Components Set Up
The RTK Surveyor was made to work well with inexpensive, off the shelf machines. Here we’ll explain tips assemble a Rover and Base.
Rover
Found here is the popular RTK Rover setup. A monopole made for digital cameras is employed. A cell phone holder is actually clamped towards monopod and RTK Surveyor was mounted. The ?” digital camera bond from the monopole try modified to ?” 11-TPI and a L1/L2 antenna was connected. A Male TNC to men SMA wire links the antenna with the RTK Surveyor. No radio required because RTCM modification information is supplied by a phone over Bluetooth.
We accomplished plenty of testing because of the u-blox L1/L2 antenna and it’s very good for the cost and size. Mounted to a ground plate you’ll get accomplishment. It is simply a little ungainly whenever installed to reach the top of a monopole. I encourage the ‘ufo’ style L1/L2 antennas simply because they have a bigger antenna factor and a slightly large ground jet as compared to u-blox antenna.
If you are buying a monopole (aka monopod), acquire one this is certainly 65” in total or deeper to ensure that the antenna is above the head. We’ve had best of luck utilizing the Amazon Essentials brand.
We strongly suggest against utilizing a stiff helical antenna configuration as shown below. The RTK Surveyor isn’t designed for such options and can lead to long lasting injury to the antenna connector. The helical antenna turns out to be extreme lever supply. If unit try dropped this lever is capable of harming both SMA connector and the spot where the connector was soldered on PCB.
If you’re shopping for a cell phone clamp make sure you acquire one this is certainly compatible with the diameter of monopole and also a knob to boost clamp stress. All of our monopole is 27mm in diameter and we’ve had an effective knowledge about this clamp and also this clamp. Your own usage can vary greatly.
If you are receiving RTCM correction data over a radio connect it’s recommended that your add a radio toward back for the RTK Surveyor.
Picture hanging strips from 3M make an excellent semi-permanent mount. Plug the 4-pin to 6-pin JST cable tv incorporated with the RTK Surveyor through the broadcast port to either from the Serial Telemetry Radios (shipped in pairs). We actually love these radios since they’re combined from the field, either can send or obtain (as a result it doesn’t matter which broadcast is actually attached to base or rover) and they have great selection. We attained over a mile selection (almost 1.5 miles or 2.4km) using 500mW radios and a big 915MHz antenna on the base (discover this information for more info).
Temporary Base
A short-term or mobile base setup is required when you are on the go too far from a correction origin and/or cell reception. A 2nd RTK Surveyor try mounted to a tripod as well as being configured to complete a survey-in (aka, locate itself), subsequently began broadcasting RTCM modification information. This facts (
1000 bytes the next) is sent on customer’s attached broadcast of choice. In regards to our uses, the 915MHz 500mW telemetry radios are used because they create understanding essentially a serial cable tv between the base and rover.
Any tripod with a ?” camera bond will work fine. The Amazon fundamentals tripod is very effective enough but is some lightweight and rickety. A cell phone owner is clamped into the tripod while the RTK Surveyor is actually held in clamp. The ?” digital camera bond was modified to ?” 11-TPI and a L1/L2 antenna is actually connected. A Male TNC to Male SMA adapter connects the antenna to your RTK Surveyor.
After the base has-been set-up with an obvious look at the sky, push the Setup switch to “Base” and switch the system on. The purple driven will blink for 60-120 mere seconds. Once the study is done the reddish LED might be constantly lit up and RTCM data will begin to be aired. You can examine this by viewing the LEDs from the telemetry broadcast (limited purple directed will blink whenever serial information is got through the RTK Surveyor). The RTK Surveyor was designed to follow the u-blox ideal survey-in of 1960s and a mean 3D standard deviation of 5m of fixes. If a study fails to achieve these demands it is going to auto-restart after 10 minutes.
More expensive surveyor bases bring a ?” 11-TPI thread nevertheless the top of surveyor base usually hinder the antenna’s TNC connector. In the event that you decided to use a surveyor’s ‘stick’ definitely acquire a ?” extender plate to increase the antenna about an inch.
If you are buying a mobile phone clamp definitely get one that’s suitable for the diameter of your own tripod and contains a knob to improve clamp stress. The tripod was 18mm in diameter and we’ve have an excellent experience with this clamp. Your usage can vary greatly.
Note: a cellular base place works well for rapid travels for the field. However, the survey-in strategy is not advised for any greatest reliability specifications since the positional accuracy for the base will right translate toward reliability of this rover. Stated in a different way, in case your base’s calulcated situation was down by 100cm, thus will any checking out the rover tends to make. If you’re selecting maximum accuracy think about installing a static base with fixed antenna. We had been able to pinpoint the antenna on the top of SparkFun with an incredible reliability +/-2mm of accuracy using PPP!