Infield Agriculture GNSS Assessment Showing EGNOS Benefits

Abstract

This article aims at presenting EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) performance computed by a GNSS receiver on board of an agriculture tractor equipped with Topcon auto-steering system where farmer planted pistachios trees in a large field within Ávila province, Spain. This article will assess the EGNOS performance in which the tractor followed the pattern defined by Topcon GNSS product for several days. Apart from the inboard auto-steering system, other types of receivers have been installed to compute the navigation position based on EGNOS. Besides EGNOS, other GNSS solutions were used for the same scenario considering different combinations of constellations (GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO) and frequencies (L1/E1, L2 and L5/E5). The results aim at confirming that EGNOS provides an added value with respect to GNSS standalone solutions, concluding which farm applications are suitable for the obtained performances.