Long Range Kinematic (LRK)

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

is a sophisticated

kinematic Kinematics is a subfield of physics, developed in classical mechanics, that describes the motion of points, bodies (objects), and systems of bodies (groups of objects) without considering the forces that cause them to move. Kinematics, as a fie ...

method developed by Magellan (formerly Thales) Navigation that optimises the advantages of dual-frequency

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

operation. Other conventional methods use the dual-frequency only during initialisation. LRK makes solving ambiguities during initialisation easy and continuous dual-frequency kinematic operation possible at distances up to 40

kilometres The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ...

. Conventional dual-frequency kinematic operation is limited to about 10 kilometres, using a combined observation on

L1 and L2

frequencies Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

to produce an initial wide lane solution, ambiguous to around 86 centimetres. During a second phase, the conventional kinematic method uses measurements from the L1 frequency only. This method only allows for kinematic operation as long as the de-correlation of atmospheric errors is compatible with a pure phase single-frequency solution. Similar to the

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process, LRK is a simple and reliable method that allows any initialisation mode, from a static or fixed reference point, to

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ambiguity resolution, when performing dual-frequency GPS positioning. LRK technology reduces initialisation times to a few seconds by efficiently using L2 measurements in every mode of operation. LRK maintains optimal real-time positioning accuracy to within a centimetre at a range up to 40-50 kilometres, even with a reduced number of visible satellites.

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20060821080822/http://products.thalesnavigation.com/en/products/aboutgps/rtk.asp Global Positioning System Navigation Navigational equipment {{technology-stub