GNSS 13 Click Board™

How Does The GNSS 13 Click Board™ Work?

The GNSS 13 Click Board™ is based on the LG77LICMD, a multi-constellation GNSS module with low power consumption from Quectel Wireless Solutions. It supports concurrent reception of up to three GNSS systems - GPS, GLONASS (or BeiDou), and Galileo, and SBAS signals. Compared with single GPS systems, enabling multiple GNSS systems increases the number of visible satellites, reduces the time to a first fix, and improves positioning accuracy, especially in GNSS-hostile environments. By combining EASY™ (Embedded Assist System), an advanced AGNSS feature, with GLP (GNSS Low Power) low power mode, the LG77LICMD achieves high performance, low power consumption, and fully meets industrial standards.

The EASY™ technology allows the LG77LICMD to automatically calculate and predict orbits by using the ephemeris data (of up to 3 days duration) stored in the internal RAM. As a result, the GNSS 13 Click can acquire a fixed position quickly, even at lower signal levels. With the GLP technology, on the other hand, the LG77LICMD can adaptively adjust the ON/OFF time based on the environmental and motion conditions to achieve a balance between positioning accuracy and power consumption.

This Click board™ comes with a configurable host interface that allows communication with MCU using the selected interface. The LG77LICMD can communicate with MCU using the UART interface with commonly used UART RX and TX pins as its default communication protocol operating at 115200bps to transmit and exchange data with the host MCU or using the optional I2C interface. The I2C interface is compatible with the Fast-Mode allowing a maximum bit rate of 400kbit/s. Since the sensor for operation requires a logic voltage level of 1.8V, this Click board™ also features the TLV700, a 1.8V LDO, and NVT2008 voltage-level translator. The UART and I2C bus lines are routed to the voltage-level translators allowing this Click board™ to work with 3.3V MCU properly.

In addition to all these features, this board has a WUP pin for waking up the module from Backup mode, a general reset feature, as well as several unpopulated headers such as 3DF to indicate successful positioning, a JAM pin to indicate whether there is any signal jamming, and ANT header with OK and OFF pins for active antenna status detection purposes. GNSS 13 Click possesses the SMA antenna connector on which an appropriate active antenna connects that MIKROE offers for improved range and received signal strength. Also, in the case of the primary supply failure, the module can use a backup supply voltage from a connected battery if you need the Click board™ to be a standalone device. In addition to precise positioning, the GNSS 13 Click also has an accurate timing signal indicated through a red LED indicator marked as PPS.

The GNSS 13 Click Board™ can only be operated with a 3.3V logic voltage level. The board must perform appropriate logic voltage level conversion before using MCUs with different logic levels. However, the Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing functions and an example code that can be used as a reference for further development.

SPECIFICATIONS

PINOUT DIAGRAM

This table shows how the pinout of the GNSS 13 Click Board™ corresponds to the pinout on the mikroBUS™ socket (the latter shown in the two middle columns).

ONBOARD SETTINGS AND INDICATORS

GNSS 13 CLICK ELECTRICAL SPECIFICATIONS