u-center 2 用户指南

User guide release date: September 16,
2024

u-center 2 version: v24.09.118603

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Legal disclaimer

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in the products, names, logos, and designs included in this
document. Copying, reproduction, or modification of this
document or any part thereof is only permitted with the express
written permission of u-blox. Disclosure to third parties is
permitted for clearly public documents only.

The information contained herein is provided “as is” and
u-blox assumes no liability for the use of the information. No
warranty, either express or implied, is given with respect to,
including but not limited 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.
For most recent documents and product statuses, visit www.u-blox.com.

Copyright © 2023, u-blox AG

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1 Overview

u-center 2 is u-blox's powerful tool for configuration,
evaluation, and debugging of u-blox GNSS receivers and
services.

It allows the end users to assess and test u-blox positioning
chips, modules, evaluation kits, application boards and similar
devices for navigation and positioning performance.

This document provides a guide for starting to use the
features of this software and explains how to resolve common use
cases.

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2 System requirements

u-center 2 has been tested on Windows 10 (64 bit) platform
and runs on Windows 11 as is. It currently supports u-blox gen
10 GNSS devices.

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3 Getting started

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3.1 Installing u-center 2

u-center 2 can be downloaded from u-center
website. The u-center 2 package comes with a setup file.
Click the file and follow the steps to install the application
(administration rights might be needed). Once the installation
has completed successfully, you need to enter your u-blox
support portal account credentials and log in with a browser.
FireFox is the recommended browser for u-center 2.

After login, having internet connectivity, u-center 2 will
start and can also be used offline.

3.1.1 Updating u-center

After each start - or for continuously running software every
24 hours - the application will check for possible updates. If
an update is available, then the application will download it in
the background and will inform the user by a notification. User
settings and login credentials are not affected or changed.

If the user dismisses the update it will still be available
from the "Help" menu in case the user intends to perform it
later on.

When the user starts the update process, the installer starts
and asks the user to close the running application. After
finishing the installation the software will be restarted.

3.1.2 User feedback

If you want to share your feedback to improve u-center 2
further, select User feedback option in help
menu.

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3.2 Connecting a device

To evaluate u-blox devices, make sure you have the
appropriate USB driver installed in your system. To connect a
device to the u-center 2:

1. Click the Devices icon on the left menu bar.

1. Click Add device.
2. Select the COM port of the device. For connecting the device
   in safeboot mode, check safeboot in Device
   management.

1. Select autobauding for automatic detection of the baud rate
   or deselect it to manually select the baud rate.

The connection switch turns green as a signal of a valid
communication and an indicator will show if u-center 2 is
receiving messages or not.

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4 Device management

Once you have connected the device, you can view the device
information by selecting the arrow pointing to the right in the
device menu.

The device information shows the hardware and firmware
versions as well as a drop-down menu to change the baud rate
from a list of predefined baud rates. A number in the left hand
corner indicates the device identifier, which can be seen in all
open views. It will show which receiver it iconencting to and
getting data from.

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4.1 Configuration actions

To save, load and revert to default configuration, use the
Save, Load and
Revert buttons in Device info >
Configuration actions.

1. Save: Saves the current receiver
   configuration to battery backed RAM (BBR) and flash from read
   access memory (RAM) of the receiver

   

2. Load: Loads the last configuration that
   was saved to BBR and flash, ignoring what is configured in the
   RAM layer.

   

3. Revert: Reverts to the default firmware
   configuration and clears all the configurations done in BBR,
   flash or the RAM layer of the receiver

   

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4.2 Restarting a device

When a device is connected and u-center 2 is receiving data,
the Restart section gives the option to perform
a Cold start, Warm start or
Hot start.

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4.3 Enable debug messages

Selecting Debug will enable a range of
messages best suited for debugging the device configuration.

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4.4 Access a device
in safeboot mode

Sometimes receiver need to be in safeboot mode to be able to
configure some specific configuration. To add a u-blox device
that is in safeboot mode to u-center 2:

1. Ensure that your device is in safeboot
   mode. For details check the device integration manual,
   which you can be found on u-blox.com.

2. Click the Devices icon on the left menu bar.

   

3. Click Add device.

4. Select the COM port of the device.

   

1. Select the safeboot option for connecting to the device
   in safeboot mode. This will also send the training sequence in
   the background to be able to synchronize with the external
   clock.

   

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5 Device configuration

To access the device configuration menu:

1. Open the Devices menu by selecting the
   Devices icon on the left menu bar.

2. Select the Device configuration
   button.

   

   This will display the Device configuration
   window.

   Note that you can pop out the Device
   configuration window and move it outside the u-center 2
   application. It can remain open while you are working with the
   other windows in the u-center 2 application.

3. Select Quick configuration for
   user-friendly configurations, or

4. Select Advanced configuration for expert
   configuration options.

5. Select one of the Saved configurations to apply a
   previously saved set of advanced configuration items.

Note that the configuration menu is also available even
without connecting devices.

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5.1 Quick configuration

Quick configurations are an easy way to configure the
device.

5.1.1 Constellation
configuration

To enable or disable satellite constellations including
signals, select the Constellation configuration
item.

5.1.2 Time mode

This section allows the simple configuration of time mode
compatible devices which support CFG-TMODE-* configuration
items. Your selections will be used to construct a set of
CFG-TMODE-* configuration items grouped in a single
UBX-CFG-VALSET message that can be configured in three different
layers of the connected device.

If no device is connected, it is still possible to copy the
generated string and share it.

To set the timing device into base mode, enable the survey-in
procedure or specify fixed coordinates. To find the appropriate
values to configure in different modes, check the product
Integration manual. The following configuration options are
available:

• Disabled: Disables any base mode configuration that has been
  done on the device before.
• Survey in: Sets the device to survey-in mode. This requires
  setting how long the survey needs to at least last and the
  minimum required accuracy, both of which will depend on the
  environment of the base location.
• Fixed: Configures the device in the timing mode in which the
  fixed coordinates, position accuracy and position type are given
  to the device. The position type can be provided as geocentric
  coordinates or geographic coordinates.

5.1.3 Time pulse mode

This section allows the simple configuration of time pulse
mode compatible devices which supports CFG-TMODE-* configuration
items. Your selections will be used to construct a set of
CFG-TMODE-* configuration items grouped in a single
UBX-CFG-VALSET message that can be configured in three different
layers of the connected device. If no device is connected, it is
possible to copy and share the generated string in need.

Check the device integration manual for the parameters to
choose for device global settings and Time pulse settings.

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5.2 Advanced
configuration

The Advanced configuration panel allows a device to be
configured by sending individual configuration item key ID and
value pairs to the device's random access memory (RAM), battery
backed RAM (BBR) and flash configuration layers. In addition,
the current configuration of the device can also be viewed by
retrieving configuration items from the device's configuration
layers.

5.2.1
Reading the device's configuration items

To read configuration items of the connected device, select
the configuration item of interest from the
Items panel. This sends a poll request to the
device. If the device supports the selected configuration item,
it will send back the corresponding value for each configuration
layer, which will then be displayed.

To be able to poll all the supported configuration item
values from all configuration layers, click on the three dot
burger menu and select Capture all configuration layer
values. This will poll all the values from all possible
layers for the configuration items that are supported by the FW
version of the connected device. You will get a configuration
items column only with supported items.

To create a configuration list from these items, select
Create configuraiton list option from three dot
burger menu. This will transfer all the configuration items to
right hand side configuration changes list. The list can be then
saved as a file in Saved configurations section
to export or share. This file can be imported later to apply to
any relevant receiver for debug purposes.

5.2.2
Filtering configuration items with presets

Use the preset filters added in the filter field of the
middle configuration items column.

Click the drop down menu to get the preset filter
options:

1. Show items with values: Click that to get the filtered
   configuration items list which are only supported in connected
   receiver FW version. Remember to capture the values for all the
   items first from the three dot burger menu first.
2. Show RAM != Default: Click that to get the filtered list of
   configuration items which has updated values from FW default in
   any layer.

5.2.3 Setting the
device's configuration

A device is configured by sending individual configuration
item key ID and value pairs to the device's RAM, BBR and flash
configuration layers.

To do this:

1. In the Items panel, select the
   configuration group to expand the item tree.

2. Within this group, select the configuration item to show
   its current configuration on all layers, and its details in the
   right hand panel.

   

3. Select the layers to write

   

4. Enter/select an appropriate value.

5. Select the Set button. This will add the
   item, its value and the layers to the Configuration
   changes list.

6. Repeat steps 1 to 5 to build up your list of
   configuration item changes

7. Review the list configuration item changes to send to the
   device. The order each configuration item is sent to the device
   is top down. To change the order, drag an item in the
   Configuration changes list to the new position.
   To remove an item select Clear.

   

   Each configuration property in the list will be sent as an
   individual UBX-CFG-VALSET message. By selecting Send
   configuration in batch mode these properties will be
   grouped together into one UBX-CFG-VALSET message per layer. This
   will result in fewer messages which can be send to the connected
   device faster.

   To change the value of an item or its layer, select
   Edit or double click on the item. In the top
   panel the item will appear allowing its value and/or layer to be
   changed. Select Update to add any changes to
   the item back to the Configuration changes
   list, or Cancel if any changes are not
   wanted.

   

8. To review the configuration items as hex codes, select
   the Message hex codes tab. This shows the hex
   representation of UBX-CFG-VALSET or UBX-CFG-VALDEL, and
   UBX-CFG-VALSET messages for each configuration item if
   applicable. If you want to copy the message hex codes, then
   either hover over the hex code of interest and click the copy
   icon or right-click and select copy from the menu.

   
   Select Send configurations in batch mode to
   view the the hex code of the configuration items grouped
   together for each layer.

   

9. Click Send to send the changes to the
   device. The configuration items successfully accepted by the
   device are indicated with a green check mark
   .
   A red alert triangle
   
   indicates the key is unknown to the device firmware or the
   configuration is not valid (the validity of a configuration is
   checked only if the message applies to the RAM configuration
   layer).


1. To save the Configuration changes list and
   add it to the list of Saved configurations,
   click Save as....

5.2.4 Quick preset
examples

A list of use case-based, quick preset examples are available
in the Advanced configuration category in the configuration
window.

By selecting one of the preset examples, the configuration is
loaded into the configuration changes list shown on the right
panel. For the preset examples, a short description is shown on
the right panel explaining the typical use case in which this
set of configurations is applicable in.