User Guide: RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit
Overview

Traditional survey performance at affordable cost. Includes accessories.
With the RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit you will have everything you need to start your surveying tasks with RTK and centimeter level accuracy.
Package
You got your new RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit? First, you are in the right page to get your kit set up quickly.
Remember all the component parts of RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit includes:
- ZED-F9P RTK receiver with USB and Bluetooth inside a plastic case
- Survey calibrated antenna with 1.5m TNC-SMA cable
- Mini USB cable
- USB OTG microUSB-B (14cm)
- USB OTG type C (22cm)
- Universal smartphone holder with 3M-Backed Rubber Pads, fits any smartphone from 5.3cm to 9.3cm with or without case
- Clamp to hold the smartphone holder to the pole
- Velcro strap (20cm) to fix the receiver to the back of the smartphone holder
- Surveying Pole for survey GNSS antenna
The kit is pre-configured to send NMEA data simultaneously via Bluetooth and USB.
Unboxing
For building RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit, there is no need for special tools nor nothing of the sort, by hand will be enough.
2. Place the case together with the smartphone holder with the SMA connector inversely positioned to the smartphone holder width adjusting screw. You may observe that the flat face of the case fits with the back of the smartphone holder. Fasten it together with the Velcro strap.
4. Join the main parts of the clamp with the preferred screw. Each screw fits different screw holes within the clamp. You can screw in both and decide which may work best for you. Then, screw tightly together the rotating part of the clamp that will serve to rotate the smartphone holder to your preferred position.
6. You can adjust freely the position of the smartphone holder by loosing up the rotating piece of the clamp and fixing it at your will.
7. You can adjust freely the position of the smartphone holder by loosing up the rotating piece of the clamp and fixing it at your will.
Now you have the first piece of your Surveyor Kit ready to connect with the other remaining two main pieces: your smartphone and the Calibrated Survey antenna.
15. You now got your RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit built and ready to work!
16.The kit can be used for about 6-8 hours with an average phone powering.
Note: If the you need more than this, use USB-C on-the-go (OTG) with external USB-C power supply (optional, not included in the package of the Surveyor kit) and a small external 1’000mAh powerbank.
How to connect to your smartphone?
We will explain how to use your Android device with RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit.
- Make sure your device supports Bluetooth 2.0 or has USB OTG capabilities.
- Make sure your Android language is set to English, since some users reported compatibility problems with other languages.
- Place your RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit in a location with good view of the sky, or near a window for testing the functionality.
- Download compatible software/app which you prefer to use from Google Play and install it in your device. We prepared step-by-step instructions how to use RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit with several software/app:
- SW Maps – GIS & Data Collector. You can download the app here.
- Mapit GIS (upcoming)
- Field Navigator (upcoming)
- Other app. The list of compatible software/app you can find here.
How to use RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit with SW Maps?
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- Open SW Maps app and give permissions (first time only).
- Click on the SW Maps icon to show the app menu.

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- Select USB Serial GPS.

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- Under Devices, you should see FT232R USB UART. Set BaudRate to 38400bps.
- Set Instrument Model to u-blox RTK. Set the Instrument Height according to the height of your pole or antenna, if you want to measure the location of the ground.
- Click CONNECT button. When you click the CONNECT button, grant permissions (if asked).

- Power your Ardusimple kit using its USB connector. Use a USB power bank, power wall adapter, smartphone, laptop etc.
- Enable the Bluetooth connection on your device.
- Pair the Ardusimple board in the Android Bluetooth menu. When searching for devices, you may see only the MAC address, but once paired the name will update to RTK_GNSS_XXX, where XXX is a random number. Password is 1234. The pairing only needs to be done once. Unlike other Bluetooth devices, it won´t show as “connected” until you click “connect” button in an app.
- Open SW Maps app and give permissions (first time only). Click on the SW Maps icon to show the app menu.
- Select Bluetooth GPS.
- Under Devices, select the one you paired in step 3. Set Instrument Model to u-blox RTK. Set the Instrument Height according to the height of your pole or antenna, if you want to measure the location on the ground.
Click CONNECT button. When you click the CONNECT button, grant permissions (if asked).




When using RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit, please set the instrument height.
The instrument height is the sum of the Pole’s and Antenna’s height offset (which in the case of Calibrated Survey antenna is 48mm).
The instrument height can be changed at any time by entering the new height and pressing the button beside it and clicking CONNECT button.
- Since you have a RTK capable GNSS receiver, let’s connect it to a NTRIP server to get cm accuracy. Go back to SW Maps menu and select NTRIP Connection.
- Fill all the fields with your NTRIP provider data. Make sure to check Send NMEA GGA to NTRIP Caster if you are connecting to a VRS.
- When you click CONNECT, if everything worked, you will see the data stream alive.
- You can see some details of your Ardusimple receiver by going to the SW Maps menu and selecting GPS Status or Skyplot.
- On the main screen, you can click the button shown in the below picture to make the app center the map in your receiver location. The pointer showing your location will change its color depending on the fix status of your receiver. Additionally, you have the option to adjust the map layer, include points, tracks, as well as import or export recorded locations, among other features.
- You can get used to the SW Maps app by exploring its various options. If you prefer a guide, you can access the User Manual here.
How to use RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit with Other software?
If you need to use RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit with any other software, we will explain how to configure Ardusimple RTK receivers to be used as mock location for Android smartphones/tablets in order to get centimeter position accuracy.
If you are not familiar with the term, mock location means that you cheat your Android device to use an external GNSS receiver as if it was its own internal one.
This has the advantage that any GPS/GNSS app that works with your Android device can benefit of centimeter level accuracy.
Step 1:
This step only needs to be done once.
- We will use Lefebure NTRIP Client app both to get NTRIP corrections and to use mock location for Android.
Go to the Play Store and install the app, we will configure it later.
Step 2:
This step only needs to be done once.
- To enable mock locations in Android we will need to get Developer permissions. The procedure may vary slightly between different Android versions and smartphone models (you can Google your “Smartphone model + enable mock location” if you can’t find the exact options).
- On Android 4.1 and lower, the Developer options screen is available by default. On Android 4.2 and higher, you must enable this screen. To enable developer options, tap the Build Number, MIUI version or similar option 7 times. You can find this option in one of the following locations, depending on your Android version:
- Settings > About Phone > Build Number
- Settings > System > About Phone > Build Number
- Once you have access to Developer options, you can go to Settings > Additional Settings and at the bottom you will find Developer options.
In this big list, tap Select mock location app and select Lefebure NTRIP Client from the list.
Step 3:
- Power any of your professional kits by connecting their USB cable to your smartphone/tablet/power source.
If you get any popup message to connect the USB device with any app, you can ignore it (unless you want to connect via USB OTG, which is covered in this other tutorial)
- Enable your smartphone/tablet Bluetooth, and pair it with your professional kit.
When pairing your device, notice that it may appear as simpleRTK2B or as a generic MAC number (e.g.: F0:0A:95:9D:68:16).
The password is always 1234.The pairing only needs to be done once.
Step 4:
- Open Lefebure NTRIP Client
- Click on the gear icon to enter the setup menu.
- Select Receiver Settings and set:
- Go back to the main settings menu and select NTRIP settings.
- Set your NTRIP service credentials (Caster IP, Caster Port, Username and Password).
These are Ardusimple credentials shown only as an example, use your own 🙂
These settings need to be done only once unless you change your NTRIP credentials. - Go to the main screen and click the CONNECT button.
- Once the connection with the server is stablished, the app will ask you to select the NTRIP station from which you want to receive the corrections.
- If everything is properly set you will see a yellow progress bar that will download corrections continuously.
Step 5:
- Open your favorite GPS/GNSS application and use it as usual.
You will be using the external RTK GNSS receiver instead of the smartphone/tablet internal GPS receiver.
We have tested this functionality with many apps, you can find them in this link.
If you test it in other apps, you can send us an email at info@ardusimple.com and we will add it to the list.
The Android robot is reproduced or modified from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.
Now you are ready to survey and map!
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