GPS World

Tag: decimeter-level

  • Advancements in satellite-driven farming

    Advancements in satellite-driven farming

    Precision agriculture — which promises to reduce inputs of water, fertilizers and pesticides by matching them to variations in soil conditions, thereby reducing environmental impacts, while increasing yields and productivity and reducing fuel consumption —has been around for a long time. This magazine published a few issues of a special supplement on the subject more than 20 years ago. In recent years, the convergence of enabling technologies — including improved satellite-based sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, ground-based sensors, and GNSS corrections services — and greater demand has made agriculture one of the largest users of GNSS.

    Compared to autonomous vehicles on public roads, autonomous tractors, sprayers, combines, and other farming equipment pose much lower safety concerns, because they need not deal with the vagaries of traffic, accidents and construction. They also are not subject to the kind of signal occultation and multipath that is the bane of GNSS navigation in urban canyons and, at least for now, they are not at significant risk of jamming or spoofing. However, they face other challenges, including severe roll and pitch due to bumpy terrain, some multipath from silos and other tall structures, occasional signal interference, occasional dense tree canopies, the requirement to maintain exact heading at very low speeds, the need to receive corrections over very large areas, complicated weather conditions (including rain, fog and dust clouds) and, like every other sector, cost constraints.

    Despite this, guidance for farm vehicles must be consistently accurate at the decimeter-level, lest the machines damage the valuable crops that they are designed to service.

    In the following articles, seven companies briefly describe their advancements in precision agriculture:

    Advanced Navigation robots take to the field

    CHC Navigation provides affordable auto-steering

    Harxon & Hexagon | NovAtel’s Smart Antenna rides steady on uneven ground

    Hexagon | NovAtel keeps rows straight despite the weather

    Septentrio’s careful tractors weeding vineyards

    Trimble weeds out the uninvited guests in the field

    Unicore’s position accuracy matters for all farm tasks

     

    FeaturePhoto: Trimble

  • New u-blox module aimed at lane accuracy in urban areas

    New u-blox module aimed at lane accuracy in urban areas

    The ZED-F9K module is designed to keep cars in their lanes. (Photo: u-blox)
    The ZED-F9K module is designed to keep cars in their lanes. (Photo: u-blox)

    The new u‑blox ZED-F9K GNSS and dead-reckoning module is designed to bring continuous lane accurate positioning to challenging urban environments.

    The module offers both high-precision multi-band GNSS and inertial sensors. It combines the latest generation of GNSS receiver technology, signal processing algorithms and correction services to deliver down to decimeter-level accuracy within seconds, addressing the evolving needs of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving markets.

    The ZED-F9K builds on the u‑blox F9 technology platform. Compatibility with GNSS correction services further improves positioning accuracy by compensating ionospheric and other errors.

    The real-time kinematic (RTK) receiver module receives GNSS signals from all orbiting GNSS constellations. The greater number of visible satellites improves positioning performance in partially obstructed conditions, while increased satellite signals delivers faster convergence times when signals are interrupted.

    Inertial sensors integrated into the module constantly monitor changes in the moving vehicle’s trajectory and continue to deliver lane accurate positioning when satellite signals are partially or completely obstructed, as is the case when the vehicle is in parking garages, tunnels, urban canyons or forested areas.

    When satellite signals become available again, the module combines inertial sensor data with GNSS signals to deliver fast convergence times and high availability of the decimeter-level solution.

    The result of this combination of the latest developments in GNSS technology, correction services and inertial sensing is a tenfold increase in positioning performance over standard precision solutions, according to u-blox.

    By robustly providing lane accurate position information, the ZED‑F9K meets the needs of ADAS and autonomous driving applications, as well as head units and advanced navigation systems. The module’s accuracy and low latency also makes it suitable for automotive OEMs and Tier 1 automakers developing V2X (vehicle-to-everything) communication systems. By continuously sharing their location with other traffic participants, V2X systems contribute to increasing overall road safety and reducing traffic congestion.

    “We designed the ZED-F9K to be a turnkey high-precision GNSS solution that caters to the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s connected cars,” said Alex Ngi, product manager, product strategy for dead reckoning, u‑blox. “The ZED-F9K is unique in that it integrates a multitude of technologies, from the GNSS receiver to the inertial measurement unit and relevant dead reckoning algorithms into a single device for which we can ensure performance throughout the customer product development cycle.”

    Samples will be available upon request by July.