tracking


Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia.
Related to tracking: Fedex tracking

tracking

[′trak·iŋ]
(electricity)
A leakage or fault path created across the surface of an insulating material when a high-voltage current slowly but steadily forms a carbonized path.
(electronics)
The condition in which all tuned circuits in a receiver accurately follow the frequency indicated by the tuning dial over the entire tuning range.
(engineering)
A motion given to the major lobe of a radar or radio antenna such that some preassigned moving target in space is always within the major lobe.
The process of following the movements of an object; may be accomplished by keeping the reticle of an optical system or a radar beam on the object, by plotting its bearing and distance at frequent intervals, or by a combination of techniques.
(engineering acoustics)
The following of a groove by a phonograph needle.
Maintaining the same ratio of loudness in the two channels of a stereophonic sound system at all settings of the ganged volume control.
(navigation)
Navigation which follows the movements of a craft but does not anticipate future positions.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

tracking

i. The process of following the movements of an object. This may be done by keeping the reticle of an optical system or a radar beam on the object, plotting its bearing and distance at frequent intervals, or a combination of the two. See track (ix).
ii. A motion given to the major lobe of an antenna so that a preassigned moving target in space remains in the lobe's field as long as it is within viewing range.
iii. The process of determining the position of the tips of the propeller blades relative to one another. See blade track and tracking flag .
iv. The mechanical procedure used to bring the blades of the rotor into satisfactory relationship with one another under dynamic conditions, so that all blades rotate in a common plane. See blade track .
An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

tracking

(text)
The spacing between characters in a line of text. This is defined when a font is designed but can often be altered in order to change the appearance of the text or for special effects.

Tracking should not be confused with kerning which deals with the spacing between certain pairs of characters.

See also leading.
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Tracking

the maintenance of the coordinated variation of the resonant frequencies of oscillatory circuits of, for example, a superheterodyne receiver, that are tuned by means of a single control knob. When a superheterodyne receiver is tuned to a certain signal, the resonant frequency frad of the input circuit and the radio-frequency amplifier is set equal to the frequency fsig of the received signal, and the resonant frequency fosc of the local oscillator is adjusted so that the intermediate frequency (usually equal to the difference between frad and fosc) coincides with the resonant frequency of the intermediate-frequency amplifier.

Figure 1. Schematic of an input and radio-frequency amplifier circuit and of the local oscillator circuit: (L) and (Losc) inductance coils of the circuits; (C) variable capacitors; (C1), (C2), and (C3) padder capacitors; (frad) and (fosc) resonant frequencies of the circuits; the broken line indicates that the capacitance of the capacitors is varied by a single tuning knob

Tracking is generally accomplished by employing identical variable capacitors in all tunable circuits and by using additional fixed capacitors, called padders, in the local oscillator circuit, which must have a frequency different from frad (see Figure 1). In this case, the relations between the angle of rotation of the tuning knob and frad and between the angle of rotation and fosc are not exactly those required—that is, the tracking is only approximate. Nonetheless, the tracking is still sufficiently accurate. In the receivers of the mid-1970’s, the variable capacitors used are either capacitors with mechanically varied capacitance or varactors (varicaps).

REFERENCES

Radiopriemnye ustroistva. Edited by V. I. Siforov. Moscow, 1974.
Chistiakov, N. I., and V. M. Sidorov. Radiopriemnye ustroistva. Moscow, 1974.

V. M. SIDOROV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
They extend the working space as large as a room but the marker tracking distance is still a challenge.
Extending the Tracking Distance of Fiducial Markers for Large Indoor Augmented Reality Applications
Dogs must be at least six months of age to enter an AKC tracking test.
Get on track! Any dog can learn to follow a scent trail and compete in tracking
Proponents of tracking argue that it provides the means to more individualized instruction whereby all students are allowed to advance at their own pace with students of similar ability (Kulik, 1992).
Elementary school teachers' perceptions and attitudes to the educational structure of tracking
Public health surveillance or tracking systems are critical in preventing and controlling disease in populations.
National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program: bridging the information gap
The technology is also applicable to land-based vehicle cockpit tracking; image guided and augmented surgery; and, augmented reality for manufacturing, industrial training, field repair and maintenance.
Intersense awarded army Phase I SBIR contract for miniature inertial-optical Cockpit Helmet Tracking System
* the NRE is a "tracking entity" in respect of the participating interest, as described below.
Canada's new foreign investment entity rules
The company performs a similar service for point of sale, tracking 4,485 retail outlets such as supermarkets and convenience stores to produce "an unprecedented volume of highly reliable data."
Market research in Japan: it's one of the world's biggest consumer markets, but when it comes to market research, Japan is way behind. Now two companies are changing all that for good
Creating a system for tracking corrosion costs should he a relatively simple task in most pulp and paper mills Most mills already use computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) to manage budgets and generate maintenance work orders.
Similar tactics reduce corrosion and crime: by aggressively targeting and eliminating corrosion problems, mills can reduce costs by US$ 5 to 10ドル per ton with only minimal resource allocation
initially developed the system for online freight payment and transaction tracking. DoD subsequently adopted Power Track as its standard method to pay contracted carriers for the military services, National Guard, DLA, and TRANS COM.
A Naval Aviation Foreign Military Sales Logistics Process Improvement Team update
Certain administrative barriers remain, such as the hidden costs for software, costs associated with transmitting and tracking returns and initial data keypunch requirements.
How to have a successful e-filing experience. (Tax Practice Management)
Key Bush officials know that an effective system of tracking immigrants is the last thing Hispanic and other immigration lobbyists want to see.
Borderline insanity: President Bush wants the INS to stop granting visas to terrorists. The biggest obstacle? His own administration
In reality, the cookie is usually tracking the habits of a particular browser at a particular IP address and will only know who the user is if the user has provided that information to the site by logging in.
Are cookies hazardous to your privacy? Cookies allow businesses to collect information about Internet users, but some question whether they are valuable records or unethical tracking mechanisms. (NetWise)

Encyclopedia browser ?
Full browser ?