How GPS Technology Supports Vanderbilt Athletes

Anya Mondragon | January 18th, 2024

When the Global Positioning System (GPS) first debuted in 1993, it was the result of years of fine-tuning satellite position-tracking technology developed by the United States starting in the 1970s. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists might not have imagined that GPS technology would one day be incorporated into the world of personal, wearable technology. On Vanderbilt’s campus, running watches allow the long-distance running community to take full advantage of what GPS has to offer. 

According to NASA’s website, GPS works by having a “receiver” collect position and time data at regular time intervals from 24 different satellites orbiting the Earth. Taking into account the time it takes for the radio frequency signals to reach the receiver from the satellites, the GPS receivers calculate their location in terms of their longitude, latitude, and altitude. 

The position is calculated by the receiver using a system of equations involving the distance formula for the position of the receiver and the position of each satellite, according to an article published by Richard Thomas in the journal Mathematics Magazine. As seen in the image below, from Thomas’s article, by solving the system of equations for the error in the receiver’s time measurements, ε, the position of the receiver can be calculated with a high degree of precision. This error occurs because the Earth’s atmosphere can slow down the signal on its path between the satellite and the receiver. 

Kate Manning from NASA’s communications team writes that GPS is able to “pinpoint a three-dimensional position to meter-level accuracy and time to the 10-nanosecond level, worldwide and 24/7.”

Popular running watch brands like the Garmin Watch or the Apple Watch can track many different metrics, including heart rate, sleep, calories burned, blood oxygen levels, respiration, pace, distance, time, stride length, cadence, and many more. Keeping track of blood oxygen level, respiration rate, and stride length can help runners avoid injury or overtraining during their runs. Many of the running statistics are derived from GPS technology, where the watch functions as a GPS receiver. 

With all of these metrics, personal, wearable technology like running watches can make all the difference when training for an important race. Vanderbilt Sophomore Ellie Jones uses the workout feature on her Apple Watch on her runs as a Vanderbilt Run Club practice leader. 

“The main benefit of training with a watch would probably come from the split feature if you were training to beat a certain time,” Jones said. 

Additionally, there exist a few different apps that help to strengthen running communities through the sharing of running data collected on these watches, including the popular app Strava.  Both the Vanderbilt Run Club and the Vanderbilt Cross Country/Track team have club accounts on Strava, where members can add their runs to the activity feed and support their peers in their running efforts. Jones observed that a majority of the runners she interacts with at Run Club do have running watches, although owning one is by no means a requirement. 

“From my experience, Strava definitely encourages people to show off their runs,” Jones said. “Which might in turn inspire people to run more.” 

References

Manning, Catherine G. “GPS.” The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),    

NASA, 25 Sept. 2023, www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-navigation-program/gps/.   

“Running Dynamics” Garmin, 

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/running-science/running-dynamics/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2023. 

“What Is GPS?” Garmin, www.garmin.com/en-US/aboutgps/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2023. 

Thompson, Richard B. “Global Positioning System: The Mathematics of GPS Receivers.” 

Mathematics Magazine, vol. 71, no. 4, 1998, pp. 260–69. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2690697.  Accessed 20 Nov. 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2690697.