hey ppl, i have a final year project on making a GPS recievr and to send the latitudes and longitudes on a cell phone through SMS...........can anyone suggest as to how i should proceed and what are the things i need to know b4 i start this project and what all other things are needed..............plz let me know.............ne help is invited

 

Sparkfun.com sells modules that will help you with your project, otherwise it's relatively easy to put together, do a little search on google and here in the forums for many people that have done projects like it.

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The way to begin such a project is to draw a block diagram showing how the modules will connect to each other. While you are doing this, you consider where you will be doing your master processing and what the other modules will be responsible for.

Next, you can consider how the information gets from one module to the other. In other words, what is the nature of the electrical interface, and what is the nature of the logical interface. Obviously, to understand this you must study how each of the modules function from the point of view of the user interface. What commands are required from your master processor, and what responses will come back to it when it issues requests?

Creating a system like this is sometimes a circular process. There may not be an obvious beginning and endpoint. Instead, it is often true that the method reveals itself to you as you learn more about the functions and operation of each element. So begin by studying how to get information from a GPS receiver. Also study how to send an SMS message from an external processor. Then determine how to connect these together.

Your project is "modular". I mean that you are not expected to create a GPS receiver from resistors and capacitors, nor must you create a cellphone. Your job is to find the modules and join them together. Modules always have predefined interfaces and it is these that you must study.

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RadioRon

 

Also you need to be able to talk to the cellphone, usually AT command.
Get the latest command set of the net.
Also you need to talk to the gps somehow, some makes have propriety languages, but there are standards as well.
Decide on your module but check what languages it speaks, and research each a bit to see which you can live with.
Then you need to decide what mcu will be able to handle everything you throw at it. If you want to go 1sec update intervals, get something above entry level.
I could tell you more about the languages, but I can't remember for some funny reason, my gps stuff is also archived somewhere off-disk.
ublox is also quite nice, there's trimble, although everyone I know have moved away from it.
Are you going to use a hand-held cellphone, or module? That can determine your mcu as well since you have to connect to it somehow.
Or are you using a PC to talk to everything, then you need a programming tool/dev suite, or whatever you want to call it.
It can be a big project. Sure you want to do it?

 

to send a SMS message thru Hyperterminal requires 3 AT commands to be sent, so that end is pretty easy, of course you have to know how to address the internal modem of the cell phone.