HERE Mapmaking allows users to create detailed interactive maps of private sites, outdoors and indoors. This includes sites not covered by public maps, such as warehouses, yards, farms, mines and ports. (Photo: HERE Technologies)
Location-based services (LBS) are software services that allow apps to function as intended by collecting geodata and providing users with pertinent information based on their location. Examples include search, navigation, transportation, entertainment, social networking, marketing, shopping, remote health monitoring, parental control and asset tracking. These services rely on mobile networks to transmit and receive data and connect to analytics software operating on a remote server to process and send relevant data to the user.
They have existed since the early 1990s but only gained traction after May 2000, when the U.S. government stopped degrading the civil GPS signal (a policy known as Selective Availability). This increased GPS accuracy by an order of magnitude overnight, making many more civilian applications possible. Since then, software engineers and developers have been designing LBS and building location-aware apps to deliver contextually relevant experiences to end users.
Adoption of LBS has been extensive because these services produce quality geodata with personal, spatial and temporal dimensions. Although most people think of GPS when they think of geolocation, LBS is the unsung hero powering location-based online activities.
LBS combines various positioning solutions — including GNSS, and trilateration from cell towers, Wi-Fi hotspots and other signals of opportunity — to collect the most accurate location data possible outdoors and indoors.
LBS capitalizes on cell tower signals and Wi-Fi networks to gather geolocation when satellite reception is poor or entirely blocked, such as in urban canyons and underground parking lots. Although these alternative positioning systems are not as accurate as GNSS, the approximate location information they provide is generally sufficient for the purpose of the services — such as to find a store in a mall or a grader on a construction site.
Monetizing LBS
The advent of Web 2.0 and the mobile revolution have empowered Internet users to interact with their immediate physical world digitally. Suddenly, finding the shortest route in a new city, choosing from numerous restaurants for lunch, searching for the nearest gas station, consuming relevant stories on social media and snagging limited-time coupons and discounts are all possible at the tap of a button.
Physical location has become instrumental in personalized online experiences, hence the need for location-aware apps. Software vendors have embedded seamless data collection capability into electronic devices, creating a business ecosystem surrounding people’s location details.
Geodata collection is effortless but permission-based. While laws governing LBS vary by jurisdiction, they generally require users to accept an LBS-supported app’s privacy policy, which spells out what it does with location data. Additional steps include running the app and activating the device’s location service in the settings or approving on-screen permission request prompts before tracking can begin. Such a process helps ensure that users are aware of geodata collection and understand its inherent risks.
In the early days of LBS, tech pundits argued that marketers would capitalize on the technology to bombard consumers with ads. Those were prophetic words — many heavily used apps today use LBS. The tech companies behind them leverage geodata to create valuable products and sell advertising space through their platforms.
Although it is challenging to count the number of ads populating sites and apps, rough estimates say that average Internet users see thousands daily. It does not feel this way because in-your-face ads are no longer the norm in cyberspace — the discrete ones are, and they work. Experts predict that the $96 billion location-based advertising market will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 15.1% from 2023 to 2030.
Unsurprisingly, tech titans enjoy the lion’s share of digital advertising revenue. In the United States, Google, Meta and Amazon collectively accounted for about 62% of the pie in 2023.
Other corporate models exist to monetize geodata. The LBS-based game Pokémon Go is free to play, so it can grow a massive user base quickly and earn profits through in-game purchases. In addition to living off ad revenue, Tinder uses freemium pricing for its geographic matchmaking business and simplifies socialization and dating for paying subscribers.
Moreover, Uber, Lyft and Airbnb swell their coffers through commissions, earning a cut for every transaction on their platforms. Big box store Target blends indoor mapping, beacon technology and geofencing to enable shoppers to pick up their orders at the nearest store’s entrance when they arrive. Aside from mostly Silicon Valley titans that have developed and gainfully used LBS for themselves to increase their valuations, others have decided to help non-tech enterprises innovate by integrating location-based technology into their operations.
Democratizing Mapmaking
Disrupting cartography is a low-hanging fruit. Humans have been drawing maps for millennia, yet many areas remain unmapped. Public maps usually exclude private locations. When they are part of the picture, these areas lack meaningful details to aid navigators.
Solutions such as HERE Mapmaking aim to address these challenges. By combining GNSS positioning with satellite imagery, location data from cellular networks and Wi-Fi hotspots, and signals from a variety of sensors, HERE enables automotive and mass-market devices to map areas and features with sub-meter accuracy. To deliver a faster time-to-first-fix and display the positions of navigation devices correctly, this provider of digital mapping and location data leverages a full positioning technology stack, including power-efficient sensors and map tiles.
Built on the HERE platform, this mapmaking solution primarily caters to automakers, transportation and logistics enterprises, e-commerce brands, public agencies and more. However, the company ensures its solution is powerful enough for developers by providing CLIs and APIs. At the same time, the platform remains intuitive for casual or less-technical users, such as students and data journalists, thanks to HERE XYZ — an interoperable, real-time, open location data management service.
“Various elements of HERE XYZ are now embedded within HERE Mapmaking,” said Alex Gevrenov, senior director of product management at HERE Technologies. “This is where users can create unique (owned / proprietary), routing-capable maps that can be used at scale using simply our developer tools and HERE location services and SDKs.”
The inclusion of HERE XYZ gives users live access to uploaded data and more flexibility in using rendering tools to pinpoint the precise whereabouts of devices and assets in indoor and outdoor settings. It also enables them to instantly share location data via the cloud. These capabilities are helpful when building offline and online interactive maps with spatial intelligence for location-aware apps with no or little code.
Customization and responsiveness are crucial in interactive cartography. HERE XYZ complements the platform’s routing, geocoding and search functionalities.
Furthermore, Gevrenov explains that with the rollout of UniMap — a new automated mapping system — interactive maps built on the HERE platform can now detect and reflect changes in the physical environment within 24 hours. “We are now externalizing these cutting-edge capabilities to make mapping at scale easy for our customers and partners.”
Question: What are currently the most promising approaches to non-GNSS PNT for applications that do not require high accuracy?
Answer: The DOD PNT strategy posits use of space-based, regional and local sources of information to ensure PNT resilience if GPS is disrupted. Resilience does not require GPS-quality accuracy but must enable service continuity for operations while GPS is unavailable. Local sources are viable for limited areas; however, regional sources are necessary for broader coverage. Enhanced Loran (eLoran) can be a viable and affordable backup to GPS. It broadcasts at a much higher power and at a different frequency than GPS, is virtually un-jammable over wide areas, is receivable underwater, and offers a communications channel. eLoran has been recommended as a critical infrastructure backup to GPS by the National PNT Advisory Board and directed by the U.S. Congress. Yet, lacking federal interest or resources, its infrastructure is heedlessly being dismantled — while Russia, China and Iran invest in their own Loran-based backups. What do they know that the United States does not?
Q: What reforms in GPS governance would help accelerate the modernization of the system?
A: Today, modernized GPS is not enough, though it remains the cornerstone of the national PNT Enterprise. Attention to the entire Enterprise is urgently needed. With GPS, the United States enjoyed a dominant GNSS position for nearly three decades. Absent PNT attacks or mishaps, a sense of ‘business-as-usual’ lethargy impedes GPS improvements and the adoption of complements. Leadership watches GPS modernization slide to the right while its complements and needed domestic critical infrastructure backups languish. Within DoD, GPS is no longer a discrete program, and there is no other joint program to command resources and bring urgency and coherence to resilient PNT efforts. Structural changes and experienced, competent acquisition managers are necessary to focus resources and deliver capabilities, and committed leadership is essential for continuity. They must acknowledge PNT as vital to our national security and economy — while our adversaries and competitors leverage its value and can exploit any unaddressed vulnerabilities.
Many of us mindlessly shop for food, fuel, clothing, home goods and more without thinking much about where it all comes from, forgetting that in most cases it all started on a farm. Most people are unaware that a key component of agriculture production, besides the soil beneath our feet, is the use of critical technologies such as GPS and other GNSS contstellations. When fully leveraged, technology can be a part of the solution to many of the challenges farmers face today and be a tool in feeding a growing global population.
With technology at their fingertips, farmers across the globe can enhance their productivity through precision agriculture — a practice that uses GNSS technology to maximize agricultural outputs, while reducing farmer inputs and improving sustainability. Precision agriculture is used to till, plant and harvest crops such as corn, soybeans, cotton, peanuts, wheat, tubers and alfalfa. For example, techniques including yield mapping for fertilizer application have been used on fields across the country for more than three decades.
Social and Economic Benefits of Precision Agriculture
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), total U.S. farm output tripled from 1948 to 2021 largely due to advancements in technology — even as farm labor, land and other inputs declined. Farmers needed 8 million fewer acres to produce the same wheat yields in 2018 as in 1990, according to an American Farm Bureau Federation report.
A closer look at four crops commonly tilled, planted and harvested using precision agriculture techniques highlight technology’s economic benefits:
Sweet Corn: The United States is the largest producer of sweet corn at roughly 315 million tons per year, accounting for 34% of global production. There are more than 316,000 U.S. corn farms, 95% of which are family-owned. In 2021, Florida was the largest producer of sweet corn, followed by California, Washington and Michigan. The United States exports 69 million tons of sweet corn annually, yielding a value totaling $9.2 billion. China is the largest buyer of U.S. sweet corn, purchasing 31% of all U.S. exports.
Peanuts: In 2023, the United States produced roughly $1.6 billion in peanuts, led by Georgia — with 55% of total U.S. peanut production — followed by Texas (10%), Alabama (10%), and Florida (9%). In 2023, the United States exported more than $889.5 million worth of peanuts, with Mexico and Canada as top destinations. With new techniques to adjust digger conveyor speeds, yield continues to improve.
Cotton: The United States produces roughly 15 million bales of cotton each year, contributing to a $21 billion industry. Texas boasts the highest number of planted acres with 40% of the U.S. supply (6 million bales), followed by Georgia at about 2.5 million bales. The United States is the world’s leading exporter of cotton, totaling 35% of the total global supply. Farmers are increasingly using autosteer technology to help grow and harvest cotton — with the adoption of precision agriculture equipment jumping from 46% in 2008 to 86% in 2023, according to a survey conducted by Cotton Grower.
Wheat: The United States produces roughly 7% of the global wheat supply — accounting for roughly $12.7 billion — with Kansas, North Dakota, Montana, Texas and Oklahoma producing the most wheat across the country.
Precision agriculture also helps farmers work toward important conservation goals. Auto guidance capabilities and seeding sensors increase tractor and seeding efficiencies, reducing herbicide use by 9% and fossil fuel use by 6%. These small but important changes contribute to a wider effort to employ more sustainable agriculture practices, with precision agriculture and GPS technology sitting front and center.
Through it all, GNSS remains at the forefront of a strong, efficient agriculture system. Whether it’s auto-steering tractor technology or strengthened hydrology practices, new precision agriculture technologies are released every year. If broader adoption of precision agriculture technologies continues, the United States can increase its national crop production by 6%, bolstering the agriculture economy even further.
GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA) members Deere & Company and Trimble are at the forefront of advancing precision agriculture techniques globally, creating more opportunities for farmers to boost their productivity and reduce crop loss with innovative GPS and GNSS technologies.
Deere & Company offers several receivers that use GNSS technology to plant crops with accuracy down to the centimeter and coupled with the sensors and computer vision, allow farmers to plant at quicker speeds without damaging crops — including its fully autonomous 8R tractor unveiled in 2022. While Deere & Company had been developing new GNSS receivers for years, a critical partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 2004 was groundbreaking. Deere & Company modified its GNSS receivers to tap into the agency’s network of ground stations and incorporated JPL’s software. The innovation allowed them to introduce autonomous tractors worldwide, revolutionizing precision agriculture and leading to a wider acceptance of autonomous tractor technology.
Trimble has brought innovative solutions to precision agriculture since the company first began producing its agricultural GPS receivers in 1997. Since then, the company has unveiled state-of-the-art technologies to support farmers, including RTX technology which uses precise point positioning (PPP) to allow farmers to plant seeds and farm with sub-inch GNSS accuracy. Trimble also has announced several partnerships that strengthen the company’s precision agriculture capabilities from CNH and CLAAS (2011) to Horsch (2021) to AGCO (2023).
In 2022, Trimble deepened its partnership with agricultural machinery manufacturer CLAAS to integrate Trimble’s GPS PILOT system and SAT 900 GNSS receiver with CLAAS’ CEMIS 1200 display, providing farmers greater accuracy when tilling, seeding, spraying, or harvesting their fields. In April 2024, Trimble created a joint venture with AGCO to accelerate the pace of innovation and increase farmer’s access to precision agriculture technology.
Critical Role of Broadband in Precision Agriculture
Reliable broadband connectivity goes hand-in-hand with GNSS technologies and allows full use of agriculture technology and its resulting benefits. According to the USDA, more than 20% of rural households and farms do not have reliable access to broadband, limiting access to new technologies that would enhance efficiency and help farmers grow their businesses.
Industry leaders are working to ensure that farms across the country can reliably access the Internet. For example, Deere & Company, in partnership with SpaceX, is working to close the connectivity gap among farmers with satellite communications (SATCOM) services. Later this year, Deere & Company will begin to offer Starlink satellite communications technology to farmers across the United States and Brazil.
Beyond industry investment, the USDA’s Rural Development Broadband ReConnect Program provides grants and loans to strengthen broadband infrastructure and equipment in eligible rural areas. In addition, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is overseeing the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, intended to expand high-speed Internet access for communities across the country with little to no Internet connectivity. Establishing tech-neutral policies within these and similar programs as well as focusing on delivering coverage to uncovered agriculture lands to the last acre is key to improving efficient agriculture production.
Precision Ag on the Hill
Precision agriculture is also making its way into policy conversations at all levels of government as awareness around agriculture technology and its benefits are realized.
The 2018 Farm Bill established the Task Force for Reviewing the Connectivity and Technology Needs of Precision Agriculture in the United States (“Precision Ag Connectivity Task Force”) within the Federal Communications Commission. The Task Force is currently completing its third and final term this year and will have produced three comprehensive reports with related recommendations for policymakers.
The 2018 Farm Bill expired on Sept. 30, 2023, but was extended for one year to allow the U.S. Congress additional time to come to agreement on the next five-year reauthorization bill. The Farm Bill presents a key bipartisan legislative opportunity to include incentives for agriculture technology adoption. Lawmakers should consider previously introduced standalone legislation, including the PRECISE Act and the PAL Act, to accomplish this goal. Together, these bills would expand existing USDA programs to include precision agriculture technologies and create a new loan program.
Small family farms account for roughly 88% of all farms in the United States but make up less than 20% of all U.S. agricultural products sold. To increase yields and better compete with large-scale farms, farmers are increasingly turning to precision agriculture technologies — though availability remains a challenge. Understanding these statistics, efforts to promote equal access to precision agriculture enjoy bipartisan support from both chambers of Congress.
Reflection
GNSS technology’s role in precision agriculture continues to save farmers time and money, while simultaneously providing conservation-oriented solutions for farmers, consumers and the planet. GPSIA members Deere & Company and Trimble have contributed innovative solutions to precision agriculture technology for decades, enhancing efficiencies through groundbreaking partnerships and expanding opportunities for farmers to use the technology. These innovations, coupled with recent rural broadband expansion efforts, ensure farmers can access the most cutting-edge technology and continue to innovate. The focus on precision agriculture on Capitol Hill is an important reminder of the wider implications of GNSS in our everyday lives and how GNSS systems fit into the U.S. agriculture industry. GPSIA is proud to support its members as they continue to promote the use of innovative GNSS technologies in agriculture.
Elevation map of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. (Photo: topographic-map.com)
The Discovery Channel’s recently released “Finding Amelia” documentary explores the latest expedition aimed to uncover Amelia Earhart’s mysterious fate, featuring the participation of SPH Engineering. The film investigates the theory that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, may have crashed in Papua New Guinea during their 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe.
SPH Engineering joined the search nearly two years before the expedition, leveraging its experience from successful UAV operations in Greenland. The team’s mission focused on the dense jungles of New Britain, an island in Papua New Guinea, where they employed UAV technology to search for Earhart’s aircraft.
Planned routes for lidar scans in SPH Engineering’s UgCS flight planning software. (Photo: SPH Engineering)
Technology and challenges
The documentary follows the testing for the mission, which began in February 2021. The team conducted experimental detection of aircraft engines using UAV-mounted magnetometers. These experiments led the team to request satellite imagery and elevation maps of where the expedition was planned. This map was essential for studying the terrain and preparing for the mission. According to the analysis, the average expected vegetation height of 10 to 15 m allowed for the detection of aircraft engines using a magnetometer.
The SPH Engineering team arrived on-site with a suite of UAVs equipped with magnetometer, lidar and photogrammetry tools.
During the search, a small UAV equipped with a camera was first used to create precise maps of the search area. These maps were essential for planning subsequent flights. The team then conducted lidar scanning from a safe altitude to build digital surface models (DSM) and digital terrain models (DTM) to plan magnetic surveys.
The next step was to conduct the survey using a UAV-based magnetometer. The team found that while the average height of trees allowed for the detection of aircraft engines using a magnetometer, the presence of extremely tall trees made magnetic flight planning difficult.
Processed lidar data showing potential Japanese troop trails. (Photo: SPH Engineering)
Janis Kuze, director of special projects for SPH Engineering explains the challenge. “In contrast to what we saw in satellite data available before the expedition, the average height of the trees was a bit greater, but the main problem was real ‘skyscrapers’ towering up to 60 m. These extremely high trees were totally missed in satellite elevation data. Despite the challenges, we had relative success detecting magnetic anomalies over the B-17 bomber crash site.”
Processed lidar data showing the object resembling the shape and size of Amelia Earhart’s aircraft. (Photo: SPH Engineering)
Operation and results
Due to the high trees and the limited amount of magnetic ferrous metal in airplane engines, reliable detection using magnetometers proved difficult. The team then decided to switch back to lidar. Dozens of low-altitude lidar flights were conducted, using previous scans for flight planning, to build a detailed map of the ground surface beneath the trees.
The results revealed what is believed to be hidden Japanese troop trails and something resembling the shape and size of Amelia Earhart’s aircraft, the Lockheed Electra.
Do you remember the free-standing car navigation devices that were popular for a while, such as those made by Garmin and Magellan? Few people use them anymore because to find our way when driving, most of us use our smartphones instead.
Smartphones now have a plethora of sensors, including inclinometers, accelerometers, magnetometers, barometers and light sensors. However, cost and size constraints (the insides of those small devices are so crowded!) limit the accuracy of smartphones’ GNSS receivers.
Therefore, to accomplish professional mapping tasks, it is now increasingly common to pair a smartphone — which provides computing power, a display, motion sensors, a camera and Internet connectivity — with an external GNSS receiver and antenna.
This and other changes in the industry make product categories long in use obsolete or, at least, less compelling. What is a mobile GNSS solution? Are the terms “mapping grade” and “resource grade” still useful? Who is using which devices for which tasks?
I discussed these issues with Bernhard Richter, VP Geomatics at Leica Geosystems, which is part of Hexagon, and with Igor Vereninov, CEO of Emlid.
— Matteo Luccio, Editor-in-Chief
Leica Geosystems: Conversation with Bernhard Richter, VP Geomatics at Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon
We used to divide GNSS receivers into consumer grade, resource grade (for GIS data collection) and survey grade.
Those lines don’t exist anymore to the same extent. Some of the lower-cost chipsets — which were originally built for mobile phones and Garmin devices and lower-accuracy stuff — can now provide higher accuracy. We call them industrial-grade chipsets. The need for UAVs, e-scooters, e-bikes, automotive applications, etc., triggered their development. They are coming closer to the premium boards — let’s call them the multi-frequency, multi-constellation receivers that were always built for real-time kinematic (RTK)-type applications.
So, it’s the bottom that’s coming up.
There is still a need for single frequency code-only chips on the one hand for the mass market and, on the other hand, for premium devices from companies such as NovAtel (part of Hexagon), Trimble, Hemisphere and Septentrio. There is a new tier, which we call industrial grade, from companies such as u-blox and Unicore, which come a bit closer to the premium segment.
I’ve always thought of location-based services (LBS) as using consumers’ locations to connect them with retail and services. People use their smartphones to find the nearest coffeeshop, but what has not happened is coffeeshops saying, “Hey, I see that you are within 500 feet of our store. You should come in, because we’ll give you a discount.”
In our field, we make money by providing decimeter- or centimeter-level solutions to our users for surveying, machine control, GIS, etc. When it comes to needing locations for other applications, such as retail, everything is already nicely integrated in smartphones, and consumers just utilize what is there.
In order to get a better precision than the one provided by the cellphone, you need a small, extra GNSS device connected to the cell. Then, instead of using the position provided by the phone, the application will use that much better position. That trend will go on for quite a while. This is the change to what was standard in the last decade, when we built dedicated handheld controllers with fairly high-cost chipsets to enable GIS applications. These GIS devices seem to be disappearing. It’s either an Android or iOS-based phone or tablet, and now you add a hockey puck-type GNSS antenna. Then, you override or mock the position that is coming from the internal chipset on the phone, and the app uses that more precise position. That is the new standard for GIS, so to speak.
Analogously, for a decade we had dedicated car navigation devices. They disappeared because our phones now do that.
Exactly. Where we can really add is in providing that extra bit — not only hardware, but also software and services. Decades ago, we developed the HxGN SmartNet RTK service. Now, we also have HxGN SmartNetGlobal, which is both a terrestrial-based service and augmented by a satellite-based precise point positioning (PPP)-type service. Simple car navigation devices such as those by Garmin or dedicated GIS controllers have almost vanished. It’s always a smartphone or a tablet plus, if a centimeter-level solution is needed, an additional device.
It does not make a lot of sense to fully integrate high-precision GNSS into these mobile devices, because the customer group who really needs a centimeter-type solution is too small, and it would put an extra burden on the engineering for the tablet or the smartphone. Nobody complains if you attach a device that weighs a few hundred grams. I also think that you shouldn’t integrate things that don’t belong together. The different components have different life cycles. A smartphone today is old when it’s 18 months old, right? But, with the volume that’s sold to customers needing high precision, we cannot renew the equipment every year.
Are you talking about a smart antenna?
Today, a GNSS chipset can be as small as a two-Euro coin. However, if you want to do high-precision GNSS, you still need a decent-sized antenna. So, you cannot go to a fingernail size with the antenna element. If you need a good amount of multi-pass mitigation in the analogue way, you need a beer coaster-sized ground plane. Now, typically, you also put in a MEMS-based inertial measurement unit (IMU), so that you do more than just the pure GNSS position — pitch, roll and yaw are important as well.
Phones already have IMUs.
It’s always a matter of what you want. Do you want five meters or one meter or sub-decimeter repeatable at high reliability? Then you need to add more, higher-value components, right? Also, if you just take what’s in an iPhone, it’s not so easy to calibrate those MEMS. Engineers could probably solve the problem, but precision is never the primary goal for a smartphone and would increase complexity.
In addition, in an iPhone, you don’t really worry about aging of the components or whether they can survive a fall from 1.5 m. So, we look at the application and the environment in which the customers are using it, then we select the best components to really add value to, let’s say, the existing iPhone’s position.
In September, we released a high-grade antenna about the size of an ice hockey puck with a very small and tightly integrated GNSS chipset and inertial measurement unit (IMU). Then, of course, we have our own processor to run our positioning engine. It brings in all the corrections that we can provide with our SmartNet service. So, we provide a centimeter solution and pitch, roll and yaw in the most compact form.
Then the phone becomes just the interface.
Yeah, the phone position gets mocked by the position, for example, from a FLX100 plus, and the app takes the better position.
The app is the user’s interface with the puck.
Yes, but the survey device — the “GNSS puck” together with the phone running the app — is only one element of what a typical GIS user needs. Most important are the data themselves and the cloud system that hosts them. The data are the key enablers. If you think of Esri, for example, their value is hosting the data, having the geospatial relationship between the data and enabling decision-making.
The geospatial acquisition part became really easy and can even be done in a tilt-compensated way, so you don’t even need to level your survey pole. The surveyed points are typically automatically synchronized or uploaded to the cloud system. So, if you say that the phone is just the user interface, I kind of disagree.
A utility technician using the Leica GS05 GNSS receiver for the surveying and utility industries, which Leica released in September. (Photo: Leica Geosystems)
You’re collecting data and feeding them to the cloud, but they are also on the device to display.
The data themselves are only stored inside the app or in the cloud and can be displayed. The GNSS device itself keeps streaming the position but nothing gets stored there.
How much do you collaborate with ESRI, in terms of their application and the data?
Jack Dangermond [Esri’s co-founder and president] once said, “portal to portal is key these days.” At Hexagon, we have our applications, our industries and our focus areas, and ESRI has its. To me, the way to be successful is to have systems that are compatible and portals that can talk to each other. So, to me, portal to portal is and will be key.
You mean the portals in the cloud?
Yes, they have an API interface and they can talk to each other. I’ll give you one concrete example. We have a product called the FLX100. It is a little puck, has a helix antenna, a receiver engine, but does not have a cellular phone integrated. We’re using the cellular connection of the user’s mobile phone. So, you connect the mobile phone to the FLX100.
We have software called Zeno Mobile One that has an Esri interface. So, we can immediately synchronize everything we measure with ArcGIS Online and ArcEnterprise. This is how we developed our GIS asset collection software. We need an accurate position, of course, which we provide through the hardware that we sell with the FLX100 plus. It can also connect to any RTK service — but, ideally, we connect to our own SmartNet service. As soon as we collect an asset — such as a pipe, a fire hydrant or a manhole — the operator annotates it, “This is a manhole, this is a gas pipe, this is a water pipe,” whatever. Then, the data can be uploaded immediately, already in the right file structure, e.g. into an Esri environment.
We can also run an Esri product, such as ArcGIS Field Maps, on the smartphone and still talk to our hardware. This is very interchangeable these days. If you’re not doing this, I think you limit yourself too much when it comes to data collection. We understand the whole workflow much better than in the past and can be open to certain services, such as Web Map Service (WMS) or Web Feature Services (WFS). You can download the map of your town, then download, let’s say, the entire public water system and load it into this map. Then you can make changes, add new pipes, etc. So, there are many services that enable you to add to an existing map.
So, you’re using Esri’s APIs like anybody else.
Theoretically, you’re right; we use those published interfaces. However, we are Esri Gold Partners, so we really work with Esri to make this happen. There are also open-source products, such as QGIS.
What do you mean by “industrial-grade” receivers?
UAVs doing high precision photogrammetry are one of the biggest market for RTK positioning. However, the highest-end boards from the likes of NovAtel (part of Hexagon) and Trimble are less often used in these applications nowadays. So, UAV manufacturers and operators switched to smaller, lower-cost chipsets. This is one area where this field developed. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of UAVs. So, it became a significant market.
Also, today lawn mowers do not just follow random patterns on lawns. They start integrating those more high-precision chipsets. These days, they are more and more multi-frequency, multi-constellation.
Who’s using something like the puck that you were describing earlier? It’s neither average consumers nor surveyors.
It’s a very good question. We still need to differentiate between the high-precision geodetic market or the scientific market where highest reliability is needed and the GIS market where reliability is of lesser priority. In many cases, such as high multipath, foliage coverage and jamming — there are typically no anti-jamming tools on these lower-cost chipsets — there is a strong need for highest end GNSS cards and a significant difference. Nevertheless, the GIS market is still of significant market size.
Every fiberoptic cable that’s being put underground these days in countries such as Germany, Austria and Italy must be mapped on the open trench. It would be quite costly for those companies who put the fiber optic cables into the ground to call a surveyor each time. So, they train their own technicians to do the job and need many handheld units. We have customers who need 100 crews equipped with the same GNSS equipment. That is the kind of customer group that needs this mid-tier of products.
There are other markets for the mid-tier products, such as photogrammetry, which is coming back because of the improvements in digital cameras and the power of the processors in the field, and then everything with augmented reality. This customer group still needs some control points or RTK positions, but they typically don’t want to spend too much on highest precision equipment.
What is new about the FLX100 plus?
We integrate it into the world of mobile devices in a new way. It is a change from an integrated handheld controller to something that’s separated from the tablet or the smartphone. From an accuracy point of view — if we’re not talking about very challenging cases such as heavy foliage or multipath and 50 km baselines — the FLX100 plus is really good. I think we are at the level where we were with the highest-grade GNSS equipment in 2005 or 2010.
At GPS World, we have used the term “mobile solutions” for a long time but, as the technology changes, it’s hard to use the same categories.
The mid-tier and high-end premium will increasingly blur. So, there isn’t such a clear line anymore. The distinction will disappear, not the equipment itself, for those who want the highest reliability — such as surveyors, who typically earn their living by putting their stamp on a map or a plan and are liable for errors. These customers want the best possible also under very difficult conditions.
Emlid: Conversation with Igor Vereninov, CEO at Emlid
What does Emlid do? How large is it? Where is it based?
We build high-precision RTK receivers and software for them. We are based in Budapest, Hungary, and we also have development offices in Belgrade, Serbia, as well as in Lisbon, Portugal. We are more than 100 people now. We are a diverse bunch, developing everything inhouse — including electronics, embedded software, mobile applications, cloud services and beautifully designed enclosures.
Why did you start the company?
I started the company with my co-founder out of my kitchen, 10 years ago. We started with the idea of making RTK more affordable. Back then, survey gear was very complicated, required a lot of training and was super expensive. We were maybe a bit arrogant, being just out of university, and we thought, “Yeah, we should definitely try to disrupt that.” We built super-affordable receivers, completely crowdfunded on Indiegogo, without any outside capital. Our personal money was very limited, so all the money we had in the company came from our future users.
At that time, our receiver was just a board, but from there we saw so much interest and the orders started to flow. We realized, “Okay, this is going to be big, so we better build a fully recognized and waterproof device that surveyors can use in the field and is not just for DIY hackers and geeks.” That’s how it started.
What came next?
We first had the Reach receiver, which was the board, then the Reach RS, the Reach RS+, the Reach RS2 and the Reach RS2+. Now, we have our Reach RS3, which is super-popular worldwide. We’re now widely known, and our receivers are still very affordable, robust, easy to use and as accurate as any other receiver out there.
To me, the term “mobile solutions” refers mostly to data collection for GIS, but these categories are very subjective. What are the key trends you see in the industry?
A big industry trend is that more and more people inside companies are interacting with centimeter accuracy and with RTK. Previously, it was only surveyors, but now we are seeing that an increasing number of people in the field will have access to accuracy. We play a large part in this story because we democratized RTK and brought it to other professionals outside of surveying.
Traditionally, we had RTK accuracy at one end of the spectrum, a GPS receiver inside your iPad or iPhone at the other end of the spectrum, and in between sub-meter devices, which traditionally occupied the GIS space. Now, customers and potential customers tell me that the sub-meter category is becoming less and less present and attractive. As the RTK technology becomes super accessible and affordable, all the consumers from the sub-meter space are shifting toward centimeter accuracy. Maybe they don’t really need it in the field, but they feel like …
They might as well have it!
Yes, why not just have it, right? It’s the same cost, so why not equip our field crews with centimeter accuracy? We now have easily accessible and affordable, or even free, correction networks. The devices themselves now cost less than $2,000 and are easy to use.
That’s the kind of conversation we are having regularly with customers and potential customers. They’re saying, “Why not have it?” They want to upgrade the accuracy of their mobile mapping device — typically, an iPad. It’s not enough to be able to tell, for example, on which side of the pipeline the valve or junction box is. They really would be fine with 10 or 20 cm of accuracy, but then why not go to that 1 cm level?
Another trend is using iPhones and high-precision GPS for site documentation. We now have deployments of hundreds of units in the field using a combination of an RTK GPS receiver with lidar and camera sensors inside consumer-grade devices, such as iPads or iPhone Pros, to document such things as accidents and construction progress — especially for large infrastructure projects, such as fiberoptic networks.
Your Reach RX, for example, is an external device that talks to a tablet, right?
Yes. We’re seeing the use of our receivers in combination with the sensors inside an iPhone to document objects with very high accuracy and with absolutely no training by the person doing the job. You really don’t need a trained person to do it. For example, an excavator operator — who is not typically doing any kind of mapping but is a professional in a different space — would be able to grab an iPhone with an external RTK receiver and map things with centimeter accuracy for reporting purposes.
I find it very exciting that we’re able to use this mix of consumer-grade technology with RTK that is rapidly becoming very affordable. Together, they give us a platform that allows us to document things super-efficiently and bring it into the hands of more professionals. We are seeing more and more startups in that space as well.
All your receivers are GNSS receivers, correct?
Yes, everything that we make is all-constellation and multi-frequency GNSS.
A surveyor using an Emlid mobile RTK network rover, a Reach RX, in an urban environment. (Photo: Emlid)
What are the main end-user applications for your devices?
We sell a lot to land surveyors and to drone pilots. Many drone pilots are increasingly becoming surveyors, and many surveyors are increasingly becoming drone pilots. So, those two groups of people are moving toward each other, and we are happy to serve both. Our devices are very popular and are the standard for drone workflows. This is a big market for us. Also, construction and mobile scanning.
What about utility companies mapping their assets?
Yes, we work with businesses that need to manage some kind of infrastructure or a large collection of assets. Water companies are very big users. They have many undocumented areas and a lot of people working in the field. For them, it’s crucial to have an affordable system that they can put in the hands of untrained people. Also, fiber optic networks, gas pipelines and agricultural companies have similar demands.
Today, a traditional RTK GNSS receiver costs at least $20,000. Our Reach RX is $2,000; our Reach RS3 with tilt compensation is $3,000. This completely changes the game. So, we are opening this field for professionals, for architects, for landscape designers, for agricultural applications. We’re seeing archeologists use it. These guys would have never bought a system for $20,000 or $30,000. Now that it’s $2,000 or $3,000, it’s a different story.
What do you make specifically for GIS?
We recently introduced the Reach RX MFI, which is certified for use with Apple devices. This Reach RX integrates natively with Esri’s ArcGIS Field Maps, the most common platform for GIS data collection workflows. It required certain hardware modifications to connect to iPhones natively and some integration work with Esri. It is another way in which our Reach RX receiver can be used. Every one of our Reach RX is now a Reach RX MFI.
Tell me about the Pix4D.
We have a kit that consists of two parts. The hardware part is our Reach RX centimeter-grade, survey RTK receiver. The software part is the PIX4Dcatch mobile app on an iPhone Pro or Pro Max, which has a lidar sensor and a very good camera. As a part of the kit, you receive a bracket to mount everything together, forming a unique system that is easy to use, accurate and affordable. It uses the lidar for scanning.
And the sensors in the phone to determine its attitude …
Yes, and the huge photogrammetry experience that Pix4D has. They’re using their full photogrammetry engine to process the pictures, along with the lidar from the iPhone and highly accurate GNSS, which allows them to stitch together essentially survey-grade models just using this simple set of equipment.
I’m very excited about this technology being so accessible and easy to use.
On Sept. 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines flight KAL007, with 269 people on board, went 360 miles off course and strayed into prohibited airspace over one of the Soviet Union’s most sensitive military installations. The pilots, who had missed some radio calls and warning shots, were unaware. Then an air-to-air missile hit the plane.
This tragic Cold War episode helped GPS technology spread from military to civilian use because President Ronald Reagan’s deputy press secretary, Larry Speakes, said that to help prevent a repeat of the tragedy, “the President has determined that the United States is prepared to make available to civilian aircraft the facilities of its Global Positioning System when it becomes operational in 1988.” Civilian use of GPS had been envisioned from the program’s beginning, but Reagan’s announcement now guaranteed the future availability of GPS to civilians. That, and later smartphones, spawned the development of the commercial and consumer GPS industry.
More than 40 years later, however, civilian airliners are increasingly at risk of being shot down, as well as many other equally disastrous outcomes, due to spoofing and its percolating effects on many aircraft systems. GPS Spoofing: Final Report of the GPS Spoofing Workgroup, released on Sept. 6, reports a 500% increase in spoofing this year compared to last year, with an average now of 1,500 flights spoofed per day. Among the many dangers this poses, the report states that it has led to “aircraft entering other Flight Information Regions without clearance or authorization, which creates risk of misidentification and, in the extreme case, interception or shootdown.”
The report, based in part on a questionnaire returned by nearly 2,000 pilots — 56% of them working for airlines and 72% captains — found that more than 90% of all crew members rated their concern as moderate or higher. The three most insidious aspects of spoofing for aircraft are that pilots may not be aware of it; that GNSS receivers may continue to yield incorrect positions long after the aircraft leaves the spoofing area; and that bad data from the GNSS receiver has “severe and cascading effects” on many other systems, including the flight management system, the Ground Proximity Warning System, Hybrid IRS, the aircraft clock, weather radar, CPDLC, ADS-B and ADS-C. Spoofing also affects air traffic control, which is inundated with requests for radar vectoring during and after spoofing.
The report finds “an overall sense of complacency and muted interest across a broad section of the aviation industry.” Two of its many recommendations to mitigate the problem jumped out at me: synching a mechanical watch to a known source at dispatch “in preparation for aircraft clock failure” and positioning a handheld GPS receiver “low down in the cockpit such that it only has a direct line of sight to the highest elevation satellites,” which makes it possible “that it may not get jammed and spoofed as easily as the externally mounted antennas.”
Why has it come to this? What will we do about it? You can read the report here.
