The Rise of Navigation Systems
The Rise of Navigation Systems
Remember paper maps? You'd take them out of the glove compartment or boot, unfold them, flip them around, and it would take you some ten minutes to find where you are on the map, before you could find where you were going. Later map books were a small improvement, but really reading a map while driving was always for the birds.
Automotive navigation systems simply revolutionized driving - there was no other way to see it. Given turn-by-turn navigation, you can now go to a city you've never been to before, punch in your destination, and go straight there exactly as if you were a native! This miraculous system is the sum product of scientific advancement in communications, transportation, digital technology, and let us not forget space exploration (we had to get those satellites up there somehow!).
The history of modern automotive navigation systems actually goes back to the 1970s. Even before microprocessor technology emerged, there were attempts to make automated guidance systems. The first commercially available automotive navigation system was Etak, of Sunnyvale, California, USA. Other companies which were early to market with prototypes include Alpine, Honda, Mitsubishi Electric, Magellan, and Pioneer.
Oldsmobile introduced the first GPS navigation system available in a production car in 1995, calling it "GuideStar." Even then, it was another five years before GPS signals and navigation systems came into wide use.
Today's systems involve a symphony of technological advancements. There are visualization components, including maps in top view, bird's-eye view, and linear view. Sometimes they have voice prompts. There is always a road database, including a vector map of the area. A couple of map formats include CARiN, created by Philips Car Systems, and the S-Dal format published by NAVTEQ, as well as Physical Storage Format (PSF) created by an industry grouping of car manufacturers, navigation system suppliers and map data suppliers in an effort to standardize the data format used in car navigation systems.
In addition, new features are being integrated all the time. Newer navigation systems can receive and display information on traffic congestion and suggest alternate routes. They can supply data about parking places. They can even provide real-time data such as weather broadcasting and road conditions.
These sophisticated systems continue to improve and add features, building upon decades of work in various technology fields. We might yet see the day when cars can actually drive themselves, and when they do, they'll be building upon the rise of navigation systems!
Filed Under: GPS, GIS and Navigation
