GPS Receiver (Part 1)

If you have never been to the MAKE Magazine website you should really check it out. They have tons of project ideas on their site and more are posted every day on their project blog. In July I saw an article regarding a project that took a GPS module, a simple LCD display, a Basic Stamp to interface the two together, and created a GPS receiver. The receiver displays your coordinates in degrees, minutes, and seconds.

I was intrigued because for such a complex sounding project it appeared very straightforward and relatively inexpensive. Upon further digging I discovered that this project used a Basic Stamp 2 chip for a processor, along with a Basic Stamp Development Board and software; these together cost around $200, not including the cost for the LCD Display and GPS module (another $100).Then I remembered that the Basic Stamp is actually based off of and very similar to the PIC series of microcontrollers that I had previously worked with in college. After looking at the code provided on the project page, I decided that with a little effort I could convert it for use with a PIC (I used a PIC16F84A, but others can be used, they cost $6).

To program the chip I used the programmer I had from college. Built from a kit, it is USB compatible and has a ZIF socket so you don't wear out the PIC's pins pulling it in and out of the socket while troubleshooting your projects. It is not the cheapest programmer available at $85. Many other programmers are available for much less money, or you can build your own. The last item necessary is a BASIC compiler for the PIC. While the Basic Stamp is also programmed using the BASIC computer language (hence the name), the PIC uses a slightly different version called PicBasic. The compiler I used is called PicBasic Pro ($250) which I had from college (there is a cheaper version called PicBasic Compiler for $100); I also found another compiler which offers a free demo. For me, since I already have all of the pieces I need for PIC development it was much cheaper ($6 vs $200) to use a PIC instead of a Basic Stamp. The casual hobbyist should decide which route they want to take since the Stamp ($200 to get started) offers a more user friendly path, while the PIC ($150-$300 to get started depending on programmer and compiler) offers more customization and more processing power.

It took me most of an afternoon to refresh my memory and convert the code from PBASIC to PicBasic. The photo above shows my version of a homebrew GPS receiver using a PIC as I prototyped it on my breadboard. The GPS module has an LED that flashes to show it is acquiring satellite signals (at least 3 are needed for valid GPS data) and is solid once enough connections have been made. Since I plan on putting this project in some sort of handheld enclosure, the LED will no longer be visible. To get around this I added some code which makes use of one of the built-in features of the GPS module. This feature will report back how many satellites have made connections with the module, when this value is below 3 the LCD displays the text "Searching for satellites...". When the value is above 3 the LCD displays the GPS location data. Overall this project was a lot of fun and a great refresher for me regarding PICs. In part 2 I'll talk about how I powered this project off of batteries, integrated it into an enclosure, and provide my final schematic and parts list.

• GPS PicBasic Code

Parts List:

• GPS Module
• LCD Display
• PIC16F84A

Links:

• MAKE Magazine
• Original MAKE Project
  
• Original Project Video
• Basic Stamps
• Microchip PICs
  
• KT5128 PIC Programmer
• PicBasic Pro Compiler
• PicBasic Compiler
• Proton PicBasic Compiler Demo