Introduction

Yet another GPS NMEA sentence parser, but this time with the threading module for expediting data parsing in background running threads. This was developed for & tested on the Raspberry PI.

Dependencies

This library requires the py-serial library

Installation

Currenty, there is no plan to deploy this single module library to pypi. but you can easily install this library using the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/DVC-Viking-Robotics/GPS_Serial.git
cd GPS_Serial
python3 setup.py install

The previous commands should automatically install the py-serial library. However, if you get import errors related to the serial module, make sure the py-serial library is install via:

pip3 install pyserial

Some cases may require the commands beginning with python3 or pip3 be prefixed with sudo.

What Is My Serial Device's Port Address?

If you're going to use the GPIO pins, RX and TX, you must ensure that the serial interface is enabled by running:

sudo raspi-config

Important

make sure that the serial console feature is disabled. Otherwise, any data sent or received over these GPIO pins will be forwarded to a TTY console session if serial console feature is enabled (meaning this library will not be able to access the GPS module data).

It is worth noting that the port address for the GPIO serial pins is /dev/ttyS0. If you are using a USB connection, the address can be looked up using the py-serial's tools module:

python3 -m serial.tools.list_ports

You can then test which port in the outputted list is the GPS module by entering:

python3 -m serial.tools.miniterm /dev/ttyS0

where you replace the /dev/ttyS0 part with the address you're testing. To exit the miniterm application use ctrl + ]