With GPS you are able to know where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there anywhere on Earth within 30 seconds. This means the higher the accuracy the better! GPS Real Time Kinematics (RTK) has mastered dialing in the accuracy of their GPS modules to just millimeters, and that’s why we had to put it on this board!

Based on the SparkFun GPS-RTK2 designs, the SparkFun GPS-RTK-SMA raises the bar for high-precision GPS and is the latest in a line of powerful RTK boards featuring the ZED-F9P module from u-blox. The ZED-F9P is a top-of-the-line module for high accuracy GNSS and GPS location solutions including RTK that is capable of 10mm, three-dimensional accuracy. With this board, you will be able to know where your (or any object’s) X, Y, and Z location is within roughly the width of your fingernail! The ZED-F9P is unique in that it is capable of both rover and base station operations. Utilizing our handy Qwiic system, no soldering is required to connect it to the rest of your system. However, we still have broken out 0.1″-spaced pins in case you prefer to use a breadboard.

We’ve included a rechargeable backup battery to keep the latest module configuration and satellite data available for up to two weeks. This battery helps ‘warm-start’ the module decreasing the time-to-first-fix dramatically. This module features a survey-in mode allowing the module to become a base station and produce RTCM 3.x correction data. Based on your feedback, we switched out the u.FL connector and included an SMA connector in this version of the board.

The number of configuration options of the ZED-F9P is incredible! Geofencing, variable I2C address, variable update rates, even the high precision RTK solution can be increased to 20Hz. The GPS-RTK2 even has five communications ports which are all active simultaneously: USB-C (which enumerates as a COM port), UART1 (with 3.3V TTL), UART2 for RTCM reception (with 3.3V TTL), I2C (via the two Qwiic connectors or broken out pins), and SPI.

We’ve also written an extensive Arduino library for u-blox modules to make reading and controlling the GPS-RTK-SMA over our Qwiic Connect System easy. Leave NMEA behind! Start using a much lighter weight binary interface and give your microcontroller (and its one serial port) a break. The SparkFun Arduino library shows how to read latitude, longitude, even heading and speed over I²C without the need for constant serial polling.

This product requires an antenna: Any GNSS receiver will be fine, this board uses a SMA antenna connector but you can also use an adaptor if needed

Features

• Concurrent reception of GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou
• Receives both L1C/A and L2C bands
• Voltage: 5V or 3.3V but all logic is 3.3V
• Current: 68mA – 130mA (varies with constellations and tracking state)
• Time to First Fix: 25s (cold), 2s (hot)
• Max Navigation Rate:
  • PVT (basic location over UBX binary protocol) – 25Hz
  • RTK – 20Hz
  • Raw – 25Hz
• Horizontal Position Accuracy:
  • 2.5m without RTK
  • 0.010m with RTK
• Max Altitude: 50km (31 miles)
• Max Velocity: 500m/s (1118mph)
• Weight: 6.8g
• Dimensions: 43.5mm x 43.2mm (1.71in x 1.7in)
• 2x Qwiic Connectors

Documents

• Schematic
• Eagle Files
• Mounting Holes and Dimension
• Hookup Guide
• Datasheet (ZED-F9P)
• UBX and NMEA Protocol Manual (ZED-F9P)
• Integration Manual (ZED-F9P)
• Product Summary (ZED-F9P)
• Release Notes – FW1.00 (ZED-F9P)
• Example RTCM output from the ZED-F9P
• U-blox ECCN
• Arduino Library
• GitHub