GPS NAVIGATION: FROM THE GULF WAR TO CIVVY STREET

Soldiers in the gulf war needed a way to navigate through the dessert without using
traditional ways to know their localization because in the dessert is very hard to measure
the distance and velocity that you had travelled visually, this is due to the sand and the wind
that erase the tracks of both soldiers and vehicles after a certain distance. With these
problems they decided to use the GPS, a technology that had been developed since the
1960s for navigation at sea or missile targeting.
The system in place today was initiated with the launch of the first NAVSTAR satellites in
1978. The idea was to establish a constellation of 24 satellites, guaranteeing that anywhere
in the world you could receive signals from at least four. By August 1990, when the troops
went into Saudi Arabia, the constellation consisted of only 14 satellites, but the system was
good enough to be useful.
Using GPS, even the meal trucks that brought food to the soldiers located the units quickly
and easily. Despite its imperfections, the technology was enough to transform the progress
of the coalition troops.
A huge civilian market had built up for GPS with the war over so in May 2000 President
Bill Clinton authorized the army to discontinue the scrambling of signals, so that everyone
could benefit from the pin-sharp accuracy of GPS data.
Nowadays GPS technology isn’t unknown for people and is present in cellphones, tablets,
software and even in cars, for example the ones form Tesla company that can navigate
themselves.