Limitations of GPS

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are generally useless in indoor conditions as radio waves will
be blocked by physical barriers, such as walls, and other objects. Also, regular GPS cannot
pinpoint locations to greater than 3-m accuracy. Due to those limitations, GPS cannot be used to,
for instance, track the movement patterns of retail customers in a store and analyze their
shopping habits. (SD, 2017)

The principal social problems linked to the use of GPS are: the limitation of privacy and a
reduction in the faculty of orientation. (SD, 2017)

According to Educba the limitations of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) include:

 Reception of signals - Since GPS receiver requires continuous signal reception from at
least 4 GPS satellites, if there is water, walls, soil or other obstacles in the travel path of
the signals then the signals are not able to penetrate these obstacles. In such cases, the
GPS visibility of GPS satellites is very limited. Like in urban areas with huge
skyscrapers, the signals are missing for a long period of time.

 Accuracy - Any system which involves measurement has a possibility of mistakes. GPS
is no different than that. Since a lot of measurement is involved in GPS, there are a lot of
possibilities of inaccuracy in providing the exact location of an object.

 Integrity - Receiver requests information from satellites, they send signals known as
“satellite messages” to the receiver containing encoded information of distance of the
satellite from the receiver, positions of satellites, etc. When a receiver gets a combined
measurement from 4 satellites it is able to show its location. But if the satellite position is
calculated wrong or range is wrong then this results in an incorrect receiver position. The
signals involved in such issues are referred to as “faulty signals”. These signals impact
the integrity of the location provided to the user. A user is unaware of the fact whether
the position is correct or not. Thus, it is vastly advised for monitoring the integrity of
GPS data.