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Tips and Troubleshooting Robotic Total Station Wireless Communications

Robotic Total Station Wireless Communications

Tips and Troubleshooting

  • 4Ghz Long Range Radio
  • Wi-Fi (Standard 4 GHz)
  • Wi-Fi HaLow™ 1

 

Contents

Robotic Total Station Wireless Communications Best Practices for Radio Usage

Antenna Signal Direction

Antenna Orientation

Line of Sight

Environmental Impacts- Urban Environment, Open Terrain

Troubleshooting 2.4 Ghz Long Range Radio, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi HaLow Links

S Series & SX Instruments: Long Range Radio

SX10 & SX12 Instruments: Standard Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz) SX12 Instruments: Wi-Fi HaLow Radio

Additional Troubleshooting:

Information to Provide to Dealer and/or Trimble Support

Password Protection for SX12 Scanning Total Stations


Best Practices for Radio Usage

Antenna Signal Direction

The antenna radiates in all directions except from the top and bottom.

             

 

 

 

Antenna Orientation

To get good radio range it is therefore important that the antennas are oriented in the same direction. As the instrument antenna is fixed in a vertical position, make sure to position the tiltable antenna on the controller in the same vertical position as the instrument antenna.

                                                                                                                               

Line of Sight

When using radio connection, the antennas must have free line of sight to each other to achieve good communication and maximum range. Objects between the antennas create a radio shadow that decreases the range with the risk of losing connection.

For example, objects like bushes, trees, houses and vehicles can create a radio shadow, but also the human body and the equipment.

Environmental Impacts

Urban Environment

In an urban environment the radio signal can reflect between objects, for example buildings and parked cars, thereby providing a good radio coverage even without a direct line of sight.

 Open Terrain

In an open terrain the line of sight becomes more critical as the radio signal does not have anything to reflect from.

To obtain a good radio range, try to position the instrument as high as possible in relation to the surrounding environment.

 

 

Troubleshooting 2.4 Ghz Long Range Radio, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi HaLow Links

Depending on what equipment you have available, try to narrow down what the source of the radio issue is: the environment, antennas (controller or instrument), or radios themselves (controller or instrument).

  • Evaluate your current
    • Nearby equipment or facilities that could cause interference (airports, radios stations, towers, high number of available Wi-Fi networks, etc.)?
  • Try another radio or Wi-Fi channel to rule out any interference on the current channel being

S Series & SX Instruments: Long Range Radio

Change to a different Radio Channel and/or Network ID number.

  1. In Trimble Access, navigate to Settings → Connections → Radio settings

NOTE: To change the radio channel and/or network ID, the instrument must be connected to the controller using a cable or Wi-Fi.

 SX10 & SX12 Instruments: Standard Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz)

Change to a different Wi-Fi channel.

  1. Navigate to Instrument Settings
    • Option 1: Menu → Instrument → Instrument settings
    • Option 2: Press-and-hold the SX icon in the top status bar for 2 seconds, then release
  2. Choose the desired channel from the “Wi-Fi Channel” drop down
    • There are 3 preconfigured options to choose from: Channel 1, 6 and By default, the instrument operates on Channel 11. Tap “Accept” to set the new channel.
    • When connected via Wi-Fi you may see a connection drop of up to 30 seconds when applying this change.
  3. You will then see the Channel name updated in the Instrument Settings
  4. Click Accept

SX12 Instruments: Wi-Fi HaLow Radio

  1. Set the Wi-Fi HaLow mode to High Bandwidth

  • Click Accept

Note: For the best performance and user experience, it is recommended that users use the High Bandwidth mode.

 

2. If the instrument was already in High Bandwidth mode, or if changing to High Bandwidth mode did not help, use the Auto-Select Channel tool
    • Navigate to Instrument Settings
      • Option 1: Menu → Instrument → Instrument settings
      • Option 2: Press-and-hold the SX icon in the top status bar for 2 seconds, then release
  • Click Auto-select channel
    • The controller will scan and check all available channels within theselected mode (high or low bandwidth) and make a recommendation, shown in the Wi-Fi HaLow channel drop-down. The current channel is not scanned during this process.
    • Click Accept to apply


3. If the instrument was already in High Bandwidth (2MHz) mode, and using the Auto Select Channel tool did not help, try switching to Low Bandwidth (1MHz) mode.

 

Note: For the best performance and user experience, it is recommended that users use the High Bandwidth mode.

  • In the Wi-Fi HaLow channel drop-down, you will now see channels on the 100 range (1MHz)

  • You can now re-try the Auto-select channel tool, and it will scan the Low Bandwidth channels and make a recommendation.
  • Click Accept to Apply

 

4. If the communication performance is still poor, try switching to standard Wi-Fi
    • Navigate to Instrument Functions
      • Option 1: Short-press the SX icon in the top status bar
      • Option 2: Menu → Instrument → Instrument Functions
  • Click Connections
  • Either Switch to HaLow or Switch to Wi-Fi will be available, depending on your current mode. In this case you should see Switch to Wi-Fi, press it.
  • The controller and SX12 radio will both now switch to Standard Wi-Fi and This process will take up to 1 minute.

Additional Troubleshooting:

  1. If possible, swap out the EM120/130 antenna with one that is known to be working to rule out any issues with the current radio module.
  2. If possible, swap out the controller with one that is known to be working to rule out any issues with the current controller
  3. Move to a different work environment to rule out any localized environmental interference in the current project area.

 

Information to Provide to Dealer and/or Trimble Support

  1. Detailed description of the issue, along with any corresponding data
  2. What Troubleshooting Steps have been performed
  3. Steps to reproduce the issue
  4. Trimble Access Data Folder (SC Logs)
  5. Controller Serial Number
  6. Trimble Access Software Version
  7. S-Series/SX10/SX12 Instrument Serial Number
  8. S-Series/SX10/SX12 Firmware Version
  9. EM120/EM130 Serial Number
  10. Verify EMPOWER Module Components (EM120/EM130) Module Support Package latest version have been installed and are up to date.

Password Protection for SX12 Scanning Total Stations

Password protection is introduced with the release of SX12 firmware version S2.8.4 and Trimble Access field software version 2023.00. These versions of firmware and software, or later, must be used in conjunction to utilize password protection.

Connections issues may be experienced in certain scenarios when connecting to a SX12 that has had a password set on it. For details on password protection with the SX12, as well as troubleshooting recommendations, see the SX12 Password Protection For SX12 Scanning Total Stations Support Bulletin found on the Survey Partners webpage.