natachaiw
asked on
GPS Tracking Project
I am putting together my hobby project where I am planing to install in car GPS Tracking devices which can record all GPS data ,in some source of flash memory card, while I am driving around. My objective is just to be able to come back and load all GPS data and getting information about where I was, how far I went from the orgin, how many stops I did, and how long I spend at each stop (time). Also, It would be nice if i can lay over my travel route on some kind of maps.
So my questions are?
1.) what would be the best and inexpensive hardware device I can do for this project.
2.) Can anyone guide me for the directions in writing the program to read NMEA protocal which recorded from the hardware in question (1) and getting all kind of data I mentioned above. For example, distance travels, number of stops, times per each stop and average speed traveling.
3.) How could I transfer the NMEA data and get my routing lay on the base map. It can be either trasfered to some source of shapefile OR if anyone have better ideas.
Really appreciate for your help
kim
So my questions are?
1.) what would be the best and inexpensive hardware device I can do for this project.
2.) Can anyone guide me for the directions in writing the program to read NMEA protocal which recorded from the hardware in question (1) and getting all kind of data I mentioned above. For example, distance travels, number of stops, times per each stop and average speed traveling.
3.) How could I transfer the NMEA data and get my routing lay on the base map. It can be either trasfered to some source of shapefile OR if anyone have better ideas.
Really appreciate for your help
kim
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Thank you both of you but how come I could not give you both a grade A for my appreciation really applogize for that though
I think the most inexpensive way of doing it is to use any low cost standard GPS module and make your own GPS Data logger hardware. It will include any low cost Microcontroller like ATMEL 89C51 or its variants (which we are using) or any low cost PIC Controller. There will be ROM for data storage (128kB is more then enough for your requirements). Then finally the circuit PCB or on a Vero Board etc. Putting it in simple words You will need to develop a circuit that will include Microcontroller, ROM and a GPS module. Your application build in the Microcontroller will read NMEA data from the GPS receiver and then parse it and store only specific info that you require.....
Note: This solution is only if you have experience with uControllers and electronics etc.
>>2.) Can anyone guide me for the directions in writing the program to read NMEA protocal which recorded from the hardware in question (1) and getting all kind of
>>data I mentioned above. For example, distance travels, number of stops, times per each stop and average speed traveling.
If you will be using your own data logger then you can define your own protocol. i.e rather then storing full NMEA data you should store only pecific data in the logger.
Here is a Typical format that I used in one of my earlier projects.....
Time,Date,Latitude,Longitu
hh:mm,dd/mm/yy,dd.dddd,dd.
You will see that you only require ~40 bytes to store one position record. With a 128 kB ROM you can store upto 3200 positions i.e if you log every minute then you can log roughly 54 hours of driving..... (All the calculations and requirements that you are talking of can be done with this data) Also note that you can reduce the size of a record by removing the altitude and year filed from date. Also simple changes like storing Speed as Integer can also increase the no. of records that you can save. In one of my latest projects we are able to compress the data in such a way that we can almost pack 3 months of data in the same 128 kB ROM.... But it is copyrighted so I cant give it to you......
Now suppose you have downloaded this data onto your computer then you will need to add this data into a database. After it has been added to a database the rest of caclulations is really easy. You can calculate your Average Speed, Maximum Speed, Distance Travelled, Stoppage locations, Stoppage Intervals etc. etc. with this data.
>>3.) How could I transfer the NMEA data and get my routing lay on the base map. It can be either trasfered to some source of shapefile OR if anyone have better
>>ideas.
Since you are looking at low cost solution so I will suggest you to make an interface so that the data can be downloaded by attaching a serial port to the hardware. You can either give a connector for a Serial Port in your car where you can plug a Laptop and fetch all the data or alternatively you can make your device pluggable and when you need to get the data simply unplug it from the Car and attach it to your computer...... Making Shape file from this data....... I will respond to this query later......
Please Note that this project requires quite a good knowledge of electronics and also much spare time as well as resources. Since I had all the resources at my workplace so I was able to complete the project in roughly 1 month.
Imran Arshad