We are happy to announce the introduction of Intelligent Marking's robotic sports field painting robot!

This outstanding technology is now being use in Football fields accross USA and Europe, reducing enormously the efforts to mantain the turf markings with the highest accuracy thanks to a propietary navigation algorithm and having in its heart North's RTKite L1+L2 GNSS RTK Receiver, coupled with an SmaRTK RTK Base to ensure maximum stability on every condition.

The Intelligent One robot can be seen in operation on this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaMb-esJ75o

The RTKite, that weights just a few grams and SmaRTK integrated receivers can be ordered from: http://gnssrtkmodule.com/

Hello friends!

We are introducing the new Professional Protogrammetry Quadcopter Harfang RTK. This is a Ready to Fly Drone, aimed to Professional users with a Low Price point and High End features. Flies 30+ minutes and complies with "light weight" standards! 

Based on the familiar Pixhawk Autopilot, a mainframe made by France's Lab4Drone and broadly used Spain's North RTKite GNSS RTK receiver, the Harfang RTK is fully made in Europe and supplied worldwide.

The RTKite GNSS Receivers allows to eliminate or minimize the GCP on the field while incredibly stabilizing the navigation with its millimetric real time accuracy. It can connect directly to the available NTRIP CORS stations with its onboard mobile cellular modem, Receive corrections from an RTK Ground base by GPRS through the exclusive AutoCaster system or use the Pixhawk RF from the ground control to receive the RTK corrections from an SmaRTK Base receiver.

This carefully crafted collaboration between a high-end drone producer and a professional RTK supplier, makes sure that the integration is seamless and the most easy to use out of the box.

The exclusive Patented drone mainframe is designed from high-quality carbon fiber rods and a simplistic Snap-On design where the spare parts can be produced in house by the end user by simple rod cutting and 3D-Printing if needed, greatly reducing the repairment costs on site.

The Harfang RTK Drone with North RTKite GNSS RTK Receiver, comes with a selection of entry-level Sony Camera, Professional Sigma camera or Multi-Spectral Parrot Sequoya camera, to fit most purposes.

Regarding the GNSS it can operate on either Single, RTK (Real Time Kinematic) millimetric, PPK (Post Processed Kinematic) millimetric and a vast array of data logs and formats including all the NMEA standards, Novatel's Raw and Bestpos, RTCM, Trimble's CRM, RINEX and many more.

The Harfang RTK drone, as well as the RTKite receiver and the ground SmaRTK Base receivers can be easily ordered online and you can contact us at North Group for any special set configuration not available as ready-made sets.

Just drop us a message!

Hello! Our Friend Bagus Darmawan from Indokopter (from Indonesia) has made this video where he demonstrates his integration of the North's RTKite GNSS RTK Double Frequency L1+L2 Receiver (http://northsurveying.com/index.php/instruments/gnss-rtk-receiver) into a Microkopter frame receiving RTCM3.x RTK corrections from a ground Base, a North SmaRTK GNSS receiver (http://northsurveying.com/index.php/instruments/gpsrtkreceiver), broadcasting by GSM / GPRS mobile network using our P2P Autocaster technology for professional photogrammetry on a fully controlled shutter. We think is a superb example!

See the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDl_o1zsRNM

This was part of his Thesis comparing the standard L1 GPS, L1-Only RTK and L1+L2 RTK into photogrammetry, we think this is information that would be important to all, so you can review the full document here!: RTK UAV Photogrammetry Thesis

The RTKite L1+L2 receiver allows the drone to capture geotags with millimetric accuracy (4mm +/-1 RMS) thus elliminating or reducing the need of GCP greatly.

We have just simplified the camera integration with this ready-made kit:

The SmaRTK receiver, is a fully integrated rugged L1+L2 RTK receiver, ready to broadcast corrections by Mobile Phone networks, UHF datalink or the user's own RF, it actually has the same GNSS capabilities as the RTKite and can be used to locate millimetrically the GCP and connect to CORS stations worldwide, or be a CORS station itself, with a great price!

A full photogrammetry system -professional level- can then be integrated at around 15-20,000usd and can be easily compared to systems on the range of 50-70,000usd commercially available.

This is a sample of the data output of the RTK working in real time at 10Hz, being corrected from a CORS station at 1Hz or less: RTKite Data output test.

If you want to see, order or test the RTKite for your projects, we now have a direct webstore accepting credit cards!, just visit here: http://www.gnssrtkmodule.com/

All our instruments are designed, produced and shipped from Barcelona.

Find out more at:

http://northsurveying.com/
http://www.indokopter.com/

The RTKITE receiver is being integrated right now in all these futuristic solutions, including vineyard robot helpers, selfdriving buses, industrial geology and facility inspecting drones, high speed planting robots, auto-steering agricultural systems, and many more!

The professional grade RTKITE is a complete GPS SOM Receiver (System On Module), based on the globally tested SmaRTK GNSS technology, using the same components and with the same SmartOS running on its powerful processor, has been reduced to a minimal module that is ready for immediate integration into any high or medium level application that requires true Real Time Millimetric positioning, without any limitation with full compatibility and high speed.

- Supports GPS, GLONASS, COMPASS, SBAS satellites on L1, L2, L5, etc.

- Compatible with CORS, RTK, DGPS, PPS, PPK, LBAS and every professional Navigation, Positioning or Surveying mode.

- Able to geotag pictures or events at instantaneously at 1 THz.

- RTK navigation at 20 Hz included.

- Internally logs and formats Events with GPS, IMU and Compass.

- Integrated GSM/GPRS quad-band modem to Broadcast RTK corrections (RTCM, CRM, etc) or receive from standard CORS stations or another RTK receiver.

- Compatible with any RF (UHF, VHF etc) radiomodem and is supplied with a professional 2W Tx/Rx module.

- Works as Base or Rover with many modes selected by software: (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.northsurveying.smartosconfig)

- Compact and light, less than 100 grams, including GNSS antenna.

- Includes SD card memory slot, Bluetooth module, and ports for Serial/USB interfase, IMU/Compass, 4 indicator leds, Trigger, Mode selection, Rx/Tx, and more.

- And it's Simple, Complete and Low Cost!

You can see its full details here: GNSS RTKITE Receiver

And if you have any question we are always available for one to one communication, write to: emea@northgps.com

North is a fully european company supported by the European Space Agency and located in Barcelona, Spain.

Dear friends, I would like to introduce you the RTKite GNSS RTK L1+L2 module receiver.

http://northsurveying.com/index.php/instruments/gnss-rtk-receiver

Designed specifically for Pro and Semi-pro UAV, Robotics and Industrial applications, it connects directly to the Pixhawk and other autopilots and is specific for millimetric Photogrammetry, LIDAR Scans, Themography, etc.

The RTKite is a full Receiver (not a basic GNSS board) with an internal OS that can connect directly to standard CORS stations with its embedded GSM/GPRS cellular modem, can be configured and operated by Bluetooth, COM or TTL communications and can be set with our freeware for Android, Windows PC or WindCE or Linux, or even with text string commands.

It also can receive and transmit RTCM or CRM correction signals by UHF radio or our unique AutoCaster system that allows direct link connection by the integrated mobile modem with an stable transmission range of 75Km on Fixed position.

In is in fact a miniaturization of our professional surveying RTK receiver SmaRTK, (first generation released on 2012), and is compatible with our unique AutoCaster system for direct Base to Rover cellular data link.

Below, an Autocaster test on a modified DJI drone with Pixhawk and the RTKite GNSS with the lightweight helical antenna.