Septentrio expands UAV ecosystem for reliable GNSS positioning

Septentrio’s collaboration with major drone solutions providers is driving new products allowing easier prototyping or integration of its Mosaic GNSS receiver into uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs or ‘drones’). The companies Septentrio, a leader in high-precision GNSS positioning solutions, is working with include 3DR, Holybro, ARK Electronics and Systork.  

The Mosaic is a compact triple-frequency receiver leveraging signals from all available GNSS constellations to achieve the highest degree of positioning availability, even under challenging conditions. Built-in anti-jamming and anti-spoofing technology protects Mosaic against intentional or unintentional interference. Such a high level of positioning robustness is important for applications where safety is a concern, such as drone shows and delivery drones. This reliability is also required by UAVs which operate in challenging environments such as around high structures, under foliage or in places of possible radio frequency (RF) interference. In addition to collaborations with hardware integrators, Septentrio also works closely with the open-source autopilot community, including PX4 and Ardupilot, to facilitate a smooth integration process for end users.

High-accuracy positioning for UAVs

“We are pleased to see the success of our current partnerships and are open to working with other integrators who are interested in making UAV-specific products with a competitive edge of superior reliability and resilience. We are also grateful for the excellent support of the community with their recent updates to PX4 and Ardupilot, that include Mosaic features which are essential for UAVs,” commented Gustavo Lopez, market portfolio manager at Septentrio.  

The recently available products that bring reliable high-accuracy positioning to UAVs include Holybro H-RTK mosaic-H (dual antenna heading), 3DR mosaic-X5 CAN GPS, Systork Linnet mosaic-X5 and ARK mosaic-x5 GPS. Such products offer UAV-centred features such as magnetometer, barometer or UAVCAN communication. They also feature the Mosaic module which receives signals from all GNSS constellations including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS, and outputs centimetre-level RTK positioning as well as full GNSS carrier raw data. Dual antenna operation is also supported with mosaic-H for heading-and-pitch or heading-and-roll orientation with sub-degree accuracy. Advanced anti-interference technology AIM+ not only protects the system from malicious jamming and spoofing attacks, but also reduces the risk of self-interference which occurs when nearby electronics like cameras and servos accidentally emit radio signals that interfere with GPS/GNSS.