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Real Time Vehicle Tracking Made Easy

Posted by chrisd on from the oppress-yourself-and-your-family dept.

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."

10 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Car Rentals by Talennor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Something I remember from a while ago is that car rental companies might use something like this. At that price car rental companies can fine you a couple of times for driving too fast, which they can now find out about, and it's already payed for, earning them money while they watch your every move. As if the internet wasn't good enough to track you everywhere.

    --

    //TODO: signature
  2. Antenna on top? by The+Original+Yama · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the antenna is installed on top, can't a thief break it off (to disrupt communications with the satellites) before stealing a car?

    --
    OLPC Australia
  3. Credit Card? by kaosrain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the company's FAQ:

    Can I pay via a credit card?
    Not at this time. We accept PayPal, corporate checks, and certified funds for payment at this time. We are currently working on accepting credit cards.

    I don't know how safe I would feel doing business with a professional company that requires PayPal to accept credit cards.

  4. OnStar by andyring · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This doesn't seem to be really any different than OnStar, with the exception being it seems easier to install in about any vehicle (OnStar tends to work best when installed at the factory, I believe). And, I think OnStar is cheaper (for the most part) at about $30 a month. Not to mention they can do things like call the police if you're in trouble, diagnose car problems remotely, etc. etc. etc.

    I could see it beneficial, however, for company vehicles or the 16-year-old kid busting at the seams with testosterone.

  5. Not completely fool proof!!! by CodePyro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This device since it is based on satellite technology rather than cellular technologies will have draw backs related with satellite technologies. On of the worst draw backs is that no signal if your not in open space.(meaning something isn't obstructing your signal such as going through a tunnel even tall buildings or a cloudy day can block the signal) Maybe a Combination of cellular, radio, and satellite could be the ultimate solution.

  6. Lojack on crack by n1ywb · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is pretty cool, but nothing really new. I'm actively involved with radio location systems. I'm currently working on a project to build cheap automatic radio location devices. The innovative thing here is that it's designed for the mass market.

    My primary experience has been with APRS, the Automatic Position Reporting System. It's in many ways similar to this system. It's used quite extensively by ham radio operators to coordinate public service activities, track storms out in tornado ally, etc.

    The neat thing about APRS is that it isn't just a position tracking system, but it's a distributed network of repeating stations linked via radio and landlines. Here are some neat links you might find interesting:

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    -73, de n1ywb
    www.n1ywb.com
  7. Been there, doing it right now. by fatboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have been doing APRS since 1996 or 1997.

    But I guess it's nice to know that there is a commercial version avaliable.

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    --fatboy
  8. How about an open source solution instead? by chaeron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My partner and I built a similar system using off the shelf parts (consumer GPS device, cell phone, embedded Java processor all mounted on a Radio Shack R/C truck) and open source software. We're currently working on adding Bluetooth to the platform for both cable replacement and remote configuration over short distances.

    Our solution used XML and Web Services from end to end, doing XML/SOAP parsing on the embedded processor to a back end J2EE system and also to a .NET server (the MS Terraserver for the aerial satellite photos we used for moving map display of position).

    Our J2EE server was a Linux box, running Tomcat, JBoss and lots of other open source stuff, including my own open source, Java, GPS Library code.

    All this in our spare time, with very little expense. We blew away a lot of people when we demo'ed it at JavaOne this past Spring (the big boys like Sun/IBM/BEA et were just talking about the interoperability promise of Web Services...while were were demoing it live...to an embedded processor no less).

    There's a white paper available that describes (in detail) what we did and the software/hardware that we used, for those that are interested.

    And being mounted on an R/C truck gave it serious geek coolosity factor too!

    So what's the big deal? ;-)

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    .....Andrzej

    Chaeron Corporation
  9. Qualcomm has been doing this for over 10 years by Judg3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At least to us professional truck drivers.
    We use OmniTracs and virtually almost every fleet owner does the same.
    It does much more then positioning tracking, allowing us 2way communications and email anywhere in the world, but it does the same thing.

    It's a love-hate relationship. On one hand you hate it because they know where you are at all times, at other times I love it, as the computer guesstimates when I'm going to get somewhere and dispatches me a new load before I even deliver this one.

    It's not very accurate (sometimes it tracks me 250 miles away from where I am) and a tree, bridge, or other obstruction will render it inoperable for a good minute or 2 whilst it attempts to find the satellite, but overall it's not to bad.

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    Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
  10. What is old is new by kbuckham · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are several very worthwhile and well-funded competitors in this area, and the use of satellite technology is not new. In addition I expect much more major players to jump into this area in next while with cheaper communications mediums and really shake the market up. But then again, I have suspected that for 5 years now. :)

    When my team and I built our first company we developed a web location based application service provider (ASP). We provided solutions to a wide array of customers and their vehicles (delivery trucks, long haul trucking, cars, yachts, ferries, tug boats, & emergency services). In addition we built the system to allow for numerous mechanisms of data collection (digital cellular, analog cellular, Orbcomm satellite, GlobalWave satellite, and trials with Iridium).

    For our server and client technologies we adopted Java, Linux and open source database solutions (MySQL) to cut costs. Often we were burned by these technologies as we started with good ol' JDK 1.1, first incarnations of servlets, poor, poor JDBC drivers, and waded through the issues of on and off support of Java in Internet Explorer. (Most of our clients used IE on Windows.)

    We offered services including automated collection of road taxes, automated driver's logs, enhanced driver safety, and monthly and weekly reports and logs. (Among a ton of other custom services.)

    Basically all of these systems have some means of positioning determination. This is commonly via GPS (Global Positioning System satellites) since good receivers are now relatively cheap and readily available. However, other positioning methodologies exist using things like radio triangulation, time and direction of arrival (TDOA), angle of arrival, and simple cell sector for ground based wireless communication networks. Contrary to what some seem to think, GPS satellites only provide *you* with *your* location, and you must use a secondary communication medium to transmit that information to somewhere useful.

    We found when we competed in this market the choice of hardware technology really limited your target market. If what you want located (Found) was mostly in urban areas you could take advantage of much higher data rates and lower communication expenses. This allows you to send regular positioning updates with things like two-way text messaging to consoles in the vehicle, and other onboard vehicle sensors. In other instances (marine and aviation) you may be forced to use satellite technology. In general satellite communication is an order of magnitude lower bandwidth, higher delay, and more expensive. When it is the only means of data connectivity it is amazing, but to cut costs and deliver the larger value added services higher data rates and lower costs of cellular systems usually make more sense.

    Of course there are hybrid solutions like simply storing the logged data and forward it on when you picked up the next cellular network along the vehicles travels. Or better is a true hybrid of sending small positioning and important packets infrequently in satellite coverage, and providing the richer detail on reconnection with the cellular network.

    While interesting, as others have stated this idea is not new. We had this ASP up and running in 1998. And we had previous incarnations years before. :) Alas we sold the company in 2000.