RS-232 GPS on RC?

[geeknerd99]

We're looking at hooking up a Garmin GPS that outputs in RS-232 to our prog port and getting the coordinate data from the NMEA 0183 standard output. How would we go about recieving this data from the prog port?

[bear24rw]

Take a look at Kevin Watson's serial port driver
www.kevin.org/frc

All you would have to do is match the baud rate, and then just make a state machine to read in the bytes coming from the gps

[Robostang 548]

Its definitely possible. I experimented over the summer with just using my desktop pc to test the possibilities of using an offboard coprocessor. I just hooked up the camera to the rc and loaded some serial code onto it and I managed to make the camera pan and tilt when I moved the joystick. That may not seem like much but it was the fact that my pc was doing all the work that proved that the serial communication worked. If you managed to get a data sheet for your gps unit that includes baud rate and the structure of the data packet you could definitely get it up and running. Just remember that your reception may vary and that some units take a while to find satellites.

-Don