GPS Tracking/Using Accelerometers

jakethesnake

Hello,

I would greatly appreciate any answers to the following questions. I am fairly new to the world of microcontrollers but i have learned quickly and want to embark on a rather large project of building a UAV. first though i need a smaller task to create a GPS tracking device that i can communicate with via radio or satellite [is this possible?] The tracking device would be placed in the payload of a weather balloon to be tracked so it can be retrieved for landing-i can do this with a cell phone but would like it if i could build my own device to get some experience.
First: Which Parallax GPS units will work with a BASIC Stamp [this is the programming language i learned] and how hard are they to set up and write programs for? Is it worth buying the learning kit? [I have a limited budget]
Second: Does Parallax make any kind of radio control equipment?
Thank You Very Much!
-jakethesnake

sylvie369

All of the Parallax GPS modules can be used with a BASIC Stamp. You communicate with the GPS module through serial commands. Typically you just read the data coming out of the module, using SERIN to read the serial data into your variables. However, some of the GPS modules have "smart modes", in which you SEROUT commands to the module requesting certain data, and then SERIN the data to your program.

This kit shows you one way to read GPS data with Stamps. Notice that there is a link to the code on that page - study that code and you'll get a pretty decent understanding of what you're after. Of course you'll send the data to a radio rather than a USB drive.

Parallax does not make radio control equipment. It's not clear why you're asking that, though. Were you intending to have control from the ground over something onboard the balloon? You don't need that for GPS/radio tracking. You just need a GPS sending data to a computer, which formats the data and sends them to the radio transmitter. Parallax DOES sell radio units (not "radio control", but just "radio"), notably the XBee modules. Your project probably requires a radio transmitter with a longer range than those available from Parallax, though, assuming that by "weather balloon", you mean something you intend to fly up to tens of thousands of feet.

jakethesnake

Thank You!

sylvie369

Doh! I forgot the link to the GPS Datalogger:

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Sensors/CompassGPS/tabid/173/CategoryID/48/List/0/SortField/0/Level/a/ProductID/603/Default.aspx

Jimmy Lieb

I have one idea, why not buy a really cheap, hackable prepaid cell phone, and when the device lands, it could send you a text, with the GPS coordinates? It would be hard to do this if you wanted to keep this in range of a base station the whole time. if you are putting this on a weather balloon, and letting it go, it could travel miles. you would have to think about very expensive, high power, transcievers, that could be encrypted. at such a range, if left without encryption, they could receive massive amounts of interference. best of luck,
Jimmy

jakethesnake

Hello again

Thank you everybody for your help! A few more questions:

I am planning to buy a GPS module from parallax. I like the PMB-688 GPS SiRF Internal/External Antenna [Stock #28501] for it's versatility, but would like to know what the advantage is of going to the next step with the VPN1513 GPS Receiver Module [Stock #28506] which has RAW or Smart modes. Can anyone help with this?

Also is any additional software needed for having one of these GPS modules info displayed on Google maps? If so where can i get it?

Thank You!
-jakethesnake