Location technology

Location technology helps people and machines find things and determines their physical whereabouts. Sensors play a role in dead reckoning, but that approach does not satisfy practical needs for geolocation, resulting in the rise of wireless approaches including GPS (which is often augmented by other signals) and cellular] towers. Fixed or orbiting [[transmitters have known locations. They broadcast timing signals, and receiving devices triangulate by calculating the amount of delay from each transmitter.

Radar, lidar, and sonar can detect relative locations of things, depending on their electromagnetic, optical, and acoustic properties. And some things transmit their own radio, light, and/or sound in order to disclose their whereabouts to people and machines.