Vehicle Tracking Systems - Real Time Tracking Of Vehicles
The advent of modern vehicle tracking systems has reduced the concerns over vehicle security considerably. These systems are basically electronic devices, which are installed in a vehicle to track its route and location. Most of the vehicle tracking systems found today makes use of Global Positioning System (GPS) modules to trace the exact location of vehicles. However, there are also systems that combine equipments of communication such as satellite transmitters or cellular transmit vehicles location to a user in remote area. The information on the vehicle can be viewed through electronic maps through specialized software or Internet.
The vehicle tracking systems owe its genesis to the shipping industry. Such corporations having large fleets of vehicles, demand systems that could determine the vehicle location at a given time leading to the conception of vehicle tracking system. The current systems are widely used in a number of sectors including consumers’ vehicles as a retrieval and theft prevention device.
There are several vehicle tracking systems using a form of automatic vehicle location (AVL) for easy access to vehicle location. The AVL that makes use of GPS satellite system are quite inexpensive as they are maintained by government. There are other terrestrial based AVL systems that utilize radio frequency (RF) transmitters. These RF can penetrate through the buildings, garages, or walls. There are also police cruisers around the world that make use of AVL tracking as standard equipment for tracking vehicles.
Active and passive vehicle tracking systems There exist different kinds of vehicle tracking systems. However, they are classified as passive and active. The passive system is installed in the vehicle and record information on speed, heading, GPS location, and sometimes events such as door open or closed and key on or off. After the vehicle returns, the device is removed and the data is downloaded to the computers for evaluation. The passive system is auto download type, which makes it possible to transfer data through wireless download. The active devices retrieve data in the same manner, except that it transmits data to the computer or data center for evaluation in real-time through satellite or cellular networks. Components of vehicle tracking systems The vehicle tracking systems essentially comprises of modern hardware and software components that assists in tracking the vehicle offline or online. A typical system consists of fixed based station, mobile vehicle unit and database and software system. The fixed based station is responsible for transmitting (forward and receive) data to the data center through the wireless network. The base stations also contain geographic map and tracking software used to determine the vehicle location. The vehicle unit has hardware component attached to the vehicle, which has either GPS/GSM modem. This unit is assembled with a primary modem that works along with the tracking software by receiving signals from GPS satellites or radio station points. The controller modem deciphers the data and forwards the data on location to the server. On the other end, the database stores the position coordinates or information of each visiting points that is later displayed on screen using digital maps. The user needs to connect to the web server with the respective vehicle ID stored in the database to view the location of the vehicle traveled. The vehicle tracking system based on wireless or GPS system has brought a commendable progress in the field of vehicle security. With the new systems, you can sit back at home and acquire the details of vehicle’s location and route. It offers an effective and efficient way of protecting the vehicles, and most importantly physical safety and well-being of the loved ones.
| 
