How do drone mild exhibits handle to place 1000’s of drones flying within the air with out them crashing into one another? How do robotic garden mowers stay so exact, working in their very own garden mowing lanes? It’s probably as a result of a strong expertise referred to as RTK — and the parents over at Drone Dojo have a brand new RTK course that might assist put you forward of the curve.
Drone Dojo, which is essentially thought-about the main on-line useful resource for DIY drone lovers, simply launched a brand new course on RTK GPS. The course, titled “Inches-level Precision with RTK GPS,” will educate you the best way to improve your drones (and different autonomous autos) and outfit them with RTK GPS expertise for centimeter-level accuracy whereas in flight.
What’s RTK GPS?
RTK GPS, or Actual-Time Kinematic GPS, is a expertise that makes use of two or extra GPS receivers to exactly decide the placement of an object. This makes it splendid for functions corresponding to precision agriculture, surveying, and search and rescue.
Drones are more and more getting used for these and different functions, however their accuracy is proscribed by the accuracy of their GPS receivers. RTK GPS can considerably enhance the accuracy of drones, making them extra helpful for a wider vary of functions.
For instance, RTK GPS can be utilized to create correct maps of agricultural fields, which may help farmers to optimize their crop yields. It will also be used to survey building websites, making certain that they’re constructed to the proper specs. And it may be used to seek for lacking individuals or objects, offering rescuers with a extra correct location to go looking.
However whereas it’s significantly better for exact positioning, it may be somewhat complicated to arrange on DIY drones.
If you happen to’re shopping for a ready-to-fly drone, then it’s costly. For instance, the DJI Phantom 4 RTK prices greater than 4x the unique Phantom 4. And DJI continues to roll out even newer, extra superior RTK drone, such because the DJI Matrice 350 RTK.
Whether or not you’re contemplating shopping for an costly, enterprise drone with RTK, otherwise you need to arrange your individual present drone with RTK, this course is important to raised understanding it.
What to know concerning the Drone Dojo RTK GPS course
The Drone Dojo RTK GPS course is taught by Caleb Berquist, a DIY drone professional and the founding father of Drone Dojo, which is a web-based drone coaching web site that provides programs in a variety of matters together with “The way to construct a Raspberry Pi drone,” “The way to program a drone utilizing Python,” and a deep-dive, capstone-type course on “Precision Touchdown and Drone Supply.”
The Drone Dojo RTK GPS course covers the fundamentals of RTK GPS, in addition to the steps concerned in upgrading a drone to RTK. College students will learn to choose the appropriate {hardware}, set up the software program, and configure the settings. The course contains quite a few hands-on workouts that can assist you learn to improve your drone to RTK GPS.
And all of it extremely sensible. Whereas there’s some principle concerned, that’s simply sufficient to grasp the ideas. It’s primarily a sensible course that exhibits you the steps to improve a robotic from regular GPS to RTK GPS.
Theoretical classes embody:
- Regular vs RTK GPS
- F9P vs M8N U-Blox Chips
- Varieties of RTK Boards and antenna connector (and extra)
Sensible classes embody:
- Organising RTK in your roobot
- Organising base stations
- Surveying within the location of your base station
The course work itself is about 2 hours lengthy and is on the market in video format, and is appropriate for novices and skilled drone pilots alike. That stated, the precise time wanted to observe the movies straight by might be completely different relying on if you’re upgrading your {hardware} to RTK on their robots (so anticipate about 4 hours if you happen to comply with together with an precise robotic).
To take the course, college students will want an ArduPilot automobile, corresponding to a drone, rover, or boat.
And are there any stipulations? Berquist says the “How To Construct A Raspberry Pi Drone” course could be an excellent pre-requisite for folk in search of extra information on the best way to construct a drone.
How a lot does the Drone Dojo RTK GPS course price?
The Drone Dojo RTK GPS course is on the market now for a month-to-month charge of $27. If you happen to end the course inside a month, it’ll have price you simply $27 — or you’ll be able to proceed entry at that charge. It’s a part of the brand new Drone Dojo month-to-month subscription mannequin launched at the start of the 12 months — which is essentially a monetary win for learnings.
Previous to this 12 months, programs ranged in value from roughly $100 to $400. Whereas shopping for it as soon as granted you entry for all times, it was an enormous upfront cot. With Drone Dojo’s $27 Blue Belt Membership, you’ll be able to lurk into the course — or decide to the entire thing. However both method, your monetary dedication could have been simply $27 — slightly than the substantial many a whole bunch.
Blue Belt Membership additionally will get you different advantages together with $30 off any drone or rover package, Discord entry and an entry in a month-to-month drawing, amongst different advantages.
