GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

There are three main parts of GPS

SPACE SEGMENT

The space segment of an artificial satellite system

is one of its three operational components(the
other being user and ground segment).It
comprises the satellite constellation and the uplink
and downlink satellite links. The over all design of
the payload, satellite, ground segment, and endto-end system is a complex task. Satellite
communications payload design must be properly
coupled with the capabilities and interaction of
spacecraft bus that provides power, stability and
environmental support to the payload

COTROL SEGMENT

The GPS control segment consists of a

global network of ground facilities that
track the GPS satellites, monitor their
transmissions, perform analyses, and send
commands and data to the constellation.
The current operational control segment
includes a master control station, an
alternate master control station, 12
command and control antennas, and 16
monitoring sites

USER SEGMENT

The GPS User Segment consists on L-band

radio receiver/processors and antennas which
receive GPS signals, determine pseudoranges
(and other observables), and
solve the navigation equations in order to obtain
their coordinates and provide a very accurate
time.
The GNSS Market Report, Issue 3, provided by
European GNSS Agency, has estimated that the
number of GPS enabled devices in 2012 were
about two billion units.

A GPS Receiver is a device capable of

determining the user position, velocity and
precise time (PVT) by processing the signal
broadcasted by satellites.
Any navigation solution provided by a
GNSS Receiver is based on the computation of
its distance to a set of satellites, by means of
extracting the propagation time of the incoming
signals traveling through space at the speed of
light, according to the satellite and receiver
local clocks.