LPMS-Control Software

Overview

The LPMS-Control application allows users to control various aspects of an LPMS device from a PC. The application has the following core functionality:

List all LPMS devices connected to the system

• Connect to up to 256 sensors simultaneously

• Adjust all sensor parameters (sensor range etc.).

• Set orientation offsets

• Initiate accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer calibration.

• Display the acquired data in real-time either as line graphs or a 3D image

• Record data from the sensors to a CSV data file

• Play back data from a previously recorded CSV file

• Upload new firmware and in-application-programming software to the sensor

LPMS-Control can be downloaded directly from the LP-Research website support page.

GUI Elements

Toolbar Items

The key functionality of LpmsControl can be accessed via the toolbar. See an overview of the toolbar in Figure 6, Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9.

Open

Figure 6 - Connection toolbar

Open

Figure 7 - Recording and playback toolbar

Figure 8 - Orientation offset toolbar

Figure 9 - Window selector

Menu Items

Connected Devices List

Devices connected to the system are shown in the Connected devices list. Through this list each sensor parameter can be adjusted according to the table below.

NOTE: Parameter adjustments are normally only persistent until the sensor is switched off. You can permanently save the newly adjusted parameters to the LPMS flash memory by selecting Save parameters to sensor in the Calibration menu of LPMS-Control.

Scanning, Discovering and Saving Devices

Discovering devices, especially Bluetooth devices, can be quite time-consuming. Therefore LPMS-Control allows scanning for devices once and then saves the device identification in a list of preferred devices. Figure 10 shows the device discovery dialog. To add a device to the preferred devices list, please follow the steps below:

1. Click "Scan devices" and wait until the scanning process is finished.

2. Select the target device from the discovered devices list

3. Click "Add device" to add the device to the Preferred devices list

4. Click Save devices to save the list of preferred devices

Figure 10 - Discover devices dialog

Connecting and Disconnecting a Device

To connect to an LPMS device, please follow the steps below.

1. Select device to connect to in "Preferred devices" dropdown list.

2. Click "Connect" button.

3. Sensor status should now be "Connecting..".

4. Connection establishment should take between 2 and 5 seconds.

If the connection is successful, the sensor status should switch to "Connected". The sensor will start measuring automatically after connecting. Should the connection procedure fail for some reason, “Failed” will be displayed. If a successful connection is interrupted the connection status will change to "Connection interrupted".

NOTE: Please make sure that you have no 3rd party Bluetooth driver (Toshiba, Bluesoleil etc.) installed on your system. LPMS-Control uses the native Windows Bluetooth driver and any other driver will block communication with the native Windows driver. The Windows Bluetooth pairing functionality will be automatically started when connecting to the sensor from LPMS-Control. A PIN code should not be required for connecting with the LPMS.

Recording and Playing Back Data

LPMS-Control allows recording and playback of sensor data. Recorded data is saved in a CSV format that can be easily processed by Excel, MATLAB etc. Saved files can be loaded into LPSM-Control and played back. Now only playback of the sensor with the lowest OpenMAT ID in the file is possible. To start data recording please follow the steps below:

1. Select "Measurement" ->"Browse record file" and choose a filename that you would like to record to.

2. Start the recording by selecting "Measurement -> Record" data.

3. Once you have collected enough data stop the recording by selecting "Measurement" ->"Stop recording".

To replay a data file, do the following:

1. Select "Measurement" ->"Browse replay" file and select a file that you would like to replay.

2. Start replay by selecting "Measurement" ->"Replay data".

3. Replay will loop automatically. Once you would like to stop replay select "Measurement" ->"Stop replay data".

NOTE: LPMS-Control automatically applies calibration parameters to raw sensor data and therefore records and displays calibrated sensor data.

Switching View Modes

LPMS-Control can visualize sensor orientation data either as data graphs or as 3D representation. In 3D view mode the orientation of the sensor is shown as a 3D cube. Up to 4 sensors can be shown simultaneously in one window. In this multi-view mode, which sensors are visualized can be adjusted by assigning an IMU ID to each window (see Figure 11).

Figure 11 - Viewing the orientation of 4 connected LPMS at the same time

By selecting Load object file from the View menu, custom 3D data can be loaded into LPMS-Control as shown in Figure 12.

NOTE: LPMS-Control so far only supports the OBJ file format for loading 3D CAD files. We recommend exporting files in this format from the open-source 3D visualizer Meshlab: http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/

Figure 12 - Custom 3D OBJ data can be loaded into the visualization window

Uploading New Firmware

Please follow the following steps carefully when you are updating the sensor firmware. Invalid operation might result in an incomplete firmware update and brick the sensor.

1. Start your current LPMS-Control software.

2. Connect to the sensor you would like to update.

3. Choose the “Save parameters to file” function from the “Calibration” menu of LPMS-Control to save the current sensor calibration results into a .txt file on your local host system.

4. Select Upload firmware function in the “Advanced” menu.

5. Click OK and select the new firmware file. Be careful that you select the right file which should be named as LpmsXFirmwareX.X.X.bin (with X being the sensor type identifier and firmware version).

6. Wait for the upload process to finish. It should take around 30 seconds. At around 15s the green LED on the sensor should begin to blink rapidly (~10 Hz).

7. Disconnect from the sensor and exit LPMS-Control.

8. Now install the new LPMS-Control application. The previous LPMS-Control application does not need to be un-installed.

9. Start LPMS-Control and connect to your sensor.

10. Choose the “Load parameters fromfile” function from the “Calibration” menu of LPMS-Control to recover the previous sensor calibration results.

11. Choose the “Save parameters”tosensor function from the calibration menu of LPMS-Control to save the previous sensor calibration results into sensor flash.

12. The update is finished. Make sure everything works as expected.