Interfacing GPS Module With Raspberry Pi

Hey Guys!! Are you wishing to interface a GPS module with Raspberry Pi? But facing some difficulty to do it? “Don’t Worry, I am here to help you out! You can start by using the following parts:

1. Raspberry Pi 4 Model-B with 4 GB RAM
2. UBlox NEO-M8N GPS Module
3. A Computer

First of all, connect your Raspberry Pi Board with a PC. You can visit https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/getting-started-raspberry-pi/ for the information regarding the installation of Raspberry Pi Imager.

This is an UBlox NEO-M8N GPS Module with Ceramic Active Antenna. This GPS Module has a 72-channel Ublox M8 engine in the receiver. The module has 4 pins: VCC (Supply Voltage), GND (Ground), Tx (Transmitter), and Rx (Receiver).

This module provides nonstop NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) data strings to the TX pin resulting in GPS information. To know more about this module, you can download its datasheet here.

For interfacing, make the connections as follows:

1. Connect Vcc of GPS module to Power Supply Pin No.2 (5V) of Raspberry Pi.
2. Connect Tx (Transmitter Pin) of GPS module to Pin No.10 of Raspberry Pi.
3. Connect GND (Ground Pin) of GPS module to Pin No.6 Raspberry Pi.

You can also choose other Raspberry Pi boards, but be sure to check out for the appropriate pin numbers while making connections.

The first thing we will do under this is to edit the /boot/config.txt file. To do this, run the commands below:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

At the bottom of the config.txt file, add the following lines

dtparam=spi=on

dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt

core_freq=250

enable_uart=1

force_turbo=1

ctrl+x to exit and press y and enter to save.

The second step under this UART setup section is to edit the boot/cmdline.txt

I will suggest you make a copy of the cmdline.txt and save first before editing so you can revert back to it later if needed. This can be done using;

sudo cp boot/cmdline.txt boot/cmdline_backup.txt
sudo nano /boot.cmdline.txt

Replace the content with;

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait quiet splash plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles

Press ctrl+x to exit and press y and enter to save.

Now reboot pi to see the changes

a. If in your output, Serial0 is linked with ttyAMA0, then to disable it use the below command,

sudo systemctl stop serial-getty@ttyAMA0.service
sudo systemctl disable serial-getty@ttyAMA0.service

b. If in your output Serial0 is linked with ttys0, then to disable it use the below command,

sudo systemctl stop serial-getty@ttys0.service
sudo systemctl disable serial-getty@ttys0.service

To enable the ttyso use following command,

sudo systemctl enable serial-getty@ttys0.service

Use minicom python library to connect with the GPS module and make sense of the data.

sudo apt-get install minicom

Use pynmea2 python library to parse the received NMEA data.

sudo pip install pynmea2

To test the GPS run the command sudo cat /dev/ttyAMA0, You'll get the output as shown above.

Now, write the python code for the interfacing of the GPS module with Raspberry pi.

import serial

Import time

import string import pynmea2

while True: port=“/dev/ttyAMAO”

ser=serial.Serial(port,baudrate=9600,timeout=0.5)

dataout =pynmea2.NMEAStreamReader()

newdata=ser.readline()

if newdata[0:6]==“$GPRMC”:

newmsg=pynmea2.parse(newdata)

lat=newmsg.latitude

lng=newmsg.longitude

gps=“Latitude=" +str(lat) + “and Longitude=" +str(lng)

print(gps)

The window shown above is the final output. It provides the data of your exact position in terms of Latitude and Longitude.

This project is based on an article GPS Module with Arduino and Raspberry Pi - By Priyanka Dixit. Visit this article to know more about GPS, how it works, explanation of key terms longitude & latitude, the difference between GPS chip & GPS module, and much more!