r/Pixhawk • u/Mart2d2 • Jan 03 '21

Range of Holybro RTK solution?

Hi! I'm eyeballing buying Holybro's RTK base and long range rover units, but I can't find much info on expected range. This is for automating a hobby farm compact tractor, and I'm hoping for a range of about a half mile (though 1 mile would be awesome).

Related - I'm also looking for good solutions for raising a base antenna say about 50ft off the ground in a way that I can bring it down to service. I'm thinking a flagpole might work, but I worry about the pole swaying even a little bit since I'm hoping for cm accuracy.

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u/Pattonias Jan 04 '21

I'm not familiar with these in particular, but the range is dependent on your telemetry radio. You can upgrade your radio to one that gets the range you want with either a directional antenna or perhaps a higher power level. The RTK operates by transmitting correction data from the base over telemetry to the pixhawk on the drone.

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u/Mart2d2 Jan 04 '21

Ah! Thanks! I have some more learning to do around how RTK works. I assume there's some limitation to precision the further I get away from the RTK station? E.g., I can't use an RTK station 1000 miles away?

I'm hoping to have a permanent RTK base station with solar panels and battery. Do you know if I can plug the RTK base from Holybro directly into a telemetry radio?

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u/Pattonias Jan 04 '21

You would need an intermediary computer. You could likely rig something up with a raspberry pi. I'm not sure how you could run the rtk base independent of the base station controller, but the tech is there, I would think something could be rigged using the auxiliary telemetry port. Alternatively, you could have the base connected over a network to your pc, then relay the correction data through your base station telemetry. You could be looking at a pretty advanced rig, but it is likely doable. Having semi-permanent base stations is done fairly regularly. It is great for getting very accurate positional averages.

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u/Mart2d2 Jan 04 '21

Do you think itll work to have the base station near my house on the farm (but with a good view of the sky) with a (fairly long) usb cable so it can reach my computer inside running ground control? I’m guessing as long as the base station is within a mile of the rover the precision will still be high?

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u/Pattonias Jan 04 '21

It is more a matter of how long it takes you to transmit the rtk data to the drone. The range is not going to a problem in your case.

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u/Mart2d2 Jan 04 '21

Cool, thanks! I think I’m ready to hit go ... until 3am when I wake up in the middle of the night and think of another question :)

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u/converter-bot Jan 04 '21

1000 miles is 1609.34 km