GPS speed accuracy

rebars1

Senior Chief Petty Officer
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Feb 23, 2004
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In general, how accurate are GPS speed readings? I have a hand-held Garmin and it reads about 10 mph faster than the fish finder.
 

jay_merrill

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Re: GSP speed accuracy

Re: GSP speed accuracy

I would expect most any GPS to be very accurate. I don't use fishfinders, so I'm not sure why yours would read so much less of a speed than your GPS.
 

david_r

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Aug 11, 2008
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1,118
Re: GPS speed accuracy

i agree with jay merrill.

especially considering most fish finders use paddle wheels to gauge speed, and speed o's in boats arent very accurate either and most of those use water pick-up tubes............gps uses satellite ---way better than the systems attached to your boat that is moving at xx mph jumping up and down on waves.
 

Nandy

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Apr 10, 2004
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Re: GPS speed accuracy

You have to realize the way a gps calculate speed. For example, if you moor your boat in a river that is flowing at 5 miles per hours your gps will give you a 0 miles per hour speed as you are not moving in reference to the satellites but your speedo or your fishfinder will show you 5 mph as the river is moving at that speed under your hull creating pressure against your speedo leg or making the speedo star turn. Also, depending on conditions in the river and if you are going upstream or downstream the same rpms in your motor will yield you different speeds in your gps.
Either way, gps will be more accurate. In a lake the readings will be more accurate for the speedos but not much more...
 

sschefer

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Re: GPS speed accuracy

The GPS is very accurate. Once your positon is established most units update at least once per second.

Your didn't say how your fish finder gets it's speed input. GPS uses speed over ground where all others except dopler use speed over water. Speed over ground is far more accurate but is a measurement of distance traveled in time. If you're doing figure 8's the numbers won't be right.

Pitot tube speedometers use water pressure and need to be calibrated with another source to be anywhere close to accurate.

The paddle wheel should be the most accurate but it's difficult to get them mounted correctly. They are designed as trolling and not crusing speedo's.
 

Silvertip

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Re: GPS speed accuracy

Paddle wheel the most accurate? You have to be kidding!!!!!!! It was just explained how inaccurate they are. I can get GPS speed walking around in my house so the GPS figure 8 issue is also incorrect. GPS doesn't care if you are traveling in a straight line or in circles -- it still measures speed and does it very accurately since it is indeed a measurement of distance over time. GPS can put you within a few feet of any spot on the globe and it uses a verrrrry accurate clock. And aren't all speed calculations a measurement of distance over time -- as in MPH, FPS (feet/second), KPH (kilometers/hour), MACH. Sorry -- not enough coffee yet this morning.
 

buckeyboy

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Re: GPS speed accuracy

Paddle wheel the most accurate? You have to be kidding!!!!!!! It was just explained how inaccurate they are. I can get GPS speed walking around in my house so the GPS figure 8 issue is also incorrect. GPS doesn't care if you are traveling in a straight line or in circles -- it still measures speed and does it very accurately since it is indeed a measurement of distance over time. GPS can put you within a few feet of any spot on the globe and it uses a verrrrry accurate clock. And aren't all speed calculations a measurement of distance over time -- as in MPH, FPS (feet/second), KPH (kilometers/hour), MACH. Sorry -- not enough coffee yet this morning.
+1 for the gps extreemly accurate.;)
 

dingbat

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Nov 20, 2001
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Re: GPS speed accuracy

The accuracy of my unit's speed reading is 0.05m /second steady state.
That translates into 0.1 miles per hour.
 

JB

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45,907
Re: GPS speed accuracy

Just a nit-pick.

GPS measures position and speed in three dimensions. Changes in altitude as well as "horizontal" changes (over land or water) are included in the measurement.

That doesn't matter on the water, I think, but it sure does matter in a vehicle or aircraft.
 

scoutabout

Lieutenant Commander
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Oct 14, 2006
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1,568
Re: GPS speed accuracy

It wasn't until I put a GPS in my car that I discovered its speedo was 5 km/hr out of whack between 20-80 and a full 10 km/h off above 100. go figure...
 

sschefer

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Re: GPS speed accuracy

Paddle wheel the most accurate? You have to be kidding!!!!!!! It was just explained how inaccurate they are. I can get GPS speed walking around in my house so the GPS figure 8 issue is also incorrect. GPS doesn't care if you are traveling in a straight line or in circles -- it still measures speed and does it very accurately since it is indeed a measurement of distance over time. GPS can put you within a few feet of any spot on the globe and it uses a verrrrry accurate clock. And aren't all speed calculations a measurement of distance over time -- as in MPH, FPS (feet/second), KPH (kilometers/hour), MACH. Sorry -- not enough coffee yet this morning.

Silvertip, GPS accuracy is to within 15 meters with all but the newest GPS systems. The newest GPS systems are capable of accuracy's of 1 meter but only if they are on a Satellite that is currently overhead and capable. FYI, I worked on these systems with the Navy and AirForce at Pt Mugu, Ca. We let the cat out of the bag about 1 meter acurracy during Desert Storm.

From a technical standpoint, the paddle wheel should be the most accurate but since they are the most difficult to setup and make work under varying conditions they rarely are except at slow speeds and in calm waters. The Paddle wheel is a measurement of distance based on a calibrated revoluton and has nothing to do with time. The pitot tube style speedometers are calibrated based on known average water pressures at sea level. You can just imagine all the variables that make them inaccurate.

So is GPS the most accurate method that we currently have for measuring speed over ground while operating a vessel in a body of water, yes. Is it the most accurate method for measuring speed over water, no. It can't do it.

When I referenced figure 8's I should have been more clear that I wasn't talking about long lazy turns.
 

bman1bpm

Chief Petty Officer
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Jul 19, 2004
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450
Re: GPS speed accuracy

take your gps in the car, it'll read the exact same thing as your cars speedo when you're crusing, the gps is a little slow to react under acceleration though.
 

sschefer

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Re: GPS speed accuracy

Just a nit-pick.

GPS measures position and speed in three dimensions. Changes in altitude as well as "horizontal" changes (over land or water) are included in the measurement.

That doesn't matter on the water, I think, but it sure does matter in a vehicle or aircraft.

Absolutely, water is level unless you are on a river where your altitude can change so it's not a factor when in a vessel on a lake. That's why doppler worked for ships and planes that were maintaining fixed altitudes but didn't do well with trains, trucks and automobiles. Still, it was better than the Omega systems of the day. Not better than Loran though but doppler worked out at sea when you were out of range of Loran Stations.
 

Silvertip

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Re: GPS speed accuracy

Ahaa! Another government contractor that can't keep their mouth shut about classified information. Sorry but that is a very sensitive topic with me and I won't get into the reasons why. The only way a paddle wheel can be accurate is on a body of water with zero surface motion. The river example is a good one. Anchor and the current will spin the paddle wheel yet you are making zero forward progress and you can measure the speed of the current. Run upstream and the paddle wheel will be fast, downstream it will be slow. I also carry a Garmin GPS and the difference in the readings is exactly what the river flow is. As for GPS lag under acceleration, that stands to reason since a calculation has to be made. A fish finder may show fish at 30 MPH but if you were able to mark the spot the moment you saw those fish, you would be off by a wide margin due to the calculation time and boat speed. A real time flasher unit in that same situation is far more accurate.
After the Bud Shootout I'll run the numbers on 15m vs 1m vs advertised paddle wheel error or you can post them if you are not a race fan and have nothing else to do.
 

tx1961whaler

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May 31, 2008
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Re: GPS speed accuracy

Probably more information than is needed (Wikipedia):

GPS includes a (currently disabled) feature called Selective Availability (SA) that can introduce intentional, slowly changing random errors of up to a hundred meters (328 ft) into the publicly available navigation signals to confound, for example, the guidance of long range missiles to precise targets. When enabled, the accuracy is still available in the signal, but in an encrypted form that is only available to the United States military, its allies and a few others, mostly government users. Even those who have managed to acquire military GPS receivers would still need to obtain the daily key, whose dissemination is tightly controlled.

Prior to being turned off, SA typically added signal errors of up to about 10 meters (32 ft) horizontally and 30 meters (98 ft) vertically. The inaccuracy of the civilian signal was deliberately encoded so as not to change very quickly. For instance, the entire eastern U.S. area might read 30 m off, but 30 m off everywhere and in the same direction. To improve the usefulness of GPS for civilian navigation, Differential GPS was used by many civilian GPS receivers to greatly improve accuracy.

During the 1990-91 Gulf War, the shortage of military GPS units and the ready availability of civilian ones caused many troops to buy their own civilian GPS units: their wide use among personnel resulted in a decision to disable Selective Availability. This was ironic, as SA had been introduced specifically for these situations, allowing friendly troops to use the signal for accurate navigation, while at the same time denying it to the enemy?but the assumption underlying this policy was that all U.S. troops and enemy troops would have military-specification GPS receivers and that civilian receivers would not exist in war zones. But since many American soldiers were using civilian devices, SA was also denying the same accuracy to thousands of friendly troops; turning it off (by removing the added-in error) presented a clear benefit to friendly troops.

In the 1990s, the FAA started pressuring the military to turn off SA permanently. This would save the FAA millions of dollars every year in maintenance of their own radio navigation systems. The amount of error added was "set to zero"[42] at midnight on May 1, 2000 following an announcement by U.S. President Bill Clinton, allowing users access to the error-free L1 signal. Per the directive, the induced error of SA was changed to add no error to the public signals (C/A code). Clinton's executive order required SA to be set to zero by 2006; it happened in 2000 once the US military developed a new system that provides the ability to deny GPS (and other navigation services) to hostile forces in a specific area of crisis without affecting the rest of the world or its own military systems.[42]

Selective Availability is still a system capability of GPS, and error could, in theory, be reintroduced at any time. In practice, in view of the hazards and costs this would induce for US and foreign shipping, it is unlikely to be reintroduced, and various government agencies, including the FAA,[43] have stated that it is not intended to be reintroduced.

One interesting side effect of the Selective Availability hardware is the capability to correct the frequency of the GPS cesium and rubidium atomic clocks to an accuracy of approximately 2 ? 10-13 (one in five trillion). This represented a significant improvement over the raw accuracy of the clocks.[citation needed]

On 19 September 2007, the United States Department of Defense announced that future GPS III satellites will not be capable of implementing SA,[44] eventually making the policy permanent.[45]
 

jhebert

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Jul 24, 2005
Messages
903
Re: GPS speed accuracy

Between a GPS receiver and a paddlewheel speed sensor, it is clear which one has greater accuracy. There is no "calibrate" knob on a GPS.
 

John_S

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Jun 21, 2004
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4,269
Re: GPS speed accuracy

As others have said, the GPS speed is more accurate. A 10mph difference is allot if we are talking less that 40mph gps on non-current water. Paddlewheels are generally accurate at slow speeds, but as mentioned, it is the boat to the water speed, not land. You want boat to water speed for trolling. Check to make sure your paddlewheel is free spinning, and does not have any weeds or fishing line wrapped in it. If it is old or has chips, pieces, corners missing, etc you might find repair kits available. If it has always been off, it could be the mounting position. Also, some newer head units have a way to adjust the paddlewheel input.
 

Silvertip

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Re: GPS speed accuracy

I've spent a fair amount of time looking for paddle wheel speed sensor accuracy numbers and since none are published (at least that I was able to find) it indicates one of two things: 1) they are not very accurate or 2) nobody cares. However, lets use a 1% or 2% error figure (which I feel is very generous) and compare that with GPS. Lets then apply the 15 meter accuracy number that SS provided us with earlier. 15 meters is 49.2 feet. 49.2/5280 yields .0093 or .93% error (less than 1%) over a mile. And as TX indicated in his post, the offset is 10 meters or less so that error shrinks even more. At 1 meter it is 15 times less than my number above. I think it is a no brainer which speed measurement is more accurate regardless which number is used.
 

John_S

Rear Admiral
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Jun 21, 2004
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4,269
Re: GPS speed accuracy

Silvertip,

There is no question in my mind that GPS is more accurate, but the absence of specs is not a good arguement. :) I haven't seen a speed accuracy spec on a gps, either. Yes, position accuracy, but not speed. Your calculations assumed you traveled a mile with GPS, but in fact it is only how far you have traveled within the update cycle. In many cases, that is one second. So, with GPS, the faster you go, the longer distance you travel in that time interval, the gps becomes more speed accurate. If you just sit stationary the gps will tend to wander around by so many feet. So at very slow speeds, such as 0-2mph the accuracy will be much less, than at 60mph.

I haven't done allot of comparing between my paddlewheel and GPS, but from 5-20mph, they are generally within +-1mph. From 20-32mph, I have seen +-2mph to +-3mph differences.
 

JB

Honorary Moderator Emeritus
Joined
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Messages
45,907
Re: GPS speed accuracy

Don't let the deliberate position error fool you into thinking it introduces a speed error in a GPS.

The amount of position error is constant from one position fix to the next, so the measured distance traveled negates the position error and the speed calculation is far more accurate than the position calculation.
 
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