GPS seems to have come out of nowhere. There was no progression like eight-track tape to cassette to CD to MP3 player. One day we were driving around clueless of where we were, struggling with roadmaps bought as gas stations that couldn’t be folded back neatly once opened and — suddenly — there was an amiable female voice coming out of the dashboard offering directions to our destination and showing no signs of impatience when we made wrong turns.
From the author’s introduction to GPS for Everyone
GPS seems to have come out of nowhere. There was no progression like eight-track tape to cassette to CD to MP3 player. One day we were driving around clueless of where we were, struggling with roadmaps bought as gas stations that couldn’t be folded back neatly once opened and — suddenly — there was an amiable female voice coming out of the dashboard offering directions to our destination and showing no signs of impatience when we made wrong turns.
From the author’s introduction to GPS for Everyone
The book is motivated by a taxi driver asking GPS expert Pratap Misra how the system works. As GPS experts, we should be capable of passing an under¬standing of GPS to the non-technical individual and Pratap’s book does that. The average person views GPS as the little box that gives location and direction. Pratap discusses GPS history, example operations, and antidotes so that the lay person can bet¬ter understand the system.
GPS for Everyone covers the basic principles of operation, the GPS sig¬nals and how the receiver processes the signals, the technology involved, many of the civil and military operations, and the story of how GPS came to be developed. Pratap has a nice variety of pictures and illustrations significantly enhancing an individual’s understand¬ing. He also discusses what is ahead in satellite navigation with the new systems coming on line.
I was so impressed with this book, that when I gave a talk to my former high school, I took a copy and left it with them.
GPS for Everyone: You are Here
By Pratap Misra, Ganga-Jamuna Press, 2016, ISBN-13: 978-0-9709544-3-5
