Polaris – Top RTK Correction Network in California

Private RTK networks are set up by individual companies or organizations for their specific use. They offer greater control over network infrastructure and potentially higher accuracy due to tailored base station placement. However, access is restricted to authorized users.

Public RTK Networks are typically operated by government agencies or surveying organizations and offer open access to anyone within the network's coverage area. They often require a subscription or pay-per-use fee. The benefit is wide availability, but accuracy might vary depending on the network density and your location. California has a public RTK network called the California Real-Time Network (CRTN).

While public RTK networks can be free of charge, they come with different sort of costs: including a higher chance of downtime, lower accuracy, and slower convergence times.

However, with professional RTK networks like Polaris, users can access unparalleled GNSS accuracy and reliability, 99.99% uptime, cm-accurate positioning, and lightning-fast convergence times of less than five seconds.

This network is designed for exceptional accuracy, reliability, and rapid location fixing. It’s compatible with RTK receivers that support RTCM v3 and is supported by an extensive network of over 1,400 owned base stations across regions, including the US, Canada, and Europe.

Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) is a satellite navigation technique that significantly enhances the precision of position data derived from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). By using a fixed base station that knows its exact location, RTK can correct the position data obtained from GNSS, achieving centimeter-level accuracy.

An RTK Network, or Network RTK, builds on this by utilizing a system of multiple reference stations to monitor satellite signals and provide corrections. This network approach optimizes precision by offering real-time corrections, ensuring GNSS devices achieve centimeter-level accuracy. This enhanced precision is crucial in applications requiring precise location information.

Yes, traditionally, RTK requires a base station for centimeter-level accuracy. However, you don’t need to build your own.
Fortunately, RTK services like Point One Polaris offer a simpler approach. You can achieve centimeter-level accuracy with just your existing RTK rover and a connection to the Point One Polaris network–no need to set up and maintain your own base stations.

With Point One Polaris, you can:

Ditch the Setup: Forget spending time deploying and maintaining a base station. Point One Polaris gets you up and running in minutes, with RTK corrections anywhere in the world – no base station required.

Focus on Your Rover: Leave the bulky base station behind. Point One Polaris simplifies your equipment needs, allowing you to connect once to a single mount point – anywhere in California or anywhere else for that matter.

Network Advantage: A network of over 1,400 owned base stations across the US (including California), Canada, EU, and beyond. This translates to faster setup times, less equipment to manage, and all the benefits of RTK wherever your work takes you.

GPS, established by the US Department of Defence, is a satellite-based navigation system that allows a receiver to determine its location on Earth by timing signals from a constellation of satellites orbiting the planet. Standard GPS provides location accuracy within several meters, which is used for car navigation, basic surveying, and mobile mapping.

GPS (Global Positioning System) is a specific constellation within the GNSS framework. There are inaccuracies in GNSS technology that arise from several factors such as signal delays caused by the Earth's atmosphere, imprecision in satellite orbital data, and the limitations of satellite clock synchronization. These factors can cause unacceptable positional errors in areas where precision is important.

RTK addresses these issues by providing real-time corrections to GNSS data. It uses a network of fixed base stations that have a known, precise location. These stations monitor the errors in GNSS signals and broadcast correction information to the RTK receivers. This process significantly reduces GNSS errors, achieving positional accuracy down to the centimeter level.

Integrating RTK with GPS technology has a profound impact across various industries. In agriculture, it facilitates precision farming techniques, leading to more effective resource utilization. For construction and surveying projects, it guarantees high measurement and layout precision, significantly reducing expensive errors.

In the realms of autonomous vehicles and robotics, the combination of RTK and GPS is crucial for ensuring dependable navigation and safety in operations.

RTK networks serve to significantly enhance the real-time location accuracy for GNSS devices through a network of reference stations. These stations monitor satellite signals and correct any deviations, ensuring that users receive real-time corrections and achieve centimeter-level accuracy. This level of precision is crucial in various fields where exact location information is essential.

The technology operates by facilitating communication between the user's rover (a mobile GNSS receiver) and the network's base stations. These base stations are meticulously surveyed to establish their positions with extreme accuracy, generally within one to two centimeters. They then broadcast their observations to the rover receiver in real time.

The rover uses these observations to adjust its own measurements, effectively neutralizing the primary sources of error it encounters. This adjustment process results in measurements that are up to a hundred times more precise than those made without RTK corrections.

Services like Point One Polaris streamline the use of RTK technology by eliminating the need for individual users to manage base stations or directly handle RTK corrections. Instead, users can connect to a network using a single NTRIP (Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol) mount point, which can be set up quickly.

This approach provides centimeter-level accuracy and exceptionally high reliability, making advanced positioning technology accessible without requiring deep technical expertise or significant setup time.

GNSS is a broad term that encompasses all satellite navigation systems providing geo-spatial positioning with global coverage. This includes systems like GPS (United States), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (European Union), and BeiDou (China). GNSS receivers calculate their position by timing the signals sent by satellites in the system. Standard GNSS services offer location accuracy within a few meters, which is sufficient for many general applications, such as navigation for cars and smartphones.

RTK is used to enhance the precision of position data derived from GNSS. It involves a fixed base station that knows its exact location; RTK can correct the position data obtained from GNSS, achieving centimeter-level accuracy.

GNSS provides the foundational satellite data for positioning. RTK refines this data, offering significantly improved accuracy by correcting systematic errors in real time.

NTRIP and RTK are integral to high-precision GNSS technologies, yet they fulfill distinct roles. RTK is a method aimed at refining GNSS signals to reach centimeter-level precision, utilizing a base station alongside a mobile receiver. This approach can be further refined by integrating it with Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) to boost its precision.

NTRIP is an online protocol specifically designed for streaming Differential GNSS (DGNSS) or Real-Time Kinematic correction data. It facilitates the transfer of RTK correction data from the base station directly to the rover or mobile receiver.

RTK is a technique for enhancing positioning accuracy, while NTRIP transmits the necessary correction data for RTK systems.

Point One builds high precision GNSS solutions. Standard GNSS accuracy ranges from 1m to 10m and can be worse based on the operating environment. Point One’s high precision GNSS delivers accuracy from 10cm to 1cm, and does so even in challenging environments such as urban canyons and occluded sky-views.

Standard GNSS systems observe position uncertainty from sources such as atmospheric signal delay, satellite orbit variation, clock drift, and signal multi-path. Precision GNSS systems use additional sources of information, in our case from our Polaris corrections network, reducing uncertainty down to just a few centimeters.

Purchase a Standard Dev Kit, purchase an Advanced Development Kit, or create a Point One account to access Polaris corrections and services.

Many, including series production automobiles, consumer electronics products, and autonomous vehicle prototypes.

Real Time Kinematics; a fixed base station communicates with a roving GNSS system to remove sources of error common to the base and rover (satellite clock, satellite orbit, ionosphere delay, troposphere delay). Rover performance depends on survey accuracy of base location, quality of sky view at base location, and distance between base and rover.

Yes. The Polaris network performs as an  RTK network. Non-Point One systems can access the Polaris network using standard NTRIP protocol. Access credentials and documentation are available at app.pointonenav.com.

Both Polaris and NTRIP are methods for delivering network RTK corrections, and both are available through the Point One Polaris service. The NTRIP standard is a legacy delivery method, used by a wide range of GNSS devices. The Polaris protocol uses secure connection methods for both authentication and transport to add layers of reliability and security to RTK corrections data.

RTK corrections account for various ambiguities present in navigation constellation signals, which can stem from sources such as satellite orbital errors and atmospheric disturbances. By sharing correctional data in real time, the fixed base station and rover together improve positional accuracy from meter-level to centimeter-level.

Let’s get a little more technical:

• Standalone GNSS positioning relies mostly on very accurate–but not very precise–pseudorange measurements of code phase. RTK relies on extremely precise– but ambiguous–RF carrier phase measurements.
• The heart of RTK is integer carrier phase ambiguity resolution. This process turns the ambiguous carrier phase measurements into highly precise measurements of pseudorange, which can be about 100x more precise than the code phase pseudorange measurements–but they are ambiguous to within an integer number of radio carrier wave cycles.
• An RTK-enabled receiver is equipped with a very heavy math routine that’s able to resolve the ambiguities in the carrier measurements. This unlocks the use of the previously unusable carrier phase and enables position determination to within a couple centimeters.

Fortunately, when using an RTK service like Point One Polaris, you don’t have to worry about any of this. You can get set up in five minutes by connecting to a single NTRIP mount point–and then access cm-accurate positioning lighting-fast convergence times.

An RTK base station is an integral part of any RTK positioning system. In order to correct errors in satellite signal data, RTK positioning requires stationary sites with known, precise locations to serve as reference points. These are called fixed base stations, which send observations to the rover in real time.

It’s important not to think of RTK base stations as standalone units, but rather as pieces of broader, interconnected networks that together offer more expansive coverage. For example, Point One’s Polaris RTK network has global coverage across the US, EU, UK, CA, and AU and boasts the highest overall density of US RTK corrections networks.

This allows the network to offer scalable solutions and ensure high accuracy, even in areas without cellular coverage or in challenging environments in urban canyons.

RTK offers unparalleled accuracy in positioning at centimeter-level precision. This high level of accuracy is essential for applications where even the slightest deviation can have significant consequences.

Point One’s RTK solutions are engineered to deliver exceptional precision within a few centimeters. This level of accuracy is made possible by Point One’s advanced algorithms, Polaris Network infrastructure, and commitment to using the latest technological advancements in GNSS corrections.

Point One’s RTK system is not just about precise measurements; it’s about providing reliable data you can trust for critical decision-making.

RTK technology is essential in many areas where exact positioning is needed. In farming, RTK helps guide machinery perfectly for planting and harvesting, boosting crop quality and farm efficiency. Robots in outdoor settings work better with RTK because it helps them navigate through the world with precision.

For preventing damage, especially during construction, RTK is vital for safely locating things like pipes and cables underground. Surveyors and mapmakers rely on RTK for precise measurements of land and buildings, which is important for planning new projects. In construction, RTK is key for correctly setting up sites and ensuring buildings are constructed accurately.

RTK is also crucial for self-driving cars to navigate safely, especially on busy streets. RTK is even changing how deliveries are made by helping to track and direct delivery vehicles, making sure packages get where they’re going on time.

Several GPS correction methods, including RTK, PPP, and SSR, improve the accuracy of satellite-based positioning. Each method has its unique approach to correcting GNSS data.

RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) provides real-time corrections, offering centimeter-level accuracy. It’s ideal for applications needing immediate precision, such as autonomous vehicle navigation and precision agriculture. RTK works by comparing the signals from a network of fixed base stations to the satellite data, quickly correcting any discrepancies.

PPP (Precise Point Positioning), on the other hand, doesn’t use a network of base stations. Instead, it uses a single reference station and precise orbit and clock data to offer high accuracy. While PPP can achieve a somewhat similar level of precision to RTK, it takes much longer to converge, making it more suitable for applications where immediate accuracy isn’t critical.

SSR (State Space Representation) is a more advanced method that provides correctional data in a state space format. This technique models the GNSS errors, including satellite orbits and clocks, and atmospheric delays, offering high accuracy over large areas. However, many GNSS receivers aren’t equipped to effectively process all the data provided by SSR, making it difficult to convert into meaningful positions.

Note that discussing GPS, by itself, isn’t standard practice in RTK corrections. Today, unless specifically discussing the USA constellation system, we say “GNSS ” exclusively.

RTK correction ranges vary depending on the use case. It’s challenging to put a definite number on this question, since many variables can affect accuracy, including how much of the sky is visible, the weather, and more.