GPS Application Example Using LPC845 Breakout Board

This is a quick introduction that shows how to interface a popular GPS module to the LPC845 Breakout Board using the UART drivers from the MCUXpresso SDK. This example reads and parses GPS data from the module when the user button is pressed and outputs the information to a host computer console via the board's VCOM interface.

UART Protocol

The UART function uses two TPU channels to provide a 2-wire (TxD and RxD) asynchronous serial interface. One TPU channel is configured to function as the serial transmitter (TxD), and another TPU channel is configured to function as a serial receiver (RxD).

Adafruit Flora Wearable GPS

The module used for this example is built around the MTK3339 chipset, a no-nonsense, high-quality GPS module that can track up to 22 satellites on 66 channels, has an excellent high-sensitivity receiver. It can do up to 10 location updates a second for high speed, high sensitivity logging or tracking. Power usage is very low, only 20 mA during navigation. Adafruit took this module and mounted it on one of their super-compact Flora boards, which are very easy to connect up to the LPC845 Breakout:

Figure 1. GPS module.jpg

Figure 1. Flora Wearable GPS.

GPS Module Example

NXP provides example packages that include projects to use the principal's peripherals that the board include: ADC, I2C, PWM, USART, Captouch, and SPI.

What we need:

Once downloaded, we import the library project into the workspace using the ''Import project(s) from file system... from the Quickstart panel in MCUXpresso IDE:

Figure 2. Import projects.png

Figure 2. Import projects

Then browse the examples packages archive file:

Figure 4. Select Example package.png

Figure 3. Select Example package.

Press next, and see that are a selection of projects to import, in this case, only keep select the LPC845_BoB_GPS how it looks in the picture below:

Figure 4. Select CapTouch project.png

Figure 4. Select GPS project

Connections

Now, with the project already in the workspace is time to set up the connection between the LPC845 Breakout board and the GPS module, as shown in the table below:

Table 1. Connections.PNG

Table 1. LPC845 to GPS module.

The Flora module has the signals clearly printed on their silkscreen which really helps :smileyhappy:.

Figure 5. Connections.png

Figure 5. LPC845 Breakout Board to GPS module connections.

Once the connections are made, its time to build and run the example code, use the build and debug button inside the IDE. Now open a terminal program and connect to the COM port the board enumerated as. Configure the terminal with these settings:

115200 baud rate.
No parity.
8 data bits
1 stop bit

Place the GPS module outside. Once the GPS has located the satellite data, the red LED on the GPS will stop blinking. If you see the LED blinking once a second, it does not yet have a fix! It can take many minutes to get a fix if the module sees any satellites immediately.

Once it has a fix, press the user button (K1) to display the GPS data in the serial monitor, which includes the current date and time in UTC. It will also give you your latitude, longitude and approximate altitude with the Serial monitor.

Figure 6. Results.PNG

Figure 6. GPS Print Out.

GPS Application Example Using LPC845 Breakout Board

GPS Application Example Using LPC845 Breakout Board