Technical Papers

TECHNICAL PUBLICATION Trimble has released receiver platforms with upgraded processors and the latest Trimble Maxwell 7 GNSS ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit). This allows positions to be delivered to control systems with minimal latency while also reducing overall power consumption. BENEFITS OF TRIMBLE PROPOINT ENGINE To understand the advantages of including the ProPoint Positioning Engine in your application we shall review the key value drivers in terms of accuracy, availability and integrity. Many position systems can provide some of these attributes but we believe that ticking all the boxes will deliver the positioning and orientation necessary to make your product truly successful. In head-to-head testing with the previous generation RTK/RTX engine in challenging GNSS environments such as near and among trees, and built environments, the Trimble ProPoint Engine performed at least 30 percent better across a variety of factors, including time to achieve centimeter precision levels, position accuracy and measurement reliability. Accuracy Open sky guidance and control applications have been benefiting from the centimeter accuracy of RTK for over 20 years. Unfortunately most real world autonomous applications operate in challenging environments where satellite line of sight can be impaired. Trees, buildings, bridges and other obstacles both block and reflect incoming signals. The Trimble ProPoint Engine in GNSS only mode with its flexible signal management and optimal single filter approach delivers centimeter-level accuracy results under tree canopy where at best decimeter level accuracies could be obtained in the past. For applications where most of the sky is blocked, the integration of IMU measurements into the engine offers the best solution. The ProPoint Engine tightly integrates the available GNSS and IMU measurements delivering centimeter-level accuracy and orientation during these events. The latency of the computed results is also an important factor in autonomous vehicle control. A position may be very accurate but if it is delayed then it has little value to system performance and safety. The ProPoint engine produces positions and orientations with less than 20 milliseconds latency at update rates up to 100Hz. Availability It has long been a goal as a company to deliver centimeter precision for everyone everywhere. Allowing our customers to operate in more difficult environments expands the variety of potential applications and a better return on investment for the end user of the technology. ProPoint in GNSS only and GNSS/INS modes deliver centimeter-level accuracy in denser tree canopy and high rise urban environments where historical engines would struggle. Both on-road and off-road vehicles operating close to buildings or under bridges continue to achieve close to 100% availability of position and orientation. Users in RTK mode benefit from the integrated xFill technology to allow continued operation when the correction source is lost. This boosts availability over that achieved by RTK users that are not leveraging PPP technology to bridge loss of corrections from the local base. Integrity Providing accurate precision estimates is critical to centimeter-level control of autonomous machines. Applications depend on these horizontal and vertical indicators to know when TRANSFORMING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS

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