I have a drone whose flight control software runs on a RPi 4. The drone itself has GPS & RTK receivers/antennas on the rear 2 of 4 motor arms. The issue is that the RTK update rate is too slow for my requirements, so I wanted to supplement it with a RTK breakout or pHAT board using the Mosaic-x5 or the ZED-F9P or the LG290P.
My questions are that with either the breakout or the pHAT boards, with a 3-band Helical antenna:
(1) how easy is it to get the RTK coordinates from either the USB or Serial ports?
(2) How easy is it to minimize signal interference with 3-antennas on the drone.
I was thinking of starting with the LG290P breakout board and then if that works with RTK, I would get the Mosaic-X5 board with the higher update rate. All of my code is in C/C++ and I have written code to work with serial ports, but my experience is limited. Any help is appreciated.
The GNSS antennas don’t produce any interference.
The ESC’s and motors on the Quad produce EMI (noise), but adding a 3’rd antenna doesn’t add any noise.
If (by chance) you want a higher update rate for EXIF data on photos, you might have better options than adding another RTK System. But obviously I’m just guessing at what’s driving that requirement
(1) how easy is it to get the RTK coordinates from either the USB or Serial ports?
Very Easy…that’s how most function out of the box
I need it to be via some API, so that I can get at it programmatically.
atin_kothari:
(2) How easy is it to minimize signal interference with 3-antennas on the drone.
The GNSS antennas don’t produce any interference.
The ESC’s and motors on the Quad produce EMI (noise), but adding a 3’rd antenna doesn’t add any noise.
If (by chance) you want a higher update rate for EXIF data on photos, you might have better options than adding another RTK System. But obviously I’m just guessing at what’s driving that requirement
I guess I’ll just have to try it out with the helical antenna.
I’m a big fan of the PostCard when incorporating RTK into a device or product. With it’s onboard ESP32 - it’s easy to configure the PostCard to output whatever you need.
The product page claims up to a 20 Hz Update Rate, but that feels optimistic, to me
It might make 20 Hz… I’ve honestly never tried.
I have tested close to 10 different models of Helical Antennas with the PostCard.
I was pleasantly surprised with the repeatability of most, if not all…given the tiny size of those lil critters.
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atin_kothari: