C#: GPS Tracking system

Question

How do I go about building a GPS tracking system with mobile (with GPS) in C#.net ? The scenario is

1. Track a user (service engineer, nothing illegal here) via a GPS enabled mobile Phone. What software and hardware will I require? Is there any open source implementation?

2. For a vehicle tracking system, how do I go about with GPS? I would like to know the various steps/procedure. I am looking for some right direction.

Answer 1

1. First define the requirements, what functionalities your software should have
2. Decide on the platform: iPhone, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android or something else

With "C#.net" you will likely be able to develop only for Windows Mobile.

Answer 2

If you are wanting a vehicle tracking system, why not buy one, as there are plenty out there. If you don't really know how to go about it, I'm not sure you'll be able to produce a solution at lower cost than a commercial system.

Answer 3

I built a Window Forms version to display information from a GPS. Haven't really touched it much since, but if you are interested the code is on CodePlex.

http://gps.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/24953#146657

All that you need to do to get this tracking somebody is

1. Convert to Windows Mobile
2. Build a Web Service for recording location
3. Modify code to post location to Web Service every so often

Really I already did the hard work, or parsing the GPS commands from the serial connection for you. :)

Answer 4

Its actually not that hard (done it myself!).

Best place to start looking is here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb158708.aspx

You will need to download the windows mobile 6.0 SDK from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=06111A3A-A651-4745-88EF-3D48091A390B&displaylang=en

The sdk actually contains a sample GPS application that you can use to customize to your own needs.

Answer 5

I've been looking into this myself and I came across this

http://www.codeplex.com/SharpGPS

It's a GPS library based on .NET 2 full or CF, I haven't tried it yet but it looks pretty promising

Answer 6

I am curious about this too. I want to learn how to build it. I think I need to start by finding a device that does this.

So I need a GPS tracking device, that sends its coordinates to a server via GPRS or 3G. Recommendations on a device?