Humans have always sought to use tools to help them survive. Through out millennia, Mankind has used tools to adapt and overcome the sometimes harsh environment he has found himself in. As time has dragged on, Man has fashioned ever more complex and high tech tools. These tools have enabled him to build the hunt for game, build the Pyramids and cross oceans. Today, that same thirst for invention has given us GPS, or Global Positioning system

It seems every other person has a GPS device of some sort. And why not? GPS tracking devices allow people to keep track of their loved ones and their vehicles and allow them to keep from getting lost on their out of town trips. While it is nice to admire GPS for the technological marvel it is, one should be informed of what GPS is and how it works.

As you may already know, GPS is used around the world in navigating land and sea. This is accomplished via a constant connection to satellites in geo-synchronous orbit above the Earth. The satellites send signals to the GPS units and the receivers in the units take this signal and the information is relayed back to the satellite. The information that is decoded and translated is then used to determine the units exact position on the Earth.

While the original GPS system of satellites was only used by the United States military in the 1970s and 1980s, the technology has been made available to everyday people since the 1990s. The limited release in the early years meant that the price of GPS units was very high. Now that GPS has become more widespread, you can get a good unit for less than $200.

Cheap GPS units mean only one thing - the adoption of their use by a large swath of the population. These inexpensive units mean that pretty much every car on the road has them on the dashboard so that the driver doesn’t get lose or waste money on gasoline spent going the wrong way.

You can purchase a GPS unit in one of two ways. You can buy a unit for your dashboard and remove it each time you leave the vehicle alone. Or you can get the GPS unit installed into your dashboard as an option when you purchase the vehicle.

In a few short decades, GPS has gone from military hardware, to a tool used by only the well off, to a ubiquitous item in many households all around the world.