Integrating RTK GPS

[FluidPowerTom]

Has anyone done or looked into integrating RTK GPS into one of these systems?  These are the very expensive centimeter-accuracy GPS solutions.

[Beezkneez]

We have done a handful of them, and yes they are expensive. I recommend AgLeader, they seemed to be the most cost effective and didn't have to sacrifice performance. That is what we found to be the case anyway. We had used Trimble prior to AgLeader.

[Beezkneez]

I forgot to mention companies like Swift Nav. They offer centimeter accuracy RTK at a much lower cost. I think the major difference there is that a lot more software development is involved to integrate them in comparison to a complete system like AgLeader or Trimble.

[FluidPowerTom]

So did you actually integrate the coordinates or direction commands from the GPS receiver into the Autonomous Control Library functions using a XM100 and use it for some degree of autonomy?  Did you get the coordinates over CAN or RS232 or something else?

[Beezkneez]

We did these applications a few years back, before the Autonomous control library or the XM100 was available. What we actually did was used the steer left/right command signals from the AgLeader/Trimble controller, routed them to input pins of an MC050-110 and converted that voltage signal on the input pin into a PWM signal to our own steering valve. Not the best way or cleanest way to do it, but it worked great for us. The only trick to it was we had to add resistors to the output signal of the GPS controller to create a load to get a good reading on the input pin of the Danfoss controller.

I think with what is available now, the best solution would be get the RTK GPS coordinates from something like a Swift Nav system and then route them through the XM100 using the autonomous control library.