u-blox PointPerfect GNSS augmentation service with Localized Distribution

u-blox has announced the PointPerfect Localized Distribution feature, the latest enhancement of the company’s PointPerfect GNSS augmentation service. This localised version is designed to transmit less data than continental streams, reducing the bandwidth by up to 70%. As a result, user data costs also drop.

The feature is suitable for high-precision applications with constrained bandwidth and connectivity plans, including precision agriculture use cases such as autonomous farming and agricultural robotics. It can also apply to other applications such as service robots, micromobility, heavy machinery and other high-precision mobile robotics applications.

PointPerfect is a PPP-RTK GNSS augmentation data service that delivers centimetre-level accuracy in seconds. It offers uniform coverage in Europe, the USA, Canada, South Korea and Australia, including up to 12 nautical miles (roughly 22 km) off coastlines. The service typically requires 2400 bit/s data bandwidth for these continental streams. Now, with the localised version, the bandwidth has been reduced to almost one-third the size.

A device subscribes to the Localized Distribution stream according to its location. The data transmitted is optimised based on that location, filtering out unnecessary data irrelevant to the user. This reduces the required bandwidth. As with the continental stream, using the Localized Distribution stream does not require communicating the location of the rover to PointPerfect, providing privacy and security. The feature is available immediately.