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I am building an application for Android devices for skydivers to log location data during a skydive.

I have set the app up to record the device GPS location every 5 seconds in a foreground service. It seems to be working fine until the user is inside an aircraft, at which point the location may no longer update, or update very infrequently. Location updates will resume when the user has deployed their parachute.

The aircraft is a Cessna Grand Caravan

I can't work out why this may be the case? Could this be something to do with the altitude making the GPS sensor ineffective? Or maybe to do with being inside an aircraft? The location tracking works absolutely fine at ground level such as when tracking a route in a car.

I am collecting location updates the same way as in the Android documentation, available here: https://developer.android.com/training/location/request-updates

Any help would be greatly appreciated

olistocks98
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  • The GPS sensor is searching for antennas to reach the satellites and calculate your location. When in high altitude, the phone's signal does not reach any near by antennas and thus you are unable to get a location / rarely get a location. Also, the traveling speed is a great factor as well, considering the phone is calculating your location and you are moving too fast the results are too wide to determine accurate location. There is also the factor of the signal being weakened from being inside a metal room – Dan Baruch Aug 22 '22 at 13:20
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    GPS is independent of reachable antennas. Internet connection is only used for assistant data that speed up getting a GPS fix. – Robert Aug 22 '22 at 13:33
  • @Robert Are you saying your phone is able to reach all the way to the satellites up in space? I'm quite sure it's being done via connecting to nearby antennas and calculating your location from doing so... – Dan Baruch Aug 22 '22 at 13:49
  • @Robert Hmm, after more careful reading you are correct, there is no need for antennas at all, it's done via receiver on the phone's end which receives radio wave from the GPS-satellites. Then I guess that's not the problem but rather than the speed the phone is travelling it, making the calculations of the location be invalid. But this is just an assumption though. – Dan Baruch Aug 22 '22 at 13:57
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    The problem is the fuselage which is made of a metal, and therefor shields the GPS singnal. Try to place the device near the airplane's window - it might help a little. The airplane's GPS antenna is placed outside the fuselage, so the pilots can use a GPS receiver without a problem. – TDG Aug 24 '22 at 16:45

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