Built on the company’s X20 high-precision platform, the module delivers RTK-grade performance while maintaining precise GNSS-based heading even at low speeds or standstill, a key requirement for auto-steering and autonomous operation. Target sectors include precision agriculture, unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous machinery, marine and robotics navigation. 

All-band on both antennas, with scalable corrections

The ZED-X20D tracks all major GNSS constellations on L1, L2, L5 and L6, and adds L-band reception for PPP correction services, an “all band on both antennas” approach that is intended to maximize heading availability and stability in challenging environments. To meet different accuracy and deployment needs, it works with RTK, PPP-RTK and PPP correction services, including u-blox’s PointPerfect offerings for regional and global coverage. Built-in support for Galileo E6 enables use of the free Galileo High Accuracy Service (HAS), giving equipment makers multiple options to source corrections. 

u-blox is positioning the ZED-X20D as a drop-in upgrade for existing designs by retaining the established ZED form factor and pairing the module with its ANN-MB2 all-band antenna and PointPerfect services as a turnkey high-precision bundle. The company says this combination is aimed at simplifying design, reducing system cost and accelerating mass adoption of automated and autonomous equipment across agriculture, UAVs, construction and other industrial domains. 

Security and interference resilience for trusted heading

The module includes u-blox’s end-to-end hardened security, with secure boot, signed firmware and a hardware root of trust for cryptographic material, as well as support for Galileo OSNMA and encrypted correction data. All-band frequency diversity and interference monitoring are designed to improve resilience against jamming and other RF threats, while access to high-quality GNSS measurements supports reliable post-processing and integrity monitoring—features likely to appeal to developers building safety-critical or highly automated systems on top of the new heading platform.

The post u-blox Introduces ZED-X20D GNSS Heading Module for Mass-Market High-Precision Applications appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Agriculture has entered the era of continuous PNT.

Precision agriculture is moving toward full automation. Guidance systems once treated GNSS as the entire solution; today, the industry recognizes that satellite signals are necessary but insufficient. Farms have become complex RF environments. Tree canopy, terrain, outbuildings, seasonal geometry shifts, multipath near grain elevators, interference from adjacent equipment, and the simple reality that tractors roam in and out of open-sky visibility all challenge the idea that GNSS alone can sustain continuity.

OEMs are building guidance systems that must keep machines on path even when GNSS falters. Autonomy depends on uninterrupted perception of position, velocity and attitude. That means pairing GNSS with inertial systems engineered for agricultural machines, not adapted from other domains.

In a recent conversation with Inside GNSS, Tzeno Galchev, Director, Product Marketing and Applications Engineering for Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), described how their inertial measurement units (IMUs) are being integrated into next-generation tractors, implements, drones and robotics platforms. ADI’s engineers are focused on what really matters in the field: disciplined inertial performance, controlled lifetime drift, rugged packaging and reliable sensor fusion with GNSS. The message was unambiguous: Autonomy in agriculture can scale rapidly when inertial becomes a baseline requirement. 

The Market Reality: Why Inertial Matters Now 

Precision agriculture has matured beyond the first decade of “straight-line” GNSS guidance. Machines now operate in a wider set of field geometries, crop types and environmental constraints. Several forces are converging:

Tractors are evolving from operator-assisted systems to autonomy-ready platforms. Implements are following, including precision planters, high-clearance sprayers, and robotic harvesters. Each requires continuous PNT. A single GNSS dropout during an autonomous end-of-row turn can result in overlap, missed coverage or unsafe behavior.

Agriculture spans open sky areas and GNSS-hostile corridors. Machines pass under tree rows, within orchard canopies, beside barns or silos, or along field edges lined with windbreaks. Modern high-value crops, such as vineyards, orchards and berries, introduce dense canopy that disrupts L-band signals. Even row crops can create directional multi-path in late summer.

OEM Pressure to Deliver “Always-on” Paths

Agricultural OEMs face customer expectations shaped by the automotive sector. The question is no longer whether GNSS can deliver accuracy; it is whether the total system delivers continuity. That continuity is now a competitive differentiator. Dead-reckoning performance, not positional Root Mean Square (RMS) in open sky, shapes the user experience.

Cost Realism and the Mid-Market Explosion

Farm sizes vary globally. Not every user can justify aerospace-tier inertial systems. ADI’s view is that precision agriculture needs inertial performance that respects cost boundaries while still meeting the dynamics of field machinery: vibration, temperature cycling and shock.

“The demand is there because there’s a shortage of workforce, especially in the developed countries, and these machines make a considerable difference in the cost and efficiency of farming operations,” Galchev said. “They are replacing and reducing the number of workers needed as well as putting workers out of harm’s way.” 

The Shift to Autonomy-Grade Attitude Estimation

GNSS provides position and velocity; but many operations require continuous knowledge of roll, pitch and yaw. Sprayers use boom leveling. Planters need implement attitude to maintain depth accuracy. Drones require stable orientation in low-signal environments. INS establishes those states even when GNSS is degraded.

THE RESULT: GNSS remains the reference, but inertial is now the mechanism that closes the reliability gap.

Inertial Basics for Agricultural Platforms 

Agricultural operators rarely see inertial systems directly. They see better lines, fewer skips, improved boom stability, and smoother turns. Under the hood:

• IMUs measure angular rate and acceleration along orthogonal axes.

• Sensor fusion in an inertial navigation system (INS) uses those measurements to propagate position, velocity and attitude during GNSS gaps.

• Drift is inherent, but it can be minimized, modeled and constrained with well-tuned sensor fusion.

• GNSS resets the INS, bounding cumulative error.

• Agricultural use-cases emphasize short-to-medium duration bridging, not long-haul independent navigation.

Modern MEMS technology has reduced noise, bias instability, and temperature sensitivity to levels appropriate for automotive-grade and robotic applications. ADI’s work has focused on improving consistency across production units, strengthening environmental robustness, and integrating compensation routines at the firmware level.

Agricultural machinery introduces several complicating factors that inertial systems must handle cleanly:

• High vibration environments from diesel engines, tillage tools, and PTO-driven implements.

• Complex motion during headland turns, uneven terrain and differential traction events.

• Thermal swings, from dawn cold starts to midday heat.

• Mechanical shock, especially on implements.

• Long duty cycles, including 14 to 18 hour days in planting or harvest season.

This environment is less deterministic than automotive and more dynamic than many robotics platforms. The IMU/INS must treat vibration as a feature of the mission, not a source of error.

ADI’s Technical Approach

ADI designs inertial solutions with a focus on predictable error behavior, rugged packaging and stable sensor fusion. The company emphasizes several technical principles:

VIBRATION TOLERANCE. Farm machinery produces persistent broadband vibration. ADI considers how vibration intrinsically disturbs the sensors and ADI engineers design mechanical structures that better suppress, cancel and otherwise reduce the effect of vibration directly into the MEMS structures themselves because once vibration is allowed to pollute the sensor signal, it is too late for the INS system to do anything about it. This ensures the INS maintains the correct angular-rate and acceleration signatures even when implements shake violently.

BIAS REPEATABILITY. This is the lifetime bias drift expectation that intends to capture all unmodeled error sources and is not commonly specified in MEMS IMU datasheets. It provides a single error window that will determine the convergence times for critical estimation/filter loops. For systems that need to turn and deploy quickly, failure to anticipate and quantify these errors can limit deployment time and degrade initial heading accuracy. In their latest products, ADI has expanded their Bias Repeatability definition to include turn-on drift/settling, drift from package stress relief, electronic drift and thermal hysteresis. In parallel with expanding the coverage of this specification, ADI has reduced this metric by an order of magnitude in recently-released devices, such as the ADIS16545 and ADIS16576. 

AXIS-TO-AXIS ALIGNMENT. With tight axis-to-axis alignment out of the box and calibrated through an extensive inertial routine over multiple temperature set-points, tight alignment can be achieved only using mechanical alignment features. For tighter alignment than 0.25° one could leverage the tight axis-to-axis alignment (along with excellent bias repeatability in the accelerometer) to greatly simplify the frame alignment process. 

LINEAR, TEMPERATURE-CONTROLLED BEHAVIOR. Temperature gradients on tractors and implements are large. ADI incorporates temperature compensation models enforced at both the sensor and system level. The goal is not perfect thermal invariance, which is unrealistic in cost-sensitive segments, but predictable behavior that fusion algorithms can model accurately.

FUSION-FIRST PHILOSOPHY. ADI treats the IMU as one component of a larger PNT solution. Their systems are designed for tight integration with GNSS receivers, wheel speed sensors, magnetometers, and vehicle CAN data. Robust synchronization and time-based alignment of the inertial output simplifies system coupling. This architecture enables robust attitude estimation and velocity smoothing, especially during headlands or canopy exposure.

PREDICTABLE LIFECYCLE PERFORMANCE. Agricultural platforms must last. ADI designs for multi-season reliability and bounded long-term drift. The objective is to ensure a machine equipped with an ADI IMU behaves the same in year four as it did in year one.

“You can’t calibrate a sensor’s inherent noise performance, its stability, or its response to vibration,” Galchev said. “These unmodeled error sources directly produce error at the output, and that’s where ADI focuses on innovating at the chip level.”

This technical discipline supports the system-level view: Inertial is not a premium feature; it is a foundation for reliable GNSS-enabled autonomy.

Integration in the Field: What Engineers Face

Engineers integrating inertial systems into agricultural machines confront real-world constraints that differ from lab conditions. ADI’s field experience highlights specific patterns.

Booms flex. Toolbars vibrate. Tractor frames twist. Sensor placement often becomes a compromise. An INS may be exposed to off-axis motion uncorrelated with actual vehicle trajectory. ADI mitigates this through calibration routines, filtering strategies, and noise modeling that treat flex and vibration as signal partitions.

Implements as Independent Dynamic Systems

The implement behind a tractor behaves differently from the tractor itself. For operations like variable-rate spraying or multi-row harvesting, implement attitude, even when decoupled from tractor motion, must be sensed accurately. IMUs can be mounted on booms or frames to track these dynamics.

Agricultural systems rely on multiple data streams: GNSS, wheel speed, steering angle, hydraulic cylinder positions, and sometimes LiDAR or camera inputs. INS integration requires precise timing alignment. ADI designs its systems for deterministic latency and reliable time stamping, which improves fusion accuracy.

The transition from row guidance to headland turns stresses both GNSS and INS. Machines accelerate, decelerate, rotate sharply, and pass through GNSS-obstructed corners. ADI’s inertial fusion helps maintain attitude and velocity states during these high-dynamic transitions.

Agricultural drones operate close to trees and terrain. Ground robots operate beneath canopy. INS solutions provide roll/pitch stability, altitude smoothing, and fallback motion propagation when GNSS is degraded.

Economics: Performance Within Reach

Precision agriculture is expanding beyond large, capital-intensive farms. The next wave of adoption will come from mid-market operations and mixed-crop geographies.

• Cost matters. Expensive IMUs are non-starters. ADI designs MEMS-based solutions that offer robust performance within an accessible cost envelope.

• Scalability drives OEM decisions. Manufacturers want sensors available in volume, with predictable lead times and long lifecycle commitments.

• Global adoption requires price/performance balancing. Emerging markets need PNT reliability but cannot bear aerospace-grade costs. Scalable, rugged MEMS solutions fill this gap.

• Autonomy ROI depends on continuity. If a machine can maintain guidance through GNSS disruptions, it can operate longer hours and at higher speeds, improving economics for both OEMs and end-users.

“Just because you go from a big tractor to a smaller tractor, the conditions don’t change that much,” Galchev said. “If you want to achieve the same mission profile, you still need the same performance level.”

As ADI brings cost-efficient inertial capability into mainstream ag equipment, the performance gap between high-end and mid-tier platforms narrows.

The Road Ahead: Multi-Sensor Fusion and Autonomy

Agriculture is evolving toward heterogeneous fleets: autonomous tractors, robotic harvesters, terrain-following sprayers, orchard drones, and edge-connected implements. All require resilient PNT.

End-of-row autonomy

Low-speed, high-precision maneuvers demand stable attitude estimation. INS ensures smooth transitions even in partial GNSS shadows.

Terrain-following and boom dynamics

Sprayers rely on roll/pitch estimates for boom control. IMU data supports rapid damping of boom oscillation, improving chemical placement, reducing drift, and lowering input costs.

Cooperative ground-air systems

Drones performing scouting missions must integrate with guidance systems on the ground. Consistent inertial performance across platforms enables better data fusion and farm-level coordination.

Resilience as a design requirement

Interference, accidental or intentional, is increasingly common. INS helps maintain continuity of operation when GNSS performance degrades. It stabilizes machine behavior during uncertainty and helps diagnostic systems detect anomalies.

Regulatory evolution

As autonomy expands, functional-safety requirements will increase. INS adds a measurable layer of redundancy and validation, supporting safety cases for next-generation machines.

“We have sensors that we released more than 20 years ago still being produced,” Galchev said, “because our customers’ systems have long lifespans and once something works, it can be very difficult and expensive to re-qualify and swap it out.”

As autonomy accelerates, the next decade of agriculture will be shaped by platforms that assume GNSS variability and engineer around it from day one. That shift elevates inertial from an add-on to a core requirement. ADI, with its long record of sensor innovation and system-level discipline, is positioned to anchor that transition. Their approach: predictable drift behavior, calibration at the silicon level, ruggedized packaging, and tight GNSS-INS fusion, gives OEMs a stable foundation to build autonomy across tractors, implements, drones, and emerging agricultural robots. The path forward is clear: Resilient PNT will define productivity, and ADI’s inertial technology will increasingly sit at the center of the autonomy stack, enabling machines that navigate, adapt and operate with confidence in the real conditions of the farm.

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Swift Navigation, a leader in precise positioning technology, today announced that its Swift Partner Program has grown to include over 20 GNSS receiver manufacturers, establishing it as the largest hardware ecosystem among GNSS correction providers. This milestone, achieved less than two years after the program’s launch in October 2023, is accelerating the adoption of precise positioning in mass-market applications across automotive, robotics, mobile, and mapping.

Centimeter-accurate, reliable, and cost-effective positioning technologies are key to unlocking vehicle autonomy, industrial automation, and next-generation location-based mobile applications. However, integrating precise positioning can add complexity and cost to the product design cycle, which can delay product launches and lead to suboptimal user experiences. By enabling precise positioning at scale, Swift Navigation and its partners are accelerating the deployment of autonomy and automation across industries.

“Reaching this milestone with over 20 partners is a powerful validation of our ecosystem-first strategy,” said Holger Ippach, Executive Vice President of Product and Marketing at Swift Navigation. “We believe that by creating an open and collaborative platform, we empower our customers to select the best hardware for their needs, streamline their design process, and future-proof their investments. This success is a shared one, and it highlights how our collective efforts are making precise positioning more accessible and scalable than ever before.”

Ecosystem-Driven by Design

Swift’s ecosystem approach is redefining how precise positioning scales by enabling correction delivery across the industry’s broadest hardware base, from chipsets to complete systems. This receiver-agnostic strategy provides customers with a wide range of interoperable components and options for any stage of the design cycle. The Swift Partner Program solidifies Swift’s leadership among correction service providers, offering unmatched interoperability and accelerating time-to-market for OEMs and device makers.

Customers can maintain complete control over their hardware roadmap, selecting the best components for their needs without being tied to a proprietary corrections stack. The Skylark™ Precise Positioning Service’s receiver-agnostic architecture supports integration at every level of the technology stack, giving partners the flexibility to build low-power modules, multi-frequency systems, or full-featured receivers.

Swift’s collaborative method spans the entire OEM lifecycle, including:

• Co-defining precision targets from the outset.
• Validating designs through joint testing of early samples in labs.
• Rigorously field-testing in real-world use case conditions to ensure performance at scale.

This positions Swift as a key infrastructure layer for precise positioning that is hardware-agnostic, scalable, and capable of supporting mass adoption across various industries.

Built-in Customer Benefits

Swift’s ecosystem approach delivers several key benefits to customers:

• Streamlined Design: Provides a wide array of interoperable components, allowing developers to optimize for performance, cost, and footprint, and even retrofit existing systems.
• Minimized Costs: Customers have access to multiple hardware vendors and flexible pricing options, which minimizes costs and avoids lock-in.
• Accelerated Integration: Deep OEM collaboration, rigorously tested mass deployed components, and joint debugging reduce integration risk and accelerate the integration process.

Continuous Innovation & Future-Proofing

Swift’s technology is designed to evolve quickly to keep customers ahead.

• Future-Proof Receiver Investment: Skylark can ingest new satellites and signals as they launch, maximize the precision of quad-frequency receivers, and boost the accuracy of cost-effective receivers.
• Continuous Improvements: Swift continuously expands coverage based on customer needs and uses machine learning to improve accuracy and adapt to atmospheric variability in real time.
• Freedom to Evolve: Partners can switch, upgrade, or expand their hardware without changing their corrections pipeline.

Among the more than 20 GNSS receiver manufacturers in the Swift Partner Program, the following partners commented on their collaborations with Swift. Each offers Skylark-compatible products—ranging from chipsets and modules to complete GNSS receivers, smart antennas, and integrated systems.

Skylark-Compatible Chipsets

Sony Semiconductor Solutions
“Our collaboration with Swift Navigation brings high-accuracy positioning to compact GNSS devices using our low-power, high-performance CXD5610GF GNSS receiver IC. Seamless compatibility with Skylark enables developers to integrate precise positioning into wearables, mobile trackers, and other space-constrained applications—while maintaining multi-day battery life in continuous operation,” said Kenichi Nakano, General Manager, Analog LSI Business Division, GNSS Product Dept. at Sony Semiconductor Solutions.

STMicroelectronics
“Close collaboration with Swift Navigation during the development phase of our new TeseoVI chipset has produced a very high performance GNSS platform that integrates seamlessly with Skylark, and is tailored for automotive safety and autonomy,” said Luca Celant, General Manager, Digital Audio and Signal Solutions Division at STMicroelectronics. “Optimized for ADAS L2+ and autonomous driving, the integrated solution streamlines system integration, cuts cost, accelerates time-to-market, and delivers lane-level accuracy essential for next-generation driver assistance and autonomy.”

Skylark-Compatible Modules

Quectel
“Quectel is dedicated to delivering high-performance positioning solutions to our customers. By integrating Skylark’s advanced GNSS corrections with our high-precision modules, such as the LG290P and LC29H, we are empowering developers with flexible, cost-effective options to bring centimeter-level accuracy to applications in intelligent driving, robotics and micromobility with reliable performance across Skylark’s extensive coverage area,” said Brandon Oakes, Director, GNSS, Short Range and Channel, Quectel Wireless Solutions.

Septentrio
“Skylark unlocks the full potential of our mosaic and AsteRx receivers, combining multi-constellation, multi-frequency performance with robust interference resilience,” said Jan Van Hees, Business Development Vice President at Septentrio. “This gives our customers the confidence to deploy centimeter-accurate positioning in demanding applications such as robotics, surveying, and autonomous systems.”

Telit Cinterion
“Swift’s Skylark integration brings real‑time RTK corrections directly into our SE868K5-RTK and SE868K5-DR modules—enabling centimeter‑level accuracy for precision agriculture, drone operations, asset tracking, and other high‑value IoT applications,” said Marco Argenton, Senior Vice President of Product Management, IoT Modules at Telit Cinterion. “Whether in open skies or GPS-challenged environments like urban canyons or underground structures, our modules—coupled with Skylark—deliver unmatched positioning performance with minimal power consumption in a compact form factor, and achieve centimeter-level accuracy within seconds.”

Skylark-Compatible Receivers

Bad Elf
“Skylark’s broad and continuous coverage gives our Flex and Flex Mini customers the confidence to operate in geographies that typically aren’t served,” said Larry Fox, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Bad Elf. “With continental coverage across North America, Europe, and large parts of Asia-Pacific, customers know they’ll get consistent, real-time centimeter-level accuracy with high reliability, wherever they go.”

Calian
“Through our collaboration with Swift, we now offer Skylark-ready smart antennas that have been rigorously tested for performance and reliability,” said Christopher Russell, Vice President of Sales for Calian GNSS. “Together, we deliver high-precision positioning that customers can trust for applications such as navigation, driver safety, robotics, and UAVs—while dramatically reducing integration time.”

Emlid
“By pairing Swift’s Skylark Precise Positioning Service with our lightweight and rugged Reach receivers, we are delivering a turnkey surveying and mapping solution that’s easy to deploy, cost-effective, and capable of achieving centimeter-level accuracy in seconds—even in challenging environments,” said Igor Vereninov, Co-founder and CEO of Emlid.

The post Swift Navigation Expands Hardware Ecosystem for Skylark Centimeter-Accurate GPS appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

U-blox has announced PointPerfect Global, the latest addition to its high-precision GNSS correction services. Designed for demanding applications such as precision agriculture, UAV-based mapping, and autonomous outdoor robotics, the new service provides sub-decimeter positioning accuracy worldwide – even in remote locations – via internet and L-band satellite broadcast.

Part of the expanding PointPerfect portfolio, PointPerfect Global completes the u-blox correction services offering—joining PointPerfect Live, the regional nRTK service for the most demanding applications, and PointPerfect Flex, the original PPP-RTK service optimized for wide-ranging and flexible IoT deployments. Together, the portfolio delivers scalable, high-performance positioning solutions that meet even the most demanding customer expectations.

Global reach with high reliability

PointPerfect Global delivers PPP-AR (Precise Point Positioning with Ambiguity Resolution) corrections via IP and satellite L-band, enabling convergence times under 2 minutes and <10 cm accuracy. It is optimized for products built on the X20 platform. The u-blox ZED-X20P all-band, high-precision GNSS receiver will be the first to support PointPerfect Global, integrating native L-band support and allowing reliable performance where cellular connectivity is unavailable.

Purpose-built for mass-market autonomy and scalability

With its broadcast-based global coverage, PointPerfect Global supports scalable deployment across continents without complex regional integration. It enables OEMs and solution providers to bring autonomous systems to market faster, reduce operational complexity, and streamline global logistics. Applications span agriculture, robotics, drones, industrial automation, and automotive, where consistent performance and minimal infrastructure dependency are critical.

Full portfolio, full flexibility

With the introduction of PointPerfect Global, u-blox now offers a comprehensive GNSS correction services portfolio that adapts to varying regional, technical, and commercial needs. From real-time centimeter-level accuracy in regional markets to flexible, worldwide coverage, PointPerfect services deliver reliable, scalable, and cost-effective positioning across the globe.

Availability

Early access to PointPerfect Global will begin in late 2025 and general availability is expected in H1 2026. 

The post u-blox Introduces PointPerfect Global GNSS Correction Service Portfolio appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

On April 10, Rx Networks, Inside GNSS and Inside Unmanned Systems, invite you to an exclusive webinar “Breaking Barriers: The Future of High-Precision GNSS Safety and Integrity.” In a world increasingly reliant on automated, unmanned and autonomous decision-making , GNSS corrections must be resilient, scalable, and tailored to diverse operational environments. Join thought leaders from Rx Networks and GMV as they explore how safety and integrity are becoming the true currency of modern correction services.

This expert-led session will explore how availability, continuity, safety, and integrity are reshaping what it means to trust a GNSS correction service to deliver a safe GNSS position in both aviation and automotive reception environments.  

Thursday, April 10, 2025 | 1:00–2:30 PM EDT
Register now to attend live or receive the on-demand replay.

The post Breaking Barriers: GNSS Accuracy Alone Isn’t Enough—Join the Rx Networks Webinar to Learn Why  appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

IonoGuard helps ensure more reliable and accurate positioning by reducing the risk of signal loss and maintaining signal integrity during challenging ionospheric conditions.

Every 11 years, solar activity peaks, causing ionospheric disturbances such as scintillation and signal noise that can result in unreliable positioning. Solar Cycle 25, which began in 2024 and is expected to last through 2026, could pose significant challenges with the potential for global disruptions. While solar cycle disturbances are a phenomena noticed by few in most occurrences, high-precision RTK GNSS users in equatorial regions are regularly impacted by solar activity year-round, inflicting costly interruptions on agricultural operations.

Customer Testing and Validation

“There was no question when asked if we wanted to test IonoGuard,” said Michael Munro, General Manager, Sales and Marketing of Vantage Australia. “Knowing we can better weather the next major solar storm with less risk for signal loss and improved signal availability and precision during such a disturbance provides peace of mind knowing we can still get the work done.”

“The solar storm experienced in May 2024 put IonoGuard to the test and, based on feedback from our beta testers like Vantage Australia, demonstrated the value of this technology to enable uninterrupted work in the midst of significant solar activity,” said Andrew Sunderman, Vice President, Product & Customer Experience at PTx Trimble. “When a solar storm hits, work might be stopped due to signal loss, resulting in downtime, increased labor costs and potentially wasted inputs during planting and spraying. We’re extremely proud to offer a solution that truly minimizes this risk by decreasing downtime, reducing costs for the farmer and keeping the agriculture industry up and running all day, every day.”

Availability

Trimble IonoGuard is available on the PTx Trimble NAV-900™ guidance controller via the latest PTx Trimble Precision-IQ firmware release and Trimble base stations that support the ProPoint GNSS positioning engine, sold and distributed by PTx Trimble. When combined, users can achieve maximum RTK performance. To learn more about IonoGuard, visit https://ptxtrimble.com.

The post Trimble and PTx Trimble Expand IonoGuard to Maintain Agriculture Precision and Continuous Operations appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Led by the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI), the system integrates GNSS, stereo and infrared cameras, and inertial measurement units (IMUs). The system aims to address challenges in precision agriculture, offering reduced costs and greater efficiency.

Precision agriculture minimizes harmful pesticide and fertilizer use, mitigates soil depletion and erosion, conserves water, and lowers energy and labor costs. However, equipping with current GNSS-RTK-based solutions whole collections of individual farm tools such as trailing tillers, box blades and mowers, can be prohibitively expensive.

To overcome this, the PAALI project developed a unique coupling unit that mounts between a tractor and its trailing tool. This system uses multiple sensors and sensor fusion algorithms to determine both the relative positions of the tractor and tool and the absolute positions of tool components.

FGI Research Group Manager Tuomo Malkamäki explained the objective: “We wanted to be able to estimate the pose of the trailed vehicle with minimal or no components placed directly on that vehicle.” The result is a cost-efficient, adaptable prototype for various agricultural applications. The Precision Agriculture Demonstrator (PAD) was successfully tested in a number of real farming scenarios.

Design choices

Among other components, the PAD prototype includes:

• Septentrio SBi3 Pro+ with IMU: A high-precision GNSS/INS receiver with RTK positioning and robust anti-jamming.
• Flir Grasshopper cameras: Monochrome cameras with onboard image processing capabilities.
• Flir thermal camera: Captures infrared radiation to display temperatures and temperature changes.
• Sick Visionary B stereo camera: Provides 3D vision for complete scene capture in outdoor environments.

Tests demonstrated high accuracy in absolute orientation and real-time performance at 20–30Hz frame rates, with 80Hz available for recording. Visualization output matched trailer movements seamlessly, with no noticeable latency. The PAD withstood mechanical stress and vibrations, delivering precise, low-noise camera-based pose estimations. Some weaknesses were also identified, particularly with regard to calibration-related errors.

Malkamäki noted the broader potential of this technology: “The system has significant applications within the agricultural field, but going beyond agriculture as well, in logistics, things like trailer hitching, also marine approaches and docking, and in many other autonomous operations.”

The PAALI project was funded under ESA’s NAVISP program, aimed at supporting new, commercial developments in the European PNT sector.

The post FGI Develops Multi-Sensor Agricultural Positioning Solution appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Martijn van Alphen, founder and head developer at BB Leap explains: “The ability to deliver crop protection and nutrients precisely where, and in the quantity, they are needed results in less waste, lower costs, reduced environmental impact – and a stronger and more resilient crop. This is good for the plant, for the farmer and for the planet.”

In this role the precise, sustained measurement of motion is critical. The accuracy, and especially the low drift, of the trailed sprayer will ensure the effective performance of all the functions of each machine. 

Mr van Alphen continues: “When selecting a suitable IMU we tested a whole range of options, from low cost to high end. The DMU11 was the only one providing us with accurate and stable measurements over the whole temperature range of our application.”

A Silicon Sensing DMU11 is installed in each LeapBox where its output is used to: 

• Precisely determine the turning speed of the sprayer. Based on the forward and turning speeds the correct delivery rate of each individual spraying position is calculated.  In each broadacre sprayer there are up to 250 spraying positions and each spraying position can be between one and four nozzles.  
• Ensure accurate calculation of the heading of the sprayer behind the tractor. Each tractor has its own heading from its GPS system, whilst the sprayer has a separate heading calculated based on the output of the DMU11. This is calibrated to an absolute heading when the machine is directly behind the tractor. 

On OEM broadacre sprayers with boom-levelling technology a second DMU11 is also installed. BBLeap uses the difference between the outputs of each to measure the centre frame position of the sprayer in relation to the position of the chassis. The gyro from the DMU11 is also used to determine the rotational speed of the boom, which is critical to boom-levelling. 

David Somerville General Manager, Silicon Sensing comments: “Our DMU11 has a strong track record for its performance and reliability across many market sectors including precision agriculture and we are particularly proud to see it playing such a key role at the heart of important sustainable farming developments such as this landmark BBLeap LeapBox.”  

The post Silicon Sensing IMU Powering BBLeap’s ‘Farming on Plant Level’ LeapBox Technology appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Researchers used a specially equipped Safire ATR-42 aircraft to record GNSS signals over a variety of sites in France, including agricultural areas, forests and selected bodies of water. Onboard the aircraft were three GNSS recorders, based on the Stella Record and Playback (Stella RP) solution from M3 Systems combined with CESBIO’s Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry Instrument (GLORI).

Hardware was selected and configured to achieve the highest high-quality recording. The setup included two antennas provided by CNES and CESBIO, one pointing towards zenith and the other towards nadir. GNSS signals were recorded simultaneously on four channels: one channel for direct, i.e. zenith, L1/E1 signals with RHCP polarization, a second channel for direct L5/E5a signals with RHCP polarization, a third channel for reflected, i.e. nadir, L5/E5a signals with RHCP polarization, and a fourth channel for reflected L5/E5a signals with LHCP polarization. Partners employed 8-bit quantization and an OCXO clock for maximum precision.

Onboard the ATR-42 during data acquisition were CESBIO’s Pascal Fanise, Carlos Davis of M3 Systems and Robin Quinart from CNES. Coincident ground-truth tests were also carried out, including determination of in-situ soil moisture levels, leaf area indices and other measures, to confirm airborne reflectometry measurements and the results of data post-processing.

Environmental applications

In addition to providing valuable insights into forest biomass and soil moisture, the study has delivered data collected over bodies of water and at sea that can potentially serve altimetric applications. Altimetric information, including wave height, can be obtained by analyzing time difference and phase difference between direct and reflected GNSS signals, a technique that has been employed successfully in a number of other environmental studies.

Over the past decade, CNES has carried out several GNSS reflectometry-based projects, highlighting the growing use of GNSS in scientific applications and particularly in environmental studies. CNES has also collaborated with M3 Systems on numerous projects since 2016. Notably, M3 Systems has developed a GNSS software receiver with specific reflectometry capabilities for CNES. Closing the circle, CESBIO has had occasion to deploy said M3 Systems GNSS software receiver through its collaboration with CNES.

The post French Partners Launch GNSS Reflectometry Study appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Previously, the PointPerfect GNSS correction service in the country was only available via cellular connectivity, which was limited by insufficient national network coverage. Users in Brazil can now access PointPerfect through L-band satellite and accelerate time-to-market using Nordian’s Precision OEM Board. This expanded delivery allows customers to access GNSS correction data streams reliably and cost-effectively also in regions without cellular coverage, enabling advanced navigation applications that require centimeter-level positioning accuracy. 

PointPerfect is a PPP-RTK GNSS correction service that delivers 3-6cm accuracy and convergence in seconds on a continental scale with a 99.9% uptime reliability. This performance makes it a solution for autonomous farming activities such as operating automated machinery, field mapping and monitoring, or in navigating autonomous mobile robotics.

The post u-blox and Nordian expand PointPerfect GNSS with L-band Satellite Delivery appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.