Could a PIC handle interfacing via rs232 with a GPS unit, and comparing the location against a list of ~5000 stored positions, and alerting (LED/LCD) if any points are considered close enough (~1-2km, using haversine formula, perhaps)?
I guess the points would have to be stored on a CF/MMC card. They would be updated/changed time to time...
I think even a smallish PIC could handle this. If you needed to go really inexpensive, you could use a part without a USART and emulate it yourself.; For memory you could go with an 8-pin serial FLASH part and skip the overhead of CF/MMC; unless of course the storage had to be removable.
Noel
I'd really be interested in that. Doesn't that mean comparing the distance from a specified point on earth to one of 5000 different positions? According to a quick google search, which reveals this article:
Regards, j.
yes, thats for an accurate distance calculation. pythagoras can be used to get a rough idea.
If all you need to do is decide if any of the 5000 points are close enough to where you are now, you can reduce the number of points drastically by using a much simpler metric:
(abs(x-x0) + abs(y-y0)) * cosine(y0)
Use a rough table-driven approximation for cosine(y0). This is very easy to calculate, and gives the right angle distance instead of the great circle distance. Use a threshold that is 1.414 times larger than you really want. Chances are there will only be one point that qualifies. Once you have determined which point that is, then you can use a slower calculation to get the great circle distance to see if that one point is really close enough to alarm about. If the threshold is reasonably small, the great circle distance is adequately approximated by the Eucidean distance times the cosine of the lattitude.
-Robert Scott Ypsilanti, Michigan (Reply through this forum, not by direct e-mail to me, as automatic reply address is fake.)
Thank you for your answer, Robert. That's what I was curious about. I'll read through it some times and try to really understand it. Thanks! Regards, johannes
There are some calculations but they're not that bad. You simply need the magnitude of the distance, not the actual distance. You simply square the differences between the longitude and latitude of each pair of points you are comparing. There is no need for a square-root. I do this on another project; only about 2000-3000 items in my lists. You can also do some optimizations by simply comparing the sum of differences in longitude and latitude. It's not perfect but it will get you in the ball park quickly. Then you can use magnitude to select the best from the presorted set. You may also be able to store the data in FLASH in an optimized way; perhaps twice, one ordered by longitude, spiraling by latitude and once the opposite way.
What kind of response time is necessary? How close are the points? Miles? Feet?
Noel
I would be hard pressed to believe that a PIC can do this.
The largest/fastest PIC can do floating point math in seconds.
5000 * 2 floating point calculations (lat/long) would require 10s on thousands of seconds. ( 10,000 seconds / 3600/hr = 2.77 hours )Let alone storage and retrieval of 5000 pairs (lat/long) numbers.
Searching an external flash memory device would take a long time as well.
There are many other low cost solutions that can better handle this problem. If your are cheap and this in not on a schedule, sure have fun.
But, when do you want to see this done ? Not within a single semester !!
hamilton
Seconds to do a floating point calculation? Wrong.
The stored positions, and all required math, could be scaled to make the math much simpler.
Based on the only requirements stated by the original poster, the goal seems very achievable. However, I would 1) consider a simpler storage scheme for the stored positions (serial flash or even serial EEPROM sounds good) and 2) maybe consider a processor with a hardware multiplier, like the excellent TI MSP430 16-bit parts.
It will be reduced to a few simple integer comparisons assuming a rectangular "window" is OK and the corners of the windows were stored in the lookup table. Pre-index the table for added efficiency.
What's this thing supposed to do: ring a bell if you are close to a Krispy Kreme Doughnut Shoppe?
I imagine 16 bit precision for locations would be good enough?
25,000 miles / 65,000 ~= 0.4 mile / 0.6 Km at the equator. Memory would be 4bytes x 5000 = 20Kbytes.You would have to rig a serial EEROM to the PIC. PICs don't have, and can't natively access, gobs of memory (for a PIC 20K of anything is a very large gob).
As to the math: If the 'close enough (1-2km)' means 'somewhere in a square centered on' then the thing devolves into a look-up table. I suppose doing 'somewhere in an octagon' wouldn't be much of a stretch. To do true distance you would need to do square roots; great circle calcs shouldn't be needed, just treat local space as a flat grid.
The question is: why use a PIC for this? I can't imagine a worse choice of microprocessor for this job.
An 8051 class processor is a dollar or so more than a PIC. You may even be able to cram the location table into the device (I am assuming the locations are fixed - if not then its back to Esquare). Fast, accurate IEEE floating point packages are available for 8051's. It's even got a UART.
IMHO you could spend a month or more getting this to work on a PIC Vs maybe a week on an 8051? And then if you have to go back and maintain convoluted PIC code --- ooooh boy.
I would look at the trade off between development cost, program risk (after two months of 'research': surprise, surprise, it _can't_ be done in a PIC), life-cycle costs and increased time-to-market against a higher product cost in using a "civilized man's" uP.
If this is a one-of hobby project get a nice micro with a good HLL compiler and a JTAG debugger.
The charm of using a PIC is the perverse satisfaction of getting something useful out of what is arguably the world's worst processor.
I do design products using PICs ... And curse every time I do.
-- Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics. Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/
The great circle calculations will pretty surely produce a much more inaccurate solution as the simple Pythagoras shown above.
The reason is that the great circle distance is calculated so that the cosine of the distance as seen from the center of the Earth is obtained. For distances less than 1/1000 of the Earth's radius, the cosine differs less than 1/1000000 from 1.0. The round-off errors will be huge, even with double precision IEEE floats.
-- Tauno Voipio tauno voipio (at) iki fi
No way...
Al
or rather
abs(y-y0) + abs(x-x0) * cosine(y0)
The latitude distance is practically constant (about 110 km/degree) at all latitudes, but the longitude distance measured in kilometers (or equatorial longitudes) is reduced, when going towards the poles.
Since the position report is usually received in some degree.fraction or degree/minute/sec format, it might be a good idea to store the points grouped by latitude and with some index structure, retrieve only those points within +/-degree of the integer part of the current latitude. This will reduce the flash access. The latitude calculation can now be done at 14-16 bits with one second resolution and any points too far North and South can be discarded.
If you use an index for each degree of latitude, there is no need to store the degree part for latitude for the actual data points. You could also store cosine(y) for each full degree in the index structure, so you only need to store those cosine(y) values actually needed and no approximation would be required.
For latitudes above 85 degrees, some approximation might still be useful, if the device is supposed to work in polar regions. Paul
More likely it is intended to alert a driver when approaching an automatic speed camera.
-- Göran Larsson http://www.mitt-eget.com/
"Goran Larsson" wrote
They publish the locations?
In Germany they do seem to stay in the same position for an awfully long time.
-- Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics. Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/
Some legislations do, indeed. Typically not by way of GPS coordinates, but that's easily fixed by a dedicated service provider.
That's because these things have to be vandal-proofed to an extent that does makes them quite hard to move. Most of the time there's no camera in them, though. I.e. they move the camera, but not the box.
-- Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de) Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
Theres thousands of fixed ones - thick metal concreted into ground, not moveable. Then theres many mobile ones - in vans or handheld (hiding behind bushes near speed limit change signs, etc), carriageway bridges.
They publish the locations by listing road name, although theres some public GPS lists.
What is the distribution of the stored positions?
it's possible that the points can be sorted according to regions, then the only calculations would be: In which region is the test point? Are any points in this or immediately adjacent regions close enough?
Rufus
ROTFLMAO!
But don't underestimate the satisfaction!
Rufus
(I envision that quote on a t-shirt)
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