I’m keen to understand how a SatNav works out how to get me from A to B.
I understand at a basic level how it receives a number of GPS signals so can work out where it is. I’d like to know what it then does to navigate me through all the different road systems to get me to my destination.
In: Technology
Your satnav unit has an inbuilt road network. This road network is attributed to contain data such as road speed, lat/longs.
Computationally, the road network is a computer structure called a graph. There are pathfinding algorithms that use various ‘weightings’ based on the road segment attributes. The gps signal is used to determine where in the graph the car is.
Source: ex-satnav developer.
Latest Answers