Tapping into a u-blox M8N GPS TX line with an ESP32-CAM without interfering with Pixhawk telemetry

Hardware Other Hardware
1

I’m working on a drone project where I use a Pixhawk PX4 flight controller with a u-blox M8N GPS module (standard GPS+compass module via UART). I want to also feed the GPS data into an ESP32-CAM module so I can transmit both camera images and GPS coordinates over an HC-12 module.

My idea is to connect the TX pin of the GPS (i.e., GPS output) to an RX pin on the ESP32-CAM, effectively “listening” to the GPS data passively. I do not plan to send any data back to the GPS (i.e., not connecting to the GPS RX pin from the ESP32).

My questions:

  1. Is it safe to tap into the GPS TX line with the ESP32 without interfering with Pixhawk’s GPS communication?
  2. Do I need any special isolation or buffering to prevent signal degradation?
  3. Will this method work reliably in flight without interrupting Pixhawk’s GPS feed?

Thanks!

2

it should be fine, but a better option would be to read it from the mavlink telemetry stream or enable NMEA output from one of the serial ports.

3

Yeah, Thank you, did just that. Now its working using mavlink.