Product category:
Board-Level Instruments
News Release from: Mosaic Industries | Subject: Mosaic GPS Wildcard
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 27 April 2007
Card adds location-aware function to
instruments
A miniature GPS card can fit on to a single-board computer and add location-aware functions to within an accuracy of 15m to board-based instruments and data-acquisition systems.
A tiny 5 x 6.25cm (2 x 2.5in) card, the latest in Mosaic's Wildcard series, will track your instrument anywhere on the globe with a positional accuracy of less than 15m This miniature board connects to any of Mosaic's controllers and single-board computers, adding GPS capability to your instrument on top of data acquisition and instrument control
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 13 May 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Easy expansion for compact SBC
The Qcard is a tiny 2 x 2.5in single board computer that fits any handheld or space-constrained application and dramatically cuts the cost of data acquisition and control for OEMs.
Your application program can read the current latitude, longitude, altitude, speed, course heading, time, and date.
In addition, the GPS Wildcard software reports position error estimates, GPS fix quality, and the number of satellites in use to enable real-time diagnostics.
The key component of the GPS Wildcard is the GPS-15 subsystem manufactured by Garmin.
It implements a 12-channel GPS receiver, and includes a rechargeable backup battery to maintain the contents of the subsystem's clock and memory for up to 21 days in the absence of external power.
The 3.3V supply that runs the GPS receiver can be shut down while not in use to conserve power.
For good signal reception, the GPS subsystem includes a connection for a remotely mounted active antenna, also avalable from Mosaic.
Mosaic's device driver functions make it easy to access the GPS data.
These functions automatically parse the GPS NMEA sentences, extract data fields, and store them in a data structure for your application program.
Using the GPS Wildcard and its precoded software makes it easy to create individual location-aware mobile instruments.
Up to eight mix-and-match Wildcards can be stacked onto Mosaic's controllers for a unique combination of specialised I/O.
Other Wildcards include Ethernet, USB, octal 12bit D/A and 16bit A/D convertors, signal conditioning, a 24bit resolution analogue data-acquisition subsystem, compact Flash card mass memory interface, fast buffered RS232/485 dual UART, high voltage/high current isolated I/O, and AC or DC solid state relays and more.
The GPS Wildcard is available now, priced US $135 in 100s.
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