GPS Systems R&D Case Study

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The Company – Electronic Navigation Products Company

Our client is a local provider of communication and navigational tools from CB radios to radars to power inverters to global positioning systems (GPS).

The product under development is an affordable portable GPS navigation system compatible with any car, and can be used to navigate to selected destinations. The GPS systems can find points-of-interest such as restaurants, hotels, street addresses, ATMs, gas stations, detours, and many other things. The mobile GPS system can be easily moved from car to car.

Features to the systems are continually added and upgraded to remain competitive in the marketplace.

The Task - Real Time Traffic Incident List Feature

GPS System Enhancements Real time traffic is an optional GPS feature for which SSI did some initial work. By plugging in an optional receiver to the GPS unit, real-time traffic information is provided by satellite. The traffic data is collected on the ground, typically by sensors embedded in the road, sent up to satellite where it is then broadcast. Software within the GPS then decodes the traffic data to decide which ones apply.

On the displayed map on the GPS, traffic severity is color coded on the corresponding roads along with icons for specific incidents like an accident, construction, etc.

If a particular traffic incident is on the route currently navigated, it can also be viewed in a list. This traffic list is the user interface feature SSI was to implement.

The SSI Solution - Help Cost Reduce the GPS Unit by Porting to New Hardware and Add the Traffic List Feature

The base software provided to SSI was being ported to a new hardware base that had been redesigned. Many of the underlying hardware drivers needed to be changed to work in the new hardware before progress could be made towards the new requested traffic features.

A good working knowledge of device drivers, the GUI application, and WinCE allowed SSI engineers to quickly make all the modifications required.