DEVELOPMENT OF A PROTOTYPE FOR GPS, BASED POSITIONING

Abstract

The recent development in GPS technology shows that use of GPS is not only limited to the boundaries of tracking or positioning but there are various new applications of GPS i.e. in deformation monitoring system, Aviation, Geodetic measurements and other emerging fields where engineers have started using GPS signal information to solve different engineering problems. This requires a generalized prototype which can further be extended for specific application as per user's need making minimum alteration of the base system and thus to harness the GPS technology in domain specific application. Thus the objective of this dissertation work is to design and develop a generalized prototype baSed on GPS. The system is intended to provide flexibility to developer/ user for future utilization for particular domain specific application with minimum modification. The system architecture of the prototype, consisting of hardware and embedded software, is designed on three major issues: Power consumption, Minimal cost and usability. The hardware consists of GPS receiver module, GPS antenna, and microcontroller, LCD and power supply arrangement. The software consists of subroutines for serial communication, data extraction and data display. The entire software set has been developed in a firmware approach in assembly language. The advantage of such a design is highlighted in terms of cost, simplicity and application independence. The overall architecture of the prototype has been presented in such a way so that any application system can be developed on future based on the same methodology. The same prototype design can be used as the basic design for the development of different application systems such as vehicle tracking system and other GPS based applications. Removal of unnecessary components from the design reduces the cost of the overall system. Cost advantage of the prototype is clearly visible over other similar systems.