Article: Add GPS modules: take GPS along for the ride.(Embedded Systems)

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 ...

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