Aaronia GPS Logger Programming Guide

Introduction

The Aaronia GPS Logger is a battery-powered mobile device to measure and record location and

orientation related information from a multitude of sensors:

– Position and time from a GPS receiver

– Orientation from a electronic compass (magnetometer) and accelerometer

– Rotation information from a gyroscope

– Pressure from a barometer which may be used with other sources to obtain elevation

information

– Device temperature from internal IC

Above data can be recorded directly on a inserted Micro-SD card, or transmitted to a connected

system over an integrated USB interface.

This document provides the necessary details about the communication protocol, data formats and

processing steps to develop custom applications for the Aaronia GPS Logger.

Aaronia GPS Logger Programming Guide

USB Serial Connection

Communication with the GPS Logger is performed over a USB serial connection. The device uses a

FTDI USB-serial interface chip, so to establish a connection you must use the corresponding FTDI

drivers, which are included and automatically installed using the Aaronia MCS software installer or

the standalone Aaronia driver package (note: on Windows, stock FTDI drivers will not work due to

different PID configuration). You can connect to the device using the following settings with the

D2XX API (Note: connecting via VCP and serial console does not work):

– Baud Rate: 625.000

– Word Length: 8

– Stop Bits: 2

– Parity Bits: 0

– Flow Control: 0

– Xon: 0

– Xoff: 0

Other settings may work but are not supported.

For details on how to use the respective driver interfaces please refer to the documentation available

on the FTDI website: http://www.ftdichip.com/FTSupport.htm

SD Card Specifics

The GPS Logger can record data on a inserted Micro-SD card. This can be triggered by software

(see MODE) or by enabling the „Logger“ switch on the device itself.

In order to be used by the GPS Logger a SD card must be formatted with the FAT16 filesystem.

Other filesystems are not supported, including FAT32, exFAT and NTFS. Depending on the system

used to format it the maximum usable size of the card is limited to 512 MB to 4 GB and the

maximum number of files on the card to about 500. Also filenames are restricted to the 8.3 naming

convention.