GNSS Antenna for Robots

Robots are not only the key to advanced manufacturing, they also play an important part in improving human lifestyle. With the development of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, Internet of Things and sensing, robots have been used in more applications and developed into further classifications, such as security robots, outdoor inspection robots, mower robots, marking robots, etc

Let's take the lawnmower industry as an example.

For the current whole mower industry, the pain point has been very obvious: the navigation information of traditional mowers is mainly provided by visual, acoustic and other sensors, usually by burying cables and using eddy current sensors to determine the working area and conduct navigation. However, these navigation methods have some disadvantages more or less. For example, before the lawn mower works, cables and other equipment need to be laid in advance, and different plots have different requirements for cables. This is a relatively complex preliminary work. The use of cables to enclose the work area and the range of obstacles will largely cause a waste of manpower and capital.

With GNSS technology, high-precision, high-speed real-time precise navigation and positioning can be achieved, and this is the main technical means of outdoor positioning. Outdoor robots can achieve sub-meter, decimeter and centimeter-level positioning accuracy in real time through differential technology, precise single-point positioning technology and other means. Combined with inertial navigation, vision, radar and other sensors, high-precision positioning in various complex environments can be realized.

Mide has been committed to high-precision positioning antenna industry for many years and has deep technology accumulation and advanced products with intellectual property. To meet the increasing needs of robot industry, Mide provides high-precision GNSS antennas that can be designed and produced according to customized requirements. These antennas feature high precision, small size, stable phase center, high gain and good compatibility. At present, Mide high-precision antennas have been widely applied by many lawn mower and marking robot manufacturers at home and abroad.

Solution Introduction

High-precision positioning system of mower mainly includes base station system and vehicle-mounted system:

Base Station

The base station is mainly composed of Beidou/GNSS high-precision module and communication part. The base station provides differential data for the on-board part, so as to achieve centimeter-level positioning at the on-board end.

Vehicle Terminal Part

The vehicle-mounted end part refers to the part installed on the mowing locomotive, mainly including Beidou/GNSS antenna, Beidou/GNSS high-precision module, wireless data transmission module and radio receiving antenna. The onboard part obtains the differential data of the reference station. Three schemes are recommended:

(1) Establish a single base station, base station+vehicle terminal: "1+1" mode, which can obtain differential data through wireless data transmission module;

Applicable to: application scenarios with working range within 10km.

(2)By acquiring local CORS (or ground-based enhancement network) data, the on-board part can log in to the CORS center to obtain differential data through GPRS/4G, which requires GPRS/4G mobile network communication fee and CORS differential data service fee;

Applicable to: the local CORS service is relatively stable, the differential data service fee is low, and the scope of work is relatively large.

(3) Self-built CORS network can build benchmark stations in different places according to their own needs; Only GPRS/4G mobile network communication costs and subsequent base station maintenance costs are required;

Applicable to: application scenarios where the local CORS service is unstable, the differential data service fee is expensive, and the user's work coverage is relatively large.