ZED-F9P Notes

I updated the firmware for my SimpleRTK boards this evening. Below are my notes for the process in case I need to do it again. There was some obscure information I had to hunt down to get things working right, and I’m linking to it here so it will be available in the future after I’ve forgotten.

1. Download the latest firmware from the u-Blox website. As of this writing, HPG112 appears to be the latest and greatest. Save it to your computer to a place you can get to it.
2. Open up u-Center, u-Blox’s GNSS evaluation software.
3. Connect the GNSS module you want to update to your computer via USB cable. Connect to the appropriate COM port within the u-Center software by going to Receiver > Connect.
4. Within u-Center, go to Tools > Firmware Update. Navigate to the location of the firmware .bin file and check the boxes as shown below.

   

5. In the lower left of the Firmware Update Utility window, there should be a green Go button. Click it to update the module.
6. Repeat this process for the second ZED-F9P module.
7. I reset the configuration files for both modules to the default provided by ArduSimple. You can find those configuration files on their GitHub page. Download both and save them to a location you can get to. I have the LR xBee radios, so I used their srtk2b_rover_FW_HPG112.txt and srtk2b_base_FW_HPG112.txt files.
8. To upload a configuration file, go to Tools > Receiver Configuration.
9. Before you upload the configuration files, it’s not a bad idea to back up the existing ones. Use the Transfer GNSS > File button to create a backup.
10. To upload a new configuration file, select the appropriate configuration file for either the base or rover module you’re connected to and use the Transfer File > GNSS button.

    

11. I got a warning that said the firmware version of the module didn’t match the configuration file. I took a gamble and ignored this message. Things turned out okay, as of this writing.
12. Repeat this process for the second module.
13. Unfortunately, after updating the firmware and the configuration files, the xBee radios weren’t working. I found this thread on the ArduSimple website to be helpful. Basically, after you upload a configuration file, you have to save the configuration. It doesn’t do so automatically.
14. To save the configuration, you need to go View > Configuration View, and then click on the CFG option in the left panel on the screen.
15. There should be a radio button labeled Save Curent Configuration. If it’s not selected, select it. Then click Send in the lower left of the window. This will send a save command to the module.
16. Take the modules outside and test them. I connected both to my laptop so I can toggle between the two in u-Center to make sure the base module reports TIME and the rover module reports 3D/GNSS/FIXED in the black window that has the latitude, longitude, and altitude shown.
17. If you don’t see TIME on the base, you’re not sending RTCM correction messages to the rover. On the ArduSimple modules, the GPS > XBEE or XBEE > GPS LEDs should blink on both modules if the base reports TIME.
18. To make sure corrections are being broadcast form the base and received by the rover, I went to View > Messages View and then click UBX > NAV > RELPOSNED. There should be a length in that window that should roughly match the distance between the antennas.

I also discovered that in order to set the survey in or fixed location of the base, you need to go to View > Generation 9 Configuration View and then select the Advanced Configuration option on the left of the screen. Under the CFG-TMODE option you can set the base behavior.

If you want to set fixed coordinates for the base you need to change CFG-TMODE-MODE to E1 – 2 – FIXED and then plug in either the north, east, down (NED) or latitude, longitude, and height (LLH) values for the base location. u-Center requires you do provide it with LLH in 1e-7 degrees, so 12.3456789° is 123456789 in the value field.