You might have witnessed the scene. You might have even been part of it yourself. The scene of a frantic man or woman, or even a couple or entire family, driving around with a map, looking for some street, in a business town, with a queue of cars trailing behind, with their drivers pumping their horns and flashing their lights in indignation. These poor people are lost; any haven't yet discovered the wonderful innovation that has made them a fast disappearing brand of road traffic dinosaurs.

There are many that say that the World has become a better place to live in. There are others who would disagree. Of what there can be no doubt is that the technological advances of the last twenty years or so have certainly made the planet that we live on, a lot smaller and easier to navigate.

One of the great advances of the digital age that we live in known as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) has helped to make our lives bother easier and safer in ways that most of are largely aware of. Not just in the case of the poor individual born without a sense of direction to large transport companies, who might have a fleet of hundreds of trucks and vans traveling the nations highways, all day and night, seven days a week all year long.

So what does the GPS system do that it makes our lives simpler and better? The GPS system operates provides a set of individualized information that is generated from a constellation of 24 Earth-orbiting satellites, developed and implemented by the US Defense Department. The information from these solar powered satellites is gathered and working together in a constant grid, the satellites provide a remarkably accurate grid of the entire surface of the earth.

Any vehicle fitted with a GPS transmitter can receive a signal form any three of the twenty four satellites in the system. These signals are translated into information that basically arrives to a mini computer driven receiver installed in the vehicle. In the simplest terms, the driver can be constantly updated with their current location and how to navigate his entire journey from that point.

The amazing thing about GPS is that it is not a new technology. It has been around for the last 25 years or so. For the first decade that it was in use, the US Department of Defense had the sole rights to use it, to keep track of its military vehicles all over the World. They also utilized the power of the GPS technology to monitor the movements of all its vast fleet of ships, up to the largest aircraft carrier all over the World. When all these points had been covered, the S Department of Defense gradually made the technology available to the general public.

At first the cost of these on board receivers made the technology outwith the financial grasp of most individuals, and GPS became the sole regime of the large trucking companies. One of the principal advantages that these companies found in GPS was their ability, for the first time in tracking the exact location of their trucks, and virtually ending the practice of their drivers going "off route" virtually overnight.

Nowadays, due to increased public awareness of how GPS technology can improve our navigation skills have made this project a must for most drivers. Improvements in technology have placed it within everyone's reach, and even the most modest of family saloons now have it fitted as a standard.