Arbiter 1088A/B GPS Receiver

Last update: May 4, 2022 17:05 UTC (dbea9b7d4)

Synopsis

Address: 127.127.11.u: Reference ID: GPS; Driver ID: GPS_ARBITER; Serial Port: /dev/gps_u; 9600 baud, 8-bits, no parity; Features: tty_clk

Description

This driver supports the Arbiter 1088A/B Satellite Controlled Clock. The claimed accuracy of this clock is 100 ns relative to the PPS output when receiving four or more satellites.

The receiver should be configured before starting the NTP daemon, in order to establish reliable position and operating conditions. It does not initiate surveying or hold mode. For use with NTP, the daylight savings time feature should be disables (D0 command) and the broadcast mode set to operate in UTC (BU command).

The timecode format supported by this driver is selected by the poll sequence B5, which initiates a line in the following format to be repeated once per second until turned off by the B0 command.

Format B5 (24 ASCII printing characters):

‹cr›‹lf›i yy ddd hh:mm:ss.000bbb

on-time = ‹cr›

i = synchronization flag (' ' = locked, ? = unlocked)

yy = year of century

ddd = day of year

hh:mm:ss = hours, minutes, seconds

.000 = fraction of second (not used)

bbb = tailing spaces for fill

The alarm condition is indicated by a ? at i, which indicates the receiver is not synchronized. In normal operation, a line consisting of the timecode followed by the time quality character TQ followed by the receiver status string SR is written to the clockstats file.

The time quality character is encoded in IEEE P1344 standard:

Format TQ (IEEE P1344 estimated worst-case time quality)

0       clock locked, maximum accuracy
F       clock failure, time not reliable
4       clock unlocked, accuracy < 1 us
5       clock unlocked, accuracy < 10 us
6       clock unlocked, accuracy < 100 us
7       clock unlocked, accuracy < 1 ms
8       clock unlocked, accuracy < 10 ms
9       clock unlocked, accuracy < 100 ms
A       clock unlocked, accuracy < 1 s
B       clock unlocked, accuracy < 10 s

The status string is encoded as follows:

Format SR (25 ASCII printing characters)

V=vv S=ss T=t P=pdop E=ee

vv = satellites visible

ss = relative signal strength

t = satellites tracked

pdop = position dilution of precision (meters)

ee = hardware errors

A three-stage median filter is used to reduce jitter and provide a dispersion measure. The driver makes no attempt to correct for the intrinsic jitter of the radio itself.

Monitor Data

The driver writes each timecode as received to the clockstats file. When enabled by the flag4 fudge flag, an additional line containing the latitude, longitude, elevation and optional deviation data is written to the clockstats file. The deviation data operates with an external pulse-per-second (PPS) input, such as a cesium oscillator or another radio clock. The PPS input should be connected to the B event channel and the radio initialized for deviation data on that channel. The deviation data consists of the mean offset and standard deviation of the external PPS signal relative the GPS signal, both in microseconds over the last 16 seconds.

Fudge Factors

time1 time: Specifies the time offset calibration factor, in seconds and fraction, with default 0.0. For a calibrated Sun IPC, the correct value is about .0065.
time2 time: Not used by this driver.
stratum number: Specifies the driver stratum, in decimal from 0 to 15, with default 0.
refid string: Specifies the driver reference identifier, an ASCII string from one to four characters, with default GPS.
flag1 0 | 1: Not used by this driver.
flag2 0 | 1: Not used by this driver.
flag3 0 | 1: Enable ppsclock line discipline/streams module if set.
flag4 0 | 1: Enable extended clockstats recording if set.

Additional Information

Reference Clock Drivers