Development of Record and Management Software for GPS/Loran Measurements

Abstract: In this paper, a software implementation that records Global Positioning System (GPS) and long-range navigation (Loran) measurement data output from an integrated GPS/Loran receiver and organizes them based on time is proposed. The purpose of the developed software is to collect measurements from multiple Loran transmitter chains for performance analysis of navigation methods using Loran, and to organize the data based on time to make it easy to use them. In addition, GPS measurements are also collected and managed as ground truth data for performance analysis. The implemented software consists of three modules: recording, classification, and conversion. The recording module records raw text data streamed from the receiver, and the classification module classifies the recorded text data according to the message format. The conversion module parses the classified text data, sorts GPS and Loran measurements based on timestamp, and outputs them according to the software platform of the user to analyze the measurements. Each module of the software runs automatically without user intervention. The functionality of the implemented software was verified using GPS and Loran measurements collected over 24 h from an actual integrated GPS/Loran receiver.