I was looking at using the GPS-RTK board on a rover (outdoor robot). Trying to figure out antenna options. I looked at the ublox white paper and a magnetic antenna on a car roof is ok, but a robot won’t have as large a metal surface. Without a ground plane things don’t look good. Does this mean that this isn’t really a good solution for a rover?
Chris
Hi Chris.
You don’t need a whole lot of metal to make a ground plane. A 4" diameter disc of steel like [one of these would work and a magnetic antenna will stick right too it.
If you need to keep weight down, a 4" disc of thin steel or even aluminum will work too.](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15004)
Ok cool. The word ground was making me think it had to be attached to the ground.
Hi Chris,
Here’s a good white paper from u-blox about the performance of low-cost antennas. It talks about ground planes as well.
https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/0/c/0/1 … 10559_.pdf
Cheers,
Adam