Can AT decode NMEA Data Streams for Vehicle Location?

[cambull (Stewart Campbell)]

Is it possible to have AT read generic NEMA packets, like what are sent out of typical GPS units, rather than Mavlink protocol? There are many location systems that send out these sort of streams and they could be relatively easily decoded by AT. As an example I have a rocket telemetry system that provides location telemetry and this could be easily fed into the AT, if it were capable of decoding the stream.

[cambull (Stewart Campbell)]

Bump. Would it be possible to use the NMEA sentences (probably $GPGGA) to direct the antenna tracker to the vehicle? Currently only Mavlink and Mavlink2 are supported I think. I have a vehicle that only sends NMEA due to downlink reliability and low data rate, and no uplink data stream.

If the developers could see to making this a possibility it would be great. I am not the only person with this request. Sometimes we want the antenna tracker to track non-ardupilot vehicles. I suspect it is not terribly difficult to implement to somebody in the Firmware area.

[geofrancis (GeoMuir)]

There are other antenna trackers out there

A list of all other devices compatible with ardupilot

I have been looking for any and all hardware compatible with ardupilot, and there is a lot but most of it has fell into obscurity simply due to a lack of documentation other than a few forum posts so unless you really know what your looking for and the forum site is still around your probably not going to find it. Just last week I found there was a whole series of really cheap RTK receivers that had been tested and documented on a forum post on diy drones and a youtube video but there is no men…

[cambull (Stewart Campbell)]

Thanks for putting a great list together. I am aware of other trackers, particularly the u360-gts. I have already built the tracker using a Matek F765-WSE.

It would be good if the Ardupilot tracker could accept telemetry other than Mavlink. It can output LTM and NMEA for use in other systems, but it seems that input for tracking on the AT is only via Mavlink. My existing system is low data rate and downlink only, so either NMEA or LTM reception into the tracker would be the optimum method to get the vehicle location across.

Alternatively, does anyone know if there is an NMEA to Mavlink or LTM to Mavlink converter available? That would get me where I need to go as well.

[geofrancis (GeoMuir)]

that can be done

GitHub - vierfuffzig/LTM2MAVLink

[cambull (Stewart Campbell)]

Thanks for that link. Looks like something I can work with. I have a spare arduino Nano on my desk currently. I might even tweak it to receive NMEA instead as that is what the vehicle currently transmits.

It would be nicer if the data could just go into Ardupilot directly, without having to build a converter, I have considered LUA scripting, but because the AT is not getting much support I don’t think the hooks are in there for LUA to write the position into the controller.