GPS module not showing useful information using Arduino - arduino
I have connected the GPS module with Arduino board, however, when I open the serial monitor, it shows a lot of empty fields and zeros. Is the GPS module faulty?
It shows this :
$GPGSA,A,1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*1E
$GPRMC,000053.799,V,,,,,0.00,0.00,060180,,,N*43
$GPVTG,0.00,T,,M,0.00,N,0.00,K,N*32
$GPGGA,000054.799,,,,,0,0,,,M,,M,,*4E
$GPGSA,A,1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*1E
$GPRMC,000054.799,V,,,,,0.00,0.00,060180,,,N*44
$GPVTG,0.00,T,,M,0.00,N,0.00,K,N*32
$GPGGA,000055.799,,,,,0,0,,,M,,M,,*4F
$GPGSA,A,1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*1E
All this means is that your GPS doesn't have a fix yet.
A cold start on a GPS can take several minutes (like, up to 7 or so) to get its initial fix. Make sure the antenna is out in the open with a clear view of the sky.
Also, obviously, if your GPS unit has an external antenna, make sure it's connected properly. Those small coaxial connectors break easily!
Related
is there a way to do plugnplay for arduino?
First Thanks in advance. Is there a way for an Arduino board to detect what other boards are attached (such as infrared, or servo motor etc) or simple things such as led or push buttons? Basically is there a way to do Plug N Play? I would like to design a system using an Arduino were the user can mix and match infrared sensors, motors, led. The script would recognize what is attached to the board and respond accordingly. Currently one is forced to hard code in the script identifying what pin is attached to what. Hence if the user pulls out a servo motor and adds an infrared, then the script must be rewritten. This is what I want to avoid. Thanks.
You started with user mix and match sensors, motors, led. The script would recognize what is attached and later added Arduino for model railroads, to dynamically add servos, lights and sensors These are not the same, narrowing the scope makes all the difference. See my comment for first option. As for building a specific model that will recognize elements, sure, this can be done in couple of ways depending on the topology you intend to implement and in that case the main concern should be: How will elements/nodes be connected to each other and / or the main board? If you intend to run seperate wires for each element you could identify them by dedicating one wire for ID and use a different resistor on each, That's complicated and limited and I wouldn't do that. On the other end you could create a parallel bus that runs from node to node and can be extended as needed, it will have a small number of wires that will implement I2C for instance, and for identification but also as local drivers you would add an ATtiny on each node.
Arduino drone project
I am working on a drone project and currently choosing a board to use. Is it possible to use an Arduino Nano for all needs which are: Gyroscope and Accelerometer Barometer (as an altimeter) Digital magnetometer WiFi (to send telemetry for processing) GPS module 4 motors (of course) P.S: I know nothing about Arduino. However I have a good ASM, C/C++, programming background and I used to design analog circuits. I would like to avoid using ready-made flight controllers.
Pin count should not be too much of an issue if using I²C sensors, they would simply all share the same two pins (SCL, SDA). I agree that the RAM could be a limitation, the processing power (30 MIPS for an arduino uno) should be sufficient. On an arduino mega, the APM project ran for years with great success. I believe it's possible to do a very simplified drone flight controller with an Arduino nano and several I²C sensors + GPS. But even with a more advanced microcontroller it's not a trivial task. *** If you still want to try the experiment, have a look at openlrs project : https://code.google.com/p/openlrs/ . It's quite old (there are several derived projects too), but it runs on a hardware similar to arduino uno (atmega328). It provides RC control, and quad flight controller with i²c gyroscopes, accelerometers (based on wii remote), and barometer. It also parse data from the GPS, but afaik it doesn't provide autonomous navigation but it should be possible to add it without too much additional work. edit : about the available RAM. I understand that at first sight 2kb of RAM seems a very small amount. And a part of it is already used by Arduino, for example the serial library provides two 64 bytes FIFO, using some RAM. Same for the Wire (I²C) library, although a smaller amount. It also uses some RAM for stack and temporary variables, even for simple tasks such as float operations. Let's say in total it will use 500 bytes. But then what amount of RAM is really required ? - It will have a few PIDs regulators, let's say that each one will use 10 float parameters to store PID parameters, current value etc. So it gives 40 bytes per regulator, and let's say we need 10 regulators. We should need less, but let's take that example. So that's 400 bytes. -Then it will need to parse GPS messages. A GPS message is maximum 80 bytes. Let's allow a buffer of 80 bytes for GPS parsing, even if it would be possible to do most of the parsing "on-the-fly" without storing it in a buffer. -Let's keep some room for the GPS and sensors data, 300 bytes which seems generous, as we don't need to store them in floats. But we can put in it the current GPS coordinates, altitude, number of satellites, pitch, roll etc -Then some place for application data, such as home GPS coordinates, current mode, stick positions, servo values etc. The rest is mostly calculations, going from the current GPS coordinates and target coordinates to a target altitude, heading etc. And then feed the PIDs to the calculated pitch and roll. But this doesn't require additional RAM. So I would say it's possible to do a very simple flight controller using 1280 bytes. And if I was too low or forgot some aspects, there's still more than 700 bytes available. Certainly not saying it's easy to do, every aspect will have to be optimized, but it doesn't look impossible.
It would be a trick to make all of that work on a Nano. I would suggest you look at http://ardupilot.com/ they have built a lot of cool thinks around the ARM chip (same as an Arduino) and there are some pretty active communities on there as well.
Even if you didn't run out of pins (and you probably would), by the time you wrote the code for the motors and the GPS, you will run out of RAM. And that's not even getting into the CPU speed, which is nowhere near enough. As mentioned in the other answer, you'll be better off with a Cortex M-x CPU. Arguably, you could use a few Nanos, one per task, but chaining them together would be a nice mess...
Arduino as serial 'snoop' tool for 77 bits at 100k baud?
curious if a Arduino could be configured to read and serial print raw binary bits from a proprietary serial encoder used on machine tools and robots... if so, might have a lot of other possible uses. I made up a 120 volt servo drive for manually moving big fanuc machine/robot servos, handy during rebuilding/service to be able to move a axis without a control...but the older drives read 4 gray code channels kinda like a set of halls for brushless commutation...on the serial versions, same drive could move the motor if I could decipher the commutation bits and output graycode to the drive... a tiny Arduino looks like a ideal little thing to try doing this. Scoped out the signals long ago, kinda know where the bits are, but need to be able to actually print them out thru 90 degrees of shaft rotation to find the 12 steps for commutation required by the drive. Arduino is new to me, but in the past few days have been quite impressed with its abilities. If anyone can suggest a way for Arduino to read a repeating 77 bit data stream at ~100K baud, I'm all ears... I think a 'serial snoop tool' with easily changed baud rates(including non-standard) and 'word length', then serial print out could be really handy. to prevent overflow in my case, could only do the serial print every X milliseconds, and I could just rotate slow enough to get a decent sample.
I'd use a logic analyser with the ability to decode serial streams - it's a much more versatile tool in the end. There are many of them - I've used the Saleae Logic, and an Open Bench Logic Sniffer to good effect in the past. But I'm sure an Arduino could do it.
How to control a stepper motor using Infrared IR Receiver?
Hi im new to Arduino Uno My question is how to turn a stepper motor 90 dgree clockwise only when the infrared censored a something and turn anti-clockwise when the second infrared censored something is pressed again? Stepper motor Infrared transmitter/receiver pair your help will be much appreciated Thanks
Software and hardware my friend, software and hardware. First, you'll need to connect your sensors to the Arduino and make sure you can read them reliably. You can write a sketch that outputs the values to the serial port and monitor them on your computer. Second, you'll need to connect your motor. A stepper motor is going to need a driver, such as the "Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino v2 Kit" (link). This kit has sample code you can use to figure out how to drive the motor. Then you'd connect these two independent pieces together. Write logic that puts the motor in one position when your sensor is sensing, and another when it's not, or use your second sensor to make the second motion. Note: Stepper motors and the drivers are expensive and maybe not what you really want. For one thing, they use relative motion, not absolute position. If they miss steps (due to hitting something or being manually moved) then they remain in the wrong position until you fix them. A cheaper and perhaps better solution is to use a hobby servo. They are cheap and use absolute positioning, which means that when you tell them to go somewhere they will always try to get to that position. Also, you can drive them directly from the Arduino without a driver board. One of the built-in Arduino sketches shows how to run them.
Arduino TinyGPS no data
I am using the TinyGPS library and am trying to display information to get to a specific latitude/longitude via an LCD screen. I am not getting any data. The output of directionto is "broke" and distanceto and bearingto is 0. Code redacted And here is what my pins/hardware look like: http://i.imgur.com/7iDBwxm.jpg I am using an Arduino Uno, LCD shield and GPS shield by ITead Studio. I am hoping it is either the pins or not having a GPS signal. Reddit post: Arduino TinyGPS help
The baud rate for SoftSerial should be 9600.
You need to debug the system step by step to understand where the problem is. I would start using only the serial monitor and no display. Please note that when you switch on a GPS that has been moved for several hundred km, and the same is when you switch it on for the first time, may take a while to get the satellites and start giving out some data. Make sure you are in a open area and wait for 5 to 10 minutes before you declare it as "not working". The next time you will switch it on will be much quicker. I have checked the documentation of your shield and what they also say is to make sure the Micro SD card you use is support SPI mode but not just the SD mode, also don’t forget to format it into FAT16 , and add a “datalog.txt” file on your card for Arduino to log the information. Try that and then read the data on the sd card to make sure that is logging. Come back with the outcome of the above tests and we will try to support you further.