The First GPS Satellite Radio Optimized for Automatic Vehicle Location

Martin Rothblatt

Abstract:	GPS receivers have been optimized for many specialized applications. Prior to the introduction of MARCOR’s “Humminbird” GPS, no GPS had been optimized for Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL). A substantial amount of market research, engineering breakthroughs and productlzation has enabled MARCOR to introduce a GPS radio designed to serve the needs of the AVL market. Market research revealed several key demands for an AVL GPS radio: (i) minimization of urban building blockage; (ii) easy programmability to minimize mobile data transmission costs; (iii) high accuracy for street-map level coordination, (iv) interface capability with non- digital Specialized Mobile Radios (SMR); and (v) selling price close to that of alternatives such as Signposts and Loran-C. MARCOR assembled a team of experts to successfully surmount these challenges and deliver a GPS radio for $5OC-$1000 which operates at high accuracy in an urban environment and is plug-compatible with nearly all vehicle radios. Among the engineering and productization breakthroughs described in this paper are a unique SimultracTM approach to satellite tracking, enabling up to 8 GPS satellites to be used for position determination with a 2-channel receiver, and a receiver-in-a-microdome design, A powerful Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) has enabled MARCOR to bring GPS within the easy reach of millions of AVL users such as bus, taxi, and delivery vehicle fleets.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1991) June 10 - 12, 1991 Williamsburg Hilton and National Conference Center Williamsburg, VA
Pages:	261 - 263
Cite this article:	Rothblatt, Martin, "The First GPS Satellite Radio Optimized for Automatic Vehicle Location," Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1991), Williamsburg, VA, June 1991, pp. 261-263.
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