Integrating GPS data within embedded Internet GIS

In this paper we investigate the development of an embedded and mobile geographic information system. Its main characteristics concern the possibility to access various information sources and to provide the basic functionalities of a navigation system, e.g. positioning. This system uses a differential Global Positioning System (GPS) device to acquire the position of a mobile (e.g. vehicle). A cellular phone with an Internet based connection permits to access distant data sources and to transfer data between the components of the system. A Web browser and a Java applet are used for data integration and visualization. As it is used in the context of a mobile application, the basic software component in the architecture of our system is a local embedded server. It ensures real time access to local GPS data, but also to multimedia and spatially referenced data which are stored on distant servers. We also present some results of practical experiments that have been carried out with this system embedded in a vehicle