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User guide release date: March 7, 2025
u-center 2 version: v25.03.156221
u-blox or third parties may hold intellectual property rights 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you want to share your feedback to improve u-center 2 further, select User feedback option in help menu.
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:
Tip: Instead, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + D_ to open the Add data source modal and skip the extra clicks.
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.
Once you have connected the device, you can view the device's connection status and information on the data sources panel. The device information shows the hardware and firmware versions, the physical interface that is connected to, as well as a drop-down menu to change the baud rate from a list of predefined baud rates. Additionaly, clicking on button Detect baud rate , you can trigger the detection of the current baud rate.
Data sources (devices and log files) have a Data source indicator number in the left hand corner to itentify them. Most open views have this indicator in the top left corner to show which data source the view is connected to and getting data from.
To save, load and revert to default configuration, press the Data source configuration actions button in the data source panel and select the proper action from the pop up menu.
Save: Saves the current receiver configuration to battery backed RAM (BBR) and flash from read access memory (RAM) of the receiver
Load: Loads the last configuration that was saved to BBR and flash, ignoring what is configured in the RAM layer.
Revert: Reverts to the default firmware configuration and clears all the configurations done in BBR, flash or the RAM layer of the receiver
When a receiver is connected and communication is established, the Restart section gives the option to send a Cold start, Warm start or Hot start command to the receiver.
Effect of the restart commands
Press the Debug messages dropdown button in data source panel. Select Enable debug messages or Disable debug messages to enable or disable them. If u-center 2 can't identify the product type it will enable or disable the common set of debugging messages which is applicable for all products.
To show historical data in various views, u-center 2 collects message data from the connected data source. To reset the views and clear this data, press the Reset data button.
Tip: To quickly Reset data and skip extra clicks, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt +F.
Some configurations require the receiver to be in safeboot mode. To add a u-blox device that is in safeboot mode to u-center 2:
Click the Data sources icon on the left menu bar.
Click Add data source.
Select the COM port of the device.
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.
To access the device configuration menu:
Select the Data source 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.
Tip: To open the Device configuration window quickly without extra clicks, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + G.
Note that the configuration menu is also available even without connecting devices.
Quick configurations are an easy way to configure the device.
To enable or disable satellite constellations including signals, select the Constellation configuration item.
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:
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.
To enable support for the Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA), configure the receiver to compile the following messages:
If no device is connected, it is possible to copy and share the individual messages that make up the OSNMA configuration.
To retrive the currently stored OSNMA-related configuration items, click Reload values.
You can set the Public Key and Merkle Tree information in two ways: either by uploading the respective XML files containing the keys or by manually entering the values in the corresponding input fields.
Note: All required fields must be set to successfully send the configuration to the receiver.
For information on the global device setting and OSNMA setting parameters, see the device Integration manual.
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.
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.
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:
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:
Within this group, select the configuration item to show its current configuration on all layers, and its details in the right hand panel.
Select the layers to write
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.
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.
To change the UBX-CFG-VALSET type, choose the VALSET type from the dropdown list in the Send options section. Changing the type will update the message's hex representation. The default UBX-CFG-VALSET type is without transaction support.
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.
In the device configuration dialog, the panel on the left shows a list of saved configurations. Saved configurations can be useful if a set of configurations shall be applied for a certain use case, but the device is used for different use cases. It can be helpful to compare the performance of a device when applying different saved configurations. Saved configurations can also be imported and exported for an easy exchange between different users.
To load a configuration, just select it. The configuration changes defined in the file will appear in the configuration changes list on the right.
Once loaded, the configuration changes can be sent to the connected device indicated in the top right corner of this dialog by selecting the Send button.
You can edit the configuration list by adding more items or use the Clear button to remove them. Afterwards you can save the original file, save the list to a new file, or revert to the file's original content.
The symbol * in front of the saved configuration name indicates that this list has been changed.
By selecting Save changes, the configuration list will be saved back to the configuration file it originated from, that is highlighted with a * in front of its name in the list of Saved configurations.
By selecting Save as.., the modified configuration list can be saved in a new file. Once it is saved it will be shown in the list of Saved configuraitons.
By selecting Revert changes, the configuration list can be reverted to when it was loaded from the selected configuration file.
To rename a saved configuration, hover over the chosen configuration name and select the more options menu. Then select 'Rename' from the menu.
In the dialog that appears, enter the new name, and click Rename. Click Cancel if you decide not to rename this file.
To delete a saved configuration, hover over the chosen configuration name and select the more options menu. Then select 'Delete' from the menu.
In the dialog that appears, click Delete. Click Cancel if you decide not to delete this file.
To import a saved configuration file, select "Import".
In the dialog that appears, navigate to the .cfg file you wish to import. Select it and click OK. The selected file will be imported and will appear in the configurations list.
To export a saved configuration, hover over the saved configuration name and select the more options menu. Then select Export from the menu.
In the dialog that appears, navigate to the folder you wish to export the configuration to and specify the name of the file to be created, then click OK. The configuration .ucf file will appear in the selected folder.
u-center 2 has a device log file recording feature to collect and play back a log file.
To record a log file, press the record icon in the connected device's Data sources panel.
On the dialog displayed, select the file location by selecting the Change option and type in the log file name.
By selecting/deselecting the "Enable all debug messages" checkbox you decide if additional debug messages will be stored in the log file. Enabled debug messages may help with log file analysis during playback.
By selecting/deselecting the "Add GNSS device configuration data to the log file" checkbox, you can choose to have the active device's configuration read and saved in the log file. The configuration data can be very useful when using a log file to debug the operation of a device.
Select Record log to start recording.
When recording a log file, the recording control panel is displayed in the top area.
This panel allows you to stop the recording, view how long you have been recording for, if you have enabled debug messages, and if you have chosen to save the device configuration. If you did not select either debugging messages or saving the configuration at the start of the recording, then selecting the corresponding indicators will enable these at any time during the log file recording. Once selected, they cannot be deselected from this panel.
Press Stop recording to finish recording. Two log files with different formats will be saved at the selected location. One with extension .uc2 and another with extension .ubx.
Log files with the .ubx extension are created only for backwards compatibility with existing scripts and u-center legacy. They cannot be used directly by u-center 2. u-center 2 can only play log files with the .uc2 file extension which have the timing information.
To play a .uc2 log file, show the Data Source panel, select the Add data source icon and, on the resulting dialog, select the Log file tab. Note: to play .ubx files, they need to be converted to the .uc2 format first.
Click on the text input field. In the Open dialog, select a log file and click Open.
Tip: You can also use the Ctrl + L keyboard shortcut to open the dialog and skip extra clicks.
If there is a device actively connected to u-center 2, a pop-up informs that the device will be disconnected. If opening the log file succeeds, a new data source is added to the side panel:
When you select Play, all the views in the tab use the log file as their data source and change their data source indicator to the log file's indicator.
With the new .uc2 format it is possible to navigate log files based on time or message number, by selecting one of the navigation mode selector buttons:
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For the log files recorded with u-center 2 both modes are available, while for log files converted from the raw .ubx format only message-based navigation is supported, and the time option is disabled:
This mode is available for converted and natively recorded .uc2 files. It is possible to play back a log file at different speeds selected from the drop-down menu:
Drag the slider to navigate in the log file or use the Jump to feature to jump to a specific message by clicking the message number indicator. It will turn into an input field and pause the playback. Enter the message number to jump to the selected message.
Note that Jump to navigates to the message that will be played next.
This mode is currently available only for log files recorded with u-center 2. It plays the log file with the same speed it was recorded. If the information in the log file covers a period of 2 minutes it will take 2 minutes to play it back. To play it with higher speeds select 2x from the drop-down menu:
The navigation in the file is similar to the Message based navigation. Drag the slider to navigate in the log file or use the Jump to feature to jump to a specific time by clicking the time indicator. It turns into an input field and pauses the playback.
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Just enter the time to jump to
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Note that jump to navigates to the message whose timestemp is the closest but less than the requested time.
When the Loop mode preference is enabled, the file plays in an infinite loop. All the data in the views is reset at the end of each loop.
Enable the Loop mode from the User preferences window.
To show historical data in various views, u-center 2 collects message data from the connected data source. To reset the views and clear this data, press the Reset data button.
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To open the workspace menu, either select the workspaces button on the left menu bar, or click on the name of the active workspace in the left of the top menu bar.
The active workspace indicator shows the state of the current workspace. The state is either saved, unsaved or read-only.
Only the Preset workspaces can be in the read only state.
Once the workspace menu is open, it will show under Your workspaces a list of user defined workspaces, and under Preset workspaces some system defined workspaces.
With preset workspaces, the application can be used without any initial modifications or preliminary knowledge of the views, they are populated with a basic set of views and with the usage of the simple message enabler (see chapter 8.1) customers can easily start evaluating our products.
To avoid any exidental overwrite, the workspaces in this list are read only.
Select New workspace to create a user-defined workspace which is listed in the Your workspaces list. The workspace can be new or based on an existing workspace and requires a unique name.
A new, empty workspace contains a single tab. If based on an existing workspace, the workspace is a duplicate of the selected workspace.
Tabs can be renamed by a double click, replaced by dragging and deleted with the icon. In each tab, you can add different views by clicking on the add view icon at the top of the left menu bar. The Add view panel will open over the main window. Multiple views can be added this way to the active tab.
By hovering over any workspace in the Your workspaces or Preset workspaces lists, a kebab menu with additional options to manage the workspace will appear.
The user-defined workspaces can be deleted, saved as, renamed, duplicated or exported depending on the currently active status. For the Preset workspaces, only the duplicating option is available.
The export feature enables you to share your custom workspace with another u-center 2 user. The exported workspace can be easily imported to u-center 2 and used for evaluation.
To import the workspace, click on the Import workspace button.
The active workspace controls are always available, quickly allowing actions to be performed on the active workspace without having to open the workspace panel.
If the status icon shows that the active workspace has been modified, selecting it will save the workspace.
By clicking the arrow to the right of the status icon, a menu of more options will be displayed. These options allow the active workspace to be saved, saved as, renamed or deleted.
To visualize and evaluate data coming from the device, views can be added to any workspace tab. To select and add a specific view to your actual tab, select on the left side of the application. Each view will show the receiver identifier in left hand corner to show which receiver this view is getting data from.
On most views, it is possible to enable all necessary messages with the ease of clicking a button. New users can study information coming from the receiver without preliminary knowledge about the underlying technology. Experienced users will also benefit from this feature as it saves time.
Message view captures the latest received instance of each message known by the device. It can be used to capture the contents for the latest messages received and to poll, enable, or disable a message. The message tree shows the descriptive names of the messages.
Selecting a message from the tree, you can view the contents of a message. To see how recent the message is, check the timer on the top right. The columns in the tables are resizable.
The message tree displays all the available messages for inspection. It is the filtered version of the messages valid for the connected device firmware and protocol specification version. Selecting a message in the the tree will show its content on the right side panel. If the selected message has not been received and autopolling is disabled the right panel should be empty.
Recent messages are highlighted in bold on the message tree. Each message in the tree has its own (i) information button which, when clicked, will bring up the message documentation dialog.
Note that the Documentation window is a detachable separate window that can be moved anywhere outside of u-center 2 application and does not have to be closed in order to keep working in the main u-center 2 application.
Hovering over a message in the tree brings up an options menu (three dots).
When you select the three dots, the options Poll, Enable, and Disable will be available.
Another way to enable a message is by double clicking on the name of the message. If the supported protocol specification of the connected device and u-center 2 are not compliant, some options could be grayed out.
With the message inspector, you can view the detailed content of a message. To see how recent the message is, check the timer on the top right. Open the documentation dialog to get help about the different attributes of a message.
Prevents updates of the view with new incoming messages.
Enables automatic polling for messages as you select them in the tree.
Use the filter field to filter incoming messages based on the text entered in the field. By default, the filter is case-sensitive and applies logical "and" for all the separately entered filter conditions. Using standard regular expressions in the filter field is also supported.
Although most messages a receiver supports are just output messages that come from the receiver, there are some messages which allow a host (u-center 2 in this case) to control the receiver in various ways. These are input messages.
If one of these input messages is selected, the Message view will show the message's input fields as a form.
Select the version of the message to be sent.
Then enter values into the various fields and select any options presented. Finally press the Send button to send the message to the receiver.
The Console view captures messages from the connected device or from the log file player, displaying them along the GPS time (if available) with millisecond precision.
_Note:_When a position fix is not achieved, the GPS time values displayed on the console may be inaccurate.
You can view the Console view in three different ways.
Right clicking on any message in the console view will bring up a menu that allows you to copy any of the packet, binary or text representation of the message.
Locking data prevents updates of the Console view with new incoming messages.
To clear the contents of the Console View, click Clear data.
With message inspector, you can view the contents of a message. To inspect the contents of a message, click Inspector .
Select the (i) information button which, when clicked, will bring up the message documentation dialog.
Use the filter field to filter incoming messages based on the text entered in the field. By default, the filter is case-sensitive and applies logical "and" for all the separately entered filter conditions. This also supports all the regular expressions to filter the messages. The regular expression must be written inside slash icons. Valid regular expression filters are shown in red.
Displays various important values used for GNSS navigation.
They are:
The map view displays the reported location from the connected device or a log file playback on a map. You can use normal map controls to zoom in and out or switch the map type.
When a map view is displayed for the first time, the map is not automatically loaded. Click on the map view to load the map.
Advanced markers button provides the following options:
When both of these are selected, the Map view displays the protection level and position accuracy.
The Breadcrumb trail button displays a map view with the played log file's breadcrumb trail. Click on an epoch in the breadcrumb trail to open up an information pane with information on the latitude, longitude, altitude, velocity, UTC time and the number of the satellites used.
Use the number of points selector to set how many breadcrumb trail points are rendered on the map.
Show buildings button will show the 3D buildings in the map. Can change the orientation by holding the right click button of the mouse.
Follow current position: OFF button provides following current position option, draggable map and breadcrumb trail point coloring based on the fix type. Turn it ON to enable following current position.
The Satellite position view displays the position of the satellites. By hovering over a satellite name, its constellation and position are displayed.
Only enabled constellations of the connected device or recorded in the log file playback will be visible. On the right there are checkboxes to enable/disable satellite constellations in the view. The number of satellites used for navigation and the total number of tracked satellites are given.
Other useful information:
The Satellite signal view provides a graphical view of the satellite signal strength of the connected device or a log file. Multi-band is supported for relevant devices, meaning that multiple signals from a single satellite are displayed if this information is available. Signals are grouped by their satellite, and satellites are grouped together by their GNSS constellation.
The name of every signal is listed on the x-axis of the graph, grouped to the satellite and constellation accordingly. The signal strength in dBHz is given on the y-axis.
Each signal bar displays the current CNO value in the center and the maximum CNO value at the top. When you hover the cursor over a bar, a tooltip appears with a summary of the signal's details.
The bar representing the signal strength is transparent if the signal is not used in the navigation solution.
Click the settings button to show the signal view's settings panel. This is displayed within the view and can be closed at any time by clicking the settings button again or the X button inside the panel.
The settings panel allows the following content to be controlled in the signal view:
The Table view allows individual message fields from a connected device or a log file to be displayed in a tabular form. This is very useful when analyzing message field values in detail.
In the table, each column represents a message field, and each row represents the value of the message field within a navigation epoch.
To choose the message field to view, open the draggable Add properties modal window by clicking the Add properties button.
In the Add properties modal window, select the message name from the Messages/VP list or write it in the text field. Once the message has been selected, the properties column displays all the field names known to that message. Select the desired field name.
In some cases, additional selections are required, e.g. for satellite properties. In the Details column, populate the SV dropdown list with the appropriate values by selecting the desired value from the GNSS dropdown list. Then, select the SVs by checking the appropriate checkboxes in the SV dropdown. To clear the selection, uncheck the checkbox or click the X button next to it.
To clear all the selected properties, click the **Clear ** button above the selected values.
After selecting the desired properties, click the Add button to create new columns in the table view.
If the cancel button or the X close modal button are pressed, the modal is closed without adding new columns to the table view and the next time the modal is opened, the selected properties are empty.
Once added, columns can be reordered by dragging the column header. They can also be resized by moving the separator between the column headers.
To use the Message view, enable the messages corresponding to the selected fields in the table. If the message is not enabled, the cells in the message/field column are empty.
UBX-NAV-EOE message must be enabled when using the Table view. If it is not enabled, the table rows are not updated.
To remove a column, hover over the corresponding heading until an X button appears then click it.
The id column represents the epoch number and cannot be removed.
To export data, click on Export. This will generate a CSV file representing the contents of the Table View.
Whenever the workspace containing any table views is saved, then the columns in the table are persisted.
The Chart view allows individual message fields from a connected device or a playing log file to be displayed in a graph.
UBX-NAV-EOE message must be enabled when using Chart view. If is not enabled, the graph will never be updated.