Introducing the NMEA parser gem

require 'nmea_parser'

s = '$GPGGA,045612.00,5554.95457,N,00306.82246,W,1,08,1.22,96.7,M,49.8,M,,*76'
np = NMEAParser.new(s)
np.to_h

#=> {:time=>2014-07-05 04:56:12 +0100, :latitude=>55.9159095, :longitude=>-3.11370767}