GPS is a common device which is used in many electronics applications like Vehicle Tracking System, Soldier Tracking System, Traffic Navigation and Surveillance System and many other systems. The main aim of the project is to get accurate times while using GPS Clock. GPS clock is a Universal Clock Which is mostly used [1] at Railways Stations, Bus Stands and Airports. It is widely used for Military purposes too. In this project we are using Arduino pro mini for GPS updated clock. Arduino pro mini is an figure 1 shown below ATmega168 based microcontroller board, which is small in size and can be fitted on bread board easily.

Figure 1: Arduino Based GPS Clock

Arduino TFT shield

Arduino TFT shield can be perfectly mounted on top of an Arduino Uno board. But a major disadvantage is that after mounting the shield on Arduino Uno board, it is difficult to use its GPIO pins for any other application.

The Arduino TFT shield has a microSD card attached that gets connected to its serial peripheral interface (SPI) pins for communication with the microcontroller. This microSD card is not used in this project.

Writing the Arduino code/sketch (GPS_analog_clock.ino) for the project is real fun! You can make TFT display in many different ways through coding. Creating a thick border line, making the hour and minutes hands move smoothly were quite challenging as Adafruit_GFX library is not so much developed. High school trigonometry is all that you need to make it happen for you.

Components used for GPS Clock Build:

Arduino UNO Board

Arduino board is an essential device in this project. As we know that the Arduino board is an opensource device, and the use [2] of this is more flexible and easier. This board belongs to the AVR family microcontroller. Some of the features of this board include the following.

• Digital input/output pin-14
• Inbuilt flash memory-32K
• Crystal oscillator-16MHz
• Analog input pins-6, which can also be used as digital
• USB connection
• RST button & 9V power supply adaptor
• ISCP Header

GPS Receiver

In this model, we had employed SIM808 EVB-V3.2 unit from SIMCOM. SIM808 module is GPS, GSM/GPRS, & Bluetooth module. The main features of SIM808 include the following.

• It can be used as Bluetooth module, GSM or GPS
• Single channel mic interface and single channel voice
• Alternative for Battery interface as well as power interface.

References:

1. https://www.electronicsforu.com/electronics-projects/tft-gps-analogue-clock-using-arduino#:~:text=%20Try%20Making%20This%20TFT-Based%20GPS%20Analogue%20Clock,module%20to%20the%20Arduino%20board.%20Then...%20More%20
2. https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/arduino-gps-clock

Cite this article:

S. Nandhinidwaraka (2021) The Arduino Based GPS Clock, Anatechmaz, pp. 19