u-blox' new low-speed inertial guidance calibration technology enables centimeter-level positioning for low-speed autonomous driving applications
U-blox high-precision sensor fusion solution empowers low-speed autonomous driving industrial applications such as unmanned lawnmowers and electric scooters to achieve high levels of driver control and position availability.
u-blox (SIX:UBXN), a leading global provider of positioning and wireless communication technologies and services, recently announced the release of new firmware for the ZED-F9R positioning module, which improves positioning accuracy from decimeters to centimeters for low-speed application scenarios, such as unmanned lawnmowers, electric scooters and bike sharing. Based on the ZED-F9R high-precision sensor fusion module, the u-blox ZED-F9R-02B is designed for low-speed autonomous driving and industrial applications, and is plug-and-play, easy to deploy, and allows for quick access to high-precision positioning even in urban environments with poor signal.
ZED-F9R adopts u-blox F9 multi-frequency RTK Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology platform, which can track satellite signals from up to four GNSS constellations at the same time, and can quickly achieve centimeter-level positioning accuracy. In addition, the ZED-F9R's built-in GNSS positioning algorithm incorporates data from the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), GNSS calibration data, wheel speed information, and vehicle dynamics models (especially built-in dynamics models for unmanned lawnmowers, electric scooters, and low-speed cars) to provide excellent positioning accuracy even in the event of a GNSS positioning failure.
The ZED-F9R-02B also offers the u-blox GNSS correction data service. This service is broadcast in a highly scalable State Space Representation (SSR) format, making it easier to deliver fast-to-market precision positioning solutions.
In low-speed application scenarios, the ZED-F9R solution is targeted to optimize the built-in inertial guidance algorithms, which greatly improves the positioning accuracy of low-speed autonomous driving applications such as unmanned lawnmowers. For example, based on the centimeter-level position output of ZED-F9R, the unmanned lawn mower abandons the previous method of pulling wires to set up the working area, and realizes that the mowing area can be accurately delineated in the software to avoid shrubs or other non-operating areas, which is suitable for all kinds of complex lawn mowing scenarios. In addition, the unmanned mower is able to optimize the path according to the previous path, in order to improve the efficiency of lawn mowing.
U-blox industrial navigation and robotics product manager Alex Ngi said: “ Our new ZED-F9R-02B high-precision module is a turnkey, high-precision sensor fusion solution that helps product designers quickly bring products to market without having to validate high-precision and inertial navigation algorithms from scratch. ”
ZED-F9R-02B supports a variety of correction services including SPARTN format. Unlike the traditional OSR (Observation Spatial Representation) correction service, which requires two-way communication between GNSS receivers and correction service providers, the SPARTEN-based SSR correction service broadcasts the correction signals to receivers all over the continent, and therefore it is able to provide high-accuracy GNSS positioning services to a large number of end-users in an efficient manner. It can efficiently provide high-precision GNSS positioning services to a large number of end-users, realizing higher scalability and security of private data.
