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LBS SAT-SURF: An innovative & flexible HW+SW platform to assist research The integration of navigation and communication functionalities is one of the key elements exploited in new location-based systems and services Gianluca Falco PhD program, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Italy Fabrizio Dominici Project manager, ISMB Navigation lab, Istituto Superio Mario Boella, Italy Gianluca Marucco Researcher, Istituto Superio Mario Boella (ISMB), Italy Antonio Defi na Researcher, Istituto Superio Mario Boella (ISMB), Italy 12 | Coordinates November 2010 GNSS technologies are progressively becoming one of the key elements in most of innovative wireless applications. Most location-based services and systems are in fact employing standalone GPS, GPS+EGNOS (or WAAS), Assisted- GPS and Differential GPS as core technologies. In order to support the fast diffusion of such technologies, and in order to be ready for the Galileo innovations, companies and academy need to invest at the R&D level as well as to train engineers, technicians and students on these subjects. For this purpose a novel platform has been designed and developed by the Navigation Signal Analysis and Simulation (NavSAS) group (research lab in cooperation with Politecnico di Torino and Istituto Superiore Mario Boella), focused on navigation & localization research topics. SAT-SURF/ER: A brief description of the system The new device is composed by SAT- SURF, a hardware box integrating NAV/ COM capabilities, and SAT-SURFER, a software suite able to control and communicate with the hardware [1]. A graphical image of the hardware/ software device is depicted in Fig.1. The SAT-SURF hardware includes components of the shelf, i.e. mass Fig. 1: SAT-SURF : view of the case (a) and of the hardware board (b) market GPS and GSM/GPRS modules. The innovation of this platform resides in its flexibility, since it has been designed not for a GPS module made by a single manufacturer, but it is has been conceived with a multiple footprint (i.e. pinout of a GPS module) of different GPS receivers. In detail, the current version of SAT-SURF can mount the following five GPS modules: • uBlox ANTARIS 4 GPS module (DGPS compliant); • uBlox 5 GPS module (OMA- SUPL Assisted GPS compliant); • Falcom JP13-LP GPS module based on SiRFstarIII (low power consumption); • Falcom JP15 GPS module based on SiRFstarIIx (DGPS compliant). • SkyTraq Venus634LPx-T, a high-performance, low-power, precision timing GPS module. SAT-SURF also allows to get the data from a remote receiver via TCP/IP connection. In particular SAT-SURF is capable of getting and logging data from all receivers supporting the Septentrio proprietary protocol called Septentrio Binary Format (SBF). At time of writing, there is no Evaluation Kit (EVK) in the market allowing the same degree of freedom. SAT-SURFER is the software suite running on standard PC that gets and processes data from SAT-SURF (Fig.2). SAT-SURFER uses the proprietary protocols (not only NMEA) of GPS
modules to get all the available receiver parameters and raw measurements, in addition to conventional positioning information. Such data are displayed in real time on a graphical user interface in order to easily monitor satellites, signals, receiver and user’s position. The same data are also logged with the related GPS time stamp and stored in different file formats (ASCII text files, MATLAB®, Microsoft Office Excel®, binary, RINEX 2/3, KML and NMEA) for easy postprocessing and analysis purposes. Such tool provides the possibility to have a common interface towards different GNSS receivers in order to perform measurements and detailed analysis on a common set of data. In particular considering the DGPS technique, it is possible to get the differential corrections as computed by the base receiver through different ways of connection (via COM, GPRS or TCP). Furthermore in case of TCP connection SAT-SURF is able to connect to a Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol (NTRIP) caster to obtain the required corrections and store all the parameters according to the RTCM standard. SAT-SURF is equipped with a GSM module in order to provide AGPS functionalities as well. The connection to the Assistance Server can be set via TCP or via GPRS by using the GPRS modem integrated within SAT-SURF. All the communication sessions between the two terminals (Assistance Server of the Base Station and SAT-SURF) are based on OMA-SUPL protocol. Recently SAT-SURFER allows the user to collect data from three different external Inertial Measurement Units (Microstrain 3DM-GX2, Microstrain 3DM-GX3, and Crossbow IMU.). An Inertial Unit is able (a) to measure accelerations and angular rates of the system that is monitoring. The supported IMUs implement three axes accelerometers, three axes gyroscopes and, only on the Microstrain models three axes magnetometers. Collected data are tagged using the IMU internal clock, synchronized with GPS (when it is required) and stored in MS Excel, Matlab or text files. The core of the SAT-SURFER is realized in managed C++ based on .NET 2.0 and is able to control all the other software modules, including the data logging functionalities and several drivers for each GPS receiver, for the GSM modem and for other advanced functionalities (e.g. AGPS, NTRIP DGPS, SISNeT, etc.). Each driver is written in native C++ (unmanaged) allowing to a low level control of the connected hardware modules. An example of different SAT- SURFER configurations and settings is reported in Fig.3. Fig. 2: Screenshot of SAT-SURFER Graphical Unit Interface SAT-SURF for research and educational purposes The SAT-SURF and SAT-SURFER features discussed in previous Section offer a wide range of potential type of analysis and applications both for education and research purposes. On an educational point of view some possible uses can be the following ones: • practical training in the field of GNSS and communication technologies: in fact SAT-SURF and SAT-SURFER can be used in order to complement the necessary theoretical knowledge giving to the students a practical experience with real receivers; • analysis of the evolution of different signal and receiver parameters and observables (including number of satellite in view and used for the PVT computation, C/N0, Doppler frequency shift, carrier phase, GDOP, ephemeris parameters, ionospheric parameters, satellite positions) versus GPS time and Fig.3: An overview of different settings and confi gurations of SAT-SURFER: Local Area Differential GPS (a), Assisted-GPS (b), Integration with external sensors: IMU (c). (b) (c) Coordinates November 2010 | 13
Page 1 and 2: ISSN 0973-2136 RNI: DELENG/2005/151
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