SBG Systems introduces Quanta Micro INS for UAV surveying

Photo: SBG Systems

SBG Systems has launched the Quanta Micro, a navigation system in an extremely compact form factor with a dual-frequency, quad-constellation GNSS receiver for centimeter position with a high-performance inertial measurement unit (IMU).

The Quanta Micro is a real-time kinematic (RTK) capable, miniature inertial sensor that measures 50 mm x 37 mm x 23 mm and weighs 38 g. Its high-end performance includes centimeter positioning, roll/pitch with less than 0.02° error, and heading with less than 0.06° error. It is suitable for all applications, especially those that have low size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) requirements. Quanta Micro has already been selected for the development of lidar payloads for UAV and mobile-mapping systems.

To achieve such performance in the harshest conditions, Quanta Micro benefits from SBG Systems’ unique experience in designing and manufacturing inertial sensors, including an individual calibration of each of the manufactured sensors across the full range of working temperatures (–40° C to +85° C).

Lidar point cloud of SBG Systems’ head office created using the Quanta Micro. (Photo: SBG Systems)

Despite its compact form factor, Quanta micro embeds all the features usually present in the other SBG inertial sensors: a built-in datalogger, Ethernet connectivity, a PTP server, multiple serial ports, a CAN port and more. It is easy to configure with a user-friendly built-in web interface; but can also be configured using SBG systems’ API or ROS drivers.

While the Quanta Micro supports dual GNSS antenna mode to improve heading accuracy in low dynamic applications, it has been designed to maintain exceptional heading performances even in a single antenna configuration. This makes it the right tool for UAV payloads that cannot embed two GNSS antennas.

Post processing with Qinertia. To further enhance its extreme real-time performances, the data acquired from the Quanta Micro can easily be post-processed using Qinertia: SBG’s own post-processing kinematic tool. This allows users to process the data with tight coupling of the GNSS and inertial data, and a merge of forward and backward solutions allowing it maintain centimeter precision even during multiple seconds of GNSS outages. It also improves heading errors to less than 0.035° and roll/pitch to less than 0.015°.