Investigation of performance of GNSS-based devices for precise positioning in harsh agriculture environments

Even though state-of-the-art RTK-based GNSS receivers usually match the demanding requirements posed by precise agriculture (PA) applications in open sky conditions, propagation effects degrade the performance under foliage or in presence of surrounding obstacles. This paper introduces a hybrid GNSS/INS system able to overcome some of the current limitations of GNSS in constrained agriculture environments. Authors performed several tests in different agricultural scenarios, such as vineyards, orchards and greenhouses. The paper presents the performance assessment through the evaluation of specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the benchmarking of this system with state-of-the art receivers, evaluating the benefits provided by new GNSS constellations and signals.