Trimble’s Dual Antenna GNSS receiver and real-time positioning service will provide centimeter-level accuracy for farmers utilizing autonomous equipment.

Trimble and Sabanto have announced the integration of Trimble BX992 Dual Antenna GNSS receivers with Trimble CenterPoint^® RTX into Sabanto’s autonomy solutions. Trimble will act as Sabanto’s key autonomous technology provider, delivering high-accuracy positioning to its fleet.

Farmers need the highest level of uptime and reliability to avoid service disruption. Leveraging Trimble’s BX992 GNSS receiver and satellite-delivered Trimble CenterPoint^® RTX corrections service, Sabanto’s autonomy solutions can now receive centimeter-level L-Band corrections nearly anywhere in the world. With precise positioning and autonomous operation, farmers can realize greater productivity, minimize downtime and input costs, and alleviate workforce shortages through the use of autonomous vehicles.

“In 2022, Trimble Ventures announced an investment with Sabanto focused on autonomous workflows in farming applications. This announcement underscores our goal to invest in early and growth-stage companies that are accelerating innovation, digital transformation and sustainability in the industries Trimble serves,” said Finlay Wood, general manager, off-road autonomy, Trimble. “It’s exciting to witness how Trimble’s technology and our Trimble Ventures relationship can accelerate the adoption of autonomy in the agriculture industry, as evidenced by this next phase of our collaboration with Sabanto.”

In addition to RTX corrections, Trimble will offer correction stream-switching enabling farmers to automatically switch from IP to satellite seamlessly, to provide the best signal in every environment.

“With a customer base in agriculture, as well as municipalities and airports with a remote environment, our customers are often in areas without reliable cell service, so a reliable correction signal is extremely important to keeping our autonomous machinery working around the clock,” said Craig Rupp, founder and CEO of Sabanto. “It’s exciting to see our two businesses find synergies that will improve ag autonomy, delivering a better experience for our farmers through continuous connectivity, regardless of the environment.”

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GNSS-Enabled CC200A-LB Module Expands Global Connectivity Standards.

Quectel Wireless Solutions has achieved a significant milestone with its CC200A-LB satellite communication module securing major global certifications from regulatory authorities including CE, FCC, IC, and RCM. This endorsement confirms compliance with satellite network standards across key regions spanning Europe, North America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The CC200A-LB module, tailored for cost-effectiveness and ultra-low latency, establishes a robust global network connection. This capability positions it as a versatile solution for diverse applications such as maritime, transportation, heavy equipment, agriculture, mining, and oil and gas monitoring. Its primary advantage lies in providing reliable communication in areas where cellular networks face limitations.

Norbert Muhrer, President and CSO of Quectel Wireless Solutions, highlighted the module’s ability to ensure continuous and cost-effective communication for remote and mobile assets, irrespective of location.

Utilizing ORBCOMM’s cutting-edge satellite IoT connectivity and harnessing the L-band of the Inmarsat GEO constellation, the CC200A-LB offers two-way communication, low latency, and extensive global coverage. When combined with cellular modules, it enables dual-mode IoT applications, promising unparalleled reliability, redundancy, and coverage ubiquity. In areas with inadequate cellular network coverage, the module seamlessly sustains communication through satellite connections.

Notably, the CC200A-LB features a compact LCC+LGA package, measuring 37mm × 38mm × 3.35mm, and incorporates multi-constellation GNSS positioning, swiftly and precisely identifying device locations. Its user-friendly AT command set streamlines configuration and management processes.

Quectel offers flexible procurement options for the module, available independently or coupled with the appropriate Quectel antenna, expediting the time-to-market for customer devices.

In addition to the CC200A-LB, Quectel has diversified its satellite communication module portfolio, including the CC660D-LS compliant with 3GPP NTN R17 standards and the BG95-S5 and BG770A-SN modules supporting both satellite and cellular networks. GNSS-enabled features across these modules reaffirm Quectel’s commitment to enhancing global connectivity standards and advancing IoT applications across industries.

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WESTMINSTER, Colo., Oct. 10, 2023 — Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) introduced today Trimble IonoGuard™, a next-generation technology designed to mitigate ionospheric disruptions in positioning and navigation by minimizing performance impacts caused by scintillation or signal noise.

Referred to as solar activity, ionospheric disturbances peak every 11 years. The next major disruption, Solar Cycle 25, is expected to peak between 2024 and 2026. Ionospheric activity can directly impact the quality of GNSS signals, leading to the degradation of position accuracy. While this type of disturbance has the greatest impact on high precision GNSS users operating around equatorial and high latitude regions, global disruptions are possible during the height of the solar cycle. 

Available as a downloadable firmware update on Trimble GNSS receivers utilizing the Trimble ProPoint® GNSS positioning engine, IonoGuard leverages the latest developments in Trimble’s high-precision receiver hardware design and signal tracking to deliver improved positioning performance in challenging environments. This will minimize the probability of a complete loss of GNSS signals and improve the quality of the signals’ accuracy and integrity.

“IonoGuard is Trimble’s newest innovation on the path to raise the bar on positioning integrity and performance worldwide,” said Stuart Riley, vice president of GNSS technology at Trimble. “It brings our customers closer to uninterrupted and robust positioning data on every project, around the clock. Whether it’s mitigating the impacts of Solar Cycle 25 or another ionospheric event, we’re building advancements into Trimble GNSS technology to deliver accurate and reliable positioning solutions today, tomorrow and beyond.”

Availability

For Trimble’s geospatial, civil construction and OEM GNSS receivers supporting the ProPoint GNSS positioning engine, IonoGuard is a free downloadable firmware update expected to be available in the 4th quarter of 2023 for receivers under warranty.

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ANELLO Photonics partners with the GEODNET Foundation for scalable low-cost access to geodetic-grade GNSS correction data to support Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) services on ANELLO’s navigation system solutions.

ANELLO Photonics, the Creator of the SiPhOG™, is pleased to announce new real-time centimeter-accurate positioning and localization capabilities for its product line of optical-gyroscope based navigation systems. Real-time centimeter accuracy is achieved utilizing Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) correction data from GEODNET, a community-based decentralized network of worldwide over 3,000 GNSS reference stations to date.

Under the partnership agreement, ANELLO Photonics customers will have access to a free trial of RTK services and competitive options for long-term, high-volume correction data requirements. Furthermore, ANELLO Photonics and GEODNET will promote each other’s technology to drive awareness and adoption of combined solutions that provide truly world-class position accuracy in challenging operating environments.

By combining the ANELLO Photonics Silicon Photonics Optical Gyroscope (SiPhOG™) with GEODNET’S global RTK correction network customers now have access to a new global cyber-infrastructure for reliable measurements at a radically reduced cost. The partnership offers customers a unique combination of cutting-edge optical gyroscope technology together with a reliable and global RTK correction network that enables centimeter-accuracy for industries operating in challenging RF and GNSS-denied environments such as city centers, construction sites and orchards. The partnership between ANELLO Photonics and GEODNET will address these challenging applications by leveraging the power of the ANELLO SiPhOG™ technology and its GNSS-denied dead-reckoning algorithms together with GEODNET’s distributed global network of RTK stations which offers centimeter-accurate solution initialization. This combined capability provides world-class accuracy while dramatically reducing the total solution cost for the end customer.

“We are excited to partner with and support the mission of the GEODNET Foundation to simplify affordable access to RTK correction data via a community-driven, world-wide network of modernized multi-constellation GNSS stations,” said Dr. Mario Paniccia, CEO of ANELLO Photonics. “By combining ANELLO’s expertise in optical gyro technology, INS solutions and AI algorithms with GEODNET’s fast growing global network of RTK correction data, we will collectively unlock new and exciting possibilities for precise-positioning in challenging environments where GNSS signals are frequently unavailable or unreliable.”

The partnership between ANELLO Photonics and the GEODNET Foundation demonstrates ANELLO’s commitment to innovation and solution-level offerings in challenging GNSS-denied environments. Through their combined expertise, ANELLO Photonics and the GEODNET Foundation aim to simplify performance intensive applications such as high-definition mapping and aerial or terrestrial autonomous vehicle deployment.

ANELLO Photonics is currently engaged in trials with various market-leading customers in the Construction, Farming, Robotics, Trucking, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Autonomous Vehicles, and Defense space.

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When GNSS pioneer Javad Ashjaee founded JAVAD GNSS, his focus was clear: to innovate.

He made critical discoveries over the course of his career, and was the first to join two constellations, GPS and GLONASS—a major milestone. The rest of the industry followed his lead, adding more satellite systems and changing the PNT landscape.

The distinguished engineer left behind what JAVAD VP of Product Development Simon Baksh describes as a “treasure chest of patents” when he passed away—a result of his years of innovation in the field. The JAVAD team is building on that work and his very-high tech vision through product enhancement and development, which is allowing the company to move into emerging markets.

“Our transition is taking the technology and turning it into industry leading products,” Baksh said, noting the company has launched several products based on Ashjaee’s patents over the last year. “This is, if you will, JAVAD 2. The original Javad is no longer here, but the spirit of what he started is. So, we’ll continue along that path but with more of a product focus than a technology focus.”

An evolving industry

For years, the PNT market opportunities lied in traditional vessels and aircraft across the land, air and sea domains, Baksh said. There wasn’t much deviation from common geospatial scenarios until UAVs entered the mix. Not only did sensors need to become smaller and lighter to fly on these systems, there was also a need to track attitude as well. That led to the IMU/GNSS integrations that are common today.

Creating PNT solutions for UAS has become somewhat ordinary, Baksh said, but there are other areas grabbing the industry’s attention. Spoofing and jamming are chief among them, with the impact of both intentional and unintentional inference now top of mind. In turn, the biggest industry demand has become resilience.

“That’s being driven, in large part, by geopolitical events in Ukraine. But the behavior is still the same if you get RF interference and there’s no hostility around you. It still affects your receiver,” Baksh said. “But that’s the biggest change we’ve seen. It’s shifted away from how accurate you are and how many channels your receiver has—people don’t even ask that question anymore—to will your receiver continue to work if there’s RF interference.”

Customers need to know they can survive interference events, Baksh said, and that’s a concern JAVAD has experience addressing. JAVAD’s founder received the first patent for anti-jamming and spoofing, and such capabilities have always been part of the company’s receivers. JAVAD continues to build on that advantage.

Headed to Space

The next big thing is the aerospace segment, Baksh said, with more rockets launching satellites, including low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, into space. And it’s an interesting area to serve, as the space segment brings a whole new set of challenges.

“The environment is different than what we have on traditional platforms,” Baksh said. “Winter and summer are the extremes for temperature. In space, it gets very cold. So you have a really extreme environment with radiation and high acceleration.”

The goal is to create solutions that can survive in this atmosphere with extreme temperatures and huge G-forces, Baksh said. The harsh environment will impact how receivers behave, Baksh said, and is much different than what happens on a slow moving vessel or aircraft. That’s the next move for JAVAD, adding “space hardened” products to the portfolio while still serving the traditional applications the company has taken on for years.

“The traditional applications are very sedentary, very normal. They’re predictable and easy to model,” he said. “The new ones require a lot more tuning to cater to both the extreme environment and the high velocities.”

New products addressing market shifts

JAVAD continues to advance the technology with updates and new product releases that meet changing demands. One such innovation for the geospatial realm is the TRIUMPH-1M Plus smart antenna, an updated version of an existing product. Many professionals use GNSS rovers, walking around carrying a 2 meter poll with a device at the top for RTK—and an antenna attached to that device for radios and cell modems. The TRIUMPH-1M Plus patented antenna is actually embedded into the top section of the pole, which means there’s no breakage in the feed. It also has excellent radio reception.

“That’s the most resilient, most protected antenna device on the market,” Baksh said, “and no one else has it because we have the patent.”

The T3-NR smart antenna is an option for those who want a smaller receiver and don’t need all the bells and whistles the TRIUMPH provides, Baksh said, which includes mapping professionals. It’s lightweight and has excellent power management, with the ability to complete a day’s work without a battery swap.

JAVAD also has released enclosure products that feature the same GNSS technology but can be installed on vessels, vehicles, aircraft or buildings. When the antenna can’t be put on a pole, customers can leverage the same technology from JAVAD’s box products.

“All of this means we had to update our firmware for the sensor fusion associated with all of these technologies,” Baksh said. “And it all comes from one company. We make our own antennas, radios and GNSS receivers, and this goes all the way from data collection to post processing. From the onset of the business, it’s all been self-contained. But even more marvelous is we have our own state-of-the-art factory in the U.S. where we actually build all of our products.”

JAVAD is also focused on providing OEM solutions for High Dynamic Applications (HDA), a proprietary process that ensures reliable performance even in the most extreme environments, like space.

The TR-2S HDA and TR-3S HDA provide exactly that. The TR-2S is a complete receiver solution. It’s fast, accurate and compact, making it well suited for aerospace applications. The TR-3S board replaces the TR-G2T HDA, which has served the aerospace, defense and launch industries as the standard for years. The drop-in replacement offers significant increases in signal tracking and performance.

What’s next

JAVAD is entering an expansion phase, Baksh said, and has grown to four locations. The team plans to announce more new products at INTERGEO 2023 in Berlin later this month, continuing to build on a legacy of innovation.

“Traditional development is fine for the existing geospatial market,” Baksh said, “but new markets call for developing new algorithms and for space-hardened hardware. And those call for new engineering talent and new versions of old products to serve those markets.”

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Septentrio expands high-accuracy service options for their GPS/GNSS receivers with Topnet Live global, RTK service

Septentrio, a leader in high-precision GNSS* positioning solutions, announces today that Topcon Positioning Systems is joining their Agnostic Corrections Partner Program. This program was launched earlier this year to facilitate the use of Septentrio receivers with various high-accuracy services, offering integrators the flexibility to choose the most suitable correction service for their specific application. Topcon’s Topnet Live is a real-time GNSS corrections service that delivers high-quality centimeter-level RTK corrections data with a broad worldwide network coverage and a variety of subscription options.

“This collaboration with Topcon enables us to bring more high-quality corrections options to our customers. Septentrio’s robust GNSS receivers combined with Topcon’s reputable infrastructure creates a powerful synergy that offers high precision and reliability to industrial sectors, including construction and mining, while also catering to emerging applications like robotics and automation,” said Gustavo Lopez, Senior Market Access Manager at Septentrio.

“Topcon is committed to providing the best GNSS correction services to our customers and partners. We believe that users should have access to this service regardless of receiver branding and we are pleased to work with Septentrio to make stable and precise positioning accessible to diverse sectors,” said Ian Stilgoe, VP of Emerging Business at Topcon. “Septentrio receivers have a reputation of being precise and reliable, which matches well with the high quality standards of our corrections services.”

GNSS-based positioning is limited in accuracy due to several errors caused by GNSS satellites as well as the Earth’s atmosphere. To compensate for these errors and achieve up to centimeter-level accuracy the receiver can use additional information from a corrections service. Various high-accuracy services offer varying levels of accuracy and coverage and different delivery methods. Septentrio’s collaboration with Topcon broadens the range of choices that integrators now have when looking to get high-accuracy from their Septentrio receiver.

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Partnering with Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, Hexagon’s lane-level accuracy and instant convergence corrections are now available for testing.

Hexagon’s Autonomy & Positioning division and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) proudly announce their agreement to bring precise positioning to South Korea through the TerraStar-X Enterprise Correction Service. The hardware-agnostic correction service provides instant convergence and lane-level accuracy in automotive, mobile and autonomous applications.

As a leader in real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning across South Korea, MBC’s atmospheric data enhances the redundancy of Hexagon’s fast converging and reliable precise point positioning (PPP) network across the country. Through this collaboration, the TerraStar-X Enterprise service is now supported in testbeds across South Korea, China, Japan, Europe and North America to accelerate development for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), safety-critical applications, micromobility, industrial and smartphone applications.

“With TerraStar-X Enterprise Correction Services now available across autonomous and consumer market applications, developers can design once and then deploy that design at scale worldwide,” said Dr. Paul Verlaine Gakne, positioning services product manager at Hexagon’s Autonomy & Positioning division. “TerraStar-X Enterprise is designed to be as flexible as possible for large-scale testing and deployment.”

“MBC’s expansive RTK network was a world’s first service providing nationwide corrections coverage,” said Seungho Lee, director of spatial information business at MBC. “We’re thrilled to continue innovating as partners alongside Hexagon.”

Hexagon’s TerraStar-X Enterprise ensures fast convergence to lane-level accuracy across South Korea and is available now for testing. Learn more about TerraStar-X Enterprise corrections by
visiting novatel.com/terrastar-x.

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Trimble Hardware and Software Selected for New GNSS Network

Trimble and Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest telecommunications company, are partnering to install a new Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) network to provide Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) correction services across the country. Available to users as an annual subscription service, the new network will be built using Trimble’s hardware and software positioning technology, which provides customers with easy and reliable high accuracy real-time or post-processed GNSS corrections data for agriculture, construction, geospatial, Internet of Things (IoT) and other commercial operations.

“We understand how important it is to invest in Ukraine’s economy right now, which is why we continue to launch technological solutions that will help businesses work even more efficiently,” says Illya Polshakov, new business development director of Kyivstar. “I am sure that the RTK correction signal service will facilitate the work of our customers from various industries.”

As part of a revenue-sharing model with Kyivstar, the network will be installed on Kyivstar’s communication towers and will use Trimble Alloy™ reference receivers and Trimble Zephyr™ model 3 antennas. Trimble Alloy delivers current and near-future constellation GNSS tracking, absolute positioning capabilities and user-friendly design. The Zephyr 3 antenna’s capabilities provide optimal functionality in permanent installations. The network will also leverage the Trimble Pivot® Platform software, a solution that manages CORS stations and generates highly accurate GNSS corrections to provide the network operator and end users with a reliable, seamless and efficient workflow.

“For agriculture, construction, geospatial and IoT professionals who rely on centimeter-level accuracy, the Kyivstar network will provide a robust and reliable positioning solution,” said Olivier Casabianca, vice president, Trimble Positioning Services. “This will help their customers optimize workflows, improve productivity and deliver operational efficiency.”

The first phase of the installation will include 41 communication towers and is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The second phase will consist of 150 additional towers and is expected to be completed in 2024. Subscriptions to the service will be available through Kyivstar. Trimble’s local geospatial distributor KMC Ltd. will provide maintenance and support to Kyivstar.

Images courtesy of Trimble.

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Sponsored by Topcon

Topcon’s recent strategic investment in DDK Positioning, a PPP corrections service provider that has an exclusive partnership with Iridium Communications, will enable a robust, resilient GNSS positioning service unlike any other.

Robust, resilient PPP corrections services are critical to those who rely on GNSS. DDK Positioning supplies such services pole to pole through an exclusive partnership with Iridium Communications, and now has a strengthened relationship with Topcon for even more support on the hardware side—further enhancing what the company can provide.

Topcon has supplied core GNSS components to DDK for years, with the team at DDK integrating the OEM boards themselves in the past, Topcon VP of Emerging Business Ian Stilgoe said. After a recent strategic investment in DDK, Topcon will work closely with DDK for the development of the next generation receivers. This allows Topcon to integrate on the development, which means enhanced accuracies and performance for DDK customers like Oceaneering. The DDK team can focus on growing services while relying on Topcon’s support for hardware expertise.

With DDK, customers have access to marine correction services through a partner, Stilgoe said, and that’s a market the company hasn’t pursued before.

“We are a GNSS OEM board supplier to DDK. We are their hardware partner,” Stilgoe said. “That’s really where we see our partnership advantage. DDK with the marine service expertise, Iridium with the delivery expertise and Topcon with the receiver expertise.”

A look at the service

DDK, founded in Aberdeen, Scotland in 2016, provides corrections for various applications, including offshore survey, maritime, agriculture, construction and defense. The company uses a 2-Way communication link to offer monitoring, remote diagnostics and support.

Iridium took notice of DDK early on, and challenged the team to deliver corrections on its Burst network, a one-to-many global data broadcast service that makes it possible to transmit data to millions of enabled devices at once. That required significant development, DDK Positioning CEO Kevin Gaffney said, including reducing company data overheads by more than 90% compared to what was out there in the market—while still delivering the same performance.

“Through that process, Iridium then made the decision to expand their portfolio of PNT with a stake in DDK,” Gaffney said. “Not many GNSS companies are welded together with a communication partner like Iridium, they just buy it wholesale. This gives us the flexibility to embed within their services, work together and jointly develop services going forward, and also access the market share they deliver into.”

That investment was announced in 2021, and DDK now provides its corrections services exclusively over the Iridium network to augment GNSS constellations. The combination creates a robust, resilient, independent military grade GNSS solution with accuracy of less than 5 cm. This multi-constellation service can access and optimize all available GNSS, ensuring customers always have the precise positioning they need. Although unlikely, if a communication link is interrupted, the solution will operate for up to 10 minutes while the signal is recovered.

The applications

The agreement with Oceaneering International also came about in 2021, with DDK being the powerhouse behind its GNSS augmentation service, MAX, and all associated Topcon software and hardware to support the company’s C-Nav Positioning solutions. This gives Oceaneering’s customers in the maritime energy industry access to 2-way communication that enables machine control and feedback as well as redundancy to cover signal losses. DDK is now transitioning all of the company’s marine customers to DDK services, a large undertaking, with a deadline to complete by 2025, Gaffney said.

With Oceaneering as a core customer, DDK now has a roadmap developed for the marine sector, Gaffney said. They plan to release GNSS heading products next and are looking at integrating RTK to enhance the service for nearshore applications. INS integration is on the table as well, which would further expand capabilities. DDK is collaborating with Oceaneering on these projects.

Before working with DDK, Oceaneering had a great service but only had a box; DDK can now add elements to that box to offer enhanced performance, Gaffney said, so the company “can start competing further.”

The Oceaneering portfolio can be split in two: marine, so fleets and vessel, and survey, a big area of opportunity for DDK, Gaffney said. On the fleet side, the company has clients with hundreds of vessels. Those customers are looking for a reliable, cost effective solution and a long-term deal for correction services, which DDK can provide.

DDK will also focus on demanding survey needs for oil and gas customers, Gaffney said, including heading and INS integration. For these customers, reliable, resilient service is critical. If a rig goes down, for example, it costs $250,000 a day—and that’s just for the rig.

“It you think of projects relying on this service and the ramifications of inaccuracies, it’s all about robustness, reliability and availability, sometimes more than accuracy,” he said. “It’s about that performance and it’s why we provide the service and Oceaneering provides full support going out to the customer.”

Other clients, including defense, agriculture and construction, look for the same robustness and availability in the service as maritime users like Oceaneering.

What makes DDK different

One of the most difficult things to get right when delivering a corrections service is communication, Gaffney said, and that’s something DDK has down. You can come up with the algorithms, deliver a service and run it over IP, but it doesn’t do any good without a robust comms link to ensure the information gets to the customer reliably. DDK saw the value of having a communication link from the beginning, and has become one of its distinguishing features.

The goal for DDK is to deliver comms automatically in the future, Gaffney said. DDK also provides a feedback loop for quality control. The vision is to relay challenges back to the user and provide a full reporting cycle of what’s in the field.

Moving forward, there will be a quick convergence in the feedback loop, Gaffney said, with the service identifying challenges with satellites or interference in certain areas and then building a picture for the customer. How it can be used really comes down to the “imagination and requirements of the user.”

That feedback loop will also refine subscription management for particular projects or particular areas.

“We can also supply different services to different regions, so we can tailor. We have the flexibility to do that,” Gaffney said. “With the investment, we can concentrate on what we’re good at and let Topcon handle the other bits where they have more expertise and resources.”

Construction is among the industries that can benefit from this type of quality control.

“You have to deliver positioning, but from a construction and Topcon world, we’re also into productivity stats,” Stilgoe said. “It’s not just delivering a corrections service; we want to know what’s going on.”

There’s also a benefit in working with a small team like DDK that’s “sitting alongside a large company” like Topcon, Gaffney said, when it comes to development and resource allocation.

“We keep our agility of what we can do to develop,” he said. “We’re not lost in those big corporate layers, and that allows us to develop as we have done, but with the added support of Topcon and Iridium behind us. It helps speed up the process of getting these services to market.”

Putting the pieces together

Hardware isn’t an area DDK wants to focus on, they prefer to concentrate on growing and strengthening the service, but it’s Topcon’s expertise. Topcon can bring capabilities like heading to the market faster than a small team that has other areas to focus on, Stilgoe said. This investment will accelerate opportunities for DDK and customers like Oceaneering.

“The strength of Topcon is we bring RTK and receivers, but you need to be a developer,” he said. “That’s why we’re investing, to get inside the development process rather than only offering “off the shelf products which may have been optimized for a different market.”

For Topcon, the investment gives them a channel partner in a new market that they have the hardware to serve, but haven’t pursued. Oceaneering does a lot of offshore and nearshore engineering work, and many of their clients have been Topcon clients. Iridium already partners with the machine manufacturers, so there are synergies with Iridium on the comms side and also the corrections services side.

“There is a machine control element to it as well, where we could expand into nearshore works,” Stilgoe said. “That’s why this is a really important investment. We generate two really strong business partners through this relationship with DDK.”

The products and services can be used nearshore, offshore and onshore, opening up opportunities for both companies.

“This puts together the jigsaw pieces. This trio is unique,” Gaffney said. “And it’s going to allow us to tackle some of the challenges we have in the market.”

The post A Powerful Trio appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Fixposition integrates Topnet Live, using precise and reliable corrections to bring autonomous systems to more applications and more users than ever.

“At Fixposition, we are leading the way towards enabling scalable autonomy,” said the company’s CEO Zhenzhong Su. “The fact is that once you have centimeter-accurate GNSS, and you can fuse that with a stable, vision-based collision avoidance system, in many cases developing an affordable and scalable autonomy solution is not difficult at all.”

Fixposition AG is a Swiss company delivering high-precision global positioning solutions, combining computer vision techniques and satellite navigation to provide accuracy in the open field and in GNSS-challenged environments. When GNSS signals are disrupted, Fixposition vision fusion takes over to maintain the global positioning accuracy. The company’s mantra is ‘precise global position, everywhere’.

To provide that kind of service, Fixposition needs top-flight GNSS corrections. “Before we chose Topnet Live, we actually tested most of the services that are out there,” said Su. “After running a lot of comparisons and listening to our customers, we came up with a list of the things that really matter to them.” Fixposition’s clients’ key needs are, first and foremost, high-quality corrections. “That means one centimeter-accuracy,” Su said. “Decimeter-level won’t do the trick for the customer’s we’re serving.” These include providers of autonomous mowing software and machines, robotic tractors and road sweepers.

“The next thing they want is short time to convergence,” Su said. “It’s about good accuracy but it’s about getting it fast.” Third, they want global coverage. The Topnet Live network is one of the largest GNSS base station networks in Europe and North America. And finally, they want all of that at a good price. “Topnet Live gives us what we need,” said Su, “what our clients want, meeting all the criteria I’ve just outlined. And there’s another advantage compared to other correction services, and that’s that once you have a Topnet Live account, for example in the United States, it works everywhere, across state boundaries, Georgia, Florida, California, without any hang-ups.”

Hitting the ground running

Topnet Live is helping Fixposition customers extend precise operation into areas where it was not possible before. One of Fixposition’s clients is Greenzie, a leading software company out of Atlanta, developing fully autonomous commercial lawnmowers and industrial equipment. Greenzie partners with top OEMs to manufacture Greenzie-equipped, Robotic Ready mowers, sold at outdoor power equipment dealers throughout the U.S.

In a recent YouTube video, the company’s CEO Charles Brian Quinn, also known as ‘CBQ’, said, “This Fixposition device [shown mounted on a big Mean Green Vanquish mower] has been incredible. It includes visual odometry and a rock-solid RTK system that we love working with. We do autonomous mowing, and, previously, to get a very globally accurate position that is unaffected by a lot of the noise, like overhanging trees, we’ve had to rely on expensive hardware and software, but this device does an outstanding job of fusing the visual odometer, which is amazing, along with the RTK and the corrections that we rely on, all in one small package.”

A good start

“Our company was founded six years ago,” Su said. “We’re a spin-off of ETH Zurich, which some people call the European MIT. I still remember when I built my first prototype of RTK GPS, back in 2015 when I was doing my PhD. Now, we’re essentially a software company that develops innovative accuracy services, with deep computer vision sensor fusion.” Fixposition customers can provide additional sensory input. “If you have wheel speed, or even velocity from LiDAR, we can fuse that,” said Su. “We call what we do vision-augmented RTK. Vision RTK-2 is our main product. It’s a positioning system, so we have our own hardware.” Since May 2023, Fixposition customers are able to buy the Vision-RTK-2 bundled with a one-year Topnet Live correction services subscription.

Su said he sees many things changing, with a new movement brewing in the direction of a much wider mass-market user segment for autonomous systems. Using basic GNSS RTK, with precision powered by Topnet Live, Fixposition is pushing cost out of their positioning solution, broadening the span of affordable autonomy to encompass micro mobility, ground-based delivery robots, UAVs and the internet of things. That means a much larger total addressable market is now in play, no longer limited to the early adopters, the specialized, industrial, commercial applications like agriculture and construction.

Breaking out new markets

“I think the industrial market where we see established autonomous solutions will stay more or less the same size,” Su said. “Those users are already running their autonomous systems and are ready to pay a price for their positioning technology. For them, absolute stability and safety play a big role. Things are very different in the consumer market.” Su cited the rising tide of e-scooters now seen in numbers in cities around the world. “The volumes there are huge,” he said, “and the authorities and the operators want to know where these scooters are. So we see a demand rising for positioning precision, and with a GNSS-based solution, with a correction service like Topnet Live, we can get that accurate and affordable fix that fits their need.”

A lower price point means users can deliver products to a larger market, while at the same time stimulating consumer demand. “Once you trigger mass-market demand,” Su said, “You start to see the volumes rising. Tech providers’ costs go down and we have economy of scale.”

Again, Su is careful to distinguish these potential large-volume consumer markets from the professional user segments, where security remains a central constraining factor. “Applications like the self-driving car are operating in open-road scenarios and maneuvering in very complex environments. They need to be concerned about human safety. Now, in the mass consumer autonomy markets that we are talking about, where you can work in clearly delimited and controlled areas, this can be a relatively safe and easy environment, and what the robot is doing is rather repetitive. You designate the area, and have a good motion plan, autopilot, a good algorithm, with an affordable and stable collision avoidance system. You don’t need five LiDARs. We have a customer now using just one LiDAR for collision avoidance. LiDAR does that wonderfully, because it sends up super-dense point clouds.

With plenty of ingenuity and a clear vision for growth, Fixposition could be standing at the forefront of a new wave of precise and profitable autonomous solutions, with Topnet Live providing the edge, with fast, accurate and always available GNSS corrections.

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