pysbf2

Current Status | Installation | Message Categories | Reading | Parsing | Generating | Serializing | Examples | Extensibility | Known Issues | Author & License

pysbf2 is an original Python 3 parser for the SBF © protocol. SBF is a proprietary binary protocol implemented on Septentrio ™ GNSS receiver modules. pysbf2 can also parse NMEA 0183 © and RTCM3 © protocols via the underlying pynmeagps and pyrtcm packages from the same author - hence it covers all the common protocols that Septentrio SBF receivers are capable of outputting.

The psbf2 homepage is located at https://github.com/semuconsulting/pysbf2.

This is an independent project and we have no affiliation whatsoever with Septentrio.

Current Status

The library implements a comprehensive set of messages for Septentrio Mosaic X5 devices, but is readily extensible. Refer to SBF_MSGIDS in sbftypes_core.py for the complete dictionary of messages currently supported. SBF protocol information sourced from mosaic-X5 Reference Guide v4.14.10.

Sphinx API Documentation in HTML format is available at https://www.semuconsulting.com/pysbf2/.

Contributions welcome - please refer to CONTRIBUTING.MD. Feel free to discuss any proposed changes beforehand in the Discussion Channel.

Bug reports and Feature requests - please use the templates provided. For general queries and advice, post a message to one of the pysbf2 Discussions channels.

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Installation

pysbf2 is compatible with Python 3.9 - 3.13. In the following, python3 & pip refer to the Python 3 executables. You may need to substitute python for python3, depending on your particular environment (on Windows it's generally python).

The recommended way to install the latest version of pysbf2 is with pip:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pysbf2

If required, pysbf2 can also be installed into a virtual environment, e.g.:

python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate # (or env\Scripts\activate on Windows)
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pysbf2

For Conda users, pysbf2 is also available from conda forge:

conda install -c conda-forge pysbf2

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Reading (Streaming)

class pysbf2.SBFreader.SBFReader(stream, *args, **kwargs)

You can create a SBFReader object by calling the constructor with an active stream object. The stream object can be any viable data stream which supports a read(n) -> bytes method (e.g. File or Serial, with or without a buffer wrapper). pysbf2 implements an internal SocketWrapper class to allow sockets to be read in the same way as other streams (see example below).

Individual input SBF, NMEA or RTCM3 messages can then be read using the SBFReader.read() function, which returns both the raw binary data (as bytes) and the parsed data (as a SBFMessage, NMEAMessage or RTCMMessage object, via the parse() method). The function is thread-safe in so far as the incoming data stream object is thread-safe. SBFReader also implements an iterator.

The constructor accepts the following optional keyword arguments:

• protfilter: NMEA_PROTOCOL (1), SBF_PROTOCOL (2), RTCM3_PROTOCOL (4). Can be OR'd; default is NMEA_PROTOCOL | SBF_PROTOCOL | RTCM3_PROTOCOL (7)
• quitonerror: ERR_IGNORE (0) = ignore errors, ERR_LOG (1) = log errors and continue (default), ERR_RAISE (2) = (re)raise errors and terminate
• validate: VALCKSUM (0x01) = validate checksum (default), VALNONE (0x00) = ignore invalid checksum or length
• parsebitfield: 1 = parse bitfields ('X' type properties) as individual bit flags, where defined (default), 0 = leave bitfields as byte sequences

Example - Serial input. This example will output both SBF and NMEA messages but not RTCM3:

from serial import Serial
from pysbf2 import SBFReader, NMEA_PROTOCOL, SBF_PROTOCOL
with Serial('/dev/ttyACM0', 115200, timeout=3) as stream:
  ubr = SBFReader(stream, protfilter=NMEA_PROTOCOL | SBF_PROTOCOL)
  raw_data, parsed_data = ubr.read()
  if parsed_data is not None:
    print(parsed_data)

Example - File input (using iterator). This will only output SBF data:

from pysbf2 import SBFReader, SBF_PROTOCOL
with open('SBFdata.bin', 'rb') as stream:
  ubr = SBFReader(stream, protfilter=SBF_PROTOCOL)
  for raw_data, parsed_data in ubr:
    print(parsed_data)

Example - Socket input (using iterator). This will output SBF, NMEA and RTCM3 data:

import socket
from pysbf2 import SBFReader, NMEA_PROTOCOL, SBF_PROTOCOL, RTCM3_PROTOCOL
with socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) as stream:
  stream.connect(("localhost", 50007))
  ubr = SBFReader(stream, protfilter=NMEA_PROTOCOL | SBF_PROTOCOL | RTCM3_PROTOCOL)
  for raw_data, parsed_data in ubr:
    print(parsed_data)

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Parsing

You can parse individual SBF messages using the static SBFReader.parse(data) function, which takes a bytes array containing a binary SBF message and returns a SBFMessage object.

NB: Once instantiated, a SBFMessage object is immutable.

The parse() method accepts the following optional keyword arguments:

• validate: VALCKSUM (0x01) = validate checksum (default), VALNONE (0x00) = ignore invalid checksum or length
• parsebitfield: 1 = parse bitfields ('X' type properties) as individual bit flags, where defined (default), 0 = leave bitfields as byte sequences

Example - output (GET) message:

from pysbf2 import SBFReader
msg = SBFReader.parse(b"$@^b\xa6\x0f`\x00X\x9bs\x0c?\t\x01\x00\x1d\x0eX\x17\xfc\x04MA\xe6\xe4\x8b\xe6\xea)\x02\xc1\x98\x19(\xb2\x18uSA\xa6\xddABQ\x90\x018\xb4\x86q:\xc0\x93\x85\xbb\xf9\x02\x95\xd0\xe3\xaf\xe6nKl\xde?\x03\xe0V>\x00\x00\x10\x00\x8f\x02\x8f\x02\r\t2P\x01\x00\x00\x00+\x00z\x00\x88\x00`\x01")
print(msg)

<SBF(PVTCartesian, TOW=10:01:25, WNc=2367, Type=1, Reserved1=0, AutoSet=0, 2D=0, Error=0, X=3803640.1823747293, Y=-148797.3625715144, Z=5100642.783697508, Undulation=48.466453552246094, Vx=3.0890401831129566e-05, Vy=0.000921349273994565, Vz=-0.004076451063156128, COG=-20000000000.0, RxClkBias=0.47535978155315045, RxClkDrift=0.20983891189098358, TimeSystem=0, Datum=0, NrSV=16, WACorrInfo=0, ReferenceID=655, MeanCorrAge=655, SignalInfo=1345456397, RAIMIntegrity=1, GalHPCAFail=0, GalIonStorm=0, Reserved2=0, NrBases=0, PPPSeedAge=0, Reserved3=0, PPPSeedType=0, Latency=43, HAccuracy=122, VAccuracy=136, BaseARP=0, PhaseCtrOffset=0, Reserved4=8, ARPOffset=1)>

If parsebitfield=False, the message is parsed without individual bit flags, e.g.:

<SBF(PVTCartesian, TOW=10:01:25, WNc=2367, Mode=b'\x01', Error=0, X=3803640.1823747293, Y=-148797.3625715144, Z=5100642.783697508, Undulation=48.466453552246094, Vx=3.0890401831129566e-05, Vy=0.000921349273994565, Vz=-0.004076451063156128, COG=-20000000000.0, RxClkBias=0.47535978155315045, RxClkDrift=0.20983891189098358, TimeSystem=0, Datum=0, NrSV=16, WACorrInfo=0, ReferenceID=655, MeanCorrAge=655, SignalInfo=1345456397, AlertFlag=b'\x01', NrBases=0, PPPInfo=b'\x00\x00', Latency=43, HAccuracy=122, VAccuracy=136, Misc=b'`')>

The SBFMessage object exposes different public attributes depending on its message type or 'identity', e.g. the PVTCartesian message has the following attributes:

print(msg)
print(msg.identity)
print(msg.X, msg.Y, msg.Z)

<SBF(PVTCartesian, TOW=10:01:25, WNc=2367, Type=1, Reserved1=0, AutoSet=0, 2D=0, Error=0, X=3803640.1823747293, Y=-148797.3625715144, Z=5100642.783697508, Undulation=48.466453552246094, Vx=3.0890401831129566e-05, Vy=0.000921349273994565, Vz=-0.004076451063156128, COG=-20000000000.0, RxClkBias=0.47535978155315045, RxClkDrift=0.20983891189098358, TimeSystem=0, Datum=0, NrSV=16, WACorrInfo=0, ReferenceID=655, MeanCorrAge=655, SignalInfo=1345456397, RAIMIntegrity=1, GalHPCAFail=0, GalIonStorm=0, Reserved2=0, NrBases=0, PPPSeedAge=0, Reserved3=0, PPPSeedType=0, Latency=43, HAccuracy=122, VAccuracy=136, BaseARP=0, PhaseCtrOffset=0, Reserved4=8, ARPOffset=1)>
PVTCartesian
3803640.1823747293, -148797.3625715144, 5100642.783697508

Decodes for various coded attributes (e.g. PVT Type) are provided in sbftypes_decodes.py:

from pysbf2 import PVT_TYPE
print(PVT_TYPE[msg.Type]) # msg.Type = 4

"RTK with fixed ambiguities"

The payload attribute always contains the raw payload as bytes. Attributes within repeating groups are parsed with a two-digit suffix (PRNMaskNo_01, PRNMaskNo_02, etc.).

Tip: To iterate through a repeating group of attributes (e.g. PRNMaskNo), the following construct can be used:

vals = [] # list of PRNMaskNo values from repeating group
for i in range(msg.N): # N = size of repeating group
    PRNMaskNo = getattr(msg, f"PRNMaskNo_{i+1:02d}")
    vals.append(PRNMaskNo)
print(vals)

---

Generating

class pysbf2.SBFmessage.SBFMessage(SBFClass, msgid: int, revno: int, **kwargs)

You can create a SBFMessage object by calling the constructor with the following parameters:

1. message id
2. revision number (optional, defaults to 0)
3. (optional) a series of keyword parameters representing the message payload

The 'message class' and 'message id' parameters may be passed as lookup strings, integers or bytes.

The message payload can be defined via keyword arguments in one of three ways:

1. A single keyword argument of payload containing the full payload as a sequence of bytes (any other keyword arguments will be ignored). NB the payload keyword argument must be used for message types which have a 'variable by size' repeating group.
2. One or more keyword arguments corresponding to individual message attributes. Any attributes not explicitly provided as keyword arguments will be set to a nominal value according to their type.
3. If no keyword arguments are passed, the payload is assumed to be null.

Example - to generate a PVTCartesian message, any of the following constructor formats will work:

A. Pass entire payload as bytes:

from pysbf2 import SBFMessage
msg1 = SBFMessage("PVTCartesian", payload=b'X\x9bs\x0c?\t\x01\x00\x1d\x0eX\x17\xfc\x04MA\xe6\xe4\x8b\xe6\xea)\x02\xc1\x98\x19(\xb2\x18uSA\xa6\xddABQ\x90\x018\xb4\x86q:\xc0\x93\x85\xbb\xf9\x02\x95\xd0\xe3\xaf\xe6nKl\xde?\x03\xe0V>\x00\x00\x10\x00\xff\xff\xff\xff\r\t2P\x01\x00\x00\x00+\x00\xc4\x04V\x05`')
print(msg1)

<SBF(PVTCartesian, TOW=10:01:25, WNc=2367, Type=1, Reserved1=0, AutoSet=0, 2D=0, Error=0, X=3803640.1823747293, Y=-148797.3625715144, Z=5100642.783697508, Undulation=48.466453552246094, Vx=3.0890401831129566e-05, Vy=0.000921349273994565, Vz=-0.004076451063156128, COG=-20000000000.0, RxClkBias=0.47535978155315045, RxClkDrift=0.20983891189098358, TimeSystem=0, Datum=0, NrSV=16, WACorrInfo=0, ReferenceID=65535, MeanCorrAge=65535, SignalInfo=1345456397, RAIMIntegrity=1, GalHPCAFail=0, GalIonStorm=0, Reserved2=0, NrBases=0, PPPSeedAge=0, Reserved3=0, PPPSeedType=0, Latency=43, HAccuracy=1220, VAccuracy=1366, BaseARP=0, PhaseCtrOffset=0, Reserved4=8, ARPOffset=1)>

B. Pass individual attributes as keyword arguments:

from pysbf2 import SBFMessage
msg2 = SBFMessage("PVTCartesian",TOW=208903000,WNc=2367,Mode=1,Error=0,X=3803640.1823747293,Y=-148797.3625715144,Z=5100642.783697508,Undulation=48.466453552246094,Vx=3.0890401831129566e-05,Vy=0.000921349273994565,Vz=-0.004076451063156128,COG=-20000000000.0,RxClkBias=0.47535978155315045,RxClkDrift=0.20983891189098358,TimeSystem=0,Datum=0,NrSV=16,WACorrInfo=0,ReferenceID=65535,MeanCorrAge=65535,SignalInfo=1345456397,AlertFlag=1,NrBases=0,PPPInfo=0,Latency=43,HAccuracy=1220,VAccuracy=1366,Misc=96)
print(msg2)

<SBF(PVTCartesian, TOW=10:01:25, WNc=2367, Type=0, Reserved1=0, AutoSet=0, 2D=0, Error=0, X=3803640.1823747293, Y=-148797.3625715144, Z=5100642.783697508, Undulation=48.466453552246094, Vx=3.0890401831129566e-05, Vy=0.000921349273994565, Vz=-0.004076451063156128, COG=-20000000000.0, RxClkBias=0.47535978155315045, RxClkDrift=0.20983891189098358, TimeSystem=0, Datum=0, NrSV=16, WACorrInfo=0, ReferenceID=65535, MeanCorrAge=65535, SignalInfo=1345456397, RAIMIntegrity=0, GalHPCAFail=0, GalIonStorm=0, Reserved2=0, NrBases=0, PPPSeedAge=0, Reserved3=0, PPPSeedType=0, Latency=43, HAccuracy=1220, VAccuracy=1366, BaseARP=0, PhaseCtrOffset=0, Reserved4=0, ARPOffset=0)>

C. Pass selected attribute as keyword argument; the rest will be set to nominal values (in this case 0):

from pysbf2 import SBFMessage
msg3 = SBFMessage("PVTCartesian",TOW=208903000,WNc=2367,Mode=1,Error=0,X=3803640.1823747293,Y=-148797.3625715144,Z=5100642.783697508)
print(msg3)

<SBF(PVTCartesian, TOW=10:01:25, WNc=2367, Type=0, Reserved1=0, AutoSet=0, 2D=0, Error=0, X=3803640.1823747293, Y=-148797.3625715144, Z=5100642.783697508, Undulation=0.0, Vx=0.0, Vy=0.0, Vz=0.0, COG=0.0, RxClkBias=0.0, RxClkDrift=0.0, TimeSystem=0, Datum=0, NrSV=0, WACorrInfo=0, ReferenceID=0, MeanCorrAge=0, SignalInfo=0, RAIMIntegrity=0, GalHPCAFail=0, GalIonStorm=0, Reserved2=0, NrBases=0, PPPSeedAge=0, Reserved3=0, PPPSeedType=0, Latency=0, HAccuracy=0, VAccuracy=0, BaseARP=0, PhaseCtrOffset=0, Reserved4=0, ARPOffset=0)>

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Serializing

The SBFMessage class implements a serialize() method to convert a SBFMessage object to a bytes array suitable for writing to an output stream.

e.g. to create and send a CFG-MSG command which sets the NMEA GLL (msgClass 0xf0, msgID 0x01) message rate to 1 on the receiver's UART1 and USB ports:

from serial import Serial
from pysbf2 import SBFMessage
serialOut = Serial('/dev/ttyAMA0', 115200, timeout=3)
from pysbf2 import SBFMessage
msg = SBFMessage("PVTCartesian",TOW=208903000,WNc=2367,Mode=1,Error=0,X=3803640.1823747293,Y=-148797.3625715144,Z=5100642.783697508)
print(msg)
output = msg.serialize()
print(output)
serialOut.write(output)

<SBF(PVTCartesian, TOW=10:01:25, WNc=2367, Mode=1, Error=0, X=3803640.1823747293, Y=-148797.3625715144, Z=5100642.783697508, Undulation=0.0, Vx=0.0, Vy=0.0, Vz=0.0, COG=0.0, RxClkBias=0.0, RxClkDrift=0.0, TimeSystem=0, Datum=0, NrSV=0, WACorrInfo=0, ReferenceID=0, MeanCorrAge=0, SignalInfo=0, AlertFlag=0, NrBases=0, PPPInfo=0, Latency=0, HAccuracy=0, VAccuracy=0, Misc=0)>
b'$@\x81u\xa6\x0f`\x00X\x9bs\x0c?\t\x01\x00\x1d\x0eX\x17\xfc\x04MA\xe6\xe4\x8b\xe6\xea)\x02\xc1\x98\x19(\xb2\x18uSA\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01'

---

Examples

The following command line examples can be found in the \examples folder:

1. TBC

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Extensibility

The SBF protocol is principally defined in the modules sbftypes_*.py as a series of dictionaries. Message payload definitions must conform to the following rules:

1. attribute names must be unique within each message class
2. attribute types must be one of the valid types (I1, U2, X4, etc.)
3. if the attribute is scaled, attribute type is list of [attribute type as string (I1, U2, etc.), scaling factor as float] e.g. {"lat": [I4, 1e-7]}
4. repeating or bitfield groups must be defined as a tuple ('numr', {dict}), where:
   'numr' is either:
     a. an integer representing a fixed number of repeats e.g. 32
     b. a string representing the name of a preceding attribute containing the number of repeats e.g. 'numCh'
     c. an 'X' attribute type ('X1', 'X2', 'X4', etc) representing a group of individual bit flags
   {dict} is the nested dictionary of repeating items or bitfield group

Repeating attribute names are parsed with a two-digit suffix (PRNMaskNo_01, PRNMaskNo_02, etc.). Nested repeating groups are supported. See "MeasEpoch" way of example.

An SBF message's content (payload) is uniquely defined by its ID (message ID and revision number); accommodating the message simply requires the addition of an appropriate dictionary entry to the sbftypes_blocks.py module.

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Known Issues

1. The following SBF message types are not yet implemented (mainly because definitions are not currently in the public domain or are unresolved):
   1. Meas3CN0HiRes
   2. Meas3Doppler
   3. Meas3MP
   4. Meas3PP
   5. Meas3Ranges
   6. PVTSupport
   7. PVTSupportA
   8. FugroDDS

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Author & License Information

semuadmin@semuconsulting.com

pysbf2 is maintained entirely by unpaid volunteers. It receives no funding from advertising or corporate sponsorship. If you find the utility useful, please consider sponsoring the project with the price of a coffee...