RTK AUTO STEER

Hi, I am looking at DIY auto steer for my tractor and have been looking at the Sparkfun GPS-RTK2 board or the Sparkfun GPS-RTK-SMA board with the Sparkfun GPS-15192 ROHS antennas for the base and the rover stations. They will have to be able to communicate between each other at least 20km.

Do the boards communicate with each other over that distance?

If I have to get some radios do the above mentioned antennas work with the radio frequencies or do I have to get some different aerials for this purpose?

Thanks

Hi @Elkdon,

I’ll let others chime in regarding appropriate radios and antennas, but I wanted to recommend checking out Roby’s blog at https://deepsouthrobotics.com/ if you haven’t already. He’s got some great posts about the ZED-F9P and building a self-driving mower.

Cheers,

Adam

Similarly interested in an RTK solution for a compact tractor. I’m doing conservation work on my own land, so doesn’t warrant the spend on the integrated solutions that manufacturers or other Ag focused providers sell. Looking for recommendations on a build it myself solution. I have good cell / hot spot service on the property, no wifi otherwise. Very flat terrain with very few trees. Normal android tablet gps gives me an error rate of around 51" and my seeder is roughly 72" and I have a two row planter that has a 30" row width. I’m looking to interseed in between those 30" rows so need around 2.5cm accuracy or better. What would be a good solution from SparkFun? I generally use a mapping ap such as Field Navigator, but interested in what would work best to do the interseeding between rows. Thank you,

Take a look at our RTK products https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=rtk which have +/- 1.4cm; I would likely recommend getting one that has ‘dead reckoning’ which adds in the ability to calibrate/integrate wheel encoders

After exploring a bit and finding one that might suit your needs, click on the “hookup guide” for that product (under documents tab) to get a sense of how you’ll hook it up

Not sure I’m understanding all of the component needs to get to +/- 1.4 CM. Looking at this product, SparkFun GPS-RTK Dead Reckoning Breakout - ZED-F9R (Qwiic). As I understand it, I need one for Rover one for Base? What other boards, add ons are needed to get to the 1.4CM? Correction? Radio communication between the Rover and Base? Recommendation? Is a Point Perfect subscription needed and what’s the cost for very low usage. Maybe less than 60 hours a year. I’d have cellular with wifi at the Rover available but no wifi at the base available, it would be mobile. Rover can get power at the tractor, but Base would need power via battery as there is no power on the land. Any insight to pull this together would be much appreciated.

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/sp … okup-guide

Is that the most cost effective way to get there? Looking to get 2.5CM accuracy roughly. By the time you do all the add ons are you in the same cost position and have a lot more equipment to integrate and higher potential things don’t work?

Thanks for all of the input.

“Cost effective” depends largely on your skills and what you consider your own time to be worth.

If you have serious doubts that you can put together a complex system and make it work, then it might be more cost effective to buy a commercial system.

In addition to the RTK location system, how will you steer the tractor, implement obstacle avoidance, handle equipment failures and errors?

I’m enlisting my son to assist. He’s a software engineer. I think we can figure it out with the online guidance and hope to have a project we can do together.

On steering, planning to do manual for now. My compact tractor not equipped from factory so would take some work. Future project. Key for me is accuracy to interseed between 30" rows. Manual may or may not work. We’ll see.

As always, thank you!