Every single location in the entire globe can be specified in terms of geographical coordinates. The geographical coordinate is a system which specifies any given location on the earth surface as latitude and longitude. There are devices which can read the geographical coordinates of a place with the help of the signals received from a number of satellites orbiting the earth. The system of satellites which helps in the positioning of a place is called Global Positioning System (GPS). The devices which can read the geographical coordinates of a place with the help of at least four GPS satellites are called GPS Receiver or simply GPS module.
The GPS module continuously produces a set of data regarding
the position of the earth surface where it is situated which includes the
current position with respect to the equator of the earth in terms of Latitude
and Longitude. This data can be decoded and printed into the readable format with
the help of a microcontroller only. In this project the data regarding the
geographical coordinate is extracted from the GPS output with the help of the
Arduino. The Arduino can be used as a stand-alone board of which the output or
inputs can be taken from the boards or given to the board. They can communicate
using standard communication ports like USART, TWI, SPI etc. which enables them
to be connected with various kinds of devices. The Arduino board is designed
for easy prototyping and the IDE used for coding is very simple and provides so
many libraries for interfacing with common external devices.