We have released a new product ; OzzMaker SARA-R5 LTE-M GPS + 10DOF
This is an all in one module which can provide location tracking and LTE-M services such as data, text and SMS to your project. It comes in the same form factor as a Raspberry Pi Zero, which makes it nice and compact when used with a Raspberry Pi Zero.
It is a feature packed board, which includes the following components;
- LTE-M cellular modem
- GPS receiver (including assisted GPS)
- Accelerometer
- Gyroscope
- Magnetometer (Compass)
- Barometric/pressure sensor (altitude)
- Temperature sensor
This board includes a SARA-R510M8S module from uBlox, this module can be used for LTE-M connectivity and includes an integrated GPS receiver. Using both these features together results in obtaining a GPS fix in seconds, using Assisted GPS.
The below video shows a comparison between assisted and normal GPS.
- Asisted GPS takes 19secs to get a fix
- Normal GPS takes 8min 22Sec to get a fix
Typically, a GPS module can take a few minutes to get Time To First Fix(TTFF), or even longer if you are in built up areas. This is because the Almanac needs to be downloaded from satellites before a GPS fix can be acquired and only a small portion of the Almanac is sent in each GPS update.
Assisted GPS speeds this up significantly by downloading ephemeris, almanac, accurate time and satellite status over the network, resulting in faster TTTF, in a few seconds. This is very similar how to GPS works on a smartphone.