Today i was wondering if it’s possible to developing a low cost GPS tracking device. After playing around with the basic stamp, I found a GPS module that outputs the standard world coordinates in NMEA0183. For more details read the wikipedia page.
The GPS module can send coordinates of your current position by means for an SMS module to another mobile phone which can be attached to the PC. The easiest way then is to store the data in an XML type of file.
Now so far the theory…
When we build some kind of device later on we want to use the data and track our position, right? So to see of this is possible we did a small test and some research. Because we didn’t find a fast and simple solution we decide to post this idea!
We like to use the free version of Google Earth so we came up to the next solution:
Google position data is basically stored in a KML file, which resembles an XML file in many ways. Normally a real-time GPS tracking option is only available in the pro version of Google Earth..
After some research we found a work around to let it also work on the free version.
We need to setup two files:
- myGps.kml
- gpsObject.kml
myGps.kml
<NetworkLink>
<name>GPS signal</name>
<flyToView>1</flyToView>
<Link>
<href>gpsObject.kml</href>
<refreshMode>onInterval</refreshMode>
<refreshInterval>10</refreshInterval>
<viewRefreshMode>onStop</viewRefreshMode>
<viewRefreshTime>7</viewRefreshTime>
</Link>
</NetworkLink>
Off course you can add the files on a web server.
gpsObject.kml
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<kml xmlns=”http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2″>
<Placemark>
<name>My gps object</name>
<description>My gps module information</description>
<Point>
<coordinates>-90.86948943473118,48.25450093195546,0</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>
</kml>
Next we need to setup the file in Google earth!
Open Google earth, go to the menu tab: ADD -> Network link
Then add the file myGps.kml
Now change the values of the coordinates. And save the file again.
Google refreshes and goes to the new coordinates.
Now we just need to make a device that can add the coordinates! 
June 21st, 2009
3 Comments at "Real-time GPS tracking through a simple txt file."
[...] The visual basic program must therefor send a request sms and read incoming sms, then the sms data must be saved in a xml or kml file. See also our earlier article: real-time-gps-tracking-through-a-simple-txt-file [...]
For those interested in doing a similar GPS application in C++ from scratch or more generally an application capable of interacting with Google Earth using KML data and the “network link” feature for periodically update something in Google Earth, you can find free C++ source code and a binary for windows at http://www.robprom.com
Nice article, but i need to interface Google earth to Visual Basic.
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