The NMEA GPS Standards
The National Marine Electronics Association is an organization that was formed to produce a wiring and data standard to use as a common denominator between different manufacturers in the United States. This standard is used in consumer GPS devices in order to keep a common protocol in place, simplifying the manufacturing and programming of GPS systems and devices.
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NMEA 0183 Interface Standard
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The NMEA 0183 interface standard is used to define electrical signal requirements, data transmission time and protocol, and specific "data sentence" formats for a 4800-baud serial data bus, each of which may have several receivers but only one sender. Version 4.0 is the most recent revision of the standard.
The Adoption of the NMEA Standard in GPS Devices
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The first two GPS manufacturers of consumer products chose the NMEA 0183 standard so the systems could interface with marine autopilot systems. This decision eventually became the standard among consumer GPS units.
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How the NMEA 0183 Standard Functions
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The standard communicated in "sentences" with the following characteristics: begins with a "$" symbol; following two characters identify the talker; the following three characters identify the type of message; the following data fields are set off by commas; after the data fields, there is an asterisk, but only when there is a two-digit checksum that represents a hexadecimal number; the message ends with "<CR><LF>".
Benefits to GPS Users
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Because of the standardization of the NMEA 0183 standard, GPS systems can send data between themselves, and other devices and software. Therefore, users can take advantage of GPS-enabled navigation programs that integrate with Internet database such as waypoints, geocaching, point of interest and traffic mapping.
NMEA 2000: The Future of NMEA Protocol
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NMEA 2000 is the successor to NMEA 0183, but is not currently in wide use. It has a higher data rate, of about 250 thousand bits per second, as opposed to 4.8 bits per second for NMEA 0183. It also uses a compact binary message format in contrast to NMEA 0183's ASCII serial communications format. It also provides for a multiple talker data network as opposed to NMEA 0183's single talker network.
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References
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