Hexagon | NovAtel has debuted its GNSS Resilience and Integrity Technology (GRIT), a suite of firmware features enabling situational awareness and interference mitigation tools across applications and environments.
Available as a firmware option with NovAtel’s latest 7.08.00 release, GRIT combines NovAtel’s successful Interference Toolkit with the power of spoofing detection. Users can also choose an optional functionality enabling time-tagged snapshots of analog to digital samples through GRIT. The time-tagged digitized RF data allows users to characterize the RF environment and develop their own interference location algorithms, Hexagon | NovAtel said.
Through situational awareness techniques like spoofing detection, time-tagged data and interference mitigation such as anti-jam technology and digital filters, GRIT builds GNSS resiliency and integrity to better protect position, navigation and timing measurements, the company added.
“We’ve combined our world-class Interference Toolkit with new functionalities like time-tagged snapshots and spoofing detection to provide users with a comprehensive suite of mitigation tools,” said Sandy Kennedy, vice president of innovation at Hexagon’s Autonomy & Positioning Division. “Expanding our protection portfolio through this firmware suite to prioritize situational awareness and mitigation for anti-jam and anti-spoofing techniques makes it easier than ever for users across any industry to achieve assured PNT.”
GRIT, a non-controlled firmware-only solution, is available as a firmware upgrade for all NovAtel OEM7 receivers.
Hexagon’s Autonomy and Positioning division has launched its first autonomy positioning and sensing kits for the agriculture market and validated these solutions in its new autonomous research and development tractor.
Through collaboration between NovAtel and AutonomouStuff, both part of Hexagon, the autonomous positioning and sensing kits were developed as part of Hexagon’s Smart Autonomous Mobility solutions portfolio launched at CES in early 2020. NovAtel and AutonomouStuff created the solutions with agriculture machinery OEMs and robotic machinery manufacturers in mind.
As a demonstrator vehicle for Smart Autonomous Mobility, the autonomous tractor features object detection and classification, simultaneous relative localization and mapping, absolute positioning through GNSS technology, and localization sensor fusing. Built to illustrate the viability of new positioning and sensing kits, the tractor incorporates safety-critical learnings with situational and environmental awareness, and manual remote control when needed. This platform validates how these solutions and capabilities accelerate autonomous development.
Hexagon’s autonomous research and development tractor validated the new kit. (Photo: Hexagon)
The positioning and sensing kits are optimized for autonomous agriculture applications, including products like the Smart7 antenna and autonomous robotic capabilities through the NovAtel OEM7 driver powered by the Robot Operating System (ROS). The kits also feature TerraStar GNSS Correction Services, ALIGN heading and relative positioning firmware, and SPAN GNSS+INS technology. Though designed for agriculture, the kits integrate seamlessly into other off-road autonomy applications.
“These positioning and sensing kits provide developers with technology bringing assured positioning to autonomy in agriculture,” explained Michael Martinez, agriculture segment manager at Hexagon | NovAtel. “Robotic-machinery manufacturers or those experienced in autonomy may be unfamiliar with the unique challenges facing agriculture applications. Conversely, those experienced with agriculture may not have the expertise to integrate positioning and sensing products within autonomous solutions. We can help in both cases through these positioning and sensor kits, as demonstrated by our autonomous tractor.”
The new autonomous positioning and sensing kit. (Photo: Hexagon)
“We’re excited to use this tractor as a platform to validate the human identification, obstacle detection and enhanced environmental awareness that our sensing kits add to our assured positioning solutions in agriculture,” said John Buszek, VP of products and services at Hexagon | AutonomouStuff. “The sensing and positioning technologies we’ve integrated on this demonstration platform showcase the Smart Autonomous Mobility portfolio, which enables and accelerates the development of autonomy in agriculture applications from prototyping to production.”
For more than 30 years, NovAtel has delivered GNSS positioning solutions as a trusted provider for top precision agriculture companies. Combined with AutonomouStuff’s decade of expertise in autonomy and sensor fusion, they significantly reduce the barrier of entry into autonomy to accelerate the time to market for autonomous solutions in agriculture, construction, mining and other off-road applications.
Learn more about their agriculture autonomy capabilities by taking a virtual tractor tour via their 3D interactive app or online at novatel.com/ag-autonomy.
The NavIC Indian constellation is now supported in NovAtel’s latest firmware release for its OEM7 series of GNSS receivers.
The 7.05.04 firmware release for OEM7 provides the following benefits:
Users can achieve a single point position accuracy of 2.5 m (rms) using NavIC L5 signals (from the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) with GPS L1 on the newly available JSN model.
Access to the L5 frequencies on the OEM7600 and OEM7720 provides triple-frequency capabilities to unlock the potential of GPS L5, Galileo E5a and AltBOC, Beidou B2a and NavIC L5.
A full listing of all changes in this release are included in the “What’s New” document included in the firmware download package. Visit this page to download the latest firmware for a specific platform. Visit NovAtel’s documentation portal for the OEM7 reference manual.
