Driver Information

Driver	Ekinox	Interface Type	TCP/UDP/Serial	Driver Class Type	Counted
UTC Driver	Yes and No	Input / Output	Input	Executable	DrvQPSCountedUDP.exe DrvQPSCountedTCP.exe   DrvQPSCounted.exe
Related Systems	Page: Network - SBG Systems (R-P-H) (TCP) - 03 — Pitch Roll Heave Sensor Page: Network - SBG Systems (R-P-H) (UDP) - 03 — Pitch Roll Heave Sensor Page: Network - SBG Systems (R-P-H) (UTC) (TCP) - 03 — Pitch Roll Heave Sensor Page: Network - SBG Systems (R-P-H) (UTC) (UDP) - 03 — Pitch Roll Heave Sensor Page: Network - SBG Systems Delayed Heave (TCP) - 23 — Miscellaneous System Page: Network - SBG Systems Delayed Heave (TCP) UTC - 23 — Miscellaneous System Page: Network - SBG Systems Delayed Heave (UDP) - 23 — Miscellaneous System Page: Network - SBG Systems Delayed Heave (UDP) UTC - 23 — Miscellaneous System Page: Network - SBG Systems Heading (TCP) - 05 — Gyro Compass Page: Network - SBG Systems Heading (UDP) - 05 — Gyro Compass Page: Network - SBG Systems Heading (UTC) (TCP) - 05 — Gyro Compass Page: Network - SBG Systems Heading (UTC) (UDP) - 05 — Gyro Compass Page: Network - SBG Systems Position (TCP) - 12 — Position Navigation System Page: Network - SBG Systems Position (UDP) - 12 — Position Navigation System Page: Network - SBG Systems Position (UTC) (TCP) - 12 — Position Navigation System Page: Network - SBG Systems Position (UTC) (UDP) - 12 — Position Navigation System Page: Network - SBG Systems UTC (TCP) - 18 — Time Synchronization System Page: Network - SBG Systems UTC (UDP) - 18 — Time Synchronization System Page: Network - SBG Systems Vel, Acc, Rot (TCP) (UTC) - 42 — Acceleration Velocity Sensor Page: Network - SBG Systems Vel, Acc, Rot (TCP) - 42 — Acceleration Velocity Sensor Page: Network - SBG Systems Vel, Acc, Rot (UDP) (UTC) - 42 — Acceleration Velocity Sensor Page: Network - SBG Systems Vel, Acc, Rot (UDP) - 42 — Acceleration Velocity Sensor Page: SBG Systems (R-P-H) (UTC) - 03 — Pitch Roll Heave Sensor Page: SBG Systems (R-P-H) - 03 — Pitch Roll Heave Sensor Page: SBG Systems Delayed Heave - 23 — Miscellaneous System Page: SBG Systems Delayed Heave UTC - 23 — Miscellaneous System Page: SBG Systems Heading - 05 — Gyro Compass Page: SBG Systems Heading UTC - 05 — Gyro Compass Page: SBG Systems Position (UTC) - 12 — Position Navigation System Page: SBG Systems Position - 12 — Position Navigation System Page: SBG Systems UTC - 18 — Position Navigation System Page: SBG Systems Vel, Acc, Rot (UTC) - 42 — Acceleration Velocity Sensor Page: SBG Systems Vel, Acc, Rot - 42 — Acceleration Velocity Sensor
Related Pages

System Configuration

The Ekinox units support multiple interface types (serial, network, CAN, Logic I/O).

QINSy supports the following interfaces:

• Serial
• Network 
  • TCP
  • UDP
    
    

The first screen which will appear can be seen below, here you can still see the system interfacing, make sure that you select the correct view which applies to your type of survey.

Status information can be found on the front page as well including:

• System connection
• Alignment
• Timing/clock
• GNSS mode
• and other various types of information

Orientation and offsets

In order to use either of these interfaces, they must be enabled through the embedded web server.

Here interface parameters (e.g. port number, IP-address, baud rate etc.) can be set:

The user must also configure which messages the unit should send out on each interface. Also select the correct Output Monitoring Point.

The status message is a special message because it contains status information of many of the other message types. As such, it is vital for QINSy to determine the quality of the data from the unit and must always be enabled.
The UTC message is another special message that is mandatory when the message time stamp is decoded from the message (see Driver Selection). Which QINSy systems use which messages is described in detail in the remainder of this document. 

The table below summarizes all the logs that this driver can decode. 

SBG Center

Please connect the SBG unit to the computer via Ethernet or serial.

Open the sbgCenter:

• Check in the Settings to which kind of unit you are connecting:
  
  • Serial for the Ellips or Ekinox
  • Ethernet for the Ekinox unit
• Connect your system via the Connect icon.
  • The Select and connect a device windows pops up.
  • Click on Refresh to find the unit connect to the computer.
  • In case an Ethernet is connected, the IP location can be found here as well (this will help to connect via the web browser).
  • Select the device and connect.

SBG information

Device information:

Device status:

Once all the above is checked and correctly received, the following information can be displayed as well:

Interfacing Notes

When a heading is decoded from the Ekinox:

• Add a "Time synchronization" system to your template and select the appropriate Ekinox driver

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• On the next page enable the use of your Time Synchronization adapter, or leave it disabled if you do not have a Time Synchronization pulse interfaced to QINSy. Normally the use of a Time Synchronization adapter is highly recommended, but note that in a setup where all other systems are already UTC time-tagged from an external time source (GNSS receiver), there is no need for QINSy to use a Time Synchronization adapter.

Database Setup

For each system, the user will have to choose from a number of drivers based on which interface is used (TCP/UDP/Serial) and whether the incoming message is time stamped with the UTC time in the message, or at the time of arrival. 

• Position navigation system
  • Position
• Gyro Compass 
  
  • Heading
• Pitch Roll heave sensor 
  
  • Motion 
    
    • Pitch
    • Roll
    • Heave (Real Time) 
      
      
• Time Synchronization system
  
  • Time
    
    
• Acceleration, Velocity & Rotation Rate
  • Acceleration
  • Velocity
  • Rotation rate
    
    
• Miscellaneous System
  • Delayed Heave

The table below shows which driver to choose for each interface-UTC combination. The exact name of the driver differs per system, this is indicated in the table by <system type> which should be replaced by a system specific text. (F.i. "Network (TCP) SBG Ekinox (R-P-H) (UTC) " or "Network (TCP) SBG Ekinox Heading (UTC)").

Position Navigation System

In order to decode a position from the Ekinox:

• Add a Position Navigation System to your template and select the appropriate Ekinox driver

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• Select for Horizontal and Vertical datum WGS84.
• Position information can be decoded from EKF_NAV, GPS1_POS or GPS2_POS log. Which log is used, is based on the selected receiver number in Database Setup:

Quality

The possible values of the quality indicator (displayed as "solution mode" in the Positioning System Display) depend on which log is used for the system. If the position is decoded from the NAV log, the status is decoded from the POSITION_VALID bit in the STATUS log. If either GPS1 or GPS2 is used to decode the position, the quality is decoded from the GPS_POS_STATUS field in the LOG_GPSx_POS log in the following way:

• If SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_STATUS is equal to SBG_ECOM_POS_SOL_COMPUTED (a valid position has been computed), the variable SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_TYPE is returned.
• If SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_STATUS is not equal to SBG_ECOM_POS_SOL_COMPUTED, SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_STATUS  multiplied by -1 is returned. This leads to the following possible values for the position quality:

Gyro

In order to decode a heading from the Ekinox:

• Add a Gyro Compass System to your template and select the appropriate Ekinox driver

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• Select type: bearing, unit: degrees
• Heading data can be decoded from EKF_EULER, GPS1_HDT or GPS2_HDT log. Which log is used is based on the slot value in Database Setup:

Quality

The possible values of the quality indicator (displayed as "solution mode" in the Positioning System Display) depend on which log is used for the system:

If the EULER log is used to decode heading, the quality of the data is decoded from the SBG_ECOM_SOL_HEADING_VALID bit in the SOLUTION_STATUS field of the LOG_STATUS log.

If either of the GPSx_HDT logs is used to decode the heading, the quality is decoded from the GPS_HDT_STATUS field in the log. This leads to the following possible values for the heading quality.

In order to decode a heading from the Ekinox:

• Add a "Time Synchronization" system to your template and select the appropriate Ekinox driver

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit
• On the next page enable the use of your Time Synchronization adapter, or leave it disabled if you do not have a Time Synchronization pulse interfaced to QINSy. Normally the use of a Time Synchronization adapter is highly recommended, but notice that in a setup where all other systems are already UTC time-tagged from an external time source (GNSS receiver), there is no need for QINSy to use a Time Synchronization adapter.

Pitch, Roll and Heave

There are two options to handle this issue:

• Single Pitch, Roll and Heave system. 
  Configure a Pitch, Roll an Heave system with "R/P/H0", "R/P/H1", "R/P/H2" or "R/P/H3" as slot id. The resulting VRU observation will be timestamped with the time the roll and pitch were calculated. The observation will contain the heave of the SHIP_MOTION_x log received after the EULER log that was the source of the roll and pitch. In this scenario, the heave in the observation may be calculated at a different time than the pitch and roll. If the EULER log and the SHIP_MOTION_x log have the same output rate, the maximum time difference between the pitch/roll and the heave is equal to 1 over the output rate in seconds. This means that if the motion data is outputted at 10 Hz, your maximum time difference is 0.1 seconds.
• Dual Pitch, Roll and Heave system.
  Configure two Pitch roll and heave systems. 
  • One for pitch and roll, using slot ID "P/R"
  • One for heave, using slot ID "HEAVE0", "HEAVE1", "HEAVE2" or "HEAVE3"
  This option ensures that both pitch/roll and heave are provided with an accurate time tag.

Database Setup single system

• Add a "Pitch Roll Heave sensor" system to your template and select the appropriate Ekinox driver 

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• Rotation measurements
  • Unit: degrees
• Rotation conventions
  
  • Roll convention: Positive heeling to starboard
  • Pitch convention: Positive bow up
• Heave measurements
  • sign: Positive downwards
  • unit: Meters
• Pitch and Roll can only be decoded from EULER data. The heave can be decoded from any of the four SBG_ECOM_LOG_SHIP_MOTION_X logs, where SBG_ECOM_LOG_SHIP_MOTION_0 contains the heave at the position of the unit and the other three contain the heave at a position that can be configured by the user through the embedded web server. Which log is used to decode the heave can be configured through the slot number of the Pitch Roll Heave sensor:

Database Setup dual system

• Add a "Pitch Roll Heave sensor" system to your template for pitch and roll. Select the appropriate Ekinox driver 

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• Rotation measurements
  • Unit: degrees
• Rotation conventions
  
  • Roll convention: Positive heeling to starboard
  • Pitch convention: Positive bow up
• Select "R/P" as slot.
  

• Add a  second "Pitch Roll Heave sensor" system to your template for the heave. Select the appropriate Ekinox driver 

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• Rotation measurements
  • Unit: degrees
• Rotation conventions
  
  • Roll convention: Positive heeling to starboard
  • Pitch convention: Positive bow up
• Heave measurements
  • sign: Positive downwards
  • unit: Meters
• The heave can be decoded from any of the four SBG_ECOM_LOG_SHIP_MOTION_X logs, where SBG_ECOM_LOG_SHIP_MOTION_0 contains the heave at the position of the unit and the other three contain the heave at a position that can be configured by the user through the embedded web server. Which log is used to decode the heave can be configured through the slot number of the Pitch Roll Heave sensor:

Quality

The quality of the pitch and roll is decoded from the SBG_ECOM_SOL_ATTITUDE_VALID bit in the SOLUTION_STATUS field of the STATUS log. 

The quality of the heave is decoded from the SBG_ECOM_HEAVE_VALID bit in the status field of the SHIP_MOTION_X log.

This leads to the following possible quality values: 

Acceleration, Velocity & Rotation Rate

In order to decode acceleration, velocity and rotation from the Ekinox:

• Add an "Acceleration, Velocity & Rotation Rate" system to your template and select the appropriate Ekinox driver 

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• Slots

  • Velocity can be decoded from inertial data. GPS1 data, GPS2 data and Odometer data.

  • Acceleration can be decoded from IMU data and ship motion data.

  • Rotation can only be decoded from IMU data

  • The table below shows which slot value should be used to decode the data from the various log types:

Quality

The table below describes from which messages the quality numbers for the different observations are decoded and what the values mean:

Miscellaneous System - Delayed heave

Ekinox units are able to output a delayed heave message which contains a delayed computation, which provides a better heave value, but is delayed. As such, it cannot be used in online computations, but the data can be used in post processing. The delayed heave can be viewed by adding a miscellaneous observation.

Database Setup

• Add a "Miscellaneous" system to your template and select the appropriate Ekinox driver 

• Select the port and/or IP address of the Ekinox unit

• Select the desired delayed heave value through the slot id: "DEL_HEAVE0", "DEL_HEAVE1", "DEL_HEAVE2" or "DEL_HEAVE3" 

Online

As soon as you go on-line and delayed heave messages are being sent by the Ekinox unit (independent of whether or not a miscellaneous system for delayed heave has been configured), the delayed heave messages will be logged to two files:

• Binary file
  A binary file will be created in your project's Import folder, containing all incoming SHIP_MOTION_HP_x logs.
  The binary file contains the raw log data (e.g. TIME_STAMP, HEAVE_PERIOD, SURGE, SWAY, HEAVE, ACCEL_X, ACCEL_Y, ACCEL_Z, VEL_X, VEL_Y, VEL_Z and STATUS).
  File name convention will be "Ekinox delayed heave MOTION_HP_<monitoring point index> - <System Name> (dd-mm-yyyy).bin".
• ASCII file
  At the same time an ASCII file is created in the same folder with the same file name, but with extension *.txt.
  This file contains a readable representation of the delayed heave.
  In order to keep this file compatible with other drivers that log delayed heave variants the ASCII file will contain the following comma separated values::
  • UTC date and time,
  • Difference between Real and Delayed heave,
  • Delayed heave,
  • Delayed heave RMS,
  • Real heave,

  • Real heave RMS

  Warning

  The Ekinox unit does not output "real heave" along with the delayed heave. As a result we will only log the delayed heave with the corresponding time stamp to file. The real heave will always be zero.
  As a result, the difference between Real and Delayed heave will always be equal to the delayed heave multiplied by -1.

  All RMS values will be zero as well.

  True Heave logging

  Warning

  If Delayed Heave data is to be used, it is important to remain Online for at least 3 - 5 minutes after logging has stopped in order for the stored file to cover all of the logged data.

Offline / Replay

• Binary file

  • The delayed heave recorded in the binary file can be imported into the recorded DB files and needs to be replayed after the data is imported.

    Note that the delayed heave only imports the heave value and no Heading, Pitch and Roll.
    When replaying the data make sure to set the following priorities for the delayed heave observations in the Computation Setup :

    • Heading
      • Heading Real Heave - Primary
      • Heading Delayed Heave - Secondary or less

    • Pitch and Roll

      • Motion Real Heave - Primary
      • Motion Delayed Heave - Secondary or less

    • Heave

      • Delayed Heave - Primary

      • Real Heave - Secondary

    The above settings could also be used when recording data online, as the Heave will automatically fall through to the secondary device because the True Heave is not decoded online by the Pitch Roll and Heave Sensor : POS-MV - True Heave.

Processing 

Please refer to driver manual POS MV V5 (Binary Group 111 - True Heave for more information about importing this ASCII or binary file into your QPD files. 

QINSy Online

Position navigation system Quality

The possible values of the quality indicator (displayed as "solution mode" in the Positioning System Display) depend on which log is used for the system. If the position is decoded from the NAV log, the status is decoded from the POSITION_VALID bit in the STATUS log. If either GPS1 or GPS2 is used to decode the position, the quality is decoded from the GPS_POS_STATUS field in the LOG_GPSx_POS log in the following way:

• If SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_STATUS is equal to SBG_ECOM_POS_SOL_COMPUTED (a valid position has been computed), the variable SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_TYPE is returned.
• If SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_STATUS is not equal to SBG_ECOM_POS_SOL_COMPUTED, SBG_ECOM_GPS_POS_STATUS  multiplied by -1 is returned. This leads to the following possible values for the position quality:

To display which Solution mode you are in an Alert display can be created to add the solution mode for the Positioning.

Change the Alert Setup to the Solution mode you are expecting and system you are using.

Gyro System Quality

The possible values of the quality indicator (displayed as "solution mode" in the Positioning System Display) depend on which log is used for the system:

If the EULER log is used to decode heading, the quality of the data is decoded from the SBG_ECOM_SOL_HEADING_VALID bit in the SOLUTION_STATUS field of the LOG_STATUS log.

If either of the GPSx_HDT logs is used to decode the heading, the quality is decoded from the GPS_HDT_STATUS field in the log. This leads to the following possible values for the heading quality.

Select the Quality indicator outside limit.

If the value remains 1 a reliable heading is computed, if not see above what might be going on.

Pitch Roll Heave Quality

The quality of the pitch and roll is decoded from the SBG_ECOM_SOL_ATTITUDE_VALID bit in the SOLUTION_STATUS field of the STATUS log. 

The quality of the heave is decoded from the SBG_ECOM_HEAVE_VALID bit in the status field of the SHIP_MOTION_X log.

This leads to the following possible quality values: 

Select the Quality indicator outside limit.

If the value remains 1 a reliable motion is computed.

Generic Display

Add a Generic Display and open this .xml :

• SBG quality control.xml

To view the following information:

Additional Information