A short while back, [Chris Anderson] released an Arduino based autopilot. It rings in fairly cheap and being open source, you can tweak away. To add more functionality, he's releasing a dual core version. Thanks to the second processor, it no longer requires an external hardware co-pilot. It uses an on-board GPS and features an ATtiny based fail safe. It's still under development, but he's made the design files available.
ladyada continues to produce more and more interesting Arduino shields. This new GPS logger plugs into a standard Arduino board and has support for four different GPS receiver modules. On the backside of the board is an SD card slot where it stores the coordinates in a text file. The total runtime can vary from five hours to twenty depending on how you choose to power the device and how you use the device. How often you read the device and whether you maintain the GPS lock will affect the power consumption. Like all of ladyada's projects, you'll find a great construction guide and example code on her site.
This is a nice, compact gps logger that's built around a PIC16F872 and some eeprom chips. It was designed for a particular GPS receiver, but should be easily adaptable to others since the unit ouputs standard sentences at 4800 baud. Full schematics and board layout are available on the project page.
Here's a quick hack to satiate our appetite for location aware applications. The Dash Express is a GPS unit with cellular and WiFi radios so it can do two way communication. Out of the box it can download maps and traffic on the fly. A little while ago they opened up the API so the device could receive info from other web services and owners could give feedback, like reporting speed traps live. The handy hack embedded above publishes your location to Twitter; we would have preferred it hit an actual location service like Brightkite. This just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to possible applications. We wonder what the adoption rate of the Dash Express will be, since the iPhone also has a touchscreen, GPS, and of course a cellular connection.
We've got a Dash Express in the lab and it's based on the OpenMoko design. What sort of tomfoolery would you like to see us do with it? What do you think the killer app for the Dash Express will be?
With the iPhone finally getting legitimate GPS we're bound to see more widespread use of location based apps. Services like Dodgeball, Brightkite, and a few Twitter clients have been around, but failed to tightly integrate with the hosting phone. Now we're seeing applications that reach beyond just "finding your friends". [Merlin Mann] directed us to the version of OmniFocus for the iPhone. OmniFocus is a task management system that's now location aware thanks to the iPhone. This means it knows to show you your grocery list while you're at the store and work tasks while you're at work. Passive interaction could really make similar systems a lot more enjoyable to use.
We think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine alternate reality gaming that gives you a virtual map while you navigate the real world. Geocaching, road rallies, and scavenger hunts could have a running narrative displayed as you progressed. Using technologies like GeoRSS will let us pull data back into the real world making that rare trip outside a lot less painful.
TomToms have been getting pretty cheap. We like 'em because they're nice and hackable. This diy docking station was made from some etched PCBs, a bunch of male pin headers and a bit of hot glue.
UPDATE: The text: "This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time" has been added to the bottom of the page since the original posting.
Artist [Erik Nordenankar] has created the Biggest Drawing In The World. At least that's what his URL says. He used the movement of a GPS device to create a giant single line self portrait on the globe. His Pelican case containing four large batteries and the GPS data logger was handed off DHL with very specific travel instructions for its 55 day journey. It's a pretty amazing feat, but we really wish the case had managed to make the trip without the close watch shown in the video.
[Gabriel] put together an impressive writeup of his autonomous catamaran, Atlantis(PDF). It was certainly done as an academic project, but there's a thorough explanation of the math logic behind the control systems. The heart of the boat was a waterproofed Pentium laptop with a CAN bus parallel interface used to talk to everything on-board. Sensors included GPS, wind, hull speed and rudder angle. In case the site can't handle the load, I've mirrored the 1.4MB PDF here.
Since water blocks the radio frequency used for GPS triangulation, GPS is considered pretty useless for SCUBA divers. Apparenlty some of them are finding it useful to waterproof off the shelf units for tracking the beginning and end of dives. (Dives in open water often involve currents that can really move you along.) To avoid any wiring, a floating case is used. When the diver wants to grab a waypoint, he/she lets the gps surface for a short while to acquire a fix. Then the diver can pull it back down and mark the waypoint or record the coordinates.
It's been a while since we talked about putting a GPS on top of a D200. [Rick] sent in his latest version. He used a nice 20 channel sirf III gps from spark-fun, a cheap D200 remote cable and a few parts to send the NMEA sentences down the wire. The biggest improvements include taking the $100 Nikon cable out of the mix and swiping power from the camera for the GPS board. All the info is there, but I had to seriously stare at his wiring instructions for a while despite the low parts count. I like to see actual circuit diagrams!
[dgoeken] sent in his Magellan 3100 hack. The device runs Windows CE 5.0, and mounts as a standard flash drive. Since everything is easily accessible, it's just a matter of replacing and modifying the appropriate files. According to the GpsPassion message board, some are finding his guide useful for other models of Magellan GPS. So far he's added a file manager, media player and upgraded the Points of Interest file. The site is slightly bandwidth challenged, so I've mirrored his hack process here.
[superlopez] sent in this detailed article (mirrored here and here) which describes how to build a GPS and GLONASS (the Russian version of GPS) receiver. The resulting device is gigantic compared to one of those tiny bluetooth USB GPS units, but the ability to build one's own receiver is one of those post-apocalyptic skills I sure would like to have. The creator of the article [Matjaz Vidmar] aka [S53MV] also has pages on Packet-Radio (PKT) transceiver improvements (PKT gets my vote for the best post-apocalyptic technology, and the only believable technology featured in the Transformers movie), and a more sophisticated homemade frequency counter than the one featured earlier this summer.
In 2005 we featured a from-scratch GPS receiver as well, thought the project site seems to be down. If your GPS unit just needs a better antenna, check out [Will]'s how-to from last year.
[leatix] sent in this one after seeing the weather balloon logger the other day. In this case, it's built around a Mega8, stores the log on a MMC/SD card and runs on a LiIon battery. Translating it was a bit problematic for me, but give it a shot if you feel lucky.
[Stefan] sent in this data logger that was built for a weather balloon project. It's a very clean design that logs to a 64KB eeprom, can transmit its location via SMS through a cell phone and trigger a camera based on position if needed. The site has a tarball will full schematics and source - mod away.
[Nick] caught [Alex]s GPS enabled AVR, so he sent in his project using the same Telit GM862 module. Rather than depend on an external AVR, he wanted to use the on-board python interpreter. Apparently, documentation is a bit sparse, so he put together a good write-up on developing python for the device. Since the GPS unit takes up the com port previously used for debugging info, he added a hardware python debugging board to speed development.
[leatix] sent in 
