Hemisphere GNSS enhances Atlas correction service

Hemisphere GNSS released a series of major enhancements to its Atlas GNSS Global Correction Service, including Atlas Basic, Atlas AutoSeed and the addition of global ionospheric modeling to the system.

The company made the announcement at Agritechnica 2017, Nov. 12-18 in Hanover, Germany, where it exhibited in hall 15, booth E10.

Atlas is a flexible and scalable GNSS-based global L-band correction service, providing robust performance and correction data for GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou, the company said. Delivering its correction signals via L-band satellites at accuracies ranging from meter to sub-decimeter levels, Atlas also leverages 200 reference stations worldwide, providing coverage to virtually the entire globe.

Atlas Basic. Hemisphere is now offering Atlas Basic. Atlas Basic provides users of both single- and multi-frequency Atlas-capable hardware the ability to achieve SBAS-equivalent performance anywhere in the world where the Atlas correction service is available.

Atlas Basic offers accuracy of 30 to 50 centimeters (cm): 30 cm is pass-to-pass 95 percent based on 15-minutes convergence time, and 50 cm is absolute 95 percent. Atlas Basic also offers instantaneous sub-meter accuracy, allowing for Differential GPS (DGPS) level accuracy.

Hemisphere is offering Atlas Basic as an activation on all Atlas-capable single- and multi-frequency Hemisphere products purchased before Feb. 1, 2018. Correction service users will no longer need subscriptions for Atlas Basic service levels at 50-cm (95 percent) accuracies.

“Having the ability to easily scale your correction service levels based on specific use cases is essential to our customers and OEM partners,” said Miles Ware, director of marketing at Hemisphere GNSS. “With the addition of Atlas Basic, we are making it easier for anyone with an Atlas-capable single- or multi-frequency, multi-GNSS receiver to achieve sub-meter, SBAS-equivalent positioning accuracy virtually anywhere on earth.”

Global ionospheric modeling. Also included in the enhanced Atlas system is the addition of global ionospheric modeling. Using real-time ionospheric data, Atlas adjusts its corrections accordingly, providing instantaneous convergence for sub-meter accuracy.

AutoSeed. Atlas’ new AutoSeed technology allows users to suspend Atlas use for any period, and upon returning to their last location, AutoSeed rapidly re-converges to a high-accuracy converged position.

* Based on 15-minutes convergence time. Also depends on multipath environment, number of satellites in view, satellite geometry and ionospheric activity.

Atlas is available on all Hemisphere Atlas-capable single- and multi-frequency, multi-GNSS hardware and complements third-party GNSS receivers by allowing them to use Atlas corrections with Hemisphere’s SmartLink and BaseLink capabilities.

When using multi-frequency hardware, Atlas corrects more satellites than ever before, to create faster convergence times, and is robust and reliable in canopy or foliage covered areas.

With both single- and multi-frequency hardware, Atlas achieves instant global sub-meter positioning accuracy, comparable to and typically more robust than SBAS, since Atlas corrections contain data from multiple available constellations, the company said.