An efficient web-based tracking system through reduction of redundant connections

Abstract

With the convergence of the Internet and the Global Positioning System (GPS), a common approach called GPS tracking system has been developed nowadays. A GPS tracking system is a system that uses GPS to determine the precise location of a vehicle, person, or other assets and the information can also be shared with remote clients through the Internet. For the device used in the outdoor, it usually connects to the Internet through mobile network like GPRS or 3G. However, the weaknesses of mobile network are low bandwidth and high charging strategies compared to Ethernet or even Wi-Fi. In this paper, an efficient web-based tracking system through reduction of redundant connections is proposed. By integrating several technologies nowadays we design a new connection scheme to improve the efficiency for the location-aware application. The proposed architecture is focus on two problems. One is the redundant connection, causing the waste of bandwidth and fees during the period when connecting to the mobile network. The other is the data asynchronization during the period of transmission. This paper not only provides a new connection scheme to solve above issues, but also has verified this architecture on an embedded platform with a prototype implementation for a web-based tracking system. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.