[remotemass (OP)]

How smaller can GPS trackers get?

Hello, I would like to know what is the expected size in the future and how small can GPS trackers, namely those that will be able to harvest energy from radiation to perpetuate their autonomy, can get. How smaller can GPS trackers get?
Also, is there any way they can be done with materials (graphene and nanotubes, perhaps?) that cannot be detected with metal detectors?

Hopefully, we will have GPS trackers (that can harvest energy from radiowaves: to perpetuate their autonomy) - smaller than a grain of salt - inside our bodies, able to send signals to the internet.
We already have them quite small, and we can put them inside pretty much anything that can be stolen: like a piano, a TV, a tablet or a motor-bike.
I want to live in a world where everything is being tracked to the clouds at all times,
and where everyone's voice and biometric signals (including pupil dilation and Galvanic Skin Response) are being recorded and analyzed.

[Kryptid]

Why would you consider them not being detected by metal detectors a desirable trait?

[remotemass (OP)]

So that if you were kidnapped the kidnappers did not find out you had one inside your body.

[Bored chemist]

I want to live in a world where everything is being tracked to the clouds at all times,
and where everyone's voice and biometric signals (including pupil dilation and Galvanic Skin Response) are being recorded and analyzed.

OK

I will wave a magic wand and it's done.
Tomorrow the government changes- they decide they don't like "your sort of people".
Are you still sure that getting fitted with a tracker was a good thing?

[remotemass (OP)]

In reply to "Bored chemist":

I think that with the progress of technology is very unlikely you can avoid governments having more pervasive surveillance systems.
Since we are going to have them we will have only two options:
1) To let them be in the hands of a few: the powerful ones, the governments, the police state, the elites.
or
2) To democratize them, giving public access of all that data to all citizens and AI systems.

I think the second option is the one that can avoid the totalitarian abuses you are talking about.

[Bored chemist]

I gather the UK has more surveillance cameras per capita than any other country.
We also have a government that already breaks essentially every rule of common decency- with apparent impunity and which plans to introduce piracy as a "solution" to the "immigration problem".
They also announced their intention to disenfranchise those who don't have photo ID.

How far has technology saved us from

totalitarian abuses

?

[evan_au]

the UK has more surveillance cameras per capita than any other country

Singapore must be pretty high on that scale, too...

how small can GPS trackers (get)

GPS transmits at various frequencies between 1100 and 1600 MHz, so a wavelength of around 200mm.
- Antennas become less efficient if they are less than about half a wavelength in size, so you are looking at something like 100mm or 4 inches across - around the size of a mobile phone. The GPS receiver is much smaller than this, being just one small chip inside your mobile phone.

namely those that will be able to harvest energy from radiation

GPS signals are so weak by the time they reach Earth that they are weaker than the ambient microwave thermal radiation noise floor. Sophisticated signal processing techniques like correlation are needed to extract this incredibly weak signal from the background noise.

The signal processing demands energy, and you cannot extract this from a signal that is buried in the ambient noise.
Even a nearby WiFi hotspot won't be enough - or a nearby mobile cell tower.
Your best bet is to capture power from sunlight with a solar cell - tough luck if your captors keep you in the basement!

(a GPS receiver) inside your body

Sorry, GPS uses microwaves, and these don't penetrate very well inside the body.
But you could probably insert the antenna just under your skin, and still pick up some signal.
The radio waves that you want to power the device will also have trouble penetrating your body, too.

tracked to the clouds at all times

Now you are not talking about receiving a weak signal, you are talking about transmitting a strong signal - powerful enough to reach the nearest cell tower. This demands a lot of power, and if the chips are under your skin, it will burn you!

Various Internet-of-things (IoT) applications have low-power radio networks that are compatible with 5G, so you don't need a full 5G radio transmitter capable of downloading hundreds of Megabits - if you are content with a data rate averaging 1 kilobit per second.

I'm afraid that what you are requesting will need a reasonably large battery, or some means of recharging it every so often...

[Zer0]

If provided with a Choice...
I would Willingly choose to exist in a world described by RM.

Sure, Privacy would be sacrificed.
But a complete sense of Security shall prevail.

Ps - People are more what they Hide, than what they Show.
🌗