u-blox GNSS User Manual

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u-center

GNSS evaluation software for Windows

User guide

Abstract

This document leads you through the eﬃcient use of the u-center evaluation software, the powerful and easy to use tool from u-blox for evaluating, performance analysis and conﬁguration of u-blox GNSS positioning chips and modules.

www.u-blox.com

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u-center-User guide

Document information

Title u-center

Subtitle GNSS evaluation software for Windows

Document type User guide

Document number UBX-13005250

Revision and date R26 15-Mar-2021

Document status Production information

Disclosure restriction C1-Public

This document applies to the following products:

Product name Type number Firmware version PCN reference

u-center

u-blox or third parties may hold intellectual property rights in the products, names, logos and designs included in this document. Copying, reproduction, modiﬁcation or disclosure to third parties of this document or any part thereof is only permitted with the express written permission of u-blox.

The information contained herein is provided "as is" and u-blox assumes no liability for its use. No warranty, either express or implied, is given, including but not limited to, with respect to the accuracy, correctness, reliability and ﬁtness for a particular purpose of the information. This document may be revised by u-blox at any time without notice. For the most recent documents, visit www.u-blox.com.

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u-center-User guide

1 Preface.......................................................................................................................................5

1.1 Overview.................................................................................................................................................... 5

1.2 Using this guide.......................................................................................................................................5

1.3 Technical support....................................................................................................................................5

1.3.1 Worldwide Web............................................................................................................................... 5

1.3.2 By email............................................................................................................................................ 5

1.3.3 Helpful information when contacting technical support....................................................... 5

2 Features....................................................................................................................................6

3 Getting started...................................................................................................................... 7

3.1 General information about displayed values..................................................................................... 7

3.2 Connecting an u-blox evaluation kit to the PC................................................................................. 7

3.3 Installing u-center................................................................................................................................... 7

3.4 Connect to the receiver......................................................................................................................... 8

3.4.1 Select the port................................................................................................................................ 8

3.4.2 Select the baud rate (only for COM ports)................................................................................9

4 Concept and philosophy................................................................................................... 10

4.1 Color and satellite coding scheme....................................................................................................11

4.2 Operating modes.................................................................................................................................. 12

4.2.1 Online mode.................................................................................................................................. 13

4.2.2 Stop mode..................................................................................................................................... 13

4.2.3 Record mode................................................................................................................................. 13

4.2.4 Play mode.......................................................................................................................................13

4.2.5 Relations between modes..........................................................................................................13

4.2.6 Database limitations...................................................................................................................14

4.2.7 Receiver information................................................................................................................... 15

5 u-center menus and windows......................................................................................... 16

5.1 Main frame and toolbars.....................................................................................................................16

5.1.1 Standard menu bar..................................................................................................................... 16

5.1.2 Standard toolbar.......................................................................................................................... 25

5.1.3 Views toolbar................................................................................................................................ 25

5.1.4 Communication toolbar..............................................................................................................25

5.1.5 Logﬁle toolbar............................................................................................................................... 25

5.1.6 Action toolbar............................................................................................................................... 26

5.1.7 Standard statusbar..................................................................................................................... 26

5.2 Views and windows.............................................................................................................................. 27

5.2.1 Packet console.............................................................................................................................. 27

5.2.2 Binary console...............................................................................................................................28

5.2.3 Text console.................................................................................................................................. 29

5.2.4 Icons and text ﬁeld of console views.......................................................................................30

5.2.5 Regular expression evaluation.................................................................................................. 30

5.2.6 Messages view..............................................................................................................................32

5.2.7 Generation 9 conﬁguration view...............................................................................................34

5.2.8 Statistic view................................................................................................................................ 37

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Contents Page 3 of 71

5.2.9 Table view...................................................................................................................................... 38

5.2.10 Map view......................................................................................................................................39

5.2.11 Chart view................................................................................................................................... 45

5.2.12 Histogram view...........................................................................................................................48

5.2.13 Camera view................................................................................................................................50

5.2.14 Deviation map.............................................................................................................................50

5.2.15 Sky view....................................................................................................................................... 52

6 NTRIP...................................................................................................................................... 53

6.1 NTRIP client........................................................................................................................................... 53

6.2 NTRIP server/caster............................................................................................................................. 54

7 Google Earth server............................................................................................................56

8 Tools........................................................................................................................................ 58

8.1 Firmware update................................................................................................................................... 58

8.2 Legacy Firmware update u-blox 5 - 8............................................................................................... 60

8.3 Dump receiver diagnostics................................................................................................................. 61

8.4 GNSS conﬁguration..............................................................................................................................61

8.4.1 Read/Write conﬁguration ﬁles.................................................................................................. 62

8.4.2 Editing conﬁguration ﬁle............................................................................................................ 62

8.5 Preferences.............................................................................................................................................63

9 How To.................................................................................................................................... 64

9.1 Change baud rate of receiver.............................................................................................................64

9.2 Save parameters to receiver non-volatile memory (BBR/Flash)................................................. 64

9.2.1 Saving parameters with UBX-CFG-CFG.................................................................................. 64

9.2.2 Saving parameters with GNSS conﬁguration........................................................................65

9.3 Recording/Playing a log ﬁle.................................................................................................................65

9.4 Conduct sensitivity tests....................................................................................................................65

9.5 Read/Write conﬁguration ﬁles...........................................................................................................66

9.6 Set GNSS conﬁguration......................................................................................................................66

9.7 Change epoch detection method......................................................................................................66

10 Troubleshooting................................................................................................................ 68

Related documents................................................................................................................ 69

Revision history.......................................................................................................................70

u-center-User guide

1 Preface

1.1 Overview

u-center is u-blox's powerful GNSS evaluation and visualization tool which can be downloaded freeof-charge from our website (www.u-blox.com). This user guide provides a description of the features of this software. It allows end users to assess and test u-blox GNSS positioning chips and modules for navigation and positioning performance.

The purpose of u-center is to enable users to:

• Conduct performance tests on u-blox and other GNSS devices.

• Conﬁgure u-blox GNSS positioning chips and modules.

• Update the ﬁrmware on GNSS modules.

• Test the added performance provided by u-blox's AssistNow service.

1.2 Using this guide

This guide assumes that the user has basic computer skills and is familiar with the Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI) and GNSS receiver environments.

The following symbols are used to highlight important information:

An index ﬁnger points out key information pertaining to integration and performance.

A warning symbol indicates actions that could negatively impact u-center behavior.

1.3 Technical support

If you have questions about installing or using u-center:

• Read this user guide carefully.

• Check our homepage (https://www.u-blox.com) to ensure that your GNSS device, ﬁrmware and the u-center software are the latest versions.

• Refer to our web based information service.

1.3.1 Worldwide Web

Our website (www.u-blox.com) is a rich pool of information. Product information and technical documents can be accessed 24/7.

1.3.2 By email

If you have technical problems or cannot ﬁnd the required information in the provided documents, contact the closest technical support oﬃce. To ensure that we process your request as soon as possible, use our service pool email addresses rather than personal staﬀ email addresses. Contact details are at the end of the document.

1.3.3 Helpful information when contacting technical support

When contacting technical support, have the following information ready:

• Receiver type (e.g. NEO-7N), ﬁrmware version (e.g. 1.00), u-center release (e.g. u-center 8.00).

• Receiver conﬁguration and short description of the application.

• Your complete contact details.

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2 Features

u-center evaluation software provides system integrators and end users with a quick and simple way to interface with u-blox GNSS chipsets, modules and boards. It enables easy evaluation, performance testing, development and debugging of GNSS positioning chips and modules. u-center allows easy connection to u-blox products and provides a suite of features to view, log, and analyze performance. The features include:

• Support for u-blox's receivers using u-blox positioning technology. u-center can communicate with these receivers using either the UBX protocol or the NMEA-0183 standard protocol.

• Support for receivers that utilize standard NMEA strings.

• u-center presents all the information collected during the operation of the GNSS device. All aspects of GNSS data (position, velocity, time, satellite tracking, etc.) can be monitored and logged under various test scenarios for the evaluation of a receiver. u-center software allows analysis of the collected data in order to investigate performance issues such as accuracy, road test position and trajectory, satellite tracking, time to ﬁrst ﬁx, etc. All processed data can be captured in ASCII format and ported into popular spreadsheets for creating additional plots and statistics.

• Camera View: photographic data can be stored in the log ﬁle together with the navigation data and later be replayed in the application.

• Export data ﬁles to Google Earth and Google Maps.

• Supports (Multiple GNSS) AssistNow Online and AssistNow Oﬄine.

• Data recording and playback function.

• Structural and graphical data visualization in real-time.

• Export functionality to standard PC applications.

• Docking views (real-time cockpit instruments): Satellite constellation, compass, clock, altimeter, speedometer, GNSS and satellite information views.

• Download ﬁrmware updates to GNSS positioning modules.

• Support for NTRIP server and NTRIP client functionality.

• Google Earth server support.

• SQLITE database support

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3 Getting started

3.1 General information about displayed values

• Longitude and latitude are displayed according to the datum selected in the GNSS device (either the default WGS-84 or based on user-deﬁned parameters). This option can be polled

and set using the UBX-CFG-DAT message.

• Time is displayed with reference to UTC.

• Elevation is displayed with reference to either MSL (Height above Mean Sea Level or Orthometric Height) or to HAE (Height Above WGS-84-Ellipsoid). The reference is controlled by the GNSS conﬁguration.

3.2 Connecting an u-blox evaluation kit to the PC

This section assumes that you have purchased an u-blox evaluation kit. Should you try to connect a module or IC receiver directly to the PC, make sure you use appropriate RS-232 level shifters.

The evaluation kit can be connected to the PC by using either an USB or a serial cable. In case of using the USB port, a driver is required (installed by the u-center for Windows installer or downloadable from our homepage). Be sure to install the driver before connecting the evaluation kit to the computer.

3.3 Installing u-center

The installation program guides you through the necessary steps for a successful program installation. During the installation, you can choose the destination folder for the program.

u-center uses dynamic link libraries (DLL). The installation program will automatically install the required DLL's into the u-center program directory. Should you try to copy a u-center installation from one location to another after the installation, make sure you copy the DLL ﬁles as well.

After a successful installation, u-center can be started from the Start Menu (All Programs > u-blox > u-center > u-center) and will start up as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Start display

3.4 Connect to the receiver

3.4.1 Select the port

Locate the communication toolbar (Figure 2) and click on the arrow beside the icon. This will show a list with all available COM ports (Figure 3). Select the corresponding COM port where the receiver is connected. If a link could be established, the icon will turn green and the text in the status bar changes from to (in this example u-center is connected to COM6). This does not mean that the communication already works but only that the port could be opened.

Figure 2: Communication Toolbar

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Figure 3: List of available COM ports

3.4.2 Select the baud rate (only for COM ports)

Again in the communication toolbar, click on the arrow beside the icon. This will show a list with all available baud rates (Figure 4). Select the correct baud rate on which the receiver is communicating (typically 9'600 baud). If u-center is able to decode data from the receiver, the status bar begins to blink in green as shown in the following icon: . This means that the connection is established successfully and the communication between the receiver and u-center is working.

Figure 4: List of available baud rates

Now you are ready to use the receiver.

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4 Concept and philosophy

Understanding the basic concept behind u-center is important in order to get the highest beneﬁt out of this powerful evaluation software. Figure 5 depicts the architecture of the software. The program gets a data stream from either a communication port or a log ﬁle and splits this stream into protocol messages. From the messages, relevant parameters are extracted and inserted into the current dataset of the database that is used by the display and analysis features of the application.

In the current dataset, statistical values of the parameters are calculated. Average, minimum, maximum and standard deviation are calculated for most parameters. If the available messages do not provide a parameter, u-center tries to calculate the parameter from the ones that are available. For example if velocity-north and velocity-east are available, u-center calculates the speed over ground and course over ground, unless this data is already available in other messages.

Figure 5: Engine architecture

The u-center database size may be adjusted. If the size is exceeded u-center keeps only the latest datasets and the oldest ones are removed. Refer to Database limitations for the details.

Very long recordings may decrease performance of u-center.

u-center provides various view classes (described below) for display and presentation. Most views take their data from the database, but some get their data directly from the message without using the database at all. The other views are updated when the database changes.

• Message Views display and decode a copy of every known message. These views allow observing a single message in detail and they may also be used to conﬁgure the GNSS device. Refer to

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Messages view for details. The conﬁguration view is a subset of the message view and only

displays message to conﬁgure the receiver.

• Console Views display the messages in text form. There is also a wide range of information available which is useful for evaluation and testing. Refer to sections Packet console, Binary

console and Text console for details.

• Graphical Views display parameters from the database in graphical form. Charts (see Chart

view), histograms (see Histogram view) and a map view (see Map view) can be created. There are

two more views (deviation map and sky view, see Deviation map and Sky view) that may be used for statistical performance and antenna pattern analysis.

• Tabular Views show the parameters of the database in tabular form. They can be freely conﬁgured to allow customized tables. Refer to Table view and Statistic view for details.

• Docking Windows can be docked to the frame of u-center. An analog watch, compass, world map, altitude and speed meter are available. There are also docking windows showing the current signal power and the constellation of the satellites received by the device as well as a summary of the GNSS status.

Displaying various views and docking windows requires computing power. Minimizing or closing them may signiﬁcantly reduce CPU usage.

4.1 Color and satellite coding scheme

In the graphical views and some docking windows, colors are used to indicate data quality. Table 1 shows the color codes for graphical views depending on the quality of the navigation solution.

Color Meaning

Yellow

Orange

Green

Cyan

Magenta

Blue

Red

Table 1: Color-coding scheme for graphical views

Current value

Valid 3D navigation ﬁx + Dead Reckoning

Valid 3D navigation ﬁx

Valid 2D navigation ﬁx

Dead Reckoning ﬁx

Degraded navigation ﬁx

No or invalid navigation ﬁx

Table 2 gives the color-coding scheme for the docking windows and sky view. It indicates the state

of each satellite.

Color Meaning

Green

Olive

Dark Green

Satellite used in navigation (with Ephemeris)

Satellite used in navigation (with Ephemeris and PPP)

Satellite used in navigation (with aiding data: AssistNow Autonomous, AssistNow Online/Oﬄine)

Cyan

Blue

Red

Table 2: Color-coding scheme for the docking windows and sky view

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Satellite signal available, available for use in navigation

Satellite signal available, not available for use in navigation

Satellite signal not available

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Table 3 gives the satellite-coding scheme for the docking windows and sky view. It indicates to which

GNSS a satellite belongs.

Code System

Gxx GPS

Rxx GLONASS

Bxx BeiDou

Exx Galileo

Sxx SBAS

Qxx QZSS

Table 3: Satellite-coding scheme for the docking windows and sky view

Figure 6 shows the Status Color conﬁguration. This is available under: Tools > Preferences > Status

Colors.

Figure 6: Color-coding conﬁguration

4.2 Operating modes

u-center has diﬀerent operating modes (see Figure 7). The mode changes when you open or close a log ﬁle or when you invoke the player. To be able to use the record mode you have to create a new ﬁle, save to a new ﬁle or open an existing ﬁle. The record and play mode are only available if you have created a new ﬁle or when you have opened a writable ﬁle.

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Figure 7: Relation between operating modes

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4.2.1 Online mode

In this mode a GNSS device is directly connected to u-center via a COM port. u-center can control and conﬁgure the receiver and it will display the data that the receiver is sending periodically.

4.2.2 Stop mode

In this mode no data from a receiver or a log ﬁle is forwarded to the database and views. u-center is in this mode when a log ﬁle is open but player and recorder are not active.

4.2.3 Record mode

Record Mode is the same mode as the Online Mode, except u-center additionally creates a log ﬁle, concatenating all the messages sent by the receiver. You enter this mode by creating a new log ﬁle or opening an existing log ﬁle without write protection and pressing the record button. An example of using this mode would be to make overnight measurements and evaluate the data at a later time. u-blox customer support may request a log ﬁle from you when you are experiencing a problem with one of our receivers and will usually need this to be recorded with debug data enabled (see Receiver).

4.2.4 Play mode

The Play Mode allows replaying a previously recorded log ﬁle step by step, in real-time or at an accelerated rate. You enter this mode by opening a ﬁle and pressing the play, step or scan button.

4.2.5 Relations between modes

The operating mode depends on the status of the log ﬁle player. Modes are changed by user actions. Each mode has diﬀerent states that are changed by a user action or by an event (see Figure 7). In Online mode and Record mode, u-center displays data from the receiver. In Play mode data from a log ﬁle is displayed. Play mode has diﬀerent states:

• Play reads and displays messages periodically from the log ﬁle. The user interface is derived from that of a CD player. u-center updates the views after each message.

• Step gets one message from the log ﬁle and immediately returns to paused Play state.

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• Scan reads messages periodically but the display is only updated when paused or by changing the state.

Position can be set in a log ﬁle. This behaves diﬀerently in Play mode and Stop mode. In Stop mode the position is just set and no data is read and displayed. u-center will start recording or playing from that position when changing the mode. If position is set in Play mode, u-center will load the data up to this position from the log ﬁle and display the contents.

4.2.6 Database limitations

The number of epochs displayed by views that show history (Table, Chart, Histogram, Sky, Satellite level history etc.) can be limited in order to allow an eﬃcient analysis of large log ﬁles and not to consume too much disk space. There is a setting which controls this history database limit, which is available under: Tools > Preferences > General. By default the value for the number of epochs is set to 0, which means the database size is not limited. Any other number higher than 0 will limit the size of this history database. When this limit is set, then the oldest values will be discarded after the database reaches this limit size. Data stored to a log ﬁle is not aﬀected by the database limitation.

Also controlled in Tools > Preferences > General is the max number of messages stored. This limit applies to how many messages from a log ﬁle can be loaded and are playable. The default value for this is set very high, but can be reduced to save disk space, or increased if a very large log ﬁle cannot be fully loaded.

Figure 8: Example of setting maximum number of epochs to keep in database

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For long-term observations, it is recommended to record the messages to a log ﬁle.

If a high value of epochs is selected, the display of data in real-time cannot be guaranteed, especially when graphical views are open.

4.2.7 Receiver information

u-center will try to retrieve some information about what kind of receiver is connected by sending UBX-MON-VER message on every successful connection. In this way certain functionality can automatically be disabled if it is not supported by the connected receiver. In some cases this might not be the desired behavior as it might hinder some other operation where these extra messages are not desired. There is a setting that controls if receiver information is auto-retrieved or not, and that is available under: Tools > Preferences > General. By default the auto retrieval is enabled.

Figure 9: Enabling/disabling automatic receiver information retrieval

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5 u-center menus and windows

5.1 Main frame and toolbars

The main frame is the primary display screen of u-center. It displays all tool bars and some of the information provided by the device. In the standard status bar, information about communication, UTC time, connection time, used protocol (NMEA or UBX), used ﬁle, etc. is shown.

Button tool tip: A description about each button in the toolbars can be obtained by holding the mouse cursor over the button for a few seconds. A tool tip message will appear near the icon with additional information while a detailed description is displayed in the status display.

Figure 10: u-center main frame and toolbars

5.1.1 Standard menu bar

All u-center functions can be accessed through the standard menu bar. Commands can also be accessed by shortcuts that are listed in the menus. Some often used operations are also available in the diﬀerent toolbars.

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5.1.1.1 File

Figure 11: File menu entries

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Function Description Shortcut /

New... Creates a new log ﬁle. No data is yet written but only the ﬁle is opened. The

duration of the logging time is displayed in the status bar ﬁeld Operating time.

Save... Creates a new log ﬁle, saves the data from the internal database to the log ﬁle and

starts immediately recording all new data from the receiver. This is useful when an error or an unexpected event occurred and no log ﬁle was recorded. The size of the ring buﬀer (4 MB) is large enough to retain the data for the last hour (approx.).

Open... Opens a stored log ﬁle to be replayed. Ctrl+O

Close Closes the active ﬁle.

Database Empty Deletes the internal database and all saved values.

Database Export Exports the internal database into HTML or KML data formats for displaying with

Google Map or Google Earth.

Google Map Html... Exports the internal database into HTML data format for displaying with Google

Map.

Google Earth Kml... Exports the internal database into KML data format for displaying with Google

Earth.

Google Earth Server... Starts u-center's Google Earth server which allows continuous and real time

tracking to be visualized in Google Earth.

Print... Prints the active document.

Print Preview Shows a preview of the print output.

Print Setup... Shows the setup dialog of the printer.

Recent Files Lists all recently used ﬁles.

Toolbar icon

Ctrl+N /

Ctrl+S /

Ctrl+E /

Exit Exits u-center. Ctrl+F4

Table 4: File menu entries

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5.1.1.2 Edit

Figure 12: Edit menu entries

u-center-User guide

Function Description Shortcut /

Cut Cut the current selection and put in to the clipboard. Ctrl+X / Shift

Copy Copy the current selection to the clipboard. Ctrl+C / Ctrl-

Paste Paste the clipboard content to the current position. Ctrl+V / Shift

Delete Delete the current selection. Del

Select All Select all in the current view. Ctrl+A

Clear All Clear all in the current view. Ctrl+Del

Table 5: Edit menu entries

Toolbar icon

+Del /

Insert /

+Insert /

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5.1.1.3 View

u-center-User guide

Figure 13: View menu entries

Function Description Shortcut /

Packet Console Opens the packet console.

Binary Console Opens the binary console.

Text Console Opens the text console.

Messages View Opens the dialog with all supported messages.

Conﬁguration View Opens the dialog with all conﬁguration messages. This is a subset of the

Generation 9 Conﬁguration View

Statistic View Opens the statistic view with all data from the internal database.

Table View Opens the empty table view. All values from the internal database can be

Recent Table View Lists all the table views that have been opened. This information comes from the

Map View Opens a window allowing to display a map.

Recent Map View Lists all the maps views that have been opened. This information comes from the

Messages View.

Opens the dialog for Generation 9 Advance conﬁguration view. All the Generation 9 receivers should be conﬁgured with this new dialog.

displayed individually.

Windows registry and is also valid after a restart of u-center.

Toolbar icon

F6 /

F7 /

F8 /

F9 /

Ctrl-F9 /

F10 /

F11 /

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Function Description Shortcut /

Chart View Opens a window with chart functionality. All values from the internal database can

be displayed individually.

Recent Chart View Lists all the chart views that have been opened. This information comes from the

Windows registry and is also valid after a restart of u-center.

Histogram View Opens a window with histogram functionality. All values from the internal

database can be displayed individually.

Recent Histogram View Lists all the histogram views that have been opened. This information comes from

the Windows registry and is also valid after a restart of u-center.

Camera View Opens a window allowing to connect to a web cam and visualize and save the

image.

Deviation Map Opens a window with a position deviation map.

Sky View Opens a window with the sky view. The current position of the satellites and their

values from the internal database are shown.

Docking Windows Opens a list with all available docking windows that can be shown.

Satellite Position Shows or hide the current satellite positions.

Satellite Level Shows or hide the current satellite levels.

Satellite Level History Shows or hide the history of the satellite levels.

World Position Shows or hide the current position on the world map.

Data Shows or hide data from the navigation solution (like position, TTFF, accuracy and

DOPs).

Altitude Meter Shows or hide the altitude meter.

Toolbar icon

F12 /

Compass Shows or hide the compass.

Speed Meter Shows or hide the speed meter.

Watch Shows or hide the clock.

Toolbars Opens a list with all available toolbars that can be shown.

Standard Toolbar Shows or hide the standard toolbar.

Views Toolbar Shows or hide the views toolbar.

Receiver Toolbar Shows or hide the receiver toolbar.

Player Toolbar Shows or hide the player toolbar.

Action Toolbar Shows or hide the action toolbar.

Table 6: View menu entries

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5.1.1.4 Player

Figure 14: Player menu entries

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Function Description Shortcut /

Eject Closes the active log ﬁle.

Pause Pauses reading or recording from the active log ﬁle.

Record Starts recording to a new or already opened log ﬁle. Any data in the internal

database will not be written to the ﬁle. If you want to save this data into a log ﬁle, open the File menu and click Save. To stop recording, press the same button.

Stepback Single step function. The previous message is read.

Step Single step function. The next message is read. Ctrl+Space /

Play Starts reading from the active log ﬁle. The speed of the action can be chosen on

the sub-menu.

Scan Reads the entire log ﬁle into the database and updates the display at the end of

the scan period.

Goto Begin Sets the read position to the beginning of the log ﬁle.

Goto End Sets the read position to the end of the log ﬁle.

Table 7: Player menu entries

Toolbar icon

Ctrl+E /

Ctrl+P /

Ctrl+R /

Ctrl+B /

Ctrl+G /

Ctrl+F /

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5.1.1.5 Receiver

u-center-User guide

Figure 15: Receiver menu entries

Function Description Shortcut /

Connection Deﬁnes the port u-center connects to. The list is generated automatically using

the enumeration method under Tools > Preferences > Generic > Serial ports. The currently used port will be indicated.

Disconnect Disconnects from a connected receiver.

COMx Connects to COMx with the current baud rate.

Network connection Connects to a receiver through network.

Location API Connects to the receiver using the Location API available in windows 7 onwards.

Sensor API Connects to the receiver using the Sensor API in Windows 7 and Windows 8 (the

USB Sensor driver is required in this case) but not in Windows 10.

Baud rate Deﬁnes the baud rate of the communication. The list is predeﬁned and cannot be

changed. The currently set baud rate will be indicated.

NTRIP Server/Caster Enables u-center to act as a NTRIP server.

NTRIP Client Enables u-center to act as a NTRIP client.

Autobauding Enables or disables autobauding for the current communication with the receiver.

Debug Messages Enables all debug messages in the receiver. Can be requested from u-blox

support.

Generation Deﬁnes the generation of the attached u-blox GNSS receiver. u-center also tries to

detect automatically the correct generation.

Protocol Filter Sets the message ﬁlter against versions of protocol speciﬁcation.

Action Lists all possible actions that can be performed with the u-blox GNSS receiver.

Toolbar icon

Ctrl+[1...9] (if available)

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Function Description Shortcut /

Hot start Sends a hot start command to the receiver. No data is deleted in the receiver.

Warm start Sends a warm start command to the receiver. Only the ephemeris are deleted

Cold start Sends a cold start command to the receiver. All information is deleted from the

Save Conﬁg Saves the current receiver conﬁguration to the memory so that it will be loaded

Load Conﬁg Loads the last saved conﬁguration from the memory.

Revert Conﬁg Deletes all conﬁgurations in the memory and reverts the receiver to the default

Auto Detect Enable/Disables the automatic polling of the UBX-MON-VER message to allow u-

Get Information Manually polls the receiver for a UBX-MON-VER message. On receiving the

Diﬀerential DGNSS Interface…

Epoch detection… Deﬁnes which time information determines the boundary of an epoch detection in

Table 8: Receiver menu entries

from the memory.

memory.

after a restart.

conﬁguration.

center to obtain information about the receiver. On receiving the message, the receiver information contained within the message is extracted, stored and used by u-center for any receiver speciﬁc features. Having this feature enabled allows u-center to automatically be aware of the type of receiver attached. Disabling this feature might be useful when the random appearance of UBX-MON-VER messages could interfere with the current users task.

message, the receiver information contained within the message is extracted, stored and used by u-center for any receiver speciﬁc features. Typical use would be when the users need auto detection disabled, but would like u-center to be aware of the connected receiver's details.

Allows the streaming of RTCM messages to the receiver for high precision applications.

u-center (see Change epoch detection method).

Toolbar icon

5.1.1.6 Tools

Figure 16: Tools menu entries

Some of the menu items will only be displayed when the correct receiver generation is connected and identiﬁed by u-center. If you cannot select one option, change the receiver generation under Receiver > Generation.

Function Description Shortcut /

Firmware Update u-blox 5 - 8...

Dump Receiver Diagnostics...

Opens the ﬁrmware update dialog for u-blox 5 - 8 generation receivers. Ctrl+U

Tool to create the receiver diagnostic. Can be requested by the u-blox support team.

Toolbar icon

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Function Description Shortcut /

u-blox 7/8/M8 Retrieve Log...

AssistNow Oﬄine Opens the AssistNow Oﬄine dialog. Please switch over to AssistNow Oﬄine as

AssistNow Online Opens the AssistNow Online dialog. Please switch over to AssistNow Online as the

GNSS Conﬁguration... Opens the dialog to save the receiver conﬁguration to a ﬁle on the PC or to restore

File transfer... Opens the dialog to transfer a ﬁle to the receiver.

Preferences... Opens the dialog for the u-center preferences.

Table 9: Tools menu entries

Opens the dialog to download log information from the receiver. This is supported only since u-blox 7 receivers.

the Legacy AssistNow Oﬄine service is marked deprecated.

Legacy AssistNow Online service is marked deprecated.

a conﬁguration from a ﬁle on the PC.

Toolbar icon

5.1.1.7 Window

Figure 17: Window menu entries

Function Description Shortcut /

Cascade Arranges all open dialogs cascaded.

Tile Horizontally Arranges all open dialogs horizontally.

Tile Vertically Arranges all open dialogs vertically.

Close All Closes all open dialogs and windows.

Save Workspace As... Saves the position of the open dialogs and windows to a ﬁle on the computer.

Restore Workspace From...

Recent Workspace Lists all recently used workspace ﬁles.

Arrange Icons Arranges the icons at the bottom of the window.

List of dialogs and windows

Table 10: Window menu entries

Restores the position of the dialogs and windows from a ﬁle on the computer.

Lists all visible and hidden dialogs and windows in u-center.

Toolbar icon

5.1.1.8 Help

Figure 18: Help menu entries

Function Description Shortcut /

Contents... Gives a reference to this user guide. F1

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Function Description Shortcut /

About u-center... Shows the about dialog with the software version and the used libraries and their

versions.

Table 11: Help menu entries

Toolbar icon

5.1.2 Standard toolbar

The standard toolbar gives access to standard operations like opening and saving ﬁles, print the current view or empty the database.

5.1.3 Views toolbar

5.1.4 Communication toolbar

5.1.5 Logﬁle toolbar

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5.1.6 Action toolbar

u-center-User guide

5.1.7 Standard statusbar

The standard status bar is updated automatically and shows the information about the opened ﬁle, the connection and the time. The following ﬁelds are available:

Status display: Displays the current action or the function of a button if the mouse cursor is over the button.

NTRIP client information: Shows the connection to an NTRIP caster (only when activated through Receiver > NTRIP Client...). Clicking on it will show up to 100 of the last errors between u-center and connected NTRIP caster.

NTRIP server information: Shows the status and number of clients currently connected to ucenter's NTRIP caster (only when activated through Receiver > NTRIP Server/Caster...). Clicking on it will show up to 100 of the last errors between u-center's NTRIP caster and connected clients.

DGNSS information: Shows the connection to a DGNSS source (only when activated through Receiver > Diﬀerential GNSS Interface...).

Receiver generation: u-center tries to automatically detect the type of device connected and activates the appropriate mode of operation in order to take optimal advantage of the features. The mode can also be manually selected through the menu bar (Receiver > Generation).

Port information: Shows the active COM port and baud rate. Color coding of the icon:

Disconnected

Waiting for ﬁrst data

Data is being received but errors are detected (mostly because of wrong baud rate settings)

Last data received was valid but there is no data to collect at this time

No data is being received but errors have been detected in the past

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Data is being received and collected at the correct baud rate

File: The ﬁle opened in the u-center player.

Protocol information: This box indicates the current message set that is being used to

communicate with the device.

Operating time: The time elapsed since you started u-center.

UTC time: The current time sent by the device. This ﬁeld is only updated if a receiver is connected.

Receiver status: Shows the last known status of the receiver. Color coding of the icon:

Power status of receiver is unknown

Receiver is powered on

Receiver is powered oﬀ

5.2 Views and windows

5.2.1 Packet console

The packet console lists all incoming and outgoing messages, and provides information about message length and type. The direction of the message is shown in the following way:

R <- Indicates the message was sent to the receiver

R -> Indicates the message came from the receiver

L -> Indicates the message came from the log ﬁle

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Figure 19: Packet console

Refer to Table 12 for an explanation of the icons and text ﬁeld.

5.2.2 Binary console

The binary console lists all incoming messages in binary and ASCII format.

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Figure 20: Binary console

Refer to Table 12 for an explanation of the icons and text ﬁeld.

5.2.3 Text console

The text console displays the content messages in textual form such as UBX-INF or NMEA messages.

NMEA messages are shown with heading $Gxyyy, where x stands for the satellite system (P = GPS, SBAS, QZSS, L = GLONASS, A = Galileo, B = BeiDou, N = Any combination of GNSS) and yyy for the type of message (e.g. ZDA=Time & Date).

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Figure 21: Text console displaying UBX-INF and NMEA messages with "Show PC Time" and "Show/hide epoch markers" enabled

Refer to Table 12 for an explanation of the icons and text ﬁeld.

5.2.4 Icons and text ﬁeld of console views

Element Name Description

Lock / Locked Prevents the console from being updated with new data when locked. Pause key can

Clear All Erases all data in the console.

Show/Hide PC time Shows/Hides the PC time in the console.

Show/Hide epoch markers

Filter on/oﬀ Filters unwanted data from the data stream. This allows searching for certain

Pause player Pauses the player when the search expression is found. Only works in playback mode.

Table 12: Description of the buttons and text ﬁeld of the console views

be used to Lock/Unlock the current console window.

Shows/Hides text for every new epoch with enumeration.

expression, e.g. all RMC messages.

5.2.5 Regular expression evaluation

Normally, when you search for a sub-string in a string, the match should be exact. So if we search for a sub-string "abc" then the string being searched should contain these exact letters in the same sequence for a match to be found. We can extend this kind of search to a case insensitive search where the sub-string "abc" will ﬁnd strings like "Abc", "ABC" etc. That is, the case is ignored but the sequence of the letters should be exactly the same. Sometimes, a case insensitive search is also not enough. For example, if we want to search for numeric digit, then we basically end up searching for each digit independently. This is where regular expressions come in to our help. Regular expressions

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are text patterns that are used for string matching. Regular expressions are strings that contain a mix of plain text and special characters to indicate what kind of matching to do. Here's a very brief tutorial on using regular expressions.

Suppose, we are looking for a numeric digit then the regular expression we would search for is "[0-9]". The brackets indicate that the character being compared should match any one of the characters enclosed within the bracket. The dash (-) between 0 and 9 indicates that it is a range from 0 to 9. Therefore, this regular expression will match any character between 0 and 9, that is, any digit. If we want to search for a special character literally we must use a backslash before the special character. For example, the single character regular expression "\*" matches a single asterisk. In the table below the special characters are brieﬂy described. A regular expression search is case-sensitive.

Character Description

^ Beginning of the string. The expression "^A" will match an "A" only at the beginning of the string.

[^ The caret (^) immediately following the left-bracket ([) has a diﬀerent meaning. It is used to exclude the

$ The dollar sign ($) will match the end of the string. The expression "abc$" will match the sub-string "abc"

| The alternation or logic OR character (|) allows either expression on its side to match the target string. The

. The dot (.) will match any character.

* The asterisk (*) indicates that the character to the left of the asterisk in the expression should match 0 or

+ The plus (+) is similar to asterisk but there should be at least one match of the character to the left of the +

? The question mark (?) matches the character to its left 0 or 1 times.

() The parenthesis aﬀects the order of pattern evaluation.

[] Brackets ([ and ]) enclosing a set of characters indicates that any of the enclosed characters may match the

Table 13: Regular expression syntax

remaining characters within brackets from matching the target string. The expression "[^0-9]" indicates that the target character should not be a digit.

only if it is at the end of the string.

expression "a|b" will match "a" as well as "b".

more times.

target character.

5.2.5.1 Examples

Let's assume that the lines in Figure 22 would appear in the NMEA console without ﬁltering.

Figure 22: Regular Expression Template

5.2.5.1.1 Example 1

Searching for the RMC with a valid position and all GGA Messages:

GP(GGA|RMC,.*,A,)"

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Figure 23: Regular Expression Example 1

5.2.5.1.2 Example 2

Searching for all GSV with the message index of "2" or "3":

GSV,.*,[2-3],

Figure 24: Regular Expression Example 2

5.2.5.1.3 Example 3

Searching for all messages starting with $GP, which have a "G" in the message identiﬁer but not at the ﬁrst position:

^\$GP.+G.*,

Figure 25: Regular Expression Example 3

5.2.5.1.4 Example 4

Searching for all messages having a checksum of which the higher nibble is 3

\*3.$

Figure 26: Regular Expression Example 4

5.2.6 Messages view

The messages view is utilized to communicate with the device. Receiver output messages (e.g. navigation output, status and debug information) are displayed; input messages (e.g. conﬁguration messages) can be sent. There are diﬀerent sections for NMEA and UBX protocol. See Figure 27 for an overview of the diﬀerent elements in the messages view.

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Figure 27: Messages view

Table 14: Description of the buttons in the messages view toolbar

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Lock / Locked

Clear All Erases the entire message view.

Send Sends the current message to the device.

Poll Polls the selected message once.

Auto poll Automatically polls a newly selected message once.

Message Hotkey

Prevents the message view from being updated with new data when locked. Pause key can be used to Lock/Unlock the current view window.

Assigns a hotkey to the selected message.

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5.2.6.1 Receiver output messages

u-center-User guide

Figure 28: Message display of an output message

Double-clicking on an output message enables or disables the periodic message update if the communication protocol is active. This feature is currently only supported for the UBX protocol.

5.2.7 Generation 9 conﬁguration view

The new u-blox Generation 9 conﬁguration view allows the users to check the current conﬁguration of the receiver and change it if needed. This view can only be used to conﬁgure u-blox 9 generation receivers.

By default, the conﬁguration values being edited come from (and can be written back to) an attached receiver. This view consists of two diﬀerent sub-views, GNSS Conﬁguration and Advanced Conﬁguration.

5.2.7.1 GNSS conﬁguration

This GNSS conﬁguration sub-view enables the users to poll and conﬁgure the basic and advanced GNSS system conﬁgurations of the attached receiver. This sub-view describes sections below:

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Figure 29: u-blox Generation 9 Advanced Conﬁguration View

Basic This section shows the GNSS constellation conﬁguration of the receiver by pressing

Advanced This section shows the GNSS constellation signal information conﬁgured in the

Show Hex/ Hide Hex Shows or hides the hex values that make up the messages describing the receiver

Status Shows the status of the action taken. See position d.

Write to layer Once selected the desired layer, Send conﬁguration button sends the GNSS

Poll Active Conﬁguration (RAM Layer)

Table 15: Description of the buttons and sections in the GNSS Conﬁguration sub-view

Poll Active Conﬁguration. The receiver’s GNSS constellations can also be conﬁgured by enabling/disabling the required satellite constellations, and then pressing Send Conﬁguration. See position a.

receiver by pressing Poll Active Conﬁguration. The receiver’s GNSS signals can also be conﬁgured by enabling/disabling the required signals, and then pressing Send Conﬁguration. See position b.

conﬁguration just sent or received. See position c.

constellation and signal information to the receiver. See position e.

Polls the GNSS constellation and signal conﬁguration from RAM layer of the attached receiver. See position f.

5.2.7.2 Advanced Conﬁguration

In the Advanced Conﬁguration sub-view, all groups of conﬁguration items are displayed in a tree structure. Expanding a group will show the RAM layer values for all readable conﬁguration items in that group. Each item is read individually from the receiver as the group is expanded. Some item values may not be known to the receiver in which case the value will be shown as "-".

If no receiver is attached or if the receiver does not support the new conﬁguration concept then no values will be visible. If the receiver is not responding for some reason then close the group and open it again to retry.

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Figure 30: Advanced Conﬁguration view

Users can expand items of interest and u-center will attempt to read values for all the other layers such as BBR, ﬂash, ROM, pin, etc. and display any that it ﬁnds. This sub-view contains sections below:

Conﬁguration item search To search for an item by name, type into the search text box just above the tree. The

Conﬁguration item tree view All entries that contain the search text will be highlighted in red. The search will check

Selected Conﬁguration Item This section describes the selected item in more detail. The ﬁeld having the searched

Load diﬀerences from default Click on Load receiver diﬀerences from default to read the conﬁguration values

Send conﬁg changes "Send conﬁg changes" will send the current set of settings to the attached receiver.

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search is case-insensitive. See position a.

for a match in group and item names, titles and descriptions. If a group contains an item which matches then the group will be highlighted as well. See position b.

item is shown in red. See position c.

set in the receiver. This can be used to duplicate the current settings in another receiver. The operation depends on the working mode of the tool. If used in the normal, attached to receiver mode then the "writes" list will be populated with any settings in the FS or BBR layers. See position d.

A tick will appear next to the items which were successfully altered in the receiver.If the receiver does not acknowledge the request, a cross appears. If there is no tick or a cross, the receiver does not respond to the request. Items are sent in groups of values to be sent to the same layer. If one value for a layer cannot be written, then all values for that layer will fail to be written and will show a cross. See position e.

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Items to delete If an item that can be deleted from the receiver (if it is in the BBR or Flash layers) is

Items to set If a writable layer item is selected, then press one of the layer buttons to add write

Remove from list Removes the selected item from one of the lists. See position h.

Clear lists Removes all the items from all the lists. See position i.

Load from ﬁle... Loads a group of settings from a readable text ﬁle. See position j.

Save to ﬁle... To save the current list of settings to a readable text ﬁle, click Save to ﬁle... and

Message hex codes Lists the hex values for the UBX-CFG-VALSET message that will be constructed for

Table 16: Description of the buttons and sections in the Advanced Conﬁguration sub-view

selected from the tree, then a button Delete will appear. If that button is selected then it will be added to the list of deletions shown in the "Items to delete" section on the right of the tree. See position f.

operations to a list of item writes. A value can be changed by clicking on it in the top left sub-view area before writing. If two values for the same item are selected in the same layer, then the earlier one will be highlighted in red to show that it will be ignored as a duplicate setting. See position g.

choose a ﬁle path. This will produce a ﬁle in the ASCII format. See position k.

setting the selected conﬁguration properties. See position l.

5.2.8 Statistic view

Figure 31: Statistic view

All available database values (transmitted from the device or calculated by u-center) are displayed. The following statistics are displayed:

• Current value

• Minimum value

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• Maximum value

• Average value

• Standard Deviation

The following color scheme for the values is applied:

• Grey color: The value was not set for the current epoch

• Blue color: The value was calculated by the application from other data

• Empty ﬁeld: No data is available

Choosing "Database Empty" in the ﬁle menu or pressing the button clears the statistic view.

The content of the statistic view can easily be exported to other programs using Copy/ Paste.

5.2.9 Table view

Figure 32: Table view

All values from the database can be displayed in a tabular form (Figure 32). This is very useful when analyzing the log ﬁle in detail.

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To add a new column, ﬁrst select the desired value (Figure 33) and click the button. To remove a displayed value, click the button. To see the table header click the button. Statistical information will be shown for 4 seconds.

Figure 33: Selecting a new value

The number of displayed epochs is set to 1800 by default.

Choosing "Database Empty" in the ﬁle menu or pressing the button clears the table view.

The content of the table view can easily be exported to other programs using Copy/Paste.

5.2.10 Map view

u-center can display positions on pre-calibrated or Google online (dynamic) maps (see Figure 34).

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Figure 34: Map view with Google online map

5.2.10.1 Using map view

If you want to use the Google online maps you have to enter an API key in Tools > Preferences > Access Tokens. A missing API key can lead to the output shown in Figure 35.

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Figure 35: Missing online map API key

Please go to https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/static-maps/?hl=en to get a valid Google Static Maps API key.

You can access the view speciﬁc commands in two diﬀerent ways:

• Using the command in the tool bar below the map view.

• Holding the cursor inside the map view and pressing the right mouse button. This will open the following context menu (see Figure 36).

Figure 36: Map view context menu

Function Description Shortcut /

Cursor The position of the cursor is shown on the lower left edge of the u-center screen

Move The map inside the map view window can be moved.

Zoom In The map is enlarged by selecting a rectangle.

Zoom Out The size of the map is decreased.

Zoom Zoom the map to a speciﬁed level.

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(Longitude, Latitude and Pixel-Position). By holding the left mouse button and moving the cursor over the map you can measure distance from one position to another.

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Toolbar icon

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Function Description Shortcut /

Fit Map The map size is adjusted to ﬁt the Map Window.

Markers Add or remove the deﬁned markers (see also section Map calibration)

Meter Show or hide the ruler.

Speedvector Show or hide the speed vectors, and select where they are drawn from.

Follow Centers the map on the current GNSS position.

Drawing Mode The size and form of the displayed position can be changed in the menu Points;

Open Map... / Recent Static Maps

Online Maps Use online maps. Select the type in the menu and also if they should be

Save map (only in toolbar)

Image settings (only in toolbar)

Table 17: Description of the buttons and context menu entries in map view

the connection line between the points can be selected in the menu Connect. To see statistical values (average, minimum, maximum, standard deviation) directly in the map, select the menu entry Statistic.

Open a new or one of 8 recently used static maps.

automatically downloaded when the current position moves out of the current map tile (Auto Reload). The menu option Show Map Scales allows you to select a diﬀerent scale of the tiles. The menu option Show vector from reference to rover will show the vector pointing from reference to rover if such conﬁguration exists. In this case, auto zoom capability exists to track the two by selecting the option

Auto zoom on reference and rover.

Save the current map view to a ﬁle (combined with all visible elements or only the map).

Brightness, contrast and color saturation of map can be adjusted by moving the glides.

Toolbar icon

/ /

Map Views can be copied to the clipboard using the "Print Screen" function.

Choosing "Database Empty" in the ﬁle menu or pressing the button clears the statistic view.

5.2.10.2 Map calibration

To create your own map you will need a digitized map or a picture with orthogonal projection in one of the following pixel graphics formats.

png Portable Network Graphics

bmp Windows Bitmap

dib Device Independent Bitmap

gif Graphics Interchange Format

jpg/jpeg Jpeg File Interchange Format

pcx PC Paintbrush

tif Tag Image File Format

If your map is not in one of the above formats, you can simply convert it in one of the supported formats by a third party program.

To use a map in u-center, three calibration points are needed. For these points you have to know the pixel coordinates and the according WGS84 coordinates in the latitude/longitude format in degrees (longitude: -180.0° to 180.0°, latitude: -90.0° to 90.0°). These points are stored in the map calibration ﬁle. The calibration ﬁle must be stored at the same location as the bitmap itself. It has the same

name but a diﬀerent extension (*.mcf). The format of the calibration ﬁle is very simple and can be edited in a simple editor like notepad.

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5.2.10.2.1 Example

As an example we will have a look at the virtual map ﬁle world.png and its calibration ﬁle

world.mcf.

Figure 37: Digital map ﬁle: world.png

The Map has 1765 pixels (0 to 1764) in the horizontal and 1046 pixels (0 to 1045) in the vertical direction. The origin is the upper left corner. To calibrate this map we will use the following three calibration points (#1 to #3).

Pixel WGS84

Reference Point # X Y Longitude Latitude

Upper Left Corner 1 0 0 -180.0 90.0

Lower Right Corner 2 1764 1045 180.0 -90.0

Upper Right Corner 3 1764 0 180.0 90.0

Table 18: Calibration reference points

Coordinate

To determine the exact pixel position you can use Microsoft Paint (mspaint.exe) or any other pixelediting program.

The calibration ﬁle is a plain ASCII text ﬁle. The ﬁle may contain comments. The ﬁle consists of two sections, which start with keywords encapsulated in braces.

The REFERENCE section, which is mandatory, contains the three points used to calibrate a map. Each reference point is on a single line and has the following syntax: # = <x>, <y>, <lon>,

<lat> where

•

# is the index of the reference point

•

<x> is the horizontal image coordinate

•

<y> is the vertical image coordinate

•

<lat> is the latitude in degrees and WGS84

•

<lon> is the longitude in degrees and WGS84.

The optional MARKER section deﬁnes additional points on the map. Each point is on a single line with the syntax: # = i, <x>, <y>[, <text>] or # = c, <lat>, <lon>[, <text>] where

•

# is the index of the marker point

•

i indicates that the coordinates relate to the image

•

c indicates that the coordinates relate to the world

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•

<x> is the horizontal image coordinate

•

<y> is the vertical image coordinate

•

<lat> is the latitude in degrees and WGS84

•

<lon> is the longitude in degrees and WGS84.

•

<text> is a optional string in quotes labeling the marker point.

The points must have a unique index from 1 to <num>. The maximum marker point index <num> is written to the same section on a separate line with the syntax Count = <num>.

Figure 38: Map calibration ﬁle: world.mcf

5.2.10.2.2 Map calibration tool

u-center includes a built-in calibration tool for providing coordinates to maps and photographs in supported data formats to create u-center maps. To use the tool open the map view window as seen in Figure 39 and then open the ﬁle of the map to be calibrated.

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Figure 39: Opening map view window

If the ﬁle to be opened has not been calibrated, the message in Figure 40 will appear.

Figure 40: No calibration information found

Select three points on the map and enter the calibration coordinates in the speciﬁed format as seen in Figure 41.

Figure 41: Calibrating a map using calibration tool

Following these steps the map is now calibrated and can be used with u-center.

5.2.11 Chart view

Chart view allows you to conveniently view GNSS data records in graphical form. The data can be scaled in many diﬀerent ways and formats. It's even possible to print the entire chart. The examples below illustrate two diﬀerent typical applications.

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Figure 42: Altitude as a function of Index (X = Index, Y = Alt)

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Figure 43: Latitude as a function of longitude (X =Longitude, Y = Latitude)

Function Description Shortcut /

Cursor The position of the cursor is shown on the lower left edge of the u-center screen

(Longitude, Latitude and Pixel-Position). By holding the left mouse button and moving the cursor over the chart you can measure distance from one position to another.

Move The chart inside the chart view window can be moved.

Zoom In Drawing a rectangle enlarges the chart to the new view. To zoom in the chart

double-click on the chart.

Zoom Out Drawing a rectangle decreases the chart to the new view. To zoom out the chart

double-click on the chart.

Drawing Mode The size and form of the displayed values can be changed in the menu points;

the connection line between the values can be selected in the menu connect. For viewing the statically values (average, minimum, maximum, standard deviation) directly in the chart select the statistics menu.

Fit Y range Fits the Y range.

Follow Y Follow the most current Y value (the most current Y-value is always in the middle

of the chart).

Index or Y value Switch between the index and the Y value.

Y value Select the Y value to be displayed.

Fit X range Fit the X range.

Follow X Follow the most current X value (the most current X value is always in the middle

of the chart).

Index or X value Switch between the index and the X value.

X value Select the X value to be displayed.

Toolbar icon

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Function Description Shortcut /

Moving average Adds a moving average. The average is calculated over the number of most recent

values, speciﬁed with the parameter.

Table 19: Description of the buttons in the chart view toolbar

Toolbar icon

The number of displayed epochs is set to 1800 by default.

5.2.12 Histogram view

Histogram views allow you to view GNSS data and probability distributions (see Figure 44) and print the entire histogram if desired. The number of bins (storage containers) can be set by you.

Figure 44: Altitude Histogram View

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Figure 45: Probability chart

Function Description Shortcut /

Cursor The position of the cursor is shown on the lower left edge of the u-center screen

(Longitude, Latitude and Pixel-Position). By holding the left mouse button and moving the cursor over the histogram you can measure distance from one position to another.

Move The histogram inside the histogram view window can be moved.

Zoom In Drawing a rectangle enlarges the histogram to the new view. To zoom in the

histogram double-click on the histogram.

Zoom Out Drawing a rectangle decreases the histogram to the new view. To zoom out the

histogram double-click on the histogram.

Drawing Mode The size and form of the displayed values can be changed in the menu points;

the connection line between the values can be selected in the menu connect. For viewing the statically values (average, minimum, maximum, standard deviation) directly in the histogram select the statistics menu.

Probability Fit the Probability range.

Fit Probability Fit the Probability range

Y value Select the Y value to be displayed.

Bins The number of bins.

Table 20: Description of the buttons in the histogram view toolbar

Toolbar icon

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The number of displayed epochs is set to 1800 by default.

5.2.13 Camera view

The camera view function enables photographs, taken during recording of log ﬁles, to be linked to the GNSS data stored in the corresponding log ﬁles. This allows a video depiction of the test, with a picture assigned to a speciﬁc point of GNSS data.

Figure 46: Camera view

Using Camera View can result in very large log ﬁles and can slow down u-center when playing such ﬁles.

5.2.14 Deviation map

The deviation map displays positions in longitude and latitude relative to a deﬁned reference position.

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Figure 47: Deviation map

Function Description Shortcut /

Properties

Fit Automatically adjusts the reference position and the maximum deviation to ﬁt all

Track Show track of values from the internal database.

Statistics Show statistics of the values from the internal database.

Maximum deviation shortcut

Reference position shortcut

Table 21: Description of the buttons in the deviation map toolbar

The reference position can be deﬁned as:

• The average of all previously measured positions

• The current position

• A ﬁxed, predeﬁned value

• The radius of the outer circle can be adjusted with the Max. Deviation parameter.

positions into the deviation map.

Shortcut for changing the scale of the deviation map to preﬁxed values. The icons represent Roman numerals, with "I" corresponding to a 1 m radius of the deviation map, and "V"= 5 m, "X"= 10 m, "L"= 50 m, "C" = 100 m, "D" = 500 m, and "M" = 1000 m.

Shortcut for setting the reference position:

• A = average position

• C = current position

Toolbar icon

The number of displayed epochs is set to 1800 by default.

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You can use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in/out on the deviation map. Holding down the Shift key allows you to zoom in beyond the default 1 m maximum zoom.

5.2.15 Sky view

Sky view is an excellent tool for analyzing the performance of antennas as well as the conditions of the satellite observation environment. The polar plot graphically displays the averaged relative satellite signal strength (see Figure 48), the position of satellites in the sky, identiﬁes satellites by number and indicates which satellites are being used in the receiver calculation. Right-clicking the mouse on sky view allows the copying of C/N0 values in tabular form to another program.

Figure 48: Sky view

Function Description Shortcut /

Linear projection

Sine projection Displays the sky view with a sine projection.

C/N0 Displays or hides the averaged C/N0 values.

Orbits Displays or hides the satellite orbits.

Satellites Displays or hides the current satellite positions.

Coordinates Displays or hides the caption for the azimuth.

Elevation Displays or hides the caption for the elevation.

Table 22: Description of the buttons in the sky view toolbar

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Displays the sky view with a linear projection.

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6 NTRIP

This section will give an overview of the NTRIP support in u-center. Currently u-center supports both NTRIP client and NTRIP caster/server functionality. Settings for both of them can be found under "Receiver" menu.

Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol (NTRIP) is an application-level protocol that supports the streaming of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data over the Internet. NTRIP is a generic, stateless protocol based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP/1.1. The HTTP objects are extended to GNSS data streams.

6.1 NTRIP client

NTRIP client allows connecting to any NTRIP compliant caster and receiving RTCM correction data for receiver. Currently version 1 of NTRIP standard is implemented.

Perform the following steps to connect to the caster (steps 10 to 14 are only needed when the mount point requires additional NMEA message to be sent by the client):

1. Establish the communication between u-center and the device (see also Connect to the

receiver).

2. Open NTRIP client settings dialog by clicking on Receiver > NTRIP Client...

Figure 49: NTRIP client settings dialog

3. Enter the address of the NTRIP caster. See position a.

4. Enter the port number of the NTRIP caster. See position b.

5. Enter the username which will be sent to the NTRIP caster. If no authentication is required by

the caster, then leave this ﬁeld empty. See position c.

6. Enter the password which will be sent to the NTRIP caster. If no authentication is required by

the caster, then leave this ﬁeld empty. See position d.

7. Click on Update source table to get an up to date list of all available mount points from the

caster. See position e.

8. To see the detailed attributes of mount points, click on Mount point details. This will bring up

a new dialog box listing all the mount points available and their attributes. See position f.

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9. Select one of the mount points listed in the drop down box. See position g.

10. Click on Use manual position to enter values for position data. If this is not checked, the position

data will be retrieved directly from the receiver. See position h.

11. Enter the longitude in degrees, in either ﬂoating point or integer format. See position i.

12. Enter the latitude in degrees, in either ﬂoating point or integer format. See position j.

13. Enter the altitude in meters in ﬂoating point or integer format. See position k.

14. Enter the geoid separation in meters in ﬂoating point or integer format. See position l.

15. Click on OK to start receiving correction data.

6.2 NTRIP server/caster

The u-center NTRIP caster is able to accept requests from NTRIP compliant clients and send them RTCM correction data. This is implemented according to NTRIP standard version 1. The server part is not implemented according to the standard but we are currently supporting one mount point, which gets data from direct connection to the receiver.

Perform the following steps to set up the caster:

1. Establish communication between u-center and the device (see also Connect to the receiver).

2. Open NTRIP server/caster settings dialog by clicking on Receiver > NTRIP Server/Caster...

There are two tabs. First tab contains the basic conﬁguration (port only), while the second tab contains the rest of the conﬁguration options.

Figure 50: NTRIP server settings dialog, both the Basic and More tabs

3. Enter the port that will be used by the NTRIP caster. See position a.

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4. Check "Enable authentication" if you want to enable basic authentication on your caster. See

position b.

5. Enter the username which will have to be provided by the clients (only if you enabled

authentication under 4). See position c.

6. Enter the password which will have to be provided by the clients (only if you enabled

authentication under 4). See position d.

7. Enter the name for the mount point. See position e.

8. Enter the identiﬁer for the mount point e.g. name of the city next to mount point location. See

position f.

9. Enter the country code in ISO 3166 for the mount point. See position g.

10. Check Get conﬁguration automatically to use longitude, latitude and RTCM message

conﬁguration of the currently connected receiver that will be sent out on the mount point. In this case, you can go directly to 16. See position h.

11. Enter the longitude for the mount point in integer or ﬂoating point format. See position i.

12. Enter the latitude for the mount point in integer or ﬂoating point format. See position j.

13. Select the RTCM messages that will be sent by the mount point. See position k.

14. For every selected RTCM message enter the period at which messages will be sent to the

clients. See position l.

15. Check Store conﬁguration to receiver on exit to store the conﬁguration of RTCM messages to

the receiver (using the UBX-CFG-MSG message). See position m.

16. Click OK to start NTRIP server/caster.

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7 Google Earth server

This section gives an overview of the Google Earth server support in u-center.

The Google Earth server can continuously send positioning data in a speciﬁc format to the Google Earth application. By hosting such a server in u-center we are able to visualize positioning data in real time.

There are only a few settings that can be set via the Google Earth server dialog. This means a lot of functionality and behavior of the Google Earth is still conﬁgurable from the application itself and therefore out of control of u-center's direct control.

Perform the following steps to start the Google Earth server:

1. Establish the communication between u-center and the device (see also Connect to the

receiver).

2. Open Google Earth settings dialog by clicking on File > Database Export > Google Earth Server...

Figure 51: Google Earth settings dialog

3. Enter the port of the server. See position a.

4. Select the refresh mode. Supported modes are "On camera stop" where Google Earth will send

requests only when previous view has stabilized or "On interval" where requests from Google Earth will be sent in regular intervals. See position b.

5. Enter the refresh time. This is the time between two consecutive requests in "On interval" mode

or delay after camera stops in "On camera stop" mode. See position c.

6. Enter the altitude in meters of the view. See position d.

7. Enter the tilt in degrees of the view. A value of 0 indicates that the view is aimed straight down

toward the earth and a value of 90 indicates that the view is aimed toward the horizon. See position e.

8. Check this ﬁeld if you want the heading of the camera to follow heading information coming

from UBX-NAV-PVT message. See position f.

9. Enter the number to set the line width in the view. Higher values mean a thicker tracking line.

See position g.

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10. Select the altitude mode for the view. The "absolute" mode sets the altitude relative to sea level,

"relativeToGround" mode sets it relative to the actual ground elevation in a particular location and "clampToGround" ignores the altitude speciﬁcation. See position h.

11. Click on Update preferences if you want to permanently store information about Line width and

Altitude mode. The same can be achieved through menu "Tools > Preferences > KML settings". See position i.

12. Click on OK to start the server.

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8 Tools

This section will give an overview of the embedded tools of u-center. They can be used for diﬀerent purpose and should facilitate the usage of u-blox GNSS receivers. The tools can be found under the "Tools" menu but some of the options are only displayed when a receiver is connected to u-center. The ﬁrmware update tools also depend on the connected receiver generation.

8.1 Firmware update

This tool allows you to update the ﬁrmware of a receiver. For the ﬁrmware update to work, the receiver must have a ﬂash memory attached as the new ﬁrmware will be stored in this location.

In the earlier versions of u-center, ﬁrmware update was implemented as part of the u-center application. Now, the ﬁrmware update is implemented as a separate application which u-center launches and passes parameters to, depending on the options selected in the UI.

To update the ﬁrmware, perform the following steps:

1. Display the ﬁrmware update tool view by clicking on Tools > Firmware Update...

Figure 52: Firmware update view

2. Select the ﬁrmware image suitable for the connected receiver. See position a on Figure 52.

3. Select the ﬂash information structure ﬁle (only needed if using u-blox receiver generation 7 or

later), or the ﬂash deﬁnition ﬁle (only needed before u-blox receiver generation 7). These ﬁles should be bundled with u-center. See position b on Figure 52.

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4. Select the options for your receiver. See position c on Figure 52.

Option Description Recommended

Use this Baud rate for update

Selects the speed of the communication for updating the ﬁrmware on the receiver. Only has an eﬀect when the receiver is connected over a serial port.

115200

Program FIS only Writes only the ﬂash information structure (FIS) into the external

memory and does not update the ﬁrmware. This option is used for receivers running from ROM but with an attached SQI memory (for example for logging). Only supported after and including u-blox receiver generation 7.

Enter Safeboot before update

USB alternative update method

Send Training sequence Sends the training sequence after safeboot was entered. This

Use chip erase Erases the ﬂash using an single command instead of individual

Transfer image to RAM Transfers the ﬁrmware image directly to the receiver's RAM. Not

Sends the command to enter safeboot. In this state, the receiver boots from the internal ring oscillator and does not rely on any external components. GNSS functionality is not started and the receiver does not output any data. Don't use this method when having the receiver connected over USB.

Enables updating the receiver via USB. "Enter Safeboot before update" will be disabled automatically if that option has been chosen.

synchronizes the internal ring oscillator so that a communication can be established.

sector erases.

stored to ﬂash.

disabled

enabled (using USB only)

enabled

check support

disabled

5. The additional options ﬁeld allows more command options to be speciﬁed than are presented

in the UI. This feature should only be needed if the ﬁrmware update utility launched by u-center has additional features which the development of th UI has not caught up with yet. See position

d on Figure 52.

6. The command line ﬁeld displays the actual command line and parameters used to launch the

ﬁrmware update utility from u-center. This can be used to help diagnose any issues that may occur when performing a ﬁrmware update. See position e on Figure 52.

7. The status ﬁelds display information about the connected receiver, the presence of the

ﬁrmware and FIS ﬁles, and if the ﬁrmware update utility can be found. See position f on Figure

52. If there is a problem with any of these items, the Go button, which starts the update process,

will be greyed out.

8. Press the Go button to start the ﬁrmware update process. This button will only be enabled if u-

center can see the receiver and can ﬁnd the speciﬁed ﬁles. If this button is greyed out, check the status display to see what is wrong. See position g on Figure 52.

9. Press the Stop button to terminate the ﬁrmware update process. This will only be enabled when

the update process is running. See position h on Figure 52.

10. During ﬁrmware update, a progress bar is displayed. See position i on Figure 52.

11. A log is also displayed during the update process. See position j on Figure 52.

12. A detailed image of the ﬂash erase and writing progress will also be shown. See position k on

Figure 52.

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8.2 Legacy Firmware update u-blox 5 - 8

This is the legacy receiver ﬁrmware update tool, which is built into the u-center binary. It can be used to program u-blox 5 to u-blox 8 receivers. Further feature development has been stopped and u-center now uses the stand alone command line ﬁrmware update utility as the primary ﬁrmware update mechanism. This is documented in the previous section. In the future, this legacy ﬁrmware update tool will be removed permanently from u-center.

As with the primary ﬁrmware update tool, the receiver has to have a ﬂash memory attached as the ﬁrmware has to be stored in this location.

Perform the following steps to update the ﬁrmware:

1. Establish the communication between u-center and the device (see also Connect to the

receiver).

2. Open ﬁrmware update tool by clicking Tools > Legacy Firmware Update...

Figure 53: Legacy ﬁrmware update window

3. Select the ﬁrmware image suitable for the connected receiver. See position a on Figure 53.

4. Select the ﬂash deﬁnition ﬁle (only needed before u-blox receiver generation 7). This ﬁle is

bundled with u-center. Point to the latest ﬁle version. See position b on Figure 53.

5. Select the ﬂash information structure ﬁle (when using u-blox receiver generation 7 or later).

This ﬁle is also bundled with u-center. Point to the latest ﬁle version. See position c on Figure 53.

6. Select the correct options for your receiver. See position d on Figure 53.

Option Description Recommended

Use this Baud rate for update

Clear BBR before update Deletes the complete battery-backed memory (BBR) so that the

Program FIS only Writes only the ﬂash information structure (FIS) into the external

Selects the speed of the communication for updating the ﬁrmware on the receiver. Only has an eﬀect when the receiver is connected over a serial port.

receiver will start with the default conﬁguration.

115200

enabled

disabled

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Option Description Recommended

USB alternative update method

Erases the ﬁrst sector of the ﬂash memory and restarts the receiver. The receiver will then start from ROM and the ﬂash ﬁrmware can be updated. Use this method if you want to update the ﬁrmware of a receiver connected over USB.

disabled

Enter Safeboot before update

Send Training sequence Sends the training sequence after safeboot was entered. This

synchronizes the internal ring oscillator so that a communication can be established.

enabled

7. Click OK.

8.3 Dump receiver diagnostics

This tool is used to dump the receiver diagnostic to a ﬁle. Use this tool if requested by the support team.

Figure 54: Dump receiver diagnostics tool

8.4 GNSS conﬁguration

u-center is capable of getting the actual conﬁguration of a u-blox GNSS positioning chip or module and storing it to an ASCII text ﬁle containing hexadecimal records. Such a ﬁle can be edited and stored to a u-blox GNSS device again. In u-center Tools menu, select GNSS Conﬁguration to open the GNSS Conﬁguration dialog box. The following functions are available:

• Specify the name of a new conﬁguration ﬁle to store current conﬁguration from the u-blox GNSS device

• Specify the name of an existing conﬁguration ﬁle and load this conﬁguration into the u-blox GNSS device

• A ﬂag can be set to force storing the conﬁguration into a battery-backed RAM (BBR) or ﬂash, applicable for u-blox 5 to u-blox 8/M8 only.

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Figure 55: GNSS conﬁguration tool

8.4.1 Read/Write conﬁguration ﬁles

1. Connect to the device.

2. Open "Tools > GNSS Conﬁguration".

3. Select the u-blox receiver generation connected from the Generation drop down menu.

4. To read an existing conﬁguration ﬁle, select the name of the ﬁle, then click Transfer ﬁle >

GNSS button. The GNSS Conﬁguration window then closes and the progress window pops

up, showing the conﬁguration being sent to the receiver. This progress window closes after successful transfer.

5. To write a new conﬁguration ﬁle, click " Transfer GNSS > File". The GNSS Conﬁguration window

closes and the progress window pops up, showing the conﬁgurations being polled and stored into a local ﬁle in ASCII format.

Select Store conﬁguration into BBR/Flash checkbox if the parameters need to be stored into the device's non-volatile memory (BBR/Flash). This option is applicable for u-blox 5 to ublox 8/M8 generation receivers.

Sending a conﬁguration to a u-blox GNSS device may fail due to a baud rate change on the current serial port of the receiver to which the conﬁguration is being sent. If this happens, simply change the u-center baud rate and send the conﬁguration again.

If reading or writing conﬁguration data fails too frequently, try to increase the number of retries ucenter should do on a single message if one fails.

The user can abort the transfer by clicking the Abort button. It is not possible to close the window unless the transfer is complete or aborted by the user.

It is not recommended to read/write conﬁguration while the u-blox GNSS device is in sleep mode.

8.4.2 Editing conﬁguration ﬁle

When clicking the Edit button in the GNSS Conﬁguration dialog, the Notepad editor opens (standard Windows software). Conﬁgurations are stored the following way:

• The ﬁrst line contains the version of the u-blox GNSS receiver where the conﬁguration is from.

Never change this line!

•

For the second and following lines, each line contains the same: <class ID>-<message ID> -

<hexadecimal byte code of the message>. The byte code consists of class and message

IDs (2 bytes), payload length (2 bytes), payload (payload length bytes). The sync characters and the checksum are not included. They will be calculated automatically.

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Refer to u-blox Receiver Description including Protocol Specification for detailed information and ranges.

Figure 56: Content of GNSS conﬁguration ﬁle

8.5 Preferences

The preferences tool can be used to conﬁgure a number of u-center parameters.

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9 How To

9.1 Change baud rate of receiver

1. Connect to the device.

2. Open View / Messages View (Hotkey: F9).

Select UBX-CFG-PRT.

Poll the current conﬁguration from the receiver ( ).

5. Change the setting to the desired baud rate.

Send the message to the receiver ( ).

u-center-User guide

Figure 57: Changing baud rate (using UBX-CFG-PRT)

9.2 Save parameters to receiver non-volatile memory (BBR/

Flash)

There are 2 ways to save parameters to the receiver's non-volatile memory (BBR/Flash).

9.2.1 Saving parameters with UBX-CFG-CFG

1. Connect to the device.

2. Open View / Messages View (Hotkey: F9).

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Select UBX-CFG-CFG.

4. Select “save current conﬁguration” (see Figure 58).

Send the message to the receiver ( ).

u-center-User guide

Figure 58: Saving Parameters (using UBX-CFG-CFG)

9.2.2 Saving parameters with GNSS conﬁguration

Refer to chapter Read/Write conﬁguration ﬁles

9.3 Recording/Playing a log ﬁle

u-center allows recording and playing log ﬁles. Use the player controls, to record or playback a log ﬁle. Select the log ﬁle to be opened through the ﬁle menu tool bar. The series of buttons in the player toolbar can be used to navigate through the log ﬁle. The records will be displayed on the navigation display window, in the same way that live GNSS data is displayed when using u-center. Refer to Player for a description of the menu items.

9.4 Conduct sensitivity tests

u-center is a useful tool for conducting sensitivity tests of GNSS positioning chips and modules and receiver designs. To do so, under open sky conditions record a log ﬁle of the receiver to be tested and an Evaluation Kit as reference. Make sure that the log ﬁles are recorded under the same conditions.

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Using the Statistic View or Table View windows from u-center, compare the C/N0 values of the ﬁve strongest satellites. With Table view, export the values to a spreadsheet for analysis.

9.5 Read/Write conﬁguration ﬁles

Refer to chapter Read/Write conﬁguration ﬁles

9.6 Set GNSS conﬁguration

1. Connect to the device.

2. Open View / Messages View (Hotkey: F9).

Select UBX-CFG-GNSS.

4. Place or remove the checkmark for the desired GNSS under Enable.

Send the message to the receiver ( ).

The following ﬁgure shows an example that conﬁgures the device to receive GPS and GLONASS.

Figure 59: GNSS conﬁguration (using UBX-CFG-GNSS)

9.7 Change epoch detection method

u-center looks for epochs in the incoming messages from the receiver, and uses them as a heartbeat to trigger view updates and calculate the statistics. To detect new epochs, u-center examines various groups of ﬁelds in the incoming message stream. It is possible to specify which ﬁeld groups u-center is interested in for epoch detection. Opening the dialog under "Receiver > Epoch detection..." allows the user to do this.

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Figure 60: Select epoch detection method

From the "Select Epoch detection Scheme" window, the following options can be conﬁgured:

Option Description Default

iTOW Monitor the "iTOW" database element. Trigger an epoch if a diﬀerence is seen.

HNR TOW Monitor the "NAV-HNR iTOW" database element. Trigger an epoch if a diﬀerence

UTC-TIME Monitor the "UTC" database element. Trigger an epoch if a diﬀerence is seen.

GPS-TIME Monitor the "GPS time" database element. Trigger an epoch if a diﬀerence is seen.

NAV-EOE Monitor for incoming UBX-NAV-EOE messages. Trigger an epoch if one is seen. Yes

ITFM Status Monitor the "ITFM Status" database element. Trigger an epoch if a diﬀerence is

NMEA repeat Monitor for NMEA messages. Trigger an epoch if the same NMEA message is

No additional ﬁltering

Only trigger on priority mode messages

Only trigger on non-priority mode messages

Table 23: Epoch detection method options

Typically UBX-NAV messages cause this trigger.

is seen. HNR based messages cause this trigger.

Typically NMEA messages cause this trigger.

Typically PUBX messages cause this trigger.

seen. The UBX-RXM-INTF message causes this trigger.

seen twice since the last epoch. Excluding GxGRS and GxGSA.

No additional ﬁltering performed when looking for epoch triggers. Yes

Trigger an epoch on a priority navigation output message. No

Trigger an epoch on a non priority navigation output message. No

Yes

The default conﬁguration can be restored by clicking the Restore defaults button.

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10 Troubleshooting

NMEA or UBX protocol is not available in the Messages View

u-center uses dynamic link libraries (DLL). The installation program will automatically install the required DLLs into the u-center program directory. Should you try to copy a u-center installation from one location to another, make sure you also copy the DLL ﬁles. Verify, the version of u-center matches the DLL version.

u-center does not display all messages

Make sure the baud rate is suﬃcient. If the bandwidth is insuﬃcient, receivers will skip excessive messages. Some serial port cards/adapters (i.e. USB to RS-232 converter) frequently generate errors. If a communication error occurs while u-center receives a message, the message will be discarded.

Some COM port are not shown in the port list

Only the COM ports that are available on your computer will show up in the COM port drop down list. If a COM port is grayed out, another application in the computer is using it.

PC is very slow when u-center runs

If a high value of epochs is selected, the display in real-time cannot be guaranteed, especially when many graphical views are open. u-center does not update minimized views and console in real-time. Close or minimize as many of the graphical views and consoles as possible and u-center will run faster.

Log ﬁle/data are only partly displayed

The number of epochs displayed in u-center can be limited in order to allow an eﬃcient analysis of larger log ﬁles. When this limit is set then the oldest values will be discarded after the database reaches this limit size. Data stored to a log ﬁle are not aﬀected by the database limitation. Refer to

Database limitations for instructions on how to increase or remove this limit. When planning long-

term observations, it's recommended to start recording a log ﬁle before analysis begins.

Output messages are not updated in the Messages View

Make sure that the protocol you would like to receive is enabled. If so, double-click on the desired output message. Double-clicking on an output message enables or disables the periodic message update if the respective protocol is active. Alternatively, select the desired input or output message

and press the Poll button. If you would like to get UBX-INF-* messages in the log ﬁle, conﬁgure the receiver accordingly with the UBX-CFG-INF input message.

No log ﬁle is recorded

After a new log ﬁle is created, logging will not automatically start but only after selecting the Record button in the Player Toolbar.

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Revision history

Revision Date Name Status / Comments

- 08-Oct-2008 tgri Initial release

A 22-Jul-2009 tgri New CI

A1 17-Feb-2011 tgri Third party libraries

B 01-Nov-2011 tgri Google Earth View added

C 03-Jun-2012 khir Updated for u-center 6.3. GNSS conﬁguration added

R06 09-Dec-2013 mfre Update for u-center 8.01 and u-blox 7 and M8 generations

R07 01-Oct-2014 jbow Packet view update describing message direction indicators

R08 23-Feb-2015 yzha Updated menu pictures and shortcut key list corresponding to latest version

R09 04-Sep-2015 smos Updated Contact page

R10 12-Dec-2015 mfre Remove Google Earth support

R11 29-Mar-2016 mfre Epoch detection, DGNSS interface and receiver status icons description

R12 15-Jul-2016 mfre Map view updated, removed EVK-6PPP how to

R13 01-Oct-2016 rsmr NTRIP support added

R14 19-Dec-2016 rsmr Google Earth server added, new RTCM messages added

R15 31-Mar-2017 rsmr Support for Sqlite database added, improved UI processing, support for

R16 29-Jun-2017 jbow Limiting the database size, automatic receiver identiﬁcation

R17 28-Sep-2017 msul Firmware update view modernized

R18 04-Dec-2017 msul Addition of the "Transfer image to RAM" checkbox in ﬁrmware update window

R19 29-May-2018 msul Addition of the "Stepback" button in log ﬁle toolbar and additional bar to

R20 28-Sep-2018 msul Addition of the "USB alternative update method" checkbox in ﬁrmware update

R21 11-Mar-2019 msul Added Generation 9 Advanced Conﬁguration View

R22 25-Jun-2019 msul Updated ﬁgures 8, 9, 29, 53 and 56. Updated section 8.4.1 Read/Write

R23 30-Aug-2019 msul Updated ﬁgures 19, 20, 21 and table 12 for new epoch marker. Updated ﬁgure

R24 02-Oct-2019 msul Updated section 5.2.7.2 Advanced Conﬁguration View.

R25 23-Oct-2019 msul Added a hex ﬁeld to the Advanced Conﬁguration View.

R26 15-Mar-2021 msul Updated ﬁgures 8 and 9.

added, legacy aiding marked deprecated, pictures updated

moving baseline added

NTRIP server/caster settings screen

window

conﬁguration ﬁles accordingly.

60 and table 23 for advanced ﬁltering introduction in epoch detection scheme.

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Contact

For complete contact information visit us at www.u-blox.com.

u-blox Oﬃces

North, Central and South America Headquarters Asia, Australia, Paciﬁc



u-blox America, Inc. u-blox AG u-blox Singapore Pte. Ltd.

Phone: +1 703 483 3180 Phone: +41 44 722 74 44 Phone: +65 6734 3811 E-mail: info_us@u-blox.com E-mail: info@u-blox.com E-mail: info_ap@u-blox.com   Support: support@u-blox.com Support: support_ap@u-blox.com

Regional Oﬃce West Coast  Regional Oﬃce Australia

Phone: +1 408 573 3640   Phone: +61 3 9566 7255 E-mail: info_us@u-blox.com   E-mail: info_anz@u-blox.com     Support: support_ap@u-blox.com

Technical Support  Regional Oﬃce China (Beijing)

Phone: +1 703 483 3185   Phone: +86 10 68 133 545 E-mail: support_us@u-blox.com   E-mail: info_cn@u-blox.com     Support: support_cn@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce China (Chongqing)

    Phone: +86 23 6815 1588     E-mail: info_cn@u-blox.com     Support: support_cn@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce China (Shanghai)

    Phone: +86 21 6090 4832     E-mail: info_cn@u-blox.com     Support: support_cn@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce China (Shenzhen)

    Phone: +86 755 8627 1083     E-mail: info_cn@u-blox.com     Support: support_cn@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce India

    Phone: +91 80 4050 9200     E-mail: info_in@u-blox.com     Support: support_in@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce Japan (Osaka)

    Phone: +81 6 6941 3660     E-mail: info_jp@u-blox.com     Support: support_jp@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce Japan (Tokyo)

    Phone: +81 3 5775 3850     E-mail: info_jp@u-blox.com     Support: support_jp@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce Korea

    Phone: +82 2 542 0861     E-mail: info_kr@u-blox.com     Support: support_kr@u-blox.com

  Regional Oﬃce Taiwan

    Phone: +886 2 2657 1090     E-mail: info_tw@u-blox.com     Support: support_tw@u-blox.com

Europe, Middle East, Africa

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Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

1 Preface

1.1 Overview

1.2 Using this guide

1.3 Technical support

1.3.1 Worldwide Web

1.3.2 By email

1.3.3 Helpful information when contacting technical support

2 Features

3 Getting started

3.1 General information about displayed values

3.2 Connecting an u-blox evaluation kit to the PC

3.3 Installing u-center

3.4 Connect to the receiver

3.4.1 Select the port

3.4.2 Select the baud rate (only for COM ports)

4 Concept and philosophy

4.1 Color and satellite coding scheme

4.2 Operating modes

4.2.1 Online mode

4.2.2 Stop mode

4.2.3 Record mode

4.2.4 Play mode

4.2.5 Relations between modes

4.2.6 Database limitations

4.2.7 Receiver information

5 u-center menus and windows

5.1 Main frame and toolbars

5.1.1 Standard menu bar

5.1.1.1 File

5.1.1.2 Edit

5.1.1.3 View

5.1.1.4 Player

5.1.1.5 Receiver

5.1.1.6 Tools

5.1.1.7 Window

5.1.1.8 Help

5.1.2 Standard toolbar

5.1.3 Views toolbar

5.1.4 Communication toolbar

5.1.6 Action toolbar

5.1.7 Standard statusbar

5.2 Views and windows

5.2.1 Packet console

5.2.2 Binary console

5.2.3 Text console

5.2.5 Regular expression evaluation

5.2.5.1 Examples

5.2.5.1.1 Example 1

5.2.5.1.2 Example 2

5.2.5.1.3 Example 3

5.2.5.1.4 Example 4

5.2.6 Messages view

5.2.6.1 Receiver output messages

5.2.8 Statistic view

5.2.9 Table view

5.2.10 Map view

5.2.10.1 Using map view

5.2.10.2 Map calibration

5.2.10.2.1 Example

5.2.10.2.2 Map calibration tool

5.2.11 Chart view

5.2.12 Histogram view

5.2.13 Camera view

5.2.14 Deviation map

5.2.15 Sky view

6 NTRIP

6.1 NTRIP client

6.2 NTRIP server/caster

7 Google Earth server

8 Tools

8.1 Firmware update

8.2 Legacy Firmware update u-blox 5 - 8

8.3 Dump receiver diagnostics

8.5 Preferences

9 How To