This is a companion topic for our recent blog post on blog.unmanned.tech
So, it turns out that ELRS 4.0 has decided to be a trailblazer—letting receivers directly digest GPS signals without the need for a flight controller. That’s right, you can now have your RC cars, boats, and even servo-driven planes reporting their whereabouts sans all that extra gear that just complicates things. Simply plug in a GPS to an ExpressLRS receiver, and voilà, you’re sending telemetry straight back to your radio like a pro.
Now, before you pop the champagne, remember that both your receiver and transmitter need to be on ELRS 4.0 or newer. If you’re still languishing in the 3.x era, I’m afraid there’s no magic upgrade fairy that’ll change that. You’ll also need to consider which type of receiver makes sense—PWM receivers are your best bet, but be ready to sacrifice one output for the GPS signal because, let’s face it, we can’t have everything, can we?
And don’t get too cocky; configuring this setup isn’t exactly a walk in the park. The GPS needs to be set up to use NMEA output at 115200 baud, preferably with some wizardry from u-center and an FTDI adapter. Because, naturally, setting this up should involve as much tinkering as possible.
Finally, once you’ve wrangled the telemetry into EdgeTX, you’ve got options galore: display on your radio, generate a QR code for easy map access, or even live track using ATAK. Though I must warn you about SquirrelCast—it sounds delightful but may require a small act of divine intervention to function properly.
For more illuminating details, check out the full blog post here.
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