INTEGRATION OF A LOW-COST GLOBAL NAVIGATION SATELLITE SYSTEM TO A SINGLE-BOARD COMPUTER USING KALMAN FILTERING

ABSTRACT The global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is the basis for localized crop management by allowing the georeferencing of collected data and the generation of maps by different systems that compose precision agriculture. There is a demand for low-cost navigation systems to enable their use in agriculture. Therefore, the objective of this study is to integrate a low-cost GNSS module to a single-board computer using Kalman filtering to obtain navigation data. The system was evaluated by performing one static and two kinematic experiments, with three repetitions each. In the static experiment, the mean error was 3.25 m with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 3.73 m. In the first kinematic experiment, data variability was lower at a velocity of 1.39 m s−1. In the second kinematic experiment, the mean error was 1.26 and 1.13 m, and the RMSE was 1.45 and 1.27 m for data obtained before and after filtering, respectively. In conclusion, the system reduces the lateral errors in linear sections but is not indicated for sections that change direction. Moreover, this system can be used in agricultural applications such as soil sampling and crop yield monitoring.