AIS COMAR SYSTEMS G300Ni User manual

USER MANUAL G300Ni
INTELLIGENT NETWORK GPS RECEIVER
SKU 001-1070
G300Ni-MA-v06r03
2021-08-04
ENGLISH

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CONTENTS
1G300NI INTELLIGENT GPS RECEIVER WITH WIFI ............................... 4
2DOCUMENT ........................................................................................ 5
2.1 About This Manual .......................................................................................... 5
3NOTICE............................................................................................... 6
3.1 Copyright ......................................................................................................... 6
4GENERAL NOTICES............................................................................. 7
5INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 8
5.1 Parts List.......................................................................................................... 8
6MAJOR DIMENSIONS ......................................................................... 9
7INSTALLATION................................................................................. 10
7.1 Mounting........................................................................................................ 10
7.2 Power Supply................................................................................................. 10
7.3 GPS Antenna.................................................................................................. 10
8CONFIGURATION.............................................................................. 11
8.1 Installing Open Source Software................................................................... 13
8.2 Requirements ................................................................................................ 13
8.3 Installing the Raspbian OS ............................................................................ 13
8.4 Enabling the Serial Port ................................................................................. 14
8.4.1 Setting and testing the serial port to receive GPS data ................... 15
9GPS RECEIVER.................................................................................. 17
9.1 GPS Receiver Technical Specification .......................................................... 17
10 TROUBLESHOOTING......................................................................... 17
10.1 No power / Raspberry Pi not booting............................................................ 17
10.2 No GPS data .................................................................................................. 17
10.3 The GPS is not detecting any satellites ........................................................ 17
11 SPECIFICATIONS.............................................................................. 18
11.1 Physical ......................................................................................................... 18
11.2 Electrical and Electronic................................................................................ 18
11.3 Operational .................................................................................................... 18
11.4 Environmental................................................................................................ 18
12 SAFETY AND SECURITY ................................................................... 19
13 LIMITED WARRANTY ........................................................................ 19

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1G300NI INTELLIGENT GPS RECEIVER WITH WIFI

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2DOCUMENT
2.1 About This Manual
This Manual provides installation, operating Instructions and fault-finding procedures for the
equipment to which it relates.
This manual may also be made available in electronic Portable Document Format (PDF). In PDF
format, the following categories are all enabled as active hyperlink references: (1) The titles of
each section; (2) document cross-references; (3) the table of contents.
This document may therefore be navigated quickly and effectively by using a mouse or other
pointing device to activate each of these hyperlinks. This is a printer friendly document, designed
to be printed 2-sided as a booklet with A5 pages on A4 stock paper.
Document name:
Date:
Details:
Author:
G300Ni-MA-v06r01
2019-10-01
First Release
TSI / JV
G300Ni-MA-v06r02
2020-12-08
General Notices Update
TSI
G300Ni-MA-v06r03
2021-08-04
Specification / Orthographic Updates
TSI

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3NOTICE
3.1 Copyright
The copyright and all rights of a like nature in respect of this publication in any part of the world
are the property of COMAR SYSTEMS LTD. (COMAR).
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, nor stored in any information
retrieval system of any kind, nor used for tendering or manufacturing, nor communicated to any
other person without the written permission of COMAR.
The recipient of this document, as its registered holder, must exercise due diligence in ensuring
that the above conditions are observed (Errors and Omissions Excepted).
Any enquires relating to this document or its contents should be addressed, in writing, in the first
instance to COMAR SYSTEMS LTD.
COMAR SYSTEMS
Vittlefields Technology Centre
Forest Road
NEWPORT
Isle of Wight
PO30 4LY
UNITED KINGDOM
tel: [phone]
email:
[e-mail]
web:
www.comarsystems.com
COMAR SYSTEMS reserves the right to make changes to its products and specifications without notice

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4GENERAL NOTICES
SAFETY: Make sure the power supply is switched off before you make any electrical
connections to the unit.
INSTALLATION: This equipment must be installed in accordance with the instructions
provided in this manual. Failure to do so could result in poor performance, personal injury
and/or damage to your vessel and/or connected equipment.
CONNECTION: To ensure the performance of the unit, as part of the installation it is
recommended that adequate grounding is connected to the unit. Further to this, it is
recommended that the power input supply is provided by a clean DC source with filtering
if required.
CABLES: The supplied cables should only be cut, shortened or lengthened by an
appropriate supplier.
In accordance with a policy of continual development and product improvement, hardware and
software may be upgraded from time to time, and future versions of equipment may therefore
not correspond exactly with this manual.
When necessary, upgrades to the product will be accompanied by updates or addenda to this
manual. Information contained in this manual is liable to change without notice.
Comar Systems Ltd. disclaims any liability for consequences arising from omissions or
inaccuracies in this manual and any other documentation provided with this product.
This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two
conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept
any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

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5INTRODUCTION
The G300Ni from Comar Systems is a compact GPS Receiver equipped with Ethernet, WiFi and
USB Interfaces for land-based, shore side monitoring.
The G300Ni is based on the popular Raspberry Pi™3
1
mini-computer. The G300Ni is primarily
intended for developers to implement within their own networks.
Before operating the unit you should familiarise yourself with this user manual. The G300Ni is
intended to be developed continually, therefore this manual should be considered as a guide
5.1 Parts List
On delivery, carefully inspect the contents of the packing case. Note any damage or any missing
items. Ensure that the correct parts are included for your application.
1
For the latest information on Raspberry Pi™computers and operating systems please refer to
raspberrypi.org
Item:
Description:
No.
included:
COMAR
SKU Number:
1
G300Ni GPS Receiver - Unit
1
001-1070
2
Universal Power Supply
1
004-7128

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6MAJOR DIMENSIONS
All dimensions mm:

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7INSTALLATION
7.1 Mounting
Before starting installation select a suitable location. The G300Ni from COMAR SYSTEMS is
intended to be used indoors as part of a land-based installation. It should be installed in a cool,
dry place away from excessive vibration and shocks and can be mounted to a suitable bulkhead
or shelf.
7.2 Power Supply
Fit the universal power supply
2
with the correct adaptor for your local power. Connect the Antenna
& Ethernet cables first. Lastly, connect the power cable by plugging the micro-USB power jack
into the micro-USB socket on the side of the G300Ni, see section 6 MAJOR DIMENSIONS. Provided
that the unit is configured correctly, the receiver will immediately begin the boot process. Refer
to section 8 CONFIGURATION.
7.3 GPS Antenna
Placement of the GPS antenna is crucial to the quality of the data received. Any metal close to a
GPS antenna can disturb the signal in an unpredictable way due to interference from reflections
of weak GPS signals.
Mount the antenna as high up as possible. The GPS antenna must have a direct view of GPS
satellites with an unobstructed line of sight to the sky.
2
In the unlikely event of power supply failure it is possible to use any micro-USB plug pack
capable of delivering 1.2 A of power, e.g. a phone or a tablet charger.

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8CONFIGURATION
There are several methods to configure the R500Ni unit, ranging from the standard configuration
using a keyboard and mouse directly connected to the unit, or by using VNC or SSH which are
done via a network.
8.1 Getting Started
8.1.1 Standard Setup
Connect the keyboard, mouse and monitor and power on the unit. When prompted enter the
username and password for Rasbian, which are the standard settings:
User: pi.
Password: raspberry
This will then boot directly into the desktop frontend of the Rasbian as shown below:
Note: It is recommended to change the default login details.

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8.1.2 VNC Setup
The remote access software VNC is pre-installed, which enables you to connect to your unit via
VNC. You will firstly need to download and install a VNC client, such as VNC Viewer on a
computer in the same network as your unit. One example for a VNC client is RealVNC:
www.realvnc.com.
Once your client is installed, ensure the R500NGi is powered on and connected to your network
via ethernet or WiFi. Follow the instructions of the VNC client to connect to the VNC server on
your R500Ni unit.
The login details for VNC are the default Rasbian settings:
User: pi
Password: raspberry
8.1.3 SSH Setup
SSH is enabled on the Raspbian install of your unit. SSH is a software package that enables
secure system administration and file transfers over insecure networks. To connect to your unit
via SSH use the standard login details for Rasbian:
User: pi
Password: raspberry
8.2 Software Configuration
8.2.1 OpenCPN
Default plotter software, OpenCPN, is installed on your unit. To start
OpenCPN just click on the OpenCPN icon on the desktop:
The internal AIS module is already set up and once OpenCPN is started and
you have received the first AIS messages with your unit (channel A or B
briefly flashing) you should see the data displayed on the map.
For more information about OpenCPN, please visit: www.opencpn.org
Note: It is recommended to change the default login details.
Note: It is recommended to change the default login details.

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9RE-INSTALLING SOFTWARE
This section is intended to instruct in the installation of open source software on the Comar
G300Ni. Third party proprietary networked implementations of the G300Ni are outside the scope
of this manual. The micro computer embedded in the G300Ni is a Raspberry Pi 3™ unit.
9.1 Installing Open Source Software
The G300Ni is shipped without software and can be installed with any operating system that
works on the Raspberry Pi 3™ micro computer. Full information and additional details can be
found on the Raspberry Foundation website: https://www.raspberrypi.org/
The G300Ni can run a number of operating systems and these are listed and explained on the
official Raspberry Foundation website. Comar Systems recommend using Raspbian, the official
operating system (OS) for the Raspberry Pi, which is a Linux based OS. The following information
is based on the assumption that you will be using Raspbian. It is an open source operating system
and can be freely downloadable from the internet.
The examples in this section are based on the Raspbian OS. This section describes an example
of how to download and install software to receive data from the G300Ni.
9.2 Requirements
You will need the following:
1. The Comar G300Ni and power supply
2. A MicroSD data storage card. Comar recommends a high quality branded card of at least 8
GB capacity
3. USB Mouse and keyboard or USB Bluetooth
4. A monitor with an HDMI
3
connection
5. A connection to the internet, either using Wi-Fi or ethernet via the RJ45 port. Comar always
recommends using a direct cable connection via the RJ45 port while installing the system
software
6. A GPS Antenna, we recommend the Comar AG100.
7. A computer (PC or Mac) connected to the internet
9.3 Installing the Raspbian OS
Raspbian is the official Operating System for the Raspberry Pi Foundation. You have two options
to install Raspbian on an SD card:
1. The New Out Of Box Software (NOOBS) option
2. Installing an SD image directly
We recommend the NOOBS option.
3
High-Definition Multimedia Interface

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•To install the Raspbian OS, follow this easy guide for both options:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/learning/software-guide/quickstart/
There are two versions of the operating system:
1. A full operating system with graphical user interface and networking
2. A ‘lite’version with no graphical user interface and reduced functionality.
The instructions below are based on installing the full GUI version of Raspbian.
Once you have installed the operating system you will want to get access to the GPS data from
the inbuilt GPS receiver. The GPS data is a NMEA stream on the internal serial port and once set
up it can be viewed, stored or transferred to an application or other device.
To use the GPS receiver you have to enable the serial port and set the communication
parameters. This applies to all uses of the G300Ni; see below.
9.4 Enabling the Serial Port
In the later Jessie
4
releases the GPIO serial port is disabled by default. In order to enable it, you
will need to edit config.txt using the terminal emulator on the toolbar, as follows:
Once you have Raspbian running on Raspberry Pi, go to Menu →Accessories →Terminal, and
type:
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
A text editor will open. Move the cursor to the end of the file and add this line:
enable_uart=1
This will also lock the cpu core frequency for you so there’s nothing else you need to do.
(The full command for locking the CPU core frequency is: core_freq=250 which you add to the
same file as well).
core_freq=250
Save the file by pressing Ctrl+X, say Yes and press enter. Reboot for the changes to take effect.
Now type:
sudo reboot
This will restart the system.
Once the G300Ni is back up and running, check the status of the serial port.
Go to Menu →Accessories →Terminal, and type:
$ ls –l /dev
4
May 2016

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•NOTE: Use lower case ‘L’ not ‘1’ or any other character
You should see the serial port ttyS0 with the alias of serial0 displayed part way down the list:
The next step is to disable the remote console which by default uses the internal serial port ttyS0
which is also the same serial port the GPS receiver uses in the G300Ni. To do this, type:
$ sudo systemctl stop serial-get[email protected]
$ sudo systemctl disable seri[email protected]
You also need to remove the console from the cmdline.txt. You edit this with the following line:
$ sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt
You will then see a response similar to this:
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2
rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes root wait
Remove the text:
console=serial0,115200
The code should now look something like this:
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline
fsck.repair=yes root wait
Save the file by pressing Ctrl+X, use option Yes and press Enter. Reboot for changes to take effect.
$ sudo reboot
Finally you need to set the speed and enable the port ttyS0 for the GPS stream.
9.4.1 Setting and testing the serial port to receive GPS data
First, set the serial port to the Baud rate of 4800:
$ stty –F /dev/ttyS0 4800
Make sure that the GPS antenna is connected. You should now be receiving GPS data on the
internal serial port.
To check that the data sentences being received are formatted correctly you will need to examine
the data. This can be done either on the screen or by redirecting it to a file as follows:
$ cat /dev/ttyS0 > ./test.txt
This command line will put all the data received into a file named ./test.txt which can then be
viewed:

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$ more ./test.txt
You will see something like this formatted GPS data:
If strange characters are displayed or data sentences are not formatted correctly then the Baud
rate settings may need checking for the serial port. In this case, repeat the procedure for setting
up the serial port.

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10 GPS RECEIVER
The G300Ni contains an integral GPS receiver allowing positional data to be output from the
receiver.
A standard active 3.3 or 5 volts dc GPS antenna with a gain between 10 and 30 dB needs to be
connected to the TNC connector on the rear of the G300Ni for the GPS receiver to work.
By default the GPS receiver will output the following NMEA messages:
GPGGA, GPGSA, GPGSV, GPRMC
10.1 GPS Receiver Technical Specification
Channels: 12 Parallel Channels
Frequency: 1575.42 MHz
WAAS: Yes
Update Rate: 1 sec
Hot Start: 2 sec
Warm Start: 15 sec
Cold Start: 45 sec
11 TROUBLESHOOTING
11.1 No power / Raspberry Pi not booting
Check the power supply and that the unit is connected correctly to the 5V dc supply
Check the SD-Card is inserted correctly
11.2 No GPS data
Check the serial port is set up as described in section 9.4 Enabling the Serial Port
The GPS module will output valid data even if there is no GPS antenna connected to the device
11.3 The GPS is not detecting any satellites
Check the GPS antenna setup. Please see section 7.3 GPS Antenna

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12 SPECIFICATIONS
12.1 Physical
Weight:
400g
Dimensions:
L 135 mm W 80 mm D 39 mm
Mounting:
To flat surface; 2 holes in case bottom
Connections:
Micro USB (Power)
RJ45 Ethernet 10 / 100 Base-T
4x USB 2.0 type A socket
TNC Coaxial to GPS antenna
Micro-SD card slot
Construction:
Plastic housing
12.2 Electrical and Electronic
Power Supply:
5 V dc; 900 –1200 mA typical
Antenna Impedance:
50 Ω
USB power:
100 mA each port (max)
12.3 Operational
Frequency
GPS: 1575.42MHz
Sensitivity:
< -112 dBM
Microcomputer:
1.2 GHz 64bit quad-core ARM v8 CPU
WiFi:
802.11n
Data Types Received:
Standard - GPRMC GPGGA GPGSA GPGSV
Optional - PGRME GPGLL GPVTG PGRMV
PGRMF PGRMB PGRMM PGRMT
12.4 Environmental
IP Rating:
IP40
Operating temp:
-15°C to +55°C
Compass:
Safe Distance 50 cm
11.5 Additional Information
Supplied:
G300Ni receiver (without software)
Option 1:
G300Ni receiver with standard configuration software
Option 2:
G300Ni receiver with bespoke data management software

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13 SAFETY AND SECURITY
Please observe the following procedures to ensure safety of personnel installing and operating
the equipment:
1. Ensure all power to the unit is disconnected and locked-out during installation, maintenance
and removal procedures
2. Ensure power is disconnected and locked-out in the event of mechanical damage to the unit,
rendering internal parts accessible to personnel
3. Only the electrical power of the specified voltage should be connected to the unit
4. The panel to which the unit is mounted should be designed to provide adequate mechanical
support. This minimises the possibility of damage or injury caused under mechanical shock
conditions
5. Care should be taken to ensure the fixings used to mount the unit to the panel are correctly
fitted and retain their mechanical integrity over time
14 LIMITED WARRANTY
COMAR SYSTEMS LTD. warrants this product to be free from defects in materials and
manufacture for one year from the date of purchase. Comar Systems Ltd will, at its sole option,
repair or replace any components that fail in normal use. Such repairs or replacement will be
made at no charge to the customer for parts and labour. The customer is, however, responsible
for any transportation costs incurred in returning the unit to Comar Systems Ltd.
This warranty does not cover failures due to abuse, misuse, accident or unauthorised alteration
or repairs.
The above does not affect the statutory rights of the consumer.
Changes or modifications not made by Comar Systems or an authorised repairer will: (1) Void
the warranty issued by Comar Systems (2) Void the user's authority to operate the equipment.
Note: Every effort has been made to ensure that all information contained in this manual is
accurate at the time of going to press. We therefore cannot take any responsibility for the
content and advise that you take normal steps to ensure that the information is at its most
current when you are reading this manual.

COMAR SYSTEMS
Vittlefields Technology Centre
Forest Road
NEWPORT
Isle of Wight
PO30 4LY
UNITED KINGDOM
tel: [phone]
email:
[e-mail]
web:
www.comarsystems.com