Precision Autonomy

Hello all,

I’m designing an automated rover that needs to be able to travel in a straight line with centimeter accuracy (i.e., travel along a fence without touching the fence.) I found the controller I want to use (HKPilot32 (a Pixhawk clone)) and the GPS unit I would like to use (Swift Nav Piksi RTK). What I need to know is if I need to run 2 Piksi’s to achieve RTK lock or can I get centimeter accuracy with just 1? If I need 2 GPS modules, can 1 be the piksi and the other be a Ublox Neo-8? And finally, would 1 of the GPS modules need to be on a base station or could I run them both on the rover? Should i ditch the GPS all together and simply use sonar and optical flow sensors? Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance.

I’m working on a very similar project. My rover uses a pixhawk with a piksi RTK GPS and a 2nd standard GPS module as the backup. In order to use the piksi RTK system, a base station with it’s own piksi module is required (it has to be a piksi). So far, I haven’t been able to get the rover to drive in a straight line accurately. A lot of time has been spent on tuning the steering controller without much success. The biggest problem for me is a “compass variance” error, no matter how accurately I calibrate the compass. I am not sure if the GPS module plays any role in this problem, but I am looking into LIDAR or vision-based navigation. Let me know how your project goes.

Hi,

in this case, you need RTK system to provide the centimeter coordinates solution. Usually RTK is very expensive equipment used in land survey area, we’ve designed a system also can do very good RTK solution targeting the UAV market, if you have interest you can have a look. tersus-gnss.com; in the web site, we have data sheet, user manual and price.

also here:

diydrones.com/forum/topics/low-c … e=activity

Winston

Hi Winston. Do you have your RTK system in a working ArduPilot vehicle? I’d love to see the video.
Thanks, Grant.