomes available in 2014. This change helps integrate real-time data with information about the more distant parts of a route.

Integration and other functions

*The color LCD screens on some automotive navigation systems can also be used to display

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

broadcasts or

movie A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

s. * A few systems integrate (or communicate) with

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

s for

hands-free Handsfree is an adjective describing equipment that can be used without the use of hands (for example via voice commands) or, in a wider sense, equipment which needs only limited use of hands, or for which the controls are positioned so that the ...

talking and SMS messaging (i.e., using

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

). * Automotive navigation systems can include

personal information management Personal information management (PIM) is the study of the activities people perform in order to acquire or create, store, organize, maintain, retrieve, and use information items such as documents (paper-based and digital), web pages, and email mes ...

for meetings, which can be combined with a traffic and public transport information system.

Original factory equipment

Many vehicle manufacturers offer a

satellite navigation device A satellite navigation device (satnav device) is a user equipment that uses one or more of several global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to calculate the device's geographical position and provide navigational advice. Depending on the ...

as an option in their vehicles. Customers whose vehicles did not ship with GNSS can therefore purchase and

retrofit Retrofitting is the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Retrofits can happen for a number of reasons, for example with big capital expenditures like naval vessels, military equipment or manufacturing plants, businesses or go ...

the original factory-supplied GNSS unit. In some cases this can be a straightforward "plug-and-play" installation if the required wiring harness is already present in the vehicle. However, with some manufacturers, new wiring is required, making the installation more complex. The primary benefit of this approach is an integrated and factory-standard installation. Many original systems also contain a

gyrocompass A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth (or another planetary body if used elsewhere in the universe) to find geographical direction automatically. The use of a gyroc ...

and/or an

and may accept input from the vehicle's

speed sensors This is a list of sensors sorted by sensor type. Acoustic, sound, vibration *Geophone *Hydrophone *Microphone * Pickup *Seismometer *Sound locator Automotive *Air flow meter * AFR sensor * Air–fuel ratio meter *Blind spot monitor *Cranksh ...

and reverse gear engagement signal output, thereby allowing them to navigate via

when a GPS signal is temporarily unavailable.''In-Car Positioning and Navigation Technologies—A Survey'', I. Skog, and P. Händel

/ref> However, the costs can be considerably higher than other options.

SMS

Establishing

in real-time and transmitting them via

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

cellular telephone networks using the Short Message Service (

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

) is referred to as Gps2sms. Some vehicles and vessels are equipped with hardware that is able to automatically send an

text message when a particular event happens, such as theft,

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄ� ...

drift or breakdown. The receiving party (e.g., a

tow truck A tow truck (also called a wrecker, a breakdown truck, recovery vehicle or a breakdown lorry) is a truck used to move disabled, improperly parked, impounded, or otherwise indisposed motor vehicles. This may involve recovering a vehicle damaged ...

) can store the

in a computer system, draw a map indicating the location, or see it in an automotive navigation system.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Automotive Navigation System Global Positioning System Automotive navigation systems Computer systems Dedicated application electronic devices Japanese inventions Applications of geographic information systems