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0 pointspithon3y ago0 comments

The value of RTK is partially that they are stationary and can average out noise over time to get an accurate position estimate, but mostly that they're sending you their live signal measurements so you can cancel out biases common to receivers which are geographically co-located.

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bradknowles3y ago· 2 in thread

Your reference point is stationary, yes. But not your Rover units.

For RTK to be really useful for surveying a site, you need both the stationary reference unit and the Rovers.

defrost3y ago

TBH having live real time position error transmitted to live in motion "local area" moving bodies (drones | aircraft | vehicles | missiles) is useful for live dynamic tasks (shooting the enemy) .. but not especially useful for surveying per se.

I spent decades in high precision geophysical surveying using ground stations (fixed GPS recievers) and craft (aircraft | helicopters | etc) and it was common practice to collect data and post process ... merge airframe GPS data and ground station corrections in conjunction with other numerical corrections .. at the end of day.

For various forms of survey you really want to not transmit to|from your airframer "live" in any case - for EM | magnetic survey that's just another source of noise best dealt with by having everything not required switch off.

I concede the value for regular ground site survey tasks .. there's no downside to transmitting and applying corrections in real time - but it's not strictly required and for some forms of surveying it's preferable to record raw unaltered data and apply fixes later with the option of rolling back | examining the raw | etc.

bradknowles3y ago

I can see the value of recording the raw data at the time and then applying the corrections after the fact. I'm sure there are applications for that mode of operations.

But for the ground surveying and ground control RTK equipment I've been looking at, you do want to apply those corrections in real time. For example, if you're controlling a tractor that is pulling a lot of heavy equipment through a field of crops, and you want to make sure you line up correctly on the product being farmed (e.g., corn), you want to make sure that your tractor goes exactly where you want it to go, and in real time.

In my mind, that's what Real Time Kinetics is all about.

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