navigation

• Navigation is the art and science of determining the position of a ship, plane or
other vehicle, and guiding it to a specific destination.
• The earliest navigation methods involved observing landmarks or watching the
direction of the sun and stars. Few ancient sailors ventured out into the open sea.
Instead, they sailed within sight of land in order to navigate. When that was
impossible, ancient sailors watched constellations to mark their position. The
ancient Minoans, who lived on the Mediterranean island of Crete from 3000 to
1100 B.C.E, left records of using the stars to navigate.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/navigation/
The sun and the stars. These celestial bodies were the most reliable indicators of direction for ancient mariners.
They knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and that certain stars and constellations appeared at
different times of the year and in different parts of the sky. By measuring the angle between the horizon and a star
or the sun, they could estimate their latitude, or how far north or south they were from the equator.
https://youtu.be/2Bv8dc19HQ0
 Marshall Islands stick chart
Stick charts were made and used by
the Marshallese to navigate the Pacific Ocean by canoe off the
coast of the Marshall Islands. The charts represented
major ocean swell patterns and the ways the islands disrupted
those patterns, typically determined by sensing disruptions in
ocean swells by islanders during sea navigation.

Stick chart in Überseemuseum Bremen. A Micronesian navigational chart from the Marshall Islands, made of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Islands_stick_chart wood, sennit fiber and cowrie shells.
Astrolabe
An early astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic
civilization by Apollonius of Perga between 220
and 150 BC, often attributed to Hipparchus.
 Crystals of calcite

Vikings used polarization and the Sunstone to allow navigation of their ships by locating the Sun even in a
completely overcast sky. This special mineral was talked about in several 13th – 14th-century written sources in
Iceland, some centuries after the carbon-dated, early-11th-century Norse settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows in
northernmost Newfoundland had been briefly established
 First Compass In China
It was based on the principle that a magnetized needle would align itself with the Earth's magnetic field and point
to the magnetic north pole. The earliest compasses were made of lodestones, natural magnets that were
suspended on a string or balanced on a piece of wood. Later, more sophisticated compasses were developed that
had a magnetized needle mounted on a pivot inside a circular box with markings for the four cardinal directions.
• Dead reckoning was a technique that involved estimating
one's current position based on a previous position and the
speed, time, and direction of travel.
• For example, if a navigator knew that he started from point
A and sailed at 10 knots for 5 hours in a northerly direction,
he could calculate that he was 50 nautical miles north of
point A. Dead reckoning required keeping track of these
variables using instruments such as logs (to measure speed),
hourglasses (to measure time), and compasses (to measure
direction).
• However, dead reckoning was prone to errors due to
factors such as wind, currents, tides, human mistakes, and
instrument inaccuracies. Over long distances, these errors
could accumulate and result in large deviations from the
true position.
Sextant
Piloting https://youtu.be/qyCIqYD_2vY?si=xaTLDg6dOU1mMlq0
Piloting relies on fixed visual references to determine position. This is probably the most familiar type of navigation. With
this technique, the pilot must be able to recognize visual markers or identify them using maps or charts. If the pilot
misidentifies the markers, he or she could take the vessel off course. Pilots also employ radar or global positioning system
(GPS) technology if visibility is poor.
Pilots are one of the most important crew members on seagoing vessels. Pilots navigate ships through difficult passages,
such as narrow channels, stormy river mouths, and harbors with heavy ship traffic. With millions of dollars of cargo (such as
cars, oil, or military troops) on ships larger than a football field, the pilot must be calm and responsible. He or she must
understand the weather, the seabed or lakebed, the channels of a river, and trade winds and currents.
GPS
GPS, or global positioning system, is a satellite-based navigation system. While the GPS system is funded and controlled by
the U.S. government's Department of Defense, anyone with a GPS receiver can use it. The earliest GPS system was
launched between 1978 and 1985 with 11 satellites. It now includes about 24 satellites that orbit Earth and send radio
signals from space.
The system works much like radio navigation. A GPS device receives a signal from the satellites, and it calculates position
based on the time it takes for the signal to transmit and the exact position of the satellites. It is a highly accurate
navigation tool.

First Map-Based Car Navigation System