Hi everyone, I’m using M2 on my drone. I have well intergrated M2 with Ardupilot and camera by following this tutorial: ArduPilot Integration | RTK Modules.
I would like to perform a RTK survey for my drone, what I have done is:
Configuring Mission Planner to inject RTK corrections (NTRIP) into telemetry
Configuring Reach M2 to work with ArduPilot
My question is:
Can M2 be used as RTK mapping instead of RTK navigation?
If so, what we should do to post-process the data in RTK mode? (I didn’t use a base for my flight but only NTRIP)
As in RTK mode, we don’t need to do any post-processing, which data should I use? Raw data or Position data?
How can I get corrected position of each image for geotagging?
PPK is required for precise mapping with Reach M2. During the flight, the receiver saves a time mark for each photo taken. These time marks don’t match with GNSS observables time. So, to calculate image center coordinates, the positioning data should be interpolated in RTKLib. If it’s appropriate for you, you may check our PPK mapping guide for the detailed workflow.
So in conclusion, the M2 could not do RTK for mapping right?
Before, I used Trimble GNSS broad card, and we get a file .rt27. It’s then very easy to match the data and get a file for Pix4D. So i think it is totaly possible for M2 to use RTK for mapping, but we will need to develop another plugin instead of RTKLib. Am I right?
Reach M2 can output its centimeter-accurate position at regular intervals in RTK. The drone’s autopilot can use the position for RTK navigation. However, the transmitted positions don’t match with image centers.
To calculate precise image centers, the positioning data should be interpolated using time marks. Reach M2 saves time marks in the raw data log, which you will need to download from the ReachView 3 app after the flight. So, Reach M2 can’t be used for precise mapping in real-time.
