A new dimension has been added to digital maps.

The technology that truly guides us is expanding in many ways

You must have occasionally used a taxi service like Ola, Uber or a rickshaw service like Rapido. While doing this, we can see the booked taxi or rickshaw coming towards us on the map in our smartphone, even if the taxi or rickshaw approaches us, but it often happens that we have to explain to the taxi or rickshaw driver where exactly we are standing. Have to talk on the phone. If you have to tell the driver, if you tell us about a shop or a temple etc. that is visible to your left or right, then we can explain to the driver where we are standing based on that.

Why does such a problem occur even though the driver's and our location is displayed very accurately on the map on the smartphone screen? Why do we have to explain the location to each other based on the details we see around us?

This question has puzzled us for a long time, just as it has puzzled the experts in the technology of digital maps.

Until now Global Positioning System (GPS) played a major role in determining the location of anything on a digital map. After years of experience, experts realized that the GPS system is very good in every way, but there are still many things left unfinished. To fill these gaps, experts have developed a visual positioning system (VPS) to complement GPS.

This new technology has reached the hands of people through smartphones. However, the days of reaching our hands are far away. Currently available in Manhattan, New York, but coming to Mehsana soon!

Yet the exciting aspects of how these two systems work are worth revisiting, as both are increasingly used in today's digital life.

The 'old' Global Positioning System (GPS)

We now know a lot about the Global Positioning System (GPS). This system can determine our location on earth based on satellites. Originally America developed this system for its own military purposes and later its public use became possible.

In the GPS system, our location is determined with the help of a cluster of 30 navigation satellites orbiting the earth. Since these satellites are constantly sending signals, we can know where they are. Talking about smartphones, our smartphones receive GPS signals from satellites to determine their location on a digital map. After receiving signals from three or four such satellites, the smartphone can calculate its distance from all four satellites and, based on that, determine where it is on the map!

Even when we are moving in the car, similarly our constantly changing location can be seen as a blue dot on the map with the help of GPS. Following America, various countries of the world have developed their own GPS-like systems. India has also developed its own system called Navik ( Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) .

But GPS has a problem. There are actually not one , but two problems.

The first problem is that since GPS is a satellite-based system, smartphones on the ground in cities with skyscrapers have many obstacles to receiving signals from navigation satellites. Because of this, our location on the map is often not very accurate (to remedy this, techniques like A-GPS i.e. Assisted-GPS are used. In addition to the satellite-based GPS in the smartphone, it also exchanges signals with the cell towers of the mobile to determine our location. taken into account).

Another problem with GPS is orientation. When we start walking with a smartphone in hand or move forward in a car, our direction can be determined on the map. But when we are just standing with the phone in hand, the direction we are facing cannot be determined on the digital map!

If we are walking in a direction with the phone in hand, the system of the phone can understand our direction and tell us to turn left or right. On what basis does the system ask us to turn left-right when we are still standing ?!

Thus in GPS based system there is lack of accuracy or confusion in terms of location (location) and orientation (direction).

'New' Visual Positioning System (VPS)

As we have seen (in the text on the left in map parlance!), even though satellite-based GPS systems are good, they tend to be inaccurate or confusing in terms of location and orientation. Google, the company that revolutionized the world of digital maps, focused on finding solutions to these problems for the past few years. For this the company used the same method as we finally explain the location to the Ola-Uber taxi or rickshaw driver. The challenge for the engineers was how to make it possible to use this simple technique of ours on a huge scale , for people in different places all over the world .

If we have to explain to someone on the phone where he is standing on the road, try to explain to him about the places around us. Like " If you see a bridge in front of you , is there a temple to your left ?" Based on such ' visual clues ' , two people talking on the phone can give each other an estimate of where they are standing.

This exact method is used in the Visual Positioning System being developed since 2018. For this, Google has used smartphone cameras and other sensors and visual data from all over the world in its servers! We know that Google has been doing 360 degree photography of streets around the world with the help of special vehicles or photographers on foot since 2007 under the Street View project . After the re-entry of this program in India last year, street photography of many small and big streets of Indian cities has already been done and its data has reached the servers of Google or its affiliated companies.

So now if our smartphone can support Visual Positioning System (VPS) then we can use VPS when we open the Maps app on the phone while standing somewhere and ask Google Maps to guide us to reach a place.

See how technology works in times like these. We have to open the phone camera and scan the things around with the phone camera. Whether it's a temple , a restaurant, a building, etc., captured by the camera , Maps' system compares what the camera sees with the images of Street View data stored in its own servers.

Maps apps only estimate where we stand based on GPS. In addition, based on the things seen through the phone's camera and street view images of the location , it ' knows ' which way we are facing! Then on the phone screen , when the camera is on in the Maps app, based on what is seen on the screen, we are guided by showing arrows that we should go left or any other direction to reach the place we want to go!

Thus, the map app in VPS sees what is seen around us through the camera , compares it with the database in its server and based on it, the two defects that remained in GPS - lack of accuracy or confusion in location (location) and orientation (direction) - removes it! All this happens almost in the blink of an eye!

This is about the personal use of GPS , VPS , this technology can also provide accurate guidance in vehicles or drones.

(G PS), (VPS) are complementary, not competing with each other

It is worth keeping in mind that VPS is not a substitute for GPS. Both complement each other. Also , GPS feature now covers every corner of the world , while VPS is still in its infancy.

Strictly speaking , VPS was invented because GPS was not accurate , although now GPS can show location more accurately. The reason is obvious – there is not enough data available yet for VPS to work accurately.

Google has yet to launch VPS technology in its Google Maps service in select cities including New York , San Francisco , Los Angeles , London , Paris and Tokyo. It is likely to arrive in other major cities in the coming months.

Where a VPS gets enough data, it can work with great accuracy. It is also possible to use it inside the building. In the future, computer vision , machine learning , augmented reality, etc. technology will further develop, along with drone delivery , robotics , automation , autonomous vehicle, etc. GPS and VPS will guide us in a new way with each other!