Real Time Vehicle Tracking Made Easy

Makarand writes "The Washington Post has an article about a vehicle tracking system built by a start-up 10-20.com. The system uses low orbit satellites for exchanging location information making it available anywhere in the US. The tracking device, the size of a paperback, can be installed in any vehicle and powered by a battery. A small antenna installed on top sends signals to satellites marking its position on a web-based map. The equipment costs around $1000 and monthly fees range from $20 to $65. The service plan will determine how often your position will be updated by the system. The tracking system FAQ on the company website is pretty detailed."

Comments

A company in the UK has this...

[soulctcher]

http://www.u-track.co.uk/ Satellite tracking and all...

Already exists

[Cheese Cracker]

There was this story 1 1/2 month ago about the bank robbers who killed five people and got tracked down by the satellite navigation system installed in the car they stole.

APRS

[djward]

Automatic Position Reporting System

HAM radio operators have been doing this for a while, but cheaper (with slightly more effort):

License: ~$10 testing fee
Basic GPS: ~$100
APRS packet-capable radio: ~$300 (US)
A couple of cables: ~$20

The GPS sends location data to the radio, which broadcasts digital packets to a "digipeater," which is wired to the internet...

A trip to findu.com and you're tracking. No monthly fees, plus you can use all the equipment for other stuff.

Re:Cell phone gps car alarms...

[eyegor]

because it has nothing to do with cell phones?

There are many different cell phone tracking technologies being developed for E911 purposes. They can also be used for other purposes (stolen car tracking/shipment tracking/finding bad guys/traffic probes):

1. GPS-enabled. The only problem is getting the satellites when you're under cover (trees/tall buildings/indoors) and it takes a while to sync up. You also MUST have a GPS on every phone you wish to track. I'll bet the cell phone manufacturers like this one the best.

2. Time difference of arrival (TDOA) is an infrastructure-based method that measures what time a particular signal hits different sets of antennas. Not especially resistant to multi-path and requires very accurate timing.

3. Phase angle of arrival. Measures the phase angle of incoming signals between the phone and different receiving sites. Triangulates and find the phone within 100 yards or so. Works pretty well in a multipath environment. Also infrastructure based.

Re:Affordable Countermeasure

[troc]

We have a system in the UK called Tracker that works extremely well and was recently tested by the police and others - they tried every trick in the book from covering a car in tin foil (for real) to hiding it in the deepest pits of a concrete underground car park and the car was still tracked without any problems whatsoever.

Tracker is also cheaper than this US system.

Troc