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How to make interface software between RTKNav and LABView?

Hi.

 

I plan to use Novatel's RTKNav to get the position and direction data of a Moving Base and Roving

GPS Station for my application.

The RTKNav is a Windows based suite of programs that provide real time GPS data processing.

 

Does anyone here in the forum had experience making interface software between the RTKNav software and

LabVIEW? I would appreciate for any kind of assistance.

 

kind regards,

 

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Message 1 of 11
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Do they have an ActiveX interface, or some other programming interface? If not, then you will have to resort to trying to control the software while it's running using some sort of automation/macro program. Search the forum and you will see this question comes up a lot.
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Thank you for the reply.

 

This is the letter from the distributor;

------------------------------

"This means RTKNav output the result, position, orientation and others, through serial port, TCP/IP and write to disk.
 
 The other is TCP/IP. This is very difficult for me. But if you are familiar with this, it is very convenient, one software specialist said.
 The written result on disk, you cannot read it in real time.
 
If you are familiar with software, such as C or C++, you can use RTDLL.
 Using RTDLL, you can use common memory which is stored the RTK result.
 But you have to receive some seminars at Novatel in Canada about one week."

-----------------------------------

 

Also, as I read the manual, the network protocols that are supported are; UDP, Multicast and TCP.

 

CONCEPT.

This will be the concept. I will install the RTKNav to an Industrial PC. The RTKNav will compute for the

position data.

On the same PC, i will install my own LabVIEW application.

My application must communicate to the RTKNav to get the position data.

How can LabVIEW communicate to other software (RTKNav) running on the same PC?

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Message 3 of 11
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It sounds like the vendor is talking about the actual hardware, not the software suite, which is what you were asking about. I can see the hardware being able to communicate over multiple communication protocols like serial, TCP/IP, etc. While the software could do this as well, was the software written that way?

 

If they have a DLL then you can use that. The complexity of this depends on how the DLL is written as well as its exposed functions. LabVIEW handles only basic datatypes. Complex things like structures, pointers to structures, multi-dimensional arrays, etc. are better handled by creating a wrapper DLL to act as an interface between the vendor's DLL and LabVIEW.

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Have a look at using the NMEA data output from the RTKNav as this is by far the easiest to understand and parse/ store to memory/ drive, if you need to read up on the format of NMEA string outputs there is a very good PDF from Garmin available on the net from www8.garmin.com/manuals/GPS25LPSeries_TechnicalSpecification.pdf forget all the tech stuff re connections etc just use it for the NMEA explanation - Mike
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Message 5 of 11
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The Novatel's RTKNav is software, so your request is somewhat confusing. Do you want to read data files stored with Novatel's RTKNav or do you want to interface  Labview with GPS units. Most GPS units use the NEMA protocol so it should not be so hard. A typical NEMA interface is the serial port

Edit: Sorry did not read your latest updateSmiley Indifferent

Message Edited by Coq Rouge on 02-12-2010 01:38 PM


Besides which, my opinion is that Express VIs Carthage must be destroyed deleted
(Sorry no Labview "brag list" so far)
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Message 6 of 11
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How do you plan to interface with the GPS unit. RS232 or some network protocol


Besides which, my opinion is that Express VIs Carthage must be destroyed deleted
(Sorry no Labview "brag list" so far)
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Message 7 of 11
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Thank you Mike and Roq for the reply.

 

I am sorry for the confusion but i was confused too Smiley Sad

The interface will be on RS232. Please see the attached.

My industrial PC have 4 RS232 ports.

COM1 will be for Base Stn., COM2 will be for Rover Stn., COM3 will be the output from RTKNav (NMEA),

and COM4 will be the interface to LabVIEW application.

The question should be how to create link (hardware/software) between RTKNav and LabVIEW running

on the same PC.

Thanks for your messages.

 

regards,

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Message 8 of 11
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The physical link is quite simple. All you should need to do is to connect COM3 to COM4. You may need to experiment a bit to see if you will need a NULL modem cable or not. Also, make sure you configure both ports the same (BAUD rate, stop bits, flow control, data bits).

 

As for the programming aspect I don't think you will need to do anything special with the RTKNav application other than configure it to send the NMEA data to the serial port. The LabVIEW application will need to read the NMEA data and process it in whatever manner you will need. The reading, and writing or serial ports, is fairly straightforward using VISA. You can look at the examples included with LabVIEW. The more challenging part will be writing teh code to understand and decode the NMEA protocol. You may be able to find some LabVIEW code that does this already.



Mark Yedinak
Certified LabVIEW Architect
LabVIEW Champion

"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
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Message 9 of 11
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Thanks Mark.

 

Yes, i figured that out i need to connect COM3 and COM4 using a cross serial cable and use VISA for

reading and writing of serial ports.

 

Thanks a lot.

 

 

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