NRF9160 GPS 1Hz + LTE-M (10ko/s)

[pierreFluidy]

Hello Nordic team, 

First of all, thanks for the richness of this community and for your product. We already have some quite large batch (more than 50k devices) of product equiped with NRF52/NRF51 for automotive purposes, we were pretty happy with it (a bit less with NRF51 of course).

Now, let's move forward, I have one simple question :

* Is it possible to do 1Hz GPS positionning + LTE-M (<10ko/s)  at the same time with the nRF9160-SICA-B1A SiP ? (reliable position streaming without hanging/crash/reset)

I obviously read a lot of post, describing some reliability issues (system crash) or limitations (PSM/eDRX configuration) but I can't manage to get this simple answer without digging by myself with evaluation board and some code.

Thanks a lot for your future answer,

[Øyvind]

Hello, 

First of all, thanks for the richness of this community and for your product. We already have some quite large batch (more than 50k devices) of product equiped with NRF52/NRF51 for automotive purposes, we were pretty happy with it (a bit less with NRF51 of course).

We're happy to hear that you are pleased with the community

Is it possible to do 1Hz GPS positionning + LTE-M (<10ko/s)  at the same time with the nRF9160-SICA-B1A SiP ? (reliable position streaming without hanging/crash/reset)

The first thing to point out is that operation is time multiplexed with LTE modem, and it is possible to use the GPS and QZSS receiver to obtain position either while the LTE is in RRC Idle mode or power saving mode (PSM), or when the LTE modem is completely deactivated.

Using the GNSS in continuous mode should allow for 1Hz, i.e. produces PVT estimates at 1 Hz rate. However, it will not be able to do live streaming due to switching between LTE and GNSS. 

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[pierreFluidy]

Hello,

Thanks a lot for this fast reply. 

That's what I thought. I think that in our case, we need to add external GPS to the solution (and use NRF9160 only for communication) or to do GPS datas bulk send (maybe every 10 seconds or minutes) if this solution could be acceptable for the datascientist team. 

That's a lot of time saving, thanks !

Best regards,

[Øyvind]

pierreFluidy said:

do GPS datas bulk send (maybe every 10 seconds or minutes)

Yes, that is the solution we recommend most of our customers to save BoM. If not acceptable then an external GPS would be needed.

Kind regards,
Øyvind