RTKCAN Project

31.12.2022 update

Testing for the prototypes is now complete and system is ready to start. I will start with car customers and motorcycles will come later. You can read details from this page: 

Accuracy is better than originally thought and it stays in RTK better than expected. Below is a picture from a 40km test drive, 95% was RTK. Black areas are mainly tunnels. So, RTKCAN can provide 5cm accuracy in yellow areas. 

 

 

RTK stands for Real Time Kinematics and I tried it already 2012 but technology wasn't ready then. It is time to try it again as things have progressed. But, this will be a very challenging project, especially difficult for motorcycles. Reason is that RTK requires a lot of available satellites and strong signals for the correction to work.

Project Phases

1. PPP - Precise Point Positioning without correction data. This setup is viable also for motorcycles. Data is post processed with base station RINEX data. 

2. RTK - Real Time Kinematics where the assistance data is sent to vehicle using a radio. This would be quite difficult to do for motorcycles since radio would be needed.

Requirements

These are my requirements for the project to be successful:

• Base station: No settings, just connect the base receiver to power and let it be.
• Vehicle: Compact size, target is to fit it to GPSCAN housing.
• Easy to setup. Plug & Play would be ideal.
• Post processing should be simple, with kml file output
• Accuracy: 20 - 10cm.

 

Test1 Result

First proper test was done 25.11.2022 and was done just to see if there is potential for the system to work. Test went surprisingly well, rounds were within 4 cm. 

Red = Original GPS data, not PPP corrected

Yellow: Corrected PPP data

Test2, How does it compare against normal GPS?

Accuracy is about 5cm, all rounds were within 5cm. But, this is quite easy test since the antenna was on the roof and speed is low. Interesting to see how this works when installed on the bike. Will happen next week so stay tuned.