Automatic Vehicle Locator

What Does Automatic Vehicle Locator Mean?

An automatic vehicle locator (AVL) is a technology that businesses or individuals can use to track vehicles in real time.

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Many AVL systems make use of global positioning systems (GPSs). These AVL systems rely on extensive mapping that has been done to support GPS-based applications and satellite services.

Techopedia Explains Automatic Vehicle Locator

Automatic vehicle locator systems provide specific user interfaces for tracking vehicles and finding out more about actual transport in real time. For example, different systems have different features for labeling vehicles, looking at vehicle location history, etc.

In terms of the engineering and design of these systems, they use radio frequency to deliver signals from a vehicle to a central base, which can be as simple as a personal computer attached to the Internet. This is called a "radio to Internet" design, where the base takes the data and sends it over the Internet. Now, companies are designing even newer kinds of systems that can provide extra functionality, such as determining how many passengers are in a given vehicle.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…