You’ve built a brand new project, and it’s a wonderful little thing that’s out and about in the world. The only problem is, you need to know its location to a decent degree of accuracy. Thankfully, GPS is a thing! With an off-the-shelf module, it’s possible to get all the location data you could possibly need. But how do you go about it, and what parts are the right ones for your application? For the answers to these questions, read on!
All The Same, But Totally Different
Working with GPS may seem daunting, but thanks to the efforts of industry and individuals, these days, it’s remarkably straightforward. Most modules on the market all work in a similar way. They most commonly communicate over a standard serial interface, usually at 9600 baud, though I2C and SPI interfaces are also available. The messaging format is also standardised, with data being output in the NMEA-0183 format. This standard is well-documented for those wishing to parse the data. However, for those truly in a hurry, it’s possible to find code for many microcontroller platforms that will do the work for you. Projects like NeoGPS, Adafruit GPS, and minmea will take an incoming serial data stream, and spit out all the geographic location data you could possibly ask for. So is a GPS just a GPS?
Depending on your application, you may require different things out of your GPS module. Fast-moving platforms relying on GPS to guide an autopilot will benefit from a fast update rate, while a passive location tracking device may do perfectly well updating just once per second. Accuracy requirements are varied, with some applications requiring resolution down to the centimeter range. There are also additional features that help in edge cases ..
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