Interfacing u-blox GNSS Module to an MCU
GNSS Positioning has gained prominence in several IoT applications and services with the growing demand for location-based intelligence and tracking information. Global Navigation Satellite System, as the name suggests, is a satellite-based navigation system, utilizing small satellites to geographically locate the user’s receiver on Earth’s surface. The traditional high-quality GNSS receivers are quite expensive and pose several challenges when it comes to design implementations and power optimization.
That’s where the modular GNSS solutions come to the rescue. The introduction of which has widened the scope of GNSS positioning applications to low-value items like wearables etc.. Most of the solutions are designed to provide compact, relatively economical and power-optimized solutions. Yet, among all the available GNSS Modules, it’s important to choose the right one based on the application’s requirements.
Some factors to consider while selecting the right GNSS modules are – Price, Positional Accuracy, TTFF (time-to-first-fix), Size, Power consumption, RF Sensitivity.
In general, a GNSS Module has two components – a receiver/antenna and a processing unit. The receiver/antenna is for receiving the signal and the processing unit is for decoding it.
The whitepaper would present an explanation of the complete process involved in pairing a GNSS module to an MCU and answer the following questions –
- How to select the GNSS receiver?
- How the hardware interfacing and communication establishment is done?
- What are the steps involved in software design?
- How verification and quality assurance is achieved?
