Differential GPS

Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPSs) supplement and enhance the positional data available from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). A DGPS for GPS can increase accuracy by about a thousandfold, from approximately to . DGPSs consist of networks of fixed position, ground-based reference stations. Each reference station calculates the difference between its highly accurate known position and its less accurate satellite-derived position. The stations broadcast this data locally—typically using ground-based transmitters of shorter range. Non-fixed (mobile) receivers use it to correct their position by the same amount, thereby improving their accuracy. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) runs DGPS in the United States on longwave radio frequencies between and near major waterways and harbors. The USCG's DGPS was named NDGPS (Nationwide DGPS) and was jointly administered by the Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of Defense's Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). It consisted of broadcast sites located throughout the inland and coastal portions of the United States including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) also ran DGPS, but discontinued its use on December 15, 2022. Other countries have their own DGPS. A similar system which transmits corrections from orbiting satellites instead of ground-based transmitters is called a Wide-Area DGPS (WADGPS) Satellite Based Augmentation System. When GPS was first being put into service, the US military was concerned about the possibility of enemy forces using the globally available GPS signals to guide their own weapon systems. Originally, the government thought the "coarse acquisition" (C/A) signal would give only about , but with improved receiver designs, the actual accuracy was . Starting in March 1990, to avoid providing such unexpected accuracy, the C/A signal transmitted on the L1 frequency () was deliberately degraded by offsetting its clock signal by a random amount, equivalent to about of distance.