Integrating GPS into an Application

[TheDarkOne]

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone have any ideas about the above mentioned. Basically I'm writing a scheduling system that needs to know when a vehicle has passed a certain point. So once the vehicle passes this point the GPS tells the system.

So I would assume that first I would have to define these points that need to be passed and then the GPS part tells the system when we pass this point.

What sort of hardware would I need to make this work. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.

 

[gkm]

For Android see:
http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.html

This is available from Android 2.2, so should work on pretty much any Android device with a GPS.

 

[Spacerat]

what OS?

 

[TheDarkOne]

For Android see:
http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.html

This is available from Android 2.2, so should work on pretty much any Android device with a GPS.

Thank you very much for this. Looks exactly like what I am looking for. Do you have any idea on the data implications though. If someone is driving from Johannesburg to Durban and I wanted to track when they pass each tollgate. I would assume Data and Gps would have to be on the entire way. Wont this kill us on data costs?

 

[TheDarkOne]

what OS?

The main application will be a Java based web-app. So the android route mentioned above will integrate nicely.
BUT I am open to ideas as I am still researching..

 

[kripstoe]

Thank you very much for this. Looks exactly like what I am looking for. Do you have any idea on the data implications though. If someone is driving from Johannesburg to Durban and I wanted to track when they pass each tollgate. I would assume Data and Gps would have to be on the entire way. Wont this kill us on data costs?

It does not need to. Depends how you build it. If you know the route (or where tolls are) beforehand, you can cache those and just track where a person has driven.

 

[gkm]

Thank you very much for this. Looks exactly like what I am looking for. Do you have any idea on the data implications though. If someone is driving from Johannesburg to Durban and I wanted to track when they pass each tollgate. I would assume Data and Gps would have to be on the entire way. Wont this kill us on data costs?

The fused location provider (http://developer.android.com/training/location/receive-location-updates.html) which is the basis for this service does use some data if available, but not much in my experience, especially since you should have GPS most/all of the way, so it does not have to fall back to cell tower or Wifi locations.

The amount of data that you use to send the location updates then depend on how much you send. If you just send a quick spurt every time you pass the toll gate, that should be almost nothing. If you send continuous location updates on the other hand, that can add up to a fair bit of data.

Note, with GPS on all the way, you need to think about providing an external power source like a car charger or something like that.

 

[TheDarkOne]

The fused location provider (http://developer.android.com/training/location/receive-location-updates.html) which is the basis for this service does use some data if available, but not much in my experience, especially since you should have GPS most/all of the way, so it does not have to fall back to cell tower or Wifi locations.

The amount of data that you use to send the location updates then depend on how much you send. If you just send a quick spurt every time you pass the toll gate, that should be almost nothing. If you send continuous location updates on the other hand, that can add up to a fair bit of data.

Note, with GPS on all the way, you need to think about providing an external power source like a car charger or something like that.

Awesome. In my case I just want to know that the vehicle passed and at what time. So no continuous updates.
Thank you once again.

 

[medicnick83]

Have you chatted to Tom Tom?

Our Tablets and software on the tablets make use of Tom Tom for the navigation.

 

[[)roi(]]

Btw both iOS and Windows also support geofencing.

The benefit of current iOS devices is that they use a separate low power chip to constantly update the GPS i.e. battery doesn't get hit by a big power hungry CPU until your geofence target has been met.

 

[Spacerat]

I did something similar. but it depends on what you want to achieve. Realtime checks back to HQ, or post-trip analysis. You could load the know points into the app and then check the GPS location against that continually. Does not use data. And then only when you enter/leave a region send that event to HQ, or just log to DB.

I developed the GPS based commentary system for the red topless tourist buses and it uses a similar method. We preload the route that basically contains trigger regions as circular or polygon regions. Then as the vehicle moves I check the GPS position against the regions and raise enter/leave events. Then you can do whatever with that.

 

[gkm]

Have you chatted to Tom Tom?

Our Tablets and software on the tablets make use of Tom Tom for the navigation.

There are a bunch of options for navigation, but I think in this case the need is for tracking.

Btw both iOS and Windows also support geofencing.

The benefit of current iOS devices is that they use a separate low power chip to constantly update the GPS i.e. battery doesn't get hit by a big power hungry CPU until your geofence target has been met.

Yes, but iOS devices can work out fairly expensive when provided to a fleet of drivers, compared to R1000 Android devices. But it is certainly also an option.

In general, in the software you write on the phone, just set up a bunch on geofences around the toll gates with a callback that is triggered when each geofence is hit and then in the callback code call to your servers with the device id, location and time or something like that. Then on your server do whatever processing you need to do. You can call your server from the phone using Rest or SQS or whatever is your favorite comms protocol. Also, probably a good idea to save the events in an sqlite database on the phone until you can send then, to cover for situations where you do not have reception at the geofence trigger location. Overall pretty easy to do if you have done a bit of basic Android dev previously. Nothing fancy is needed.