Tag: agriculture

Geoscience Australia, Lockheed collaborate on multi-GNSS SBAS research

Geoscience Australia, an agency of the Commonwealth of Australia, and Lockheed Martin have entered into a collaborative research project to show how augmenting signals from multiple GNSS constellations can enhance positioning, navigation and timing for a range of applications.

Other partners are Inmarsat and GMV.

The research project aims to demonstrate how a second-generation Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) testbed can — for the first time — use signals from both GPS and the Galileo constellation, as well as dual frequencies, to achieve greater GNSS integrity and accuracy.

Over two years, the testbed will validate applications in nine industry sectors: agriculture, aviation, construction, maritime, mining, rail, road, spatial and utilities.

To improve precision navigation, a second-generation SBAS will use signals from both GPS and Galileo, and dual frequencies, to achieve even greater GNSS integrity and accuracy. (Graphic: Lockheed Martin)

In January, the Australian Government announced $12 million in funding for the trial of SBAS technology.

“Many industries rely on GNSS signals for accurate, safe navigation. Users must be confident in the position solutions calculated by GNSS receivers. The term ‘integrity’ defines the confidence in the position solutions provided by GNSS,” says Vince Di Pietro, chief executive of Lockheed Martin Australia and New Zealand. “Industries where safety-of-life navigation is crucial want assured GNSS integrity.”

Ultimately, the second-generation SBAS testbed will broaden understanding of how this technology can benefit safety, productivity, efficiency and innovation in Australia’s industrial and research sectors, according to Lockheed.

“We are excited to have an opportunity to work with Geoscience Australia and Australian industry to demonstrate the best possible GNSS performance and proud that Australia will be leading the way to enhance space-based navigation and industry safety,” Di Pietro adds.

Basic GNSS signals are accurate enough for many civil positioning, navigation and timing users. However, these signals require augmentation to meet higher safety-of-life navigation requirements. The second-generation SBAS will mitigate that issue.

Once the SBAS testbed is operational, basic GNSS signals will be monitored by widely-distributed reference stations operated by Geoscience Australia. An SBAS testbed master station, installed by teammate GMV of Spain, will collect that reference station data, compute corrections and integrity bounds for each GNSS satellite signal, and generate augmentation messages.

“A Lockheed Martin uplink antenna at Uralla, New South Wales, will send these augmentation messages to an SBAS payload hosted aboard a geostationary Earth orbit satellite, owned by Inmarsat,” says Rod Drury, director of international strategy and business development for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. “This satellite rebroadcasts the augmentation messages containing corrections and integrity data to the end users. The whole process takes less than six seconds.”

By augmenting signals from multiple GNSS constellations — both Galileo and GPS — second-generation SBAS is not dependent on one GNSS. It will also use signals on two frequencies — the L1 and L5 GPS signals, and their companion E1 and E5a Galileo signals — to provide integrity data and enhanced accuracy for industries that need it.

Research partners

Lockheed Martin will provide systems integration expertise in addition to the Uralla radio frequency uplink. GMV-Spain will provide its magicGNSS processors. Inmarsat will provide the navigation payload hosted on the 4F1 geostationary satellite. The Australia and New Zealand Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information will coordinate the demonstrator projects that test the SBAS infrastructure.

Lockheed Martin has significant experience with space-based navigation systems. The company developed and produced 20 GPS IIR and IIR-M satellites. It also maintains the GPS Architecture Evolution Plan ground control system, which operates the entire 31-satellite constellation.

February 13, 2017
Topcon GNSS receiver integrates with range of applications

Topcon Positioning Group has released a new modular GNSS receiver system, the MR-2. The system combines all current and planned constellation tracking with a comprehensive set of communication interfaces to service any precision application requiring high-performance real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning and heading determination.

Topcon MR-2 GNSS receiver. Photo: Topcon

The MR-2 can perform as a mobile RTK base station, marine navigation receiver, mobile mapping device and as a GNSS receiver for agricultural, industrial, military or construction applications.

“The MR-2 delivers navigation support for a wide-range of applications,” says Jason Hallett, vice president of Topcon global product management. “It is an ideal component for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) needing a custom, high-accuracy modular design for easy integration.”

“The MR-2 is also designed as a ‘future-proof’ system,” Hallett says, “meaning it tracks all current and planned constellations, making it a smart investment in the expanding GNSS environment.”

The unit housing is water and dust-proof and built to withstand harsh environments with superior vibration and shock tolerances, he adds.

Using Topcon HD2 heading determination technology, the MR-2’s dual antennas compute high-performance heading and inclination determination alongside the RTK positioning engine for precise navigation and guidance applications.

“The MR-2 also provides a variety of communication interfaces such as Ethernet, serial, and CAN, allowing for easy integration into any application,” Hallett says.

The system also offers best-in-class multipath rejection, and using Topcon Quartz Lock Loop technology can operate without disturbances in high-vibration environments.

February 8, 2017
New NovAtel firmware for OEM7 offers interference toolkit, RTK Assist
NovAtel has launched its OEM7 7.200 version firmware. Version 7.200 firmware introduces powerful new positioning functionality including the company’s Interference Toolkit (ITK).

The ITK allows users to detect and mitigate intentional interference such as the adversarial jamming of GNSS signals, as well as the unintentional interference from external sources. The new RTK Assist corrections service assures continued high-accuracy positioning when signals from a real-time kinematic (RTK) network are unavailable or disrupted.

With the ITK, NovAtel’s OEM7 customers can auto-detect and report in-band radio frequency (RF) interference so that any interference adversely affecting their receiver’s positioning performance can be quickly nullified.

In combination with the 7.200 firmware launch, NovAtel is introducing NovAtel Connect 2.0, the latest version of its PC-based graphical user interface (GUI). Running on Microsoft Windows 10, NovAtel Connect 2.0 offers significant user enhancements including features to optimize ITK functionality.

Firmware version 7.200 expands NovAtel’s proprietary correction service capabilities with the introduction of two new subscription-based offerings:
- TerraStar-L 40-centimeter correction service. This Precise Point Positioning (PPP) correction service delivers exceptionally robust 40-cm-level positioning performance at an entry-level price point, anywhere on earth without the need for a base station. With corrections derived from the fully redundant TerraStar network infrastructure, the new service is designed for broad accuracy positioning applications such as agriculture, construction or GIS.
- RTK Assist correction bridging service. This globally available service allows users to maintain RTK-level accuracy when RTK corrections are disrupted. RTK Assist uses multiple geostationary satellites to beam corrections directly to the receiver to bridge outages that can occur with local RTK networks.
“Developing products that not only deliver high-precision, high-accuracy positioning, but also assure our customers’ position is central to our mission at NovAtel,” said NovAtel’s director of product management, Neil Gerein. “The release of OEM7 firmware version 7.200 reflects our company’s commitment to continually enhance positioning performance, whether by expanding receiver capabilities, or in mitigating unintentional or intentional interference as reflected with the capabilities of our new Interference Toolkit.”

For more details on all 7.200 firmware capabilities, see this PDF.
February 6, 2017
Open-source GIS for agriculture focus of webinar

A webinar next week will focus on the benefits of open-source geographic information systems (GIS) for the agriculture industry, led by Boundless and featuring Monsanto Company.

“Using Open Source to Help Feed the World” will be held Jan. 31 at 11:00 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET, hosted by
Andy Dearing, CEO of Boundless, and featuring Martin P. Mendez-Costabel, Geospatial Big Data Engineering and Strategy Lead of Monsanto.

In the free webinar, attendees will learn how to unlock their geospatial data with open GIS solutions to gain major business benefits. The webinar will offer insights into how to combine a GIS ecosystem with a scalable open system, best practices in system deployment and rising trends in open GIS systems.

Register here.

January 27, 2017
Agriculture robots market projected to reach US$5.7 billion by 2024

The agriculture robots market is projected to reach US$5.7 billion by 2024, according to a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR).

The diverse nature of the competitive landscape in the global agriculture robots market presents a number of prominent players for each of its key regions, TMR analysts said.

PrecisionHawk Inc., Clearpath Robotics and Harvest Automations Inc. were the leaders of the agriculture robots market in North America, while SenseFly SA and Naio Technologies led the market in Europe for 2015. At the time, Shibuya Seiki was the leading player in the agriculture robots market for Asia Pacific.

Also, a diverse array of names is appearing as emergent players in the global agriculture robots market within each region, denoting a strong scope of entry for advanced innovations and increased player competition.

Agriculture robots include UAVs, driverless tractors, automated harvesting machines and more.

According to the report, the global agriculture robots market was led by North America until 2015. It was considered to be the base for several of the stronger players in the market and the leading region in terms of technological development and rate of implementation.

In 2015, the global agriculture robots market was dominated by driverless tractors. This segment is likely to hold the leading share in the market in the immediate future, followed by automated harvesting machine. Driverless tractors are currently in very high demand due to factors such as their ability to automatically plough the field, and pick and place articles from one place to another at an extremely consistent rate.

By revenue, the global agriculture robots market is likely to reach US$1.01 billion by the end of 2016. Its revenue generation is expected to continue expanding at a CAGR of 24.1% within a forecast period from 2016 to 2024, and is expected to reach US$5.7 billion by the end of 2024.

Source TMR Analysis, 2016

Urban Migration Pushes Need for Agriculture Robots Globally

“The progress of regions and cultures has primarily driven a growing number of people towards the urban areas and the suburbs. The chance of industrial progress and growth in personal income are key factors attracting more and more people to the city life. This, in turn, has caused a twofold need for the incorporation of agriculture robots in several countries,” said a TMR analyst.

“Firstly, the growing global population — a lot of it being urban — is pressuring countries to increase food production while steadily reducing the hands available for the agriculture industry. Secondly, the overall land slotted for agriculture in nearly all countries is reducing, thanks to the burgeoning industrial sector and residential construction projects. This is creating an additional layer of demand for agriculture robots as they are as close as the industry can get to precision farming,” said the analyst.

Other factors driving the global agriculture robots market include the reduction in the use of chemicals through the efficient performance of jobs such as weeding, spraying, and pick-and-place, and the increasingly accepted modes of corporate farming.

Functionality Still Limited for Multiple Robotic Farming Aspects

It is currently not feasible to aim for constructing robots that are capable of performing multiple functions that constitute running a farm. Between crop management, irrigation, and even livestock rearing, the design of robotic programs and functions can be utterly difficult to accomplish.

This results in the requirement of multiple robot types in a single farm in order to completely automate the process, which is a serious financial burden to consider. The scope of utility in the global agriculture robots market is thus limiting the overall customer pool, which is already thinned out by the heavy investments required in installation and maintenance of single function robots.

“Future opportunities in the global agriculture robots market lie in the adoption of telematics sensors to reduce the complications that are caused by tractor failure and other functions, the use of crop sensors to increase the precision of pesticide use and gauge overall crop health, and the use of robotic farm swarms,” said the analyst.

The information presented in this review is based on a Transparency Market Research report, titled, “Agriculture Robots Market (Products — UAV, Driverless Tractors, Milking Robots and Automated Harvesting Machines; Applications — Field Farming, Dairy Management, Indoor Farming and Horticulture) — Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016-2024.”

A PDF research brochure of this report is available.

January 20, 2017
Vertical RTK system increases accuracy for agriculture

Trimble has launched a patent-pending VerticalPoint RTK system for grade control in agriculture.

VerticalPoint RTK provides significantly enhanced vertical accuracy and stability of standard single-baseline RTK systems reducing the downtime and costly delays experienced by many agriculture land improvement contractors today.

VerticalPoint RTK is available in North America and Australia as an unlock on the Trimble FmX integrated and TMX-2050 displays and works in combination with the Trimble FieldLevel II system, which streamlines the surveying, designing and leveling steps required for land leveling projects.

The VerticalPoint RTK system also includes two stationary supplemental rovers for live, dynamic data collection.

When vertical accuracy inconsistencies occur, agriculture contractors must wait to restart leveling until the vertical signal is once again accurate, and in some instances even rework portions of the field that were incorrectly leveled before the vertical signal inconsistency was discovered.

VerticalPoint RTK significantly reduces vertical design errors in leveling and land forming projects, which occur from inconsistent vertical GPS signals resulting from atmospheric interference. With VerticalPoint RTK, contractors can experience an approximate 25 percent increase in overall uptime.

The industry experiences about 75 percent uptime; however, with VerticalPoint RTK uptime can increase to approximately 95 percent. In addition, this increase in uptime occurs even in the most challenging environments and at any time of year.

“Trimble is excited to launch a world-first technology that enhances vertical GPS accuracy, enabling agriculture contractors to better perform leveling or land forming operations,” said Josh Shuler, product manager for Trimble’s Agriculture Division. “Our new VerticalPoint RTK system can significantly reduce downtime leading to reduced expenses in labor and fuel while also increasing productivity.”

“On average during the summer months we may see 5-6 hours a day where we don’t have the level of vertical GPS accuracy that we need to complete finish passes,” said Jarrett Lawfield, owner of Lawfield Land Grading, a custom land leveling business. “At times all we lack is a finish pass and then we very well may have to stop and wait. I can’t get onto the next job since I’m waiting for the vertical accuracy to be where it needs to be.”

“The vertical accuracy capabilities of VerticalPoint RTK allows the whole project—from bulk hauling to finish passes—to be more efficient. The more accurate bulk hauling is, the less work to be done while finishing,” Lawfield said. “From first thing in the morning until the evening or even to the next day, VerticalPoint RTK is consistent and repeats elevation, so it has virtually eliminated the times when we are unsure of the vertical GPS accuracy. It has helped us to be more timely and efficient in our work.”

December 19, 2016
Going beyond GPS is the new order of the day

The Trimble Dimensions conference.

Times have changed, and the technology landscape is much, much different today than it was as recently as ten years ago when GPS was the driving-force technology for geospatial users and geospatial equipment, and the exclusive concern of many companies in the industry. In that era, their challenges were to design the best performing receiver in terms of accuracy, size, weight, ruggedness and so on.

Now, GPS technology has been commoditized in mobile devices (the GNSS chip in your smartphone costs about $1.50), and high-precision GNSS is heading in that direction. It’s hard to make a living designing “GPS boxes.”

Sure, GPS is still a core technology offered in most hardware products that geospatial professionals use, but it’s not the centerpiece. It’s all about system solutions, of which software (and hardware besides GPS) is a major component.

As just one example of this overall industry trend, let’s look at how the message of system solutions was abundantly clear last week at the Trimble Dimensions User Conference in Las Vegas. This event reportedly drew 4,400 attendees from more than 80 countries.

More than 4.400 attended Trimble Dimensions at the Venetian Hotel.

Virtual/Augmented (AR/VR) Reality

The Trimble Dimensions general plenary discussion didn’t feature the latest GNSS technology. In fact, there was barely a mention of GNSS. Nonetheless, the cool factor was present, with the highlight being a live demonstration of virtually reality using Microsoft HoloLens goggles and Trimble SketchUp software.

Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about augmented and virtual reality. This technology has a bright future for locating hidden assets (think underground and inside wall infrastructure) and visualizing design ideas. For this technology to work, it’s not just about having a set of goggles. One needs software and an accurate geo-database.

During the plenary, architect Greg Lynn demonstrated the value of virtual reality technology by “displaying” a building concept on an empty table on the stage. Lynn and a colleague donned HoloLens goggles while a camera was set up with HoloLens goggles to display what they were “seeing” through the HoloLens.

AR/VR reality are a step closer to being a practical technology to deploy in the field. In a way, AR/VR technology seems to be taking the same path as tablet computers. Tablet computers existed way before the iPad was introduced. They were expensive, and history is littered with failed tablet computer ventures, just like Google Glass failed in the AR/VR world.

I remember paying ~$2,500 for a Fujitsu Stylistic tablet about 10 years ago for my work. Like the Stylistic, HoloLens isn’t cheap. It’s $3,000 for a development kit and $5,000 for the commercial version. It’s not priced for the average consumer, but the attraction is undeniable and due to the price tag; industrial markets will pick it up before the consumer market will.

It might take a Steve Jobs-like push to punch it through the finish line, but it’s just a matter of time before AR/VR technology is commonplace.

Solutions

Hardware isn’t sticky. Software is. Even better, hardware and software bundled tightly together is the sweet spot. Dimensions showed how, more and more, geospatial technique is geared around solutions, not boxes.

Trimble partner solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.

Trimble solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.

One case in point: I took a 45-minute ride from the Venetian Hotel on the Vegas Strip to the outdoor demonstration site in the desert east of Las Vegas.

The demonstration site was a playground for heavy equipment utilizing Trimble hardware and software — from tractors to scrapers to bulldozers and paving machines. It’s difficult to imagine the scale of the outdoor demonstration site, so following are a few images.

Demonstration site facing south with the Las Vegas Strip to the southwest.

I caught a ride in a fully autonomous tractor that was outfitted with guidance technology (GNSS using RTX satellite correction service), collision avoidance sensor and display console. It repeatedly stayed within the track defined by the orange cones you see in the above image.

What good is autonomous guidance without collision avoidance? A sensor on the front of the tractor senses objects and either avoids them, slows down or stops. Trimble says they are working on perfecting the turns at the end of each line where traditionally a driver had to take control. This is a difficult task when the tractor is pulling an implement such as a planter or sprayer.

In the not-too-distant future, tractors will be completely hands-free from start to finish.

Wi-Fi radio.

Back inside the Venetian Hotel, I saw this little beast. No, it’s not a funky GNSS antenna. It’s an industrial Wi-Fi radio. Yes, Trimble owns some pretty cool outdoor Wi-Fi technology vis-à-vis Fidelity Comtech, a company that Trimble acquired in 2015.

I’ve set up outdoor Wi-Fi infrastructure before in relatively benign environments (think agriculture), but I didn’t use anything like this. This equipment is built to propagate outdoor, long-range Wi-Fi connectivity in nasty, noisy environments like shipping terminals and construction sites. It can reshape the antenna pattern on the fly in microseconds, and shape the beam width/range to cover a specific geographic area.

GNSS Gear

Even though I’ve been talking about how this isn’t a just a GPS or GNSS environment anymore, I can’t leave without investigating the latest GNSS gear.

Check this out.

Trimble Catalyst software GNSS receiver.

In the past, I’ve written about GNSS software receivers. They exist, but require some serious computing power. Well, some smartphones have powerful CPUs, such as the Samsung Galaxy 6 and 7. Trimble has developed a software GNSS receiver called the Trimble Catalyst that uses the CPU of a Samsung smartphone as the GNSS receiver…dual frequency. The antenna on the range pole is just an antenna, albeit an L1/L2 antenna. Using an RTK network, Trimble says it can deliver centimeter accuracy. Wow.

To be fair, it’s got some significant limitations such as it only uses GPS and Galileo, only runs on certain Android devices (it will likely never run on iOS devices), and eats up the smartphone battery. And although Trimble said it shares resources in a friendly manner, I must think that a rogue app or update might cause things to slow down. Although it won’t behave as snappy as RTK on an R10 and won’t recover as quickly from obstructions like trees, terrain and buildings, it most certainly could bring high-precision GNSS to a wide-array of previously non-RTK users.

Thanks, and see you next month.

Follow me on Twitter.

November 17, 2016
Going beyond GPS is the new order of the day

The Trimble Dimensions conference.

Times have changed, and the technology landscape is much, much different today than it was as recently as ten years ago when GPS was the driving-force technology for geospatial users and geospatial equipment, and the exclusive concern of many companies in the industry. In that era, their challenges were to design the best performing receiver in terms of accuracy, size, weight, ruggedness and so on.

Now, GPS technology has been commoditized in mobile devices (the GNSS chip in your smartphone costs about $1.50), and high-precision GNSS is heading in that direction. It’s hard to make a living designing “GPS boxes.”

Sure, GPS is still a core technology offered in most hardware products that geospatial professionals use, but it’s not the centerpiece. It’s all about system solutions, of which software (and hardware besides GPS) is a major component.

As just one example of this overall industry trend, let’s look at how the message of system solutions was abundantly clear last week at the Trimble Dimensions User Conference in Las Vegas. This event reportedly drew 4,400 attendees from more than 80 countries.

More than 4.400 attended Trimble Dimensions at the Venetian Hotel.

Virtual/Augmented (AR/VR) Reality

The Trimble Dimensions general plenary discussion didn’t feature the latest GNSS technology. In fact, there was barely a mention of GNSS. Nonetheless, the cool factor was present, with the highlight being a live demonstration of virtually reality using Microsoft HoloLens goggles and Trimble SketchUp software.

Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about augmented and virtual reality. This technology has a bright future for locating hidden assets (think underground and inside wall infrastructure) and visualizing design ideas. For this technology to work, it’s not just about having a set of goggles. One needs software and an accurate geo-database.

During the plenary, architect Greg Lynn demonstrated the value of virtual reality technology by “displaying” a building concept on an empty table on the stage. Lynn and a colleague donned HoloLens goggles while a camera was set up with HoloLens goggles to display what they were “seeing” through the HoloLens.

AR/VR reality are a step closer to being a practical technology to deploy in the field. In a way, AR/VR technology seems to be taking the same path as tablet computers. Tablet computers existed way before the iPad was introduced. They were expensive, and history is littered with failed tablet computer ventures, just like Google Glass failed in the AR/VR world.

I remember paying ~$2,500 for a Fujitsu Stylistic tablet about 10 years ago for my work. Like the Stylistic, HoloLens isn’t cheap. It’s $3,000 for a development kit and $5,000 for the commercial version. It’s not priced for the average consumer, but the attraction is undeniable and due to the price tag; industrial markets will pick it up before the consumer market will.

It might take a Steve Jobs-like push to punch it through the finish line, but it’s just a matter of time before AR/VR technology is commonplace.

Solutions

Hardware isn’t sticky. Software is. Even better, hardware and software bundled tightly together is the sweet spot. Dimensions showed how, more and more, geospatial technique is geared around solutions, not boxes.

Trimble partner solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.

Trimble solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.

One case in point: I took a 45-minute ride from the Venetian Hotel on the Vegas Strip to the outdoor demonstration site in the desert east of Las Vegas.

The demonstration site was a playground for heavy equipment utilizing Trimble hardware and software — from tractors to scrapers to bulldozers and paving machines. It’s difficult to imagine the scale of the outdoor demonstration site, so following are a few images.

Demonstration site facing south with the Las Vegas Strip to the southwest.

I caught a ride in a fully autonomous tractor that was outfitted with guidance technology (GNSS using RTX satellite correction service), collision avoidance sensor and display console. It repeatedly stayed within the track defined by the orange cones you see in the above image.

What good is autonomous guidance without collision avoidance? A sensor on the front of the tractor senses objects and either avoids them, slows down or stops. Trimble says they are working on perfecting the turns at the end of each line where traditionally a driver had to take control. This is a difficult task when the tractor is pulling an implement such as a planter or sprayer.

In the not-too-distant future, tractors will be completely hands-free from start to finish.

Wi-Fi radio.

Back inside the Venetian Hotel, I saw this little beast. No, it’s not a funky GNSS antenna. It’s an industrial Wi-Fi radio. Yes, Trimble owns some pretty cool outdoor Wi-Fi technology vis-à-vis Fidelity Comtech, a company that Trimble acquired in 2015.

I’ve set up outdoor Wi-Fi infrastructure before in relatively benign environments (think agriculture), but I didn’t use anything like this. This equipment is built to propagate outdoor, long-range Wi-Fi connectivity in nasty, noisy environments like shipping terminals and construction sites. It can reshape the antenna pattern on the fly in microseconds, and shape the beam width/range to cover a specific geographic area.

GNSS Gear

Even though I’ve been talking about how this isn’t a just a GPS or GNSS environment anymore, I can’t leave without investigating the latest GNSS gear.

Check this out.

Trimble Catalyst software GNSS receiver.

In the past, I’ve written about GNSS software receivers. They exist, but require some serious computing power. Well, some smartphones have powerful CPUs, such as the Samsung Galaxy 6 and 7. Trimble has developed a software GNSS receiver called the Trimble Catalyst that uses the CPU of a Samsung smartphone as the GNSS receiver…dual frequency. The antenna on the range pole is just an antenna, albeit an L1/L2 antenna. Using an RTK network, Trimble says it can deliver centimeter accuracy. Wow.

To be fair, it’s got some significant limitations such as it only uses GPS and Galileo, only runs on certain Android devices (it will likely never run on iOS devices), and eats up the smartphone battery. And although Trimble said it shares resources in a friendly manner, I must think that a rogue app or update might cause things to slow down. Although it won’t behave as snappy as RTK on an R10 and won’t recover as quickly from obstructions like trees, terrain and buildings, it most certainly could bring high-precision GNSS to a wide-array of previously non-RTK users.

Thanks, and see you next month.

Follow me on Twitter.

November 17, 2016
NovAtel announces VEXXIS family of GNSS antennas

NovAtel has introduced its new VEXXIS series of GNSS antennas. NovAtel made the announcement at ION GNSS+, which is being held this week in Portland, Oregon.

The VEXXIS series includes two lines of antennas, the new GNSS-800 series and the GNSS-500 series introduced earlier this year. The series offers the latest advancements in GNSS antenna technology for multi-constellation and multifrequency GNSS applications.

The VEXXIS GNSS-800 series of antennas provide exceptional tracking performance previously unachievable in such a small form factor. Patented multi-point feeding network and radiation pattern optimization technology provides stable phase center and enhanced multipath rejection as well as exceptional low elevation satellite tracking while achieving high peak zenith gain.

The new technology enables the antenna to track the maximum number of satellites in any environment for an enhanced positioning solution. The GNSS-800 family of antennas are the toughest high precision antennas NovAtel has designed to date, ensuring their survivability in even the harshest operating environments.

The VEXXIS GNSS-500 series of antennas were designed with a low profile, aerodynamic enclosure, useful for ground vehicles in applications such as agriculture, machine control and mobile mapping.

Featuring the same multi-point feeding network as the GNSS-800 family, GNSS-500 antennas offer excellent multipath rejection and stable phase center. Signal reception is unaffected by the rotation of the antenna or satellite elevation, simplifying placement and installation. Vehicle mounting is easy with the antennas’ magnetic or screw mounting options.

VEXXIS GNSS-500 antennas are available for immediate ordering. GNSS-800 antennas will be available in the fourth quarter of 2016.

September 16, 2016
Phase One innovates four-band aerial imaging
Phase One Industrial has introduced its Phase One 4-Band Solution, which incorporates an innovative batch-processing tool that automates and simplifies the four-band aerial image generation process.

Adding a fourth band of near infrared (NIR) image data to three-band color (RGB) image data yields multispectral information useful in vegetation studies — in applications ranging from crop metrics for optimization, to vegetation health, environmental contamination and city observations for green site monitoring.

Synchronized Phase One metric aerial cameras.

The solution is composed of two synchronized Phase One metric aerial cameras mounted side by side on a specially designed base plate, a Phase One iX Controller and Phase One iX Capture software.

Images are captured in NIR and RGB bands simultaneously, and processed automatically to generate distortion-free images and perform fine co-registration of the pixels from NIR to the RGB images — including processing different image sizes — with seven different output options, including multispectral CIR images.

Complementing the solution’s software functionality, the use of two separate cameras to support higher system sensitivity permits operators to separately control capture settings so that they can operate under a wider range of lighting conditions.

“We very easily installed the cameras into the gyro mount, and all power and communications were automatically configured with the iX-Controller,” said Peter Bochmann, operator of Aerial SurveyS GmbH. “The output four-band images were incredible, showing an area of forest vegetation straight-away that needed attention; we would not have seen this detail with RGB images alone. The flexibility of the solution is also great, since you can combine any two Phase One metric medium-format cameras and accomplish multiple jobs without changing the setup.”

The Phase One 4-Band Solution offers a variety of benefits:
- 100MP sensors for RGB and NIR images, no NIR up scaling is needed;
- CMOS sensors for maximum sensitivity;
- Post processing is automatic, using the solutions’ iX Controller along with iX Capture;
- Automatic individual aperture control and auto exposure mode is available for both cameras;
- Direct connection to GNSS/IMU systems; coordinates are stored inside the EXIF data of each image to speed later post-processing;
- Also available with 80MP RGB and 60MP Achromatic Sensors.
September 6, 2016
DJI partners with Measure to promote commercial drone industry

Measure, a United States’ commercial operator of drones, and DJI, manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles, are partnering to pair advanced UAV technology with operational excellence so commercial enterprise customers can achieve their most demanding business goals.

“Our partnership with DJI allows Measure to enhance technical capability and scale business operations across all verticals,” said Measure CEO Brandon Torres Declet. “This alliance will allow our companies and franchisees to be the vanguard of innovation for commercial UAV operations, using DJI’s proven technology and our experienced pilots.”

“Businesses increasingly recognize that having a knowledgeable and experienced operator at the controls is key to using UAV technology most effectively,” said Jan Gasparic, Strategic Partnerships and Business Development, DJI.

“Measure’s application-specific pilot training and deep knowledge of flight regulation allows them to set the standard for commercial UAV operations in the field,” Gasparic said. “We are looking forward to expanding our successful relationship with Measure, allowing more businesses to perform critical functions faster, safer, more efficiently and at a lower cost.”

Alongside the service collaboration, Measure and DJI will assist organizations to develop and deploy UAV operations in the fields of agriculture, energy and media. Organizations will now have a comprehensive partner to explore demanding operations such as spraying with DJI’s Agras MG-1 agricultural drone, or broadcasting live directly from a UAV to a newsroom. This partnership demonstrates Measure and DJI’s commitment to fostering a vibrant commercial ecosystem to accelerate the economic growth and innovation of the drone industry.

July 5, 2016
Eos Positioning announces RTK NTRIP app for Android

Google Maps is tightly integrated with the app to display the user’s location anywhere in the world, and detailed satellite information includes a skyplot tracking each visible satellite.

Eos Positioning Systems has introduced a comprehensive RTK NTRIP app for Android that works with its Arrow line of RTK GNSS receivers. An Arrow GNSS receiver combined with the NTRIP app turns an Android smartphone or tablet into a powerful data collector capable of recording 1-centimeter accurate GIS data in real-time.

“We designed Eos Tools Pro for the RTK user,” said Chief Technology Officer Jean-Yves Lauture. ”It is, by far, the most comprehensive NTRIP app for Android on the market today, turning smartphones and inexpensive Android tablets into powerful high-precision GNSS data collection devices.“

The app, named Eos Tools Pro, has user-configurable audible and visual alarms to alert the user of high PDOP, lost RTK correction, unacceptable correction age and several other important metrics. It supports all current and future constellations — GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou.

The Arrow 200 by Eos Positioning Systems.

To eliminate any confusion as to which GPS/GNSS device the user’s app is using, Eos Tools Pro features a dropdown menu so the user may select any receiver the Android device has been paired with.

“The Eos Tools Pro app enables Android devices running Esri’s Collector app on Android smartphones and tablets to collect data as accurate as 1cm when connected to an Arrow GNSS receiver,” said Esri Product Manager Jeff Shaner. “It’s a big leap forward to enable Collector to serve the high-precision GNSS user.”

Google Maps is tightly integrated with the app to display the user’s location anywhere in the world. Detailed satellite information such as a skyplot that plots each visible satellite, whether it’s being used or not, and signal strength bar graphs from each constellation are also displayed. Finally, a Terminal screen displays the NMEA data flowing and allows the user to send commands to the receiver.

Eos Tools Pro and Arrow receivers are targeted at high-accuracy applications like GIS; environmental; agriculture; electric, gas, water utilities; surveying; machine control; and federal, state, and local government.

January 21, 2016