GPS technology began with radio navigation: it allowed sailors to determine the location of a ship by communicating with stations on the shoreline. The ship would send a request, several shore stations would understand where the signal came from and relay it back, allowing the ship's navigator to determine its location.
The US Navy created its first satellite navigation system, Transit, in 1959 and tracked the location of nuclear submarines.
In 1968, the US Department of Defense formed the Navigation Satellite Executive Group (NAVSEG), and in December 1973, development of the NAVSTAR global positioning system began. Testing began in 1974, and full-scale development was approved in August 1979.
The importance of GPS was demonstrated by the 1991 Gulf phone number list War. The system improved the accuracy of bombing and also allowed for the accurate placement of troops.
The successful use of GPS in military operations opened up commercial opportunities for the technology, and by 1993, GPS was being used for civilian purposes: it began to be installed in cars.
GPS appears on the dashboard
The first automotive navigation system, the Electro Gyrocator, appeared in the second-generation Honda Accord in Japan in 1981. It used sensors and gyroscopes that compared the road surface to the surface of a map.
The Electro Gyrocator used a coordinate calculation method and did not use satellite data. The system did not always work correctly due to inaccuracies in the maps, and its installation increased the cost of the car by 25%, so it disappeared in 1982.