Trimble Autonomy has introduced the Trimble BD9250, a dual-frequency OEM GNSS receiver module that supports Trimble RTX correction services.
The receiver is designed to deliver high-accuracy positioning for a range of high volume, autonomous-ready applications used in the agriculture, construction, robotics and logistics industries worldwide.
The BD9250 is a compact receiver with an industry-standard form factor and pinout, allowing for easy system integration and configuration. Equipped with Trimble’s advanced ProPoint positioning engine, the BD9250 delivers robust and accurate positioning.
The BD9250 receiver is compatible with Trimble RTX correction services or real-time kinematic (RTK) and supports all major GNSS constellations, including GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, QZSS and NavIC. Support for the Indian NavIC S-Band signal is also available with the Trimble BD9250s version.
The receivers include the capability to enable system integrators to choose either the L2 orL5 frequency to optimize signal performance and maximize the number of measurements available to the GNSS engine.
“The BD9250 provides centimeter-level RTX accuracy without the need of a base station,” said Finlay Wood, general manager, off-road, Trimble Autonomy. “This OEM GNSS board is ideal for high-volume autonomy applications that require precise positioning, without sacrificing accuracy, availability or integrity — enabling integrators to bring systems to market faster.”
The Trimble BD9250 and BD9250s evaluation receiver modules and the Trimble RTX correction service subscription are available now through Trimble’s OEM GNSS sales channel.
Expected to be available in the second quarter of this year, Trimble’s RTX service will enable superior location capabilities in premium Android smartphones worldwide.
The integration of Trimble RTX GNSS technology, a correction services platform, with Snapdragon contributes to a higher quality, more accurate location-based user experiences such as car navigation with lane-level guidance.
Coupling the Trimble RTX technology with premium Snapdragon Mobile Platforms will enable smartphone manufacturers, service providers and application developers using Snapdragon to provide mobile users with robust meter-level accuracy (or about 3 feet) when used with a Trimble RTX-based correction service. This represents a five times improvement in location accuracy compared to typical accuracy.
Location information accuracy can significantly improve the smartphone’s user experience when using mapping, driving or other mobile applications. For example, with more accurate positioning for a ridesharing app, both driver and rider can have a better experience when the pick-up destination is more precisely displayed. In addition, lane-level accuracy enables drivers to gain greater map detail and more accurate directions when using real-time navigation applications.
The new collaboration expands Trimble’s existing relationship with Qualcomm Technologies to provide high-accuracy positioning solutions for connected vehicles, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving solutions to automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers.
“Trimble and Qualcomm Technologies have a history of innovation in mobile location technologies, both separately and collaboratively,” said Lisa Wetherbee, general manager of Trimble Advanced Positioning. “Together, we are boosting premium Android phone functionality, helping mobile applications provide better information about the user’s immediate surroundings.”
“Precise positioning, where accuracies are down to a meter or less, is a necessary capability in next-gen premium Android phones, providing better mapping, more accurate navigation and new exciting services to consumers,” said Francesco Grilli, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies. “Snapdragon is again taking location-based experiences to a new level through this collaboration with Trimble.”
GPS World spoke with Guillermo Perez-Iturbe, Trimble’s marketing director – agriculture, about the challenges for farms in adopting precision agriculture, including time, cost and connectivity issues in rural areas.
What technical challenges are faced in applying GNSS?
GNSS technology is at the center of precision agriculture and is one of the key enablers for the farm of the future. GNSS helps boost productivity, environmental sustainability and economic competitiveness.
Trimble’s GNSS agriculture solutions provide reliable, accurate positioning that can be tailored to meet specific needs, including different crops (broadacre vs. row crops) and activities (such as tilling, planting or fertilization). Trimble’s portfolio connects farming operations and includes guidance and steering; grade control, leveling and drainage; flow and application control; irrigation; harvest solutions; desktop and cloud-based data management; and correction services.
However, one of the challenges to fully realize the benefits of the future farm is connectivity. Typically, ag customers are in rural areas, where the available communications infrastructure to support Wi-Fi or cellular data communications varies widely. This can impact the ability to share information between field and office as well as between machines in the field.
But connectivity challenges have a lower impact on GNSS positioning. For example, farmers can leverage satellite-delivered corrections provided by Trimble RTX correction services using a compatible GNSS receiver and subscription service. This plays an important role in areas such as rural North America, Latin America and Australia. In many areas in Europe, farms can utilize a virtual reference station (VRS) for precise GNSS. There are also farms globally that operate their own GNSS reference networks or base stations to support accurate, high-precision, real-time positioning.
What are the remaining obstacles to adoption?
There is little resistance to the technology per se. The performance and value of precision farming are well known. Adoption rates can range from 80% to less than 40%, depending on geographic location, farm size (small family or large corporate farm), types of machines or crops, and etc.
Obstacles can come from multiple forms. For example, in some parts of the world farm staff may lack the skills or qualifications needed to operate the systems efficiently. To lower the barrier to entry, Trimble has designed intuitive user interfaces and displays based on an Android operating system. In some regions, taxation and import restrictions hinder attempts to implement GNSS into precise farming. There are also business-related issues. For example, a smaller farm must prioritize its investments, and improving or repairing a planting machine might be more important than installing GNSS technologies.
What does VerticalPoint RTK offer?
Trimble developed VerticalPoint RTK Grade Control to help farmers mitigate issues in water management and land forming. It provides centimeter accuracy in the vertical component. This accuracy level enables the precise grading needed to provide shallow flow and slow water movement.
When using VerticalPoint RTK, the GNSS rover receives and combines data from multiple reference stations to develop precise vertical measurements. It provides high confidence and can be used for grading, levees and berms, tile applications, and ditches. For larger-scale land forming based on precise terrain mapping, machines using VerticalPoint RTK can reduce the number of passes needed to bring the land to the designed grade and shape.
Do you have any other RTK services for precision ag?
The RTK technology used in Trimble agriculture solutions is consistent with RTK across other segments (construction, surveying, mapping and more). The differences are in the application and location, where we provide a variety of receivers, user displays, machine interfaces and software to produce accurate, reliable performance. The activities can range from tillage and grading to planting, adding inputs such as fertilizer or weed control — all the way through harvest. It is just a matter of talking with the farmers to understand their operations; we can then select and integrate components to optimize the solution.
As part of this, farms using Trimble RTX correction services can choose different levels of service based on their needs. This approach enables farmers to achieve (and pay for) only the accuracy they need. For example, some basic tillage operations can use RangePoint RTX with good results. Other applications, such as fertilizing row crops, may require the 2.5-centimeter accuracy provided by Trimble CenterPoint RTX corrections service.
