# Cerulean Standard Packet Protocol

## Overview

Cerulean Ping Protocol is the Application Programming Interface (API) used by many of Cerulean sonars. It is also used by the Blue Robotics Ping 1D and Ping 360 sonars. This is the protocol used to communicate between a host computer and the sonar devices. It is also the format of the data stored in log files (which typically have the filename extension ".svlog").

## Nomenclature

Some shorthand used in the packet definitions.

<table><thead><tr><th width="244">numonic</th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>u8</td><td>unsigned 8 bit number</td></tr><tr><td>bool</td><td>unsigned 8 bit field, 0 is false, anything else is true</td></tr><tr><td>char</td><td>generally holds an ascii character</td></tr><tr><td>char[]</td><td>an array of char of indeterminate length</td></tr><tr><td>char[5]</td><td>an array of 5 char</td></tr><tr><td>u16</td><td>unsigned 16 bit number</td></tr><tr><td>u32</td><td>unsigned 32 bit number</td></tr><tr><td>float</td><td>32 bit floating point number</td></tr></tbody></table>


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