A brief look at GPS and GIS tech, for the Pacific Northwest Intertribal Agriculture Conference, August 2012, Fort Hall, Idaho.

1. Practical Applications of
GPS Technology
adam mckinney
Intertribal Agriculture Council Conference
August, 2012

2. Global Positioning System
 Satellite navigation providing location and time
information in all weather, anywhere on or near
the Earth.
 Developed in 1973, fully operational in 1994.
 Originally 24 satellites, currently
31 satellites in operation.
 A GPS Receiver requires line of
sight access to at least 3 satellites
for a 3D (latitude/longitude/altitude) fix.

3. Case Study: GPS Asset
Management
 Nearly any asset can be tracked with GPS.
 Example: Fleet management.
 Information from tracking targets
collected using GPS data can be
mined for cost-savings and usage
statistics.
 Automated tracking of maintenance
intervals, fuel cost/usage, and
real time location awareness

4. Smart Phones: GPS in Hand
 Asset management:
 Geo-Tagged Photos/Information
 Inventory management/Loss prevention
 Personnel management:
 Employee tracking
 Time management
 Cost analysis and planning:
 Fuel cost analysis
 Efficiency planning and management

5. Geographic Information
Systems
 GIS is Software that allows manipulation of GPS
data for display or export—Do MORE with GPS
information!
 Repositories exist for USDA/State Data with
coverage maps ready to use; INSIDEIdaho.org
 Google Earth
 ESRI ArcGIS/ArcMAP
 Q-GIS/MapWindow

7. Case Study:
Road Hazards in Pocatello
 Data was collected using a Linux-based
handheld PDA with built in GPS receiver and
ttMaps open source software.
 Data was also recorded manually at collection
points along with additional attributes; Depth,
Area, Street, etc.
 Latitude and Longitude collected in decimal
degrees; area and depth measurements
collected in inches.
 Data imported in to ESRI ArcGIS and displayed
using USDA Satellite imagery from INSIDEIdaho

9. Case Study:
Unique Analysis using GPS
 Total length of streets in the study area: 9,439 ft
 Total area of those streets (based on 30’ street
width): 283,170 ft2
 Total area of all road hazards in the study area:
3,140 ft2
 Total percentage of road damage or prior
damage: 1.1%
 Street with the most road patches: Hayes, 14.
 Street with the most potholes: Day, 5.

10. For More Information
 insideidaho.org - Idaho’s Geosptatial Gateway
 esri.com - Makers of ArcGIS/ArcMap GIS
 google.com/earth - Free, simple GIS software
 qgis.org - Free, open source, cross platform GIS
 mapwindow.org - Free, open source GIS from ISU