These days, SBG inertial navigation solutions are something of an industry standard. It’s no doubt because the company announces new and improved products regularly—as they’ve just done with the Navsight Land/Air solution.
SBG says the integrated solution is designed as “full high performance inertial navigation solution” that makes “surveyors’ mobile data collection easier” for a variety of applications, including GIS, mobile mapping, and road inspection. As the name indicates, it is specified for use in both aerial and land-based, mobile data collection.
Specs
The system consists of an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and Navsight, a processing unit that includes an embedded GPS/GNSS receiver (RTK, PPP ready, internal logger, etc.). The Navsight can also connect to a GNSS receiver of your choosing, and handles all data fusion functionality by connecting to your external equipment like lidar, cameras, computers, and other sensors you use during data collection.
Notably, Land/Air offers you the choice of two SBG IMUs at different levels of accuracy: the Ekinox (spec’ed to be compact and more affordable) and the Apogee (spec’ed to offer a better price/performance ratio.)
If you choose the Ekinox, you’ll get 0.015° roll/pitch, 0.03° heading on land with a single antenna, 0.1° heading in the air with a single antenna, and 0.03° in the air with a dual-antenna setup.
If you choose the Apogee, you’ll get 0.005° roll/pitch, 0.02° heading on land with a single antenna, 0.04° heading in the air with a single antenna, and 0.025° in the air with a dual-antenna setup.
The Navsight also features odometer aiding, which sees the solution fusing its internal sensor data with a vehicle’s odometer for better performance in difficult conditions. It supports all GNSS constellations, RTK, and every PPP service.
Super easy installation
Given that the installation of navigation systems is critical to the success of a mapping mission, SBG’s installation process should make a lot of people happy. For one, the system automatically estimates and validates the sensor alignment. Connect the system to the Navsight processing unit, and a web interface offers a 3D view of the vehicle, with parameters dialed into your particular vehicle, so you can check the installation.
The Navsight is available for order now, contact SBG for pricing and delivery details. See the product site here for more technical detail.
