Cellular: Location

The Location sample demonstrates how you can retrieve the location of a device using GNSS, cellular or Wi-Fi® positioning method. This sample uses the Location library.

Requirements 

The sample supports the following development kits:

Hardware platforms	PCA	Board name	Board target	Shields
Thingy:91 X	PCA20065	thingy91x	`thingy91x/nrf9151/ns`
Thingy:91	PCA20035	thingy91	`thingy91/nrf9160/ns`
nRF9161 DK	PCA10153	nrf9161dk	`nrf9161dk/nrf9161/ns`	`nrf7002ek_nrf7000`
nRF9160 DK	PCA10090	nrf9160dk	`nrf9160dk/nrf9160/ns`	`nrf7002ek_nrf7000`
nRF9151 DK	PCA10171	nrf9151dk	`nrf9151dk/nrf9151/ns`	`nrf7002ek_nrf7000`

For more security, it is recommended to use the */ns variant of the board target. When built for this variant, the sample is configured to compile and run as a non-secure application using security by separation. Therefore, it automatically includes Trusted Firmware-M that prepares the required peripherals and secure services to be available for the application.

The sample requires an nRF Cloud account. Your device must be onboarded to nRF Cloud. If it is not, follow the instructions in Device on-boarding.

See also the requirements in Location library document.

Overview 

The Location sample retrieves the location multiple times to illustrate the different ways of retrieving the location of a device. Each individual location request has been implemented in a separate function within the sample. In addition to the Location library, this sample uses LTE link control to control the LTE connection.

Configuration 

See Configuring and building for information about how to permanently or temporarily change the configuration.

Setup 

You must onboard your device to nRF Cloud for this sample to function. You only need to do this once for each device. To onboard your device, install nRF Cloud Utils and follow the instructions in the README.

Additional configuration 

Refer to the Location library document for configuring the location retrieval behavior, including supported location methods and services.

If you use an external GNSS antenna, add the following configuration:

CONFIG_MODEM_ANTENNA_GNSS_EXTERNAL - Selects an external GNSS antenna.

Configuration files 

The sample provides predefined configuration files for typical use cases. The configuration files are in the samples/cellular/location directory.

The following files are available:

overlay-nrf700x-wifi-scan-only.conf - Config overlay for nRF7002 Wi-Fi chip support.
overlay-pgps.conf - Config overlay for P-GPS support.

Sending traces over UART on an nRF91 Series DK 

To send modem traces over UART on an nRF91 Series DK, configuration must be added for the UART device in the devicetree and Kconfig. This is done by adding the modem trace UART snippet when building and programming.

Use the Cellular Monitor app for capturing and analyzing modem traces.

TF-M logging must use the same UART as the application. For more details, see shared TF-M logging.

Building and running 

This sample can be found under samples/cellular/location in the nRF Connect SDK folder structure.

For more security, it is recommended to use the */ns variant of the board target (see the Requirements section above.) When built for this variant, the sample is configured to compile and run as a non-secure application using security by separation. Therefore, it automatically includes Trusted Firmware-M that prepares the required peripherals and secure services to be available for the application.

To build the sample, follow the instructions in Building an application for your preferred building environment. See also Programming an application for programming steps and Testing and optimization for general information about testing and debugging in the nRF Connect SDK.

Note

When building repository applications in the SDK repositories, building with sysbuild is enabled by default. If you work with out-of-tree freestanding applications, you need to manually pass the --sysbuild parameter to every build command or configure west to always use it.

nRF91 Series DK with nRF7002 EK Wi-Fi support 

To build the sample with nRF91 Series DK and nRF7002 EK Wi-Fi support, use the -DSHIELD=nrf7002ek, -DEXTRA_CONF_FILE=overlay-nrf700x-wifi-scan-only.conf, -DSB_CONFIG_WIFI_NRF70=y, and -DSB_CONFIG_WIFI_NRF70_SCAN_ONLY=y options. For example:

west build -p -b board_target -- -DSHIELD=nrf7002ek -DEXTRA_CONF_FILE=overlay-nrf700x-wifi-scan-only.conf -DSB_CONFIG_WIFI_NRF70=y -DSB_CONFIG_WIFI_NRF70_SCAN_ONLY=y

Replace the board_target with the board target of the nRF91 Series device you are using (see the Requirements section).

See Providing CMake options for more instructions on how to add these options.

Note

The Thingy:91 X build supports Wi-Fi by default. You need not add any overlays.

P-GPS support 

To build the Location sample with P-GPS support, use the following commands:

west build -p -b board_target -- -DEXTRA_CONF_FILE=overlay-pgps.conf

Replace the board_target with the board target of the nRF91 Series device you are using (see the Requirements section).

See Providing CMake options for more instructions on how to add this option.

Testing 

After programming the sample to your development kit, complete the following steps to test it:

Connect the kit to the computer using a USB cable. The kit is assigned a serial port. Serial ports are referred to as COM ports on Windows, /dev/ttyACM devices on Linux, and /dev/tty devices on macOS. To list Nordic Semiconductor devices connected to your computer together with their serial ports, open a terminal and run the nrfutil device list command. Alternatively, check your operating system’s device manager or its equivalent.
Connect to the kit with a terminal emulator (for example, the Serial Terminal app). See Testing and optimization for the required settings and steps.
Observe that the sample prints to the terminal.

Sample output 

An example output of the sample:

Location sample started

Connecting to LTE...
Connected to LTE

Requesting location with short GNSS timeout to trigger fallback to cellular...
[00:00:06.481,262] <wrn> location: Timeout occurred
[00:00:06.487,335] <wrn> location: Failed to acquire location using 'GNSS', trying with 'Cellular' next
Got location:
method: cellular
latitude: 12.887095
longitude: 55.580397
accuracy: 1250.0 m
Google maps URL: https://maps.google.com/?q=12.887095,55.580397

Requesting location with the default configuration...
Got location:
method: GNSS
latitude: 12.893736
longitude: 55.575859
accuracy: 4.4 m
date: 2021-10-28
time: 13:36:29.072 UTC
Google maps URL: https://maps.google.com/?q=12.893736,55.575859

Requesting location with high GNSS accuracy...
Got location:
method: GNSS
latitude: 12.893755
longitude: 55.575879
accuracy: 2.8 m
date: 2021-10-28
time: 13:36:32.339 UTC
Google maps URL: https://maps.google.com/?q=12.893755,55.575879

Requesting Wi-Fi location with GNSS and cellular fallback...
Got location:
method: GNSS
latitude: 12.893770
longitude: 55.575884
accuracy: 4.5 m
date: 2021-10-28
time: 13:36:45.895 UTC
Google maps URL: https://maps.google.com/?q=12.893770,55.575884

Requesting 30s periodic GNSS location...
Got location:
method: GNSS
latitude: 12.893765
longitude: 55.575912
accuracy: 4.4 m
date: 2021-10-28
time: 13:36:47.536 UTC
Google maps URL: https://maps.google.com/?q=12.893765,55.575912

Got location:
method: GNSS
latitude: 12.893892
longitude: 55.576090
accuracy: 8.4 m
date: 2021-10-28
time: 13:37:17.685 UTC
Google maps URL: https://maps.google.com/?q=12.893892,55.576090

Dependencies 

This sample uses the following nRF Connect SDK libraries:

In addition, it uses the following secure firmware component:

Trusted Firmware-M