Motorola’s Mini GPS Unit

The tiny FS Oncore module from Motorola consumes just 70mW whilst providing one position fix per second, and is designed to operate even with weak GPS signals.

To make the chip simpler, and therefore easier and cheaper to produce, the firmware is stored on the host device and retrieved when the chip is powered up.

Applications could include PDAs and maps that show real time navigation, position “stamping” in digital cameras, theft recovery, and mobile phones that can locate their position and find contacts and services nearby. The size of the unit means that it manufacturing companies will be able to use it in inventory tracking applications, and the low cost will help in making GPS units in cars more affordable.

FS Oncore User Manual

Synergy GPS

Published by

Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people. Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon. At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC. After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video. These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?