SXBlue RTN

User’s Guide (for Windows Desktop and Windows Mobile 6.x)

Revision Date: April 2012 (rev 1.0)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.............................................................................................................................................1 2. Installing SXBlue RTN.............................................................................................................................2

2.1 On a Desktop PC ..............................................................................................................................2 2.2 On a Windows Mobile Device ............................................................................................................4

3. Principle of Operation .............................................................................................................................5 3.1 RTK Networks...................................................................................................................................5 3.2 SXBlue RTN .....................................................................................................................................6

4. Initial Setup for Windows Mobile ............................................................................................................7 4.1 Example of Setting a Data Connection via GPRS...............................................................................7 4.2 Setting the Virtual COM Port in SXBlue RTN......................................................................................8

5. Connecting to a Direct IP (DIP) Server.................................................................................................. 10 6. Connecting to an NTRIP Caster ............................................................................................................ 11 7. Config Menu .......................................................................................................................................... 12 8. Terminal Menu....................................................................................................................................... 13

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1. Introduction

SXBlue RTN is an NTrip / Direct IP (DIP) client that allows the SXBlue GPS receivers to use RTK/DGNSS corrections from a network or a server.

It was designed to allow field data collection software that do not feature a built-in NTrip client to receive RTK corrected positions from a single connection to your SXBlue GPS. SXBlue RTN connects to the Internet to receive differential corrections either via the standard NTrip protocol or to a Direct IP address server. It uses only one communication port with the SXBlue GPS (usually Bluetooth) to both send corrections and receive position data. A virtual COM port is created on your computer/PDA to allow your data collection software to receive differentially corrected positions.

This manual assumes that you are familiar with common operations of Microsoft’s Windows for desktop PC and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating systems.

Please make an important note that the SXBlue RTN software cannot be used simultaneously with the Geneq’s SXBlue Config utility when accessing the same COM port of your SXBlue GPS. In other words, both the SXBlue RTN and Config utilities cannot use a virtual com port as they require direct access to the SXBlue GPS.

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2. Installing SXBlue RTN

Below are the procedures to install SXBlue RTN on a desktop PC and on a Windows Mobile device.

2.1 On a Desktop PC Locate and launch the SXBlue RTN PC Setup executable file on your PC.

Click on “Next” on the Welcome screen and then on “I Agree” to accept the End-User License Agreement.

Choose the Install location on your drive (Next) and then select a Start Menu folder or leave the default then click on the “Install” button.

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At this point, the VSPE (Virtual Serial Port Emulator) utility will be installed on your PC. This driver is required for proper operation of SXBlue RTN and allows the creation of a virtual Com port on your PC for your software to receive NMEA stream from your SXBlue GPS. On the Welcome page, click on Next then accept the End-User License Agreement and click on Next.

On the Custom Setup screen accept the default settings by clicking on Next and click on Install to begin the VSPE installation; once completed, click on Finish to exit both the VSPE and the SXBlue RTN installs.

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2.2 On a Windows Mobile Device Extract the content of the archived file to your PC and, using Microsoft’s ActiveSync or Mobile Device Center, copy the SXBlueRTN.cab to a temporary folder of your Windows Mobile device.

Using the Windows Mobile “File Explorer” locate and click on the SXBlueRTN.cab file to launch the installation; once completed click on OK to finish.

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NTrip Client

NTrip Server

NTrip Server

NTrip Server

GPS Receiver

Server

GPS Receiver

Server

GPS Receiver

Server

GPS Rover

3. Principle of Operation

3.1 RTK Networks An RTK Network (or RTN, Real-Time Network) consists of three segments: the Server, the Ntrip Broadcaster (Caster) and the Client.

The server commonly hosts the GNSS base station receiver that is computing the differential corrections with an antenna set at known coordinates. A client can connect directly to the server using a Direct IP address and a TCP port number. This is what is referred to as a DIP in SXBlue RTN. This is a direct link from the client to the server.

In an RTN, the servers are connected to one or more Casters. The Caster follows a standard protocol called NTrip (Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol) to stream differential GNSS data over the Internet. Connection to an NTrip Caster requires an address, a port number, a user ID and a password. The Caster holds the Source Table which contains the list of all the Mountpoints (Servers) in the Network. From this table, the Client can choose a single baseline solution (a specific server) or, if the caster features it, a virtual reference solution (a correction specific to the client’s location; in this case the client sends its position to the network via a standard NMEA GGA string. The SXBlue RTN client handles this automatically).

NTrip Caster

DIP

NTrip

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3.2 SXBlue RTN The diagram below illustrates the principle of operation of the SXBlue RTN utility for both Windows Mobile and Desktop computers. An Internet connection is required on the PC or PDA (Wi-Fi, ActiveSync, Cellular, etc) to access the corrections from the Server or NTrip Caster.

- SXBlue RTN establishes the link to the Server/Caster and receives the differential corrections via the Internet

- It initiates a bi-directional link with the SXBlue GPS receiver (usually via Bluetooth). It sends the corrections and receives the GPS positions (usually via standard NMEA messages)

- If requesting a virtual solution from the Caster, SXBlue RTN activates/receives the GGA sentence from the SXBlue GPS receiver and sends it to the Network so the corrections can be specific to the user’s location

- It makes the corrected GPS positions available to the Data collection/Mapping Software via a Virtual COM port internal to the computer/PDA.

On a PDA, SXBlue RTN uses the Windows Mobile “External GPS” utility that comes standard with Windows Mobile 5.0 and above. In the case of a desktop PC, it uses the VSPE (Virtual Serial Port Emulator) that is deployed during the installation process (see section 2.1 above).

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4. Initial Setup for Windows Mobile

4.1 Example of Setting a Data Connection via GPRS The screenshots below demonstrate how to set up a GPRS connection on a Windows Mobile device.

From the “Start” icon on the taskbar (bottom left), click on “Settings”, then “Connections” and “Connections” again.

Click on “Add a new modem connection”. Add a name for you connection and select the type of modem (in this example: “Cellular Line (GPRS)”).

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In the following two screens, enter the information supplied by your cellular phone provider: “Access point name”, “User name” and “Password”. These are normally sufficient. Click on “Finish” to complete the data connection setup.

4.2 Setting the Virtual COM Port in SXBlue RTN SXBlue RTN uses the built-in Windows Mobile’s “External GPS” utility to create the virtual com port that will be used by the mapping software. The GPSID menu of SXBlue RTN handles the setup of this utility for you.

In the GPSID menu, select the “GPS Hardware” port to be the one that will access the GPS receiver directly (in the case of a Bluetooth connection, it will be the COM port that was assigned

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to the SXBlue GPS during the discovery process and also please note that for Bluetooth the baud rate is irrelevant). The “Program port” should be a free (unused by the Bluetooth driver or the operating system) port available on your PDA (usually selecting COM6 or COM7 are safe choices). Once the ports have been selected, click on “Valid” and wait for the “Configuration Success” dialog box to appear. Click on “OK” to finish.

The above GPSID setup procedure in SXBlue RTN is the equivalent of manually doing the following steps in Windows Mobile and setting the following screens:

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5. Connecting to a Direct IP (DIP) Server

Connecting to a Direct IP (DIP) server requires only the IP Address and the TCP Port number.

Enter the values in the appropriate boxes. From the pull-down menu select the COM port to which the receiver is connected and click on the “Send to” button. For the desktop Windows version, a dialog box will pop-up asking for the baud rate (when connecting via Serial or USB cable to the SXBlue GPS, make sure this baud rate matches the receiver’s port).

Once successful connections to both the server and the GPS port is established another pop-up window will appear displaying the virtual communication port generated by the VSPE driver (in this example: Virtual COM2 Created”). This is the virtual port that a mapping or data collection software should connect to in order to receive the corrected positions. At this point, the “Send to” button will toggle to “Close”. The “TCP” LED at the bottom will be blinking with a green color indicating that SXBlue RTN is receiving corrections from the network. If data is coming from the GPS receiver, the “Serial” LED also will be blinking with a green color.

For the Windows Mobile version, the port to be selected must be the hardware port defined in the GPSID setting of section 4.2 above. In the example here, the “GPSid Hport COM9” is the hardware port which communicates directly with the GPS receiver. Once communication is successful to both the network and the receiver, the LED’s will be blinking green as for the PC version.

Click on “Hide” to minimize SXBlue RTN and use the Windows Mobile “Task Manager” (can also be programmed to a function key of your PDA) to switch between applications.

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6. Connecting to an NTRIP Caster

Setting up a connection to a Caster with NTrip protocol is similar to the DIP connection but involves a few more steps.

Along with the TCP IP and port number, a User name and Password is usually required to log on to the network. Enter this information in the appropriate boxes and then click on “Get table” to receive a list (also called the “Source Table”) of all the mountpoints that are part of the network. To see the information on a specific mounpoint, double-click on the name (in the example above: OSPA). For the Windows Mobile version, hold the stylus on the name in the list to simulate a right-click.

If the solution provided by the selected source is a “single base”, then the NMEA field of the information on the station will display a “0” to show that GGA is not required. If the selected source is a virtual solution, the NMEA field will display a “1”, the GGA box will automatically be checked and SXBlue RTN will activate the GGA sentence from the receiver. It will send the GGA string every 10 seconds to the network. As for the DIP connection above, click on “Send to” to select the baud rate and display the virtual COM port information.

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7. Config Menu

The Config menu allows you to send configuration files to the SXBlue GPS receiver. The configuration files with .cfg extension are simply text files that contain receiver commands (please refer to the SXBlue GPS manual for more information on commands and messages).

The .cfg configuration files are located in the “Config” subfolder of the “SXBlue RTN” folder. By default the installation path is “Program Files\Geneq\SXBlue RTN\Config” for a desktop PC and “My Device\Program Files\SXBlue RTN\Config” for a Windows Mobile operating system.

To send a configuration file to the receiver, first make sure that there is no active DIP nor NTRIP session (otherwise the “Send” button of the Config menu would be greyed out and inaccessible). Select the file that you need to send to the receiver, select the COM port to which the receiver is connected and click on the “Send” button.

When the “ComBPS” dialog box appears, enter the baud rate of the SXBlue port you are using (only required for Serial and USB connections) then click on “OK”. Wait for the “Sending” progress bar to reach its maximum and the “Configuration sent” message to appear. Click on “OK” to close the dialog box.

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8. Terminal Menu

The terminal menu simply shows the stream of data coming out of your SXBlue GPS receiver. An active DIP or NTRIP session is not mandatory. You may connect by specifying a COM port and baud rate then click on “Open”.

If a DIP or NTRIP session is already active, the “Close” button will be greyed out.

The desktop version of SXBlue RTN features a “Pause” button.