Published December 23, 2018

Capturing & Visualizing GPS Data Using ESP8266 & Ubidots

Collect location context with ease along with sensor data from your various sensor nodes.

IntermediateProtip3,488

Capturing & Visualizing GPS Data Using ESP8266 & Ubidots

Things used in this project

Hardware components

NodeMCU ESP8266 Breakout Board

You could use any variant of ESP8266 boards

NEO-6M GPS module

Tested ESP8266 with NEO-6M GPS module

Jumper wires (generic)

Breadboard (generic)

Optional

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Story

I live in South Asia where you will find serious cases of smog (smoke and other air pollutants combined with fog) in the winter months following November. I also have to move around quite a lot in the city as part of my job, which means inhaling quite a lot of pollutants. I wanted to know the levels of air pollution there is across various regions in the city. For that purpose we could always employ MQ sensor series and others such as BME680 (for VOC gases) interfaced with ESP8266, but for my particular problem I also need coordinates to better analyze the data, such as air quality around my home, in office and while traveling around various rural and urbar areas. That's where I came along Ubidots which makes this quite a breeze. I can now simply add coordinates data along with my sensor values and Ubidots will simply pick it up and visualize it for you if you want. You can also have a history check in your map if you want to track your device whereabouts as in my case

Wiring

RX => D1

TX => D2

GND => GND

VCC => 3V3

Procedure

Wire up the GPS module as shown in schematic below.
Install the Ubidots library for ESP8266
Create an account at Ubidots. In the dashboard, choose the dropdown from the top-right dropdown and you will find your API credentials. Copy the token from there and replace it in the code provided below, along with your wifi ssid and password.
After running the code, open up the serial monitor. After successfully connecting to Ubidots you will find "OK" being printed every time data is sent successfully.Note: GPS module may take some time to start returning data
Now returning to your dashboard go to "Devices" and you can see new device (probably with the name ESP8266) now registered besides "Demo". After opening it you will find "Mode" set to "Auto" by default. Change it to your variable name (which in our case is Dummy Sensor) and you will see coordinates automatically picked up by the Ubidots itself.

From the dashboard, add a map widget by clicking on the plus sign, select your device (optionally checking "history") and that's it, you are done

Code

Untitled file

#include "UbidotsMicroESP8266.h"
#include <TinyGPS++.h>
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

#define TOKEN  "Your_token_here"  // Put here your Ubidots TOKEN
#define WIFISSID "Your_WiFi_SSID" // Put here your Wi-Fi SSID
#define PASSWORD "Your_WiFi_Password" // Put here your Wi-Fi password

Ubidots client(TOKEN);

static const int RXPin = D1, TXPin = D2;
static const uint32_t GPSBaud = 9600; // Change according to your device

// The TinyGPS++ object
TinyGPSPlus gps;

// The serial connection to the GPS device
SoftwareSerial ss(RXPin, TXPin);

double _lat, _lng;
int dummySensorValue = 22;
char context[25];

unsigned long previousMillis = 0;     // last time data was send
const long interval = 5000;           // data transfer interval 

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(115200);
  ss.begin(GPSBaud);
  
  client.wifiConnection(WIFISSID, PASSWORD);
}

void loop()
{ 
  while (ss.available() > 0) {
    if (gps.encode(ss.read())) {
      unsigned long currentMillis = millis();
  
      if (currentMillis - previousMillis >= interval) {
        previousMillis = currentMillis;
        
        if (gps.location.isValid())
        {
          _lat = gps.location.lat();
          _lng = gps.location.lng();
          sprintf(context, "lat=%.2f$lng=%.2f", _lat, _lng);
  
          client.add("Dummy Sensor", dummySensorValue, context);
          client.sendAll(true);
          
          Serial.print(F("Location: ")); 
          Serial.print(_lat);
          Serial.print(F(","));
          Serial.print(_lng);
        }
        else
        {
          Serial.print(F("INVALID"));
        }
        
        Serial.println();
      }
    }
  }

  if (millis() > 5000 && gps.charsProcessed() < 10)
  {
    Serial.println(F("No GPS detected: check wiring."));
    while(true);
  }
}

Credits

Ahsan Masood

1 project • 2 followers

Capturing & Visualizing GPS Data Using ESP8266 & Ubidots

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Wiring

Procedure

Schematics

neo6m-1024x542_qBrPbbTcJJ.jpg

Code

Untitled file

Credits

Ahsan Masood

Comments

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Capturing & Visualizing GPS Data Using ESP8266 & Ubidots

Capturing & Visualizing GPS Data Using ESP8266 & Ubidots

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Wiring

Procedure

Schematics

neo6m-1024x542_qBrPbbTcJJ.jpg

Code

Untitled file

Credits

Ahsan Masood

Comments

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