Using a GPS Module for Robot Navigation

How to get lost without actually trying

Copyright: Copyright 2007 Dean Hall. All rights reserved.
Author: Dean Hall
Revision: 1
Date: 2007/11/22

Introduction

NMEA data printed on the 4x20 LCD

I need a GPS unit for my mobile robots in order to navigate to given coordinates outdoors. This page aggregates all the research, experimentation and coding I've done related to using a GPS module for robot navigation.

Experimentation

These are the steps I've taken with respect to GPS so far:

  1. I bought two cheap GPS modules, connected them to my PowerBook and compared them for accuracy and start-up time.
  2. From that, I decided to hack the EverMore.
  3. I figured out how to get the data from the modules, picked which data was to be used and calculated bearing and distance from the measured position to a known waypoint.
  4. Configure the module to output only the data I want at the desired baud rate.