GPS Generic NMEA COM Port (Bluetooth, USB etc) Sensor Driver

Question

I 've created the UMDF driver to expose a sensor interface for any NMEA-compatible GPS connected at a serial port (via bluetooth, usb etc). It works fine on my system, currently supporting GGA/RMC/GSA/GSV to return X,Y,Z,Precision Information,Satellite Information, Speed and Bearing.

Perhaps you 'd want to give it a try and tell me what to fix. The driver is available for both x64 and x86. Hopefully you will help me to finalize this and provide a full solution to all Windows 7 Sensor and Location-aware applications. 

To validate com port settings , you might need before installing the driver to connect to the GPS device directly (by using e.g. Turbo GPS or Hyperterminal) and verify that your settings work.

The ISensor ID is {800EE0CB-71EC-40f0-991C-7E76BFABD1AF}, pass this to ISensorManager::GetSensorByID() to get the sensor.

Link.

Best Regards.

Changelog:

• Driver works with Location API.
• Driver reports Satellite data.
• Driver allows selection of the COM port baud speed.
• Turbo GPS Updated to support Sensor API and indirectly, the driver.
• Driver returns NMEA and Fix Type
• Driver supports x86
• Driver supports GGA and RMC

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Michael

Answer 1

Hi Michael,

I would like to test-drive the driver on my Fujitsu U2010 which has NMEA GPS integrated (Kyocera chipset). Can you provide a x86 binary or source code perhaps, so I can help out?

Thanks,
Andre

Answer 2

The x86 driver installed fine. Now going to check whether it works.

Answer 3

I was not able to get a satellite fix. Your app always displays "Invalid signal". Does that mean it can't get a satellite fix? Or does it mean it can't read the NMEA control strings? I am pretty sure I entered the right COM port, double checked with the device manager. Thanks.

Answer 4

Nevermind. It is working now. I tinkered a bit with Hyper Terminal to find the correct baud rate (4800 baud for my GPS), then used your Turbo GPS application to check whether the settings were working there too. I figured that perhaps the sensor driver uses the same backend. The sensor driver now correctly shows the properties.
One more thing though: How does the driver detect the correct baudrate and other settings for the serial port? Does it read settings from Turbo GPS? Or does it detect everything automatically?
Thanks again and great job!

Now I just need to find an application that uses the sensor and location API and is actually useable on my Fujitsu U2010 UMPC. The VE3DNavApp.exe binary uses WPF, which is unuseable performance-wise on my UMPC...

Andre

Answer 5

Update 0.0.6 - Added satellite information values.

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Michael

Answer 6

Update 0.0.8

Now the driver also works with Location API.

Michael.

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Michael

Answer 7

Last update 

 - Driver signed (hey, with my own certificate just for testing yet :)

 - ILocation bug fixed.

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Michael