A MS-Assisted GPS System For Low Power Location-Based Mobile Applications

Location based applications have gained much attention in recent years mainly with the advent of mobile devices such as smart-phones, PC-tablets, and netbooks. These devices facilitate the position data collection and allows some applications to make use of this data. For instance, mobile search is taking advantage of the local information to improve the user experience.

Among the most common location sensors, GPS is the most accurate providing very small location error and allowing, for instance, very high accurate applications such as turn-by-turn navigation. Therefore, the sensors commonly used to collect location data are very energy hungry and tend to deplete the device’s battery very quickly. Although GPS is the most accurate current location sensor, it is also the most energy hungry, thus, nowadays the use of GPS sensor is very restricted in mobile application scenarios.

Bearing in mind this constrained scenario, this work aim at studying the GPS theory and proposing some alternatives of using the GPS sensor in low energy consumption mode. The idea behind this proposal is to use a very low duty-cycle GPS, when it is possible, while the application requirements are met.