Publish at November 24 2014 Updated October 01 2025
We always define ourselves in relation to something or someone. Our parents are undoubtedly our first reference points. But as our field of action expands, so does our need for precision. Knowing that our house is 600 km away is of no use to us in orienting ourselves in another city, unless we can measure the angle and distance separating us very precisely - beyond the curvature of the earth. Positioning remains a challenge that humans have been tackling for millennia.
To communicate their position, mankind has adopted universal reference points: the poles, the North Star and the course of the sun. With the four cardinal points, we could create a grid of longitude and latitude, which we have used as a reference ever since. Today, the world's geodetic system(WGS 84) uses the International Reference Meridian(IRM), slightly offset (about 100 meters) from the Greenwich meridian. Why is this so? Because GPS was designed in the USA, the earth is not a sphere and continents move. So an average is established, which becomes the reference. Most coordinates are based on this grid; even the time on your watch is determined by reference to the MRI. We also use the even more sophisticated International Reference Frame(ITRF), with its network of thousands of reference points.
All that's left is for us to locate ourselves.
The compass, the sextant and the clock were among the first instruments used to locate ourselves on this grid with relative precision over long distances. Beyond the sextant, the number of mechanical and optical devices developed to measure angles, heights and distances is nothing short of astonishing: astrolabe, anastigmatic micrometer, parallax systems, altimeter, gyroscopes and so on. Virtually every physical principle has been used, with the ultimate goal of autonomous positioning and orientation at all times and in all conditions - and that's the challenge.
With the development of marine, rail and, above all, aviation, the need for precision has continued to grow: trains must avoid each other at the right moment, planes must land in the right place before running out of fuel, and boats must always avoid reefs. We have developed increasingly accurate gyroscopes, but never enough to be able to rely on them for very long.
Radar, the Doppler effect, parallax with radio waves, chronometry, radio interferometry, laser telemetry - a whole universe of possibilities opened up, and several positioning systems such as Decca and Loran (LOng RAnge Navigation) appeared, with the immense advantage of being portable and precise.
But practical accessibility remained limited and costs high.
Computers and the construction of a network of landmarks, both terrestrial and in orbit, changed all that. We are now dealing with a physical grid of thousands of static and dynamic transmitters, constantly recalibrated, compensated and programmed, enabling accuracy of up to ten centimetres - if you pay the price!
As soon as you communicate on the Internet, you can be located: by your IP address (not very precise), by cell reconciliation if you use your telephone (more precise), by the GPS or Galileo system(and others). But that's not all.
Electronic gyrometers and accelerometers allow us to know your orientation and, above all, to process it dynamically. So you can record movement and get feedback! Display orientation, motion-controlled applications, video and photo compensation - dozens of mobile applications exist. For example, the Wii simultaneously uses two systems to locate the player and the controller's movements; other applications are activated when close to, at such and such a speed, at such and such an acceleration, when nothing moves, when someone passes by, when it vibrates, etc.
Of course, Google Maps offers many educational possibilities for creating personalized maps, measuring distances, visiting places and so on. Apart from geography courses, here are a few other suggestions.
The popular geocaching activities are obviously used in outdoor and exploration activities, but they tire more or less quickly because it's less interesting to refer to a device rather than your senses to explore your environment. Nevertheless, the "treasure hunt" aspect remains a good excuse to go where we would have no other reason to go.
A wi-fi indoor positioning system, such as Wifarer, can be used to literally provide a map of the spaces in any building or campus, and to locate oneself on it, right on the map, in real time. Looking for room C437? Rodin's sculpture?
More open are the research activities carried out either through databases fed by dozens of positioned measurements, as with the EpiCollect software, or through more sophisticated transmitter and receiver systems (collars, rings, RFID chips or transmitters). Field surveys carried out by an entire class can cover large areas and yield invaluable data, enabling us to determine the optimal route for a group to travel, identify sources of pollution in an area, the presence of animal species or artifacts, and so on.
Some mobile applications that record the positions of phones at any given time can identify collective or individual behavior patterns, as characteristic as a signature or a fingerprint. AntiMap can find all kinds of applications in motion monitoring. There's even a Bluetooth toothbrush(Oral B) that tells you how to improve your brushing!
In many cities, there are sites that track the positions of planes(Flight Aware), boats(Marine Traffic) and even applications that integrate car movements. What you can do with them depends on your imagination.
We can also create games integrating players' positions in real time, and even add virtual reality elements or information. Ingress is a pioneering example.
Training applications are frequently used in physical education classes. They link movement to place and topography, and from there enable all kinds of deductions and social encounters... connected phones and watches offer dozens of applications.
In education, the potential of "positioning" is real, and the exploitation of its possibilities is at an early stage of development.
References
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