While common applications of GPS technology for driving directions are becoming omnipresent, a wide variety of GPS uses are emerging in for both business and personal use. Advances in software versatility have enabled GPS to provide useful data in a variety of fields.
Pilots an increasingly utilising GPS to help guide auto-pilot navigation systems, and to provide improved accuracy for on-board instruments. Similarly, commercial ships utilise GPS to help navigate, especially during inclement weather and to mark locations in the case of an maritime incidents. GPS has improved both navigation and safety for commercial transportation in nearly every industry. With the growth of global trade, improved international shipping accuracy has helped the shipping and transportation industries maintain profits in an increasingly competitive landscape.
In the construction industry, GPS-enabled devices help guide automated processes with improved measurements, just as they do in next-generation agricultural equipment. Known as precision agriculture, GPS-enabled farms with harvesters operate at a higher-level of efficiency than previous generations. Natural resource industries such as mining and oil exploration utilise localised GPS to help locate, map and model resource areas. As global oil supplies dwindle and demand rises, natural resource companies are both able to improve their exploration of unknown oil sources, as well as generating improved yields from existing oil fields across the globe.
A number of recreational sports have integrated GPS technology to help improve safety among hikers, climbers and cyclists. Since these sports involve long trajectories, this allows athletes to focus on performance, while the GPS devices provide ready-tracking of end, starting and midpoints. Real-time maps also help athletes navigate difficult terrain, and find alternative routes in cases of bad weather. Climbers tackling notoriously difficult cliffs such as K2 have utilised GPS to help pace themselves and provide a guide at high altitudes.
Academic research has also benefited from the advances in tracking technology. Archaeologists are now able to develop a 3D model of a dig site that helps them both recreate the area and plot any findings to help improve evaluate patterns in the area. Recent finds have greatly benefited from the ability to understand terrain by reducing initial exploration time, as well as providing valuable information in recreating the living, cultural terrain of the historical narrative. Geologists and geophysicists have also utilised mapping accuracy to further our understanding of volatile, hard to explore fault lines, including active volcano terrain. The wide variation in deformations below the surface have improved our natural disaster forecasting, as well as our insight into the workings of plate tectonics.
As GPS technology improves, both commercial and personal applications will continue to advance, furthering economic growth and efficiency.