Quectel’s RTK Correction Services enable cm-level accuracy across five continents

Precise location positioning is a fundamental requirement for IoT applications from robotic lawnmowers to ride-sharing vehicles to accurate asset tracking and safety applications. To ensure accurate positioning, vast numbers of devices have adopted global navigation satellite system (GNSS) positioning which provides an excellent solution for much of the time. However, GNSS suffers from signal errors, obstructed signals and the multipath effect which means that sometimes device locations cannot be accurately communicated. Multipath errors occur when a satellite signal reaches the receiver from two or more paths.

One technique to address many of the positioning challenges is real-time kinetic (RTK) positioning, a technique that utilizes a nearby reference station with known coordinates or a network of reference stations, also known as NetworkRTK, to provide correction data in real-time via a cellular, broadcast radio or satellite carrier. RTK involves calculating the distance between a satellite navigation receiver and a satellite from the time it takes for a signal to travel from the satellite to the receiver. In this way, RTK correction services provide accuracy enhancements up to about 20km from the base station.

RTK in contrast to GNSS uses the known positions of fixed reference stations to compute corrections for these issues and applies them in real-time to achieve enhanced positional accuracy. Positioning capability is further strengthened by adding dead reckoning (DR) technology in situations when GNSS is unstable or unusable.

The advantages of RTK correction services for GNSS IoT devices

By adopting multi-band GNSS, RTK and DR technologies, businesses can achieve unprecedented levels of accuracy and reliability in positioning. The benefits include improved operational efficiency, enhanced safety and expanded possibilities for IoT deployments. As the IoT market continues to grow, accurate positioning will play a pivotal role in unlocking its full potential, and RTK, allied to DR, are essential capabilities for a rapidly growing marketplace of applications that relies on accurate and robust location.

RTK isn’t always necessary and for many use cases such as navigation, tracking and location-based services GNSS positioning is adequate. For example, knowing the approximate position of a ship on the ocean or tracking a delivery van on its route. However, other applications need far greater precision. Use cases in land surveying, construction, agriculture, robotics and some logistics services can need highly precise positioning that is accurate down to just a few centimeters.

This is where Quectel’s RTK Correction Services come in. The company has partnered with multiple best-in-class modern base station owners to ensure customers benefit from cm-level accuracy in industries as diverse as precision farming and mining, to micromobility and telematics, and it can now offer RTK correction service across five continents.

A recent series of Quectel Masterclasses,  ‘Democratizing precision with Quectel’s RTK Correction Services’, addressed the different challenges of the APAC, EMEA and North American markets, with a session for each region. Presented by Mark Winton, GNSS Product Manager at Quectel, the sessions explain that while RTK is an excellent supplement to standalone GNSS and helps to mitigate the common shortcomings, it comes with its own limitations. RTK does not for instance resolve multipath issues or poor visibility, which is where the DR technique is also needed.

This Masterclass discussed the limitations of RTK and the need for dead reckoning, while also introducing Quectel’s advanced RTK testing tools, RTK-capable modules and global RTK Correction Services. The regional variants of the Masterclass can be viewed below.