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Using u-Center to connect to the GPS on Raspberry Pi

u-Center from u-Blox is a graphical interface which can be used to monitor and configure all aspects of the GPS module on a BerryGPS-IMU or BerryGPS-GSM.

u-Center from uBlox
U-Center

 

u-Center only runs on Windows. It can connect over the network to a Raspberry Pi.  This will require us to redirect the serial interface on the Raspberry Pi to a network port using ser2net.

Pi Setup

Do an upt-get update and then install ser2net;

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get update
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install ser2net

Edit the ser2net config file and add the serial port redirect to a network port. We will use network port 6000

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo nano /etc/ser2net.conf

And add this line at the bottom;

6000:raw:600:/dev/serial0:9600 NONE 1STOPBIT 8DATABITS XONXOFF LOCAL -RTSCTS

This is a breakdown of the syntax for the line above;
TCP port : connection type : timeout : serial port : serial port speed : serial options

you can now start ser2net using;

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo ser2net

And you can use the below command to check if it is running by seeing if the port is open and assigned to the ser2net process;

pi@raspberrypi ~ $sudo netstat -ltnp | grep 6000

If it is running, you should see something similar to the output below;

check result of ser2net

Windows PC Setup and Connecting to the GPS module

You can download u-Center from here.

Once installed, open u-Center. You will get the default view as shown below.  No data will be shown as we are not connected to a GPS.

u-Center default view

The next step, is to create a new network connection and connect to the GPS which is connected to our Raspberry Pi. You can create a new connection under the Receiver and then Network connection menus.

u-Center connect to Raspberry Pi
In the new window, enter the IP address of the Raspberry Pi and specify port 6000. This is the port we configured in ser2net on the Raspberry Pi.
u-Center Raspberry Pi Address

This is what the default view looks like when connected and the GPS has a fix.u-Center connected

 

u-Center

Below I will list of the more useful windows/tools within u-Center.
You can also click on the images below for a larger version.

Data View
This window will show you the longitude, latitude, altitude and fix mode. It will also show the HDOP, which is the Horizontal Dilution of Precision.  Lower is better, anything below 1.0 means you have a good signal.

u-Center Data View
u-Center Data View

Ground Track
This window will show you where the satellites are as well as what time.

u-Center Ground Track
u-Center Ground Track

Skye View
Sky view is an excellent tool for analyzing the performance of antennas as well as the conditions of the satellite observation environment.

u-Center Sky View
u-Center Sky View

Deviation Map
This map shows the average of all previously measured positions.

u-Center Deviation Map
u-Center Deviation Map

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