Smart antenna rides steady on uneven ground

Photo: Harxon

Today, many field operations — sowing, tilling, planting, cultivating, weeding and harvesting — rely on satellite-based autonomous guidance technology for agricultural machines. Yet farmers are still challenged by poor signal tracking, signal interference, communication instability and heading inaccuracy in tough environments, such as on uneven ground or slopes or under dense tree canopy. Because of insufficiently advanced navigation technology, ordinary machines fail to achieve the high efficiency expected and might even cause safety hazards. Therefore, the market has been awaiting a high-performance smart antenna with centimeter-level accuracy.

Harxon’s Smart Antenna TS112 PRO provides scalable and reliable positioning solutions for tough agricultural environments, such as uneven ground or fields with underground cables, as well as complicated weather conditions, including rain, fog and dust clouds.

The TS112 PRO integrates in one compact enclosure Harxon’s four-in-one GNSS/4G/Bluetooth/Wi-Fi antenna and a Hexagon | NovAtel OEM GNSS module. The multi-constellation GNSS antenna is designed with Harxon X-Survey technology and features multi-point feeding with high gain and wide beam width, which ensures high phase-center stability for ultimate RTK centimeter-level positioning accuracy. This is realized by subscribing to the Ntrip service via the LTE network to receive corrections or by setting up a local base station to broadcast corrections by radio.

The Hexagon | NovAtel OEM GNSS module is default-enabled for RTK, offering precise positioning and advanced interference mitigation for space-constrained applications and challenging environments. Additionally, users can achieve globally available centimeter-level positioning accuracy by using TerraStar satellite-delivered L-band correction services, with no need to set up an expensive network infrastructure.

TS112 PRO guarantees pass-to-pass accuracy down to 20 centimeters, where relative positioning is critical. It can also provide smoother steering and straighter rows by reducing positioning jumps that might occur during RTK signal outages or when a smart antenna changes positioning modes. Its terrain compensation algorithm is capable of correcting deviations caused by a vehicle’s roll and pitch while working on uneven ground or slopes.