Has anyone attempted to use the NRF9160 as a slave Modem + GPS with an external mcu?

[sheldon_b]

I'm interested in using the nrf9160 as a drop in replacement for my current modem and GPS, where a host mcu would use AT commands or something similar. Has anyone attempted to do this? 

[Heidi-Irene Harvey Sollie]

Hi Sheldon!

The nRF9160 SiP is a microcontroller with a modem so using an external mcu might be unnecessary. This is also more efficient than having to power the 91 and an external mcu simultaneously. However, it is possible to communicate with another microcontroller using e.g. an UART interface.

May I ask what you are using this for?

Best regards,

Heidi

[sheldon_b]

We are interested in using the 91 for a very small, energy constrained telemetry device. Our current paradigm for these types of devices is to have a host processor control various peripherals (modem, gps, solar charging, ...etc). In an ideal world, transferring our application from the host processor to the 91 makes sense for minimizing physical size and code bases to maintain, however the learning curve appears significant (Moving to Zephyr, energy optimizing the GPS ttff, etc...). I would much rather start by using the 91 in a similar way as our other modems, such that we can develop products in parallel with becoming familiar with the new part.

I have spent a couple days looking through documentation and examples on the devzone (and other resources). It appears there is a significant deficiency of examples (primarily with respect to intricacies of zephyr and interacting with 91 peripherals) as well as how-tos for setting up new projects (I was able to follow the published how-tos to get Asset Tracker running). This, paired with the lack of explanation/comments in the asset tracker example leads me to think fully porting our application to the 91 will take a significant amount of time (that may or may not lead to a useable product in the end).

In summary, I'm interested in getting as much information as I can on how to build (or find) a program that breaks out the AT command via a UART interface for the modem and GPS to a host microcontroller.  It seems to me that an out of the box example that does this would probably be very useful to the community in general.

[Heidi-Irene Harvey Sollie]

Hi again!

It sounds like you want a thin modem application, which we unfortunately do not have yet.

You can contact your regional sales manager (RSM) to ask if this is something we are going to provide in the future. If you do not have the contact details of your RSM, please send me a direct message with your location and I'll provide you with your RSMs contact details.

Additionally, this blog post is a good tutorial creating an application from scratch, and how to set up a new project in SEGGER Embedded Studio. 

Best regards,

Heidi