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Make your own GPS system with Google Maps!

Please read part 1-4 for more information and idea overview.

We have come to the fifth and final module of the Positioning system. Until now we have collected and stored the data from each tracking device, but we need to make a mechanism that  possible the user access to the data.

What are the options? You might send a data report once a day or week per e-mail. A call center that gives information about your tracking devices. This is the hard, non-flexible and expensive way. I think the user want instant data access anywhere and presented in a self-decided format. The data should be presented in two main categories: Real-time and historic data. It shouldn’t  be a coincidence that we have decided to structure our data in the database in two tables, real-time data and historic data (see part 4).

Web access

We need to understand the users need. My suggestion for this prototype is to make the data available on a web page on a Google Map. Almost everyone in this part of the world have access to a computer, a smart phone or any other kind of terminal. If you make a web page that support a “standard” configuration, you’ll have a potential to reach more users, rather than pushing highly specialized and unique software to them. The day you find a bug in your software or a need to include a new function, you’ll be happy to only update the web-application.

Security

I understand that some would like to focus on security, and that is pretty obvious since we are dealing with tracking devices that are attached to humans or personal belonging equipment. If you allow all internet users to follow your car all time, your privacy life might be at risk. Your web page need user access mechanisms, a username and password, and when logging in you’ll only get access to your own tracking devices. Every tracking device contains a unique id-number (IMEI number) that might be linked to one or several users that are permitted to read the data.

Many possibilities

As you already know, when we step into the web arena, there are many possibilities to make a user-friendly, flexible, dynamic and intuitive user application. For my prototype I have used the following components for the web application:

- HTML and JavaScript: You will need this to make the web-page that run the script locally on the computer/terminal

- PHP: You will need PHP to be able to run the application on the server-side. For example when you request data from your database

- AJAX: AJAX and XML is perfect if you need a dynamic web application that allow the user to do database requests.

- MySQL: You might install WampServer that allow you to run MySQL database on a Apache server with PHP.

These subjects are widely discussed on different user forums, both at new-beginner and professional level.

Google Map

If you want to integrate a Google Map in your web application you’ll have a powerful tool to present your tracking devices on the electronic map. Google provides a lot of information for web-developers. There are several examples of maps with different functionalities. When you integrate the map you briefly put a set of HTML/JavaScript code into your application from a standard Google configuration. You then make your changes according to your plan, for example to integrate the variables for the different data sections. When you run your application the map is continuously updated by the Google server according to change in zoom level, type of map, map-icons and map orientation. One of the main advantages for this solution is the possibility to mark the path between the different position-reports from your tracking devices. This is excellent for the historic presentation of the data.

I have made an application that present all the different sections of the position report from each tracking device in an information bubble in the map. You only click on the actual position node to get more information, instead of filling the entire web page with data sections. Between each position report I have put a red line to illustrate the route.

Next time I will make a short summary of part 1-5, I’m also going to focus on the product potential of positions systems. Please participate.