Does Hikey960 support GPS receiver?

Products Support HiKey 960
#1

Hi,
I am building a Car kit by using android automotive overlay from AOSP master branch.
I want to try if google map can work with a GPS receiver.
So I bought a GPS receiver (BU-353S4) , but I have no idea how to configure it.
I install an app named GPS status to get the status of GPS, and it says GPS is not present in this device.
Can anyone help me?
Thank you.

#2

You need to implement or retrieve a gnss hardware module (libhardware/include/hardware/gps.h) which will be used by the GNSS HAL (hardware/interfaces/gnss/1.0/default) to interface your hardware with upper Android layers. There are several example/implementation you can find on the web (gps-glonass-android-driver, android-serial-gps-driver), I assume your GPS exposes a serial interface.

An other solution is to implement a Mock Location Provider Application, retrieving data from your GPS and injecting the position to the provider.

#3

So I have to implement it myself or porting the example?
Thank you for replying.

#4

Up to you, you can try porting the android-serial-gps-driver which seems pretty simple.

1 Like
#5

Another question is that google map can use wifi to find my location, right?
I have installed google map, and enable the high accuracy mode option in settings, but google map canā€™t find where I am. How should I do to get it to work?

#6

In high accuracy mode maps expects all loaction providers, gps, cellular, gpsā€¦ I think gnss service crash because gps hw module is not present. Did you try with battery saving mode (wifi/cellular only)?

#7

I have tried, the same result.
I have ported the android-serial-gps-driver to the system, how to check if it works correctly?
Maybe I should make clean and make again?

Thank you.

#8

Check the Android makefile:

  • this request to define BOARD_HAS_GPS_HARDWARE := true (in hikey960/BoardConfig.mk)
  • You need to select the module to make it build, module name is defined has
    LOCAL_MODULE := gps.$(TARGET_PRODUCT)
    So you need to add something like PRODUCT_PACKAGES += gps.hikey960 (in hikey960/device-hikey960.mk)
#9

Iā€™ve added simple serial GPS support to my device tree;

It seems to work, but is as bare bones as bare bones gets.

#11

I got this error message:

And I trace the source code of gnss, it was failed to get the hal module

IGnss* HIDL_FETCH_IGnss(const char* /* hal */) {
    hw_module_t* module;
    IGnss* iface = nullptr;
    int err = hw_get_module(GPS_HARDWARE_MODULE_ID, (hw_module_t const**)&module

    if (err == 0) {
        hw_device_t* device;
        err = module->methods->open(module, GPS_HARDWARE_MODULE_ID, &device);
        if (err == 0) {
            iface = new Gnss(reinterpret_cast<gps_device_t*>(device));
        } else {
            ALOGE("gnssDevice open %s failed: %d", GPS_HARDWARE_MODULE_ID, err);
        }
    } else {
      ALOGE("gnss hw_get_module %s failed: %d", GPS_HARDWARE_MODULE_ID, err);
    }
    return iface;
}

But the gps hal is existing,

Anything I did not notice?

#12

Did you check you have this library at runtime under /system/lib64/hw ? with correct access rights ?
You can eventually had some debug into hw_get_module_by_class (hardware/libhardware/hardware.c).

#13

I have only these files under /system/lib64/hw

#14

Did you re-flash system partition ?

#15

Yes, I re-flashed the system partition. Should I execute installer/hikey960/flash-all.sh to re-flash all partition?

#16

I think you should try mounting the system.img locally to check content is correct:

$ simg2img system.img system.raw
$ mkdir mount
$ sudo mount -t ext4 -o loop system.raw ./mount

If not that means you did not build the system image correctly or did not added the gps module to the selected modules.

#17

I have checked it. There are only those 4 .so files under system/lib64/hw .
I did ā€œmake cleanā€ and ā€œmakeā€, so I think I built the system correctly.
I may miss some steps to add the gps module.
I copy source code of the gps module to my device tree.
Edit hikey960/BoardConfig.mk to add ā€œBOARD_HAS_GPS_HARDWARE := trueā€ and edit hikey960/device-hikey960.mk to add:

I also edit ueventd.common.rc to add ā€œ/dev/ttyUSB0 0660 gps systemā€.

What else should I do?

#18

I found the answer.
I have to change this line"LOCAL_MODULE_PATH := $(TARGET_OUT_SHARED_LIBRARIES)/hw" into ā€œLOCAL_MODULE_RELATIVE_PATH := hwā€ in Android.mk of the gps module.

Itā€™s loaded successfully.