Singapore GPS basestation GPS data

What, Why and Where

Here at Gintic in Singapore, in our Material Handling Technology group we have set-up a GPS base-station to support our R&D projects in the the use of GPS for Automated Guided Vehicle navigation.

The first step with this basestation is to make data available for differential GPS post-processing. Because we run a Trimble community basestation, this data comes in the form of .ssf files. And if in your case Rinex files would be a more appropriate solution, please let me know. In later phases we want to make RTCM-104 messages available over the internet for the purpose of real-time differential GPS.

The GPS reference basestation is located on the campus of the Nanyang Technological University, or more precise at the coordinates 1.20.54 N / 103.40.54 E at an altitude of 66m. The system is in principle 24 hrs per day operational.


Available Data

We log the satellite data once per 5 seconds. This data is stored using NFS in a file and web-server, per day resulting in 24 files of app. 250 Kb each, which is 6MB per day. Therefore we can not keep this too long, for the time being one month.

The format of the filenames is A7MMDDHH.SSF, where the 7 stands for 1997, while the other six digits give date and hour. Grab the data you need by clicking here.


Future Plans

Our future plans are to distribute RTCM-104 messages over the internet. This will probably get the form of UDP messages linked to a specific TCP/IP port. The aim is that on the mobile site, you can run a program that is accessing that port to receive the RTCM-104 messages, after which you either send that data through a serial port to you differential GPS unit, or you use it for your own differential corrections.

Of course I realize that to have a mobile GPS and PC with a life internet connection is not for everybody feasible. However giving products like data-roaming, such a solution is not that far away anymore. The advantage is that after equipping your notebook with a wireless modem, you don't need any special receiver. Another approach could be to use normal cellular phones and modems for the connection with the ISP.

For any questions or suggestions, please send and email to Willem van Schaik.


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Gintic MHT, Singapore - April 1997 - http://mhtgps.gintic.gov.sg:8000/gps/