GNSS explainer

Shri Khalpada offers a clear and engaging explainer of #GNSS technology, walking through how #GPS, #Galileo and similar #positioning systems pinpoint location using principles like travel time, trilateration, orbital mechanics, and clock correction. His interactive visuals make the invisible workings of satellite navigation tangible.
Author
Published

April 14, 2026

From Shri Khalpada comes a great explainer of GNSS-technology1. From basic building blocks to the full system, it covers many aspects that are essential for GPS2 and Co. to work: travel time, satellite orbits, trilateration, clock correction, incluences of relativistic effects, and more.

Pinging the earth (source: Shri Khalpada)

It’s a very nicely done explanation of a largely invisible technology that is fundamental to many aspects of life. Every visual in Shri’s article is interactive and many of them invite experimentation.

Shri included a shout-out to a much-more-in-depth explainer of the same topic published by Bartosz Ciechanowski (who seems to specialise in this kind of thing). You have to bring substantially more time for that one.

Footnotes

  1. Global Navigation Satellite System. For example: Galileo or GPS.↩︎

  2. Global Positioning System, a US GNSS or Navigation Satellite System.↩︎