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Article: Add GPS modules: take GPS along for the ride.(Embedded Systems)
- Article from:
- ECN-Electronic Component News
- Article date:
- April 1, 2005
- Author:
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2005 Advantage Business Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Whether you plan to design an animal-migration tracker or a vehicle-navigation system, off-the-shelf Global Positioning System (GPS) modules can ease the development task. To give engineers a head start, vendors offer development kits that include a GPS module (Figure 1), an antenna, cables and software.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
A typical module communicates position and time information as ASCII characters transmitted from a serial port. Unless your talents include designing low-noise GHz-frequency circuits, choose GPS modules over low-level ICs. Lower-cost ICs, though, may better suit consumer applications. (The online version of this article includes the sidebar, "How ...