SparkFun Forums

[dhanna]

I'm working on a little project where I'd like to stream GPS data over a network connection, first ethernet and then wireless. I have some experience pairing an arduino board with a GPS logger which worked fine, but I'm not entirely sure which components I should purchase for the next phase of this project.

I have a set of GS407 with the adapter boards already.

Thank you.

[tecoist]

One simple, no real work at all solution is to use nmead on your favorite flavor of Unix and a serial-USB nmea-emitting GPS module.

[dhanna]

Thank you for your reply tecoist. My needs are a little different. I need to have multiple GPS source sending their data into a single server, which is why I'm looking to have something light weight. I currently have software which streams the NMEA information received over the serial port, but this of course requires that each GPS device have a computer.

I'm wondering if:

Arduino Ethernet Shield - http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc ... ts_id=9026
WiFly Shield - http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc ... ts_id=9367
Arduino Main Board - http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc ... cts_id=666

are enough, or are there other components required to make my NMEA transmitters work.

Regards.

[tecoist]

Yes, either the ethernet or wifly shield should stream data over TCP for you. I've used the setup you're describing to massage serial data and stream it out in TCP or UDP, and it works fine (at least for a limited number of serial streams per Arduino). If you want 802.11 wireless, or 802.3 wired ethernet for longer distances than you can get from USB, it should work fine (works for me in my application, which sounds almost identical to yours).

I'm using the SFE GPS shield, but that's just to wire up the GPS module connector to the Arduino so I can play with multiple modules conveniently. You could wire the GPS module straight in to the Arduino headers without bothering with the GPS shield, I'm sure.

[ohararp]

Why not use xbee "end devices" to a single receiver that was tied to a wired ethernet port or computer?

[dhanna]

Does anyone have an Arduino sketch which could send the NMEA information over either a TCP or Ethernet Shield?

Thanks in advance if you have something you can share.

[follower]

Does anyone have an Arduino sketch which could send the NMEA information over either a TCP or Ethernet Shield?

You would need a "proxy" sketch that reads the NMEA input from the hardware serial port (assuming that's how the GPS is connected) and writes it to a TCP connection. You could modify one of the Ethernet examples to do this--perhaps the "WebServer" one.

Actually, modifying the "ChatServer" example might work better--instead of reading from the clients for data to send, read from the serial port instead.

--Philip;

[dhanna]

Thanks Philip. Very good idea.