SparkFun's RTK Express Aims to Be the Ultimate Tool for High-Accuracy GNSS Positioning

SparkFun has announced a new board for centimeter-level GNSS positioning, offering a built-in screen and long-runtime battery for field use — as well as boosted robustness over its predecessor.

The SparkFun RTK Express is, the company explains, a successor to the RTK Surveyor it unveiled late last year. Like the RTK Surveyor, the RTK Express is built around a u-blox ZED-F9P GNSS receiver good to 30cm accuracy - with a real-time kinematic positioning mode to boost accuracy down to around 1.4cm — while an Espressif ESP32 module gives the unit Bluetooth connectivity.

"We took all the lessons from the RTK Surveyor and built the RTK Express," SparkFun claims of the new gadget. "The embedded display allows for immediate feedback of horizontal positional accuracy, satellites in view, logging status, survey-in status, battery level, Bluetooth MAC, etc. The rocker switches found on the original have been replaced by keypad buttons."

"We increased the battery to 1300mAh for a longer run time. The internal switches have been replaced by a digital Mux allowing for some really exciting applications including event triangulation. More ESD protection was added to protect the RF path, and we even threw in an accelerometer for digital levelling in the field."

In short: The RTX Express is a pretty hefty upgrade over the RTK Surveyor, though any applications written with the former in mind should work fine with the new model too.

This actually marks the second time SparkFun has launched the RTK Express: An earlier revision of the design had a flaw whereby an inflexible "stub" antenna could potentially damage the SMA connector, with the redesign using a reinforced connector to fix the problem.

The SparkFun RTK Express is now available on the SparkFun store at $499.95, a $100 premium over the original RTK Surveyor.