UC4H GPS Carrier Board: The cheapest complete UAVCAN GPS-MAG-BARO-LED
30. Jan. 2019
The UC4H GPS-Magnetometer-Barometer firmware since a while allows building a function-wise quite complete UAVCAN GPS module, with integrated magnetometer, barometer, as well as ArduPilot status indication lights. However, so far this required lumping together the various modules, which is very DIY and cheap, and works great, but is not very „professional“ looking. So, a dedicated PCB was required, pretty much like the UC4H PowerBrick and the UC4H ESC Carrier boards, and here it comes, the UC4H GPS Carrier board.
It has a diameter of 75 mm and its slots allow to carry most GPS modules, ranging from 35×35 mm to 50×50 mm. The top plane has as few wires as I could manage, and should well work as a ground plane to shield the GPS from the flight electronics below. It of course also has a magnetometer (QMC5883L) and barometer (BMP280) on board, as well as locations for WS2812 indicator LEDs. It uses a STM32F103CB instead of the STM32F103T8 I’m using so often, since it’s cheaper and easier to source and space was available. It of course follows the UC4H 2nd generation design, and should thus be very robust electrical-wise.
I do not have 3D printer capabilities, but I could imagine nice cases build this way, making this a really nice UAVCAN GPS node.