Radionova M10382
This is a surface mounted low profile intergrated GPS antenna and ublox 6 chip. It is very lightwight coming to approximately 1.1g but is also quite fragile. Currently it can be ordered from Mouser for £21.08 however will be shipped from the US so there will be additional shipping charges. The company that designs these appears to be based in Cambridge UK so it might be possible to find a local distributor.
Due to the small antenna being sensitive to detuning the M10382 does not include its matching network onboard and requires you to build a small external circuit as the components will be different depending on your overal design. On the reverse of the chip are the pads, information is in the datasheet regarding their pinout however they don't all have to be connected. Simple tests have shown that the module will work with only 5 pins connected and the matching network setup.
Working Setup
- Pin 1 and 3 solder a 22pF capacitor to create a null-circuit (no impedence matching) (High pass filter)
- Pin 5 (VIO) connect to 3.3v
- Pin 11 (Tx) Serial out so connect to your serial in
- Pin 13 (Rx) Serial in so conncet to your serial out
- Pin 27 (VCC) 3.3v
- Pin 33 and 34 (GND) to ground
This setup worked outside and got a lock after a few minutes. There are a number of additional pins that could be connected and improving the matching network might increase the lock time.
As the module is based on a uBlox 6 chip the standard commands as described elsewhere on this wiki should work. Remember for high altitude use you'll need to set it up to be in at least the airborne 1g mode.