Ekinox Subsea
– Hardware Manual
EKINOXSUBSEAHM.1.4
5.3.1.2. Aiding ports B, C, D and E
The serial Port B, C, D and E are intended to connect aiding external equipments and/or to send output data
to third party systems. The RS-232/RS-422 mode is selected trough the Web Interface.
By default, Port B, C, D and E are all disabled for both data input and output.
Note: Please refer to the connection mapping table below to understand exact connections
availability.
5.3.2. Virtual serial interfaces
Virtual serial interfaces are a very simple and powerful way to increase the number of inputs/outputs
without adding too much cables and connectors. Some equipments directly support virtual serial interfaces
and other, that only have standard RS-232/RS-422 connections, can still use virtual serial interfaces trough
an Ethernet to serial converter.
A virtual serial interface is just a TCP/IP or UDP connection that can send and receive raw data. The Ekinox
implements the following modes to create a virtual serial interface:
●
Raw UDP to reduce latencies and allow high throughput
●
TCP/IP client or server to guarantee message delivery and ordering
As for the physical serial interface Port A, the Eth 0 virtual serial port can be used to send commands trough
the Ekinox Binary Protocol. Virtual serial port Eth 1 to 4 can be used indifferently to input aiding data and to
output log messages.
Note: Virtual serial interfaces are handled internally exactly the same way as physical interfaces. For
example, you can either connect an external GNSS to Port C or to Eth 1.
5.4. Supported protocols
The Ekinox has been designed to be connected to a large range of aiding equipments and materials. In
addition to the native sbgECom binary protocol, other third party or standard protocols are also supported
such as NMEA, RTCM, TSS1, Septentrio SBF, Novatel Binary protocol, Trimble and others:
Note: For a complete description of the sbgECom and other supported protocols, please refer to the
Ekinox and Apogee Firmware Reference Manual.
31/42
