Honeywell Guide n580 Inertial/GNSS Navigator Delivers Precise Location Accuracy

Based near Lucerne, Switzerland, Aeroscout, develops industrial unmanned helicopters. In addition to the sale of them to customers worldwide, Aeroscout develops customized payload solutions, and its experienced flight crew are available to carry out projects.

These include powerline inspection, mapping, scientific measurements, laser scanning, photography and video, and support is also provided for operations such as search and rescue and earth movement control.

Often these projects involve monitoring vital infrastructures such as power lines, and so Aeroscout’s customers depend on the precision of attitude, position, rotation and acceleration information so that they can carry out repairs and improvements.

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However, achieving that precision can be a significant challenge: “If you are surveying power lines, you’re talking about needing an accuracy of a few centimeters,” said Aeroscout founder and general manager, Dr. Christoph Eck.

“Sometimes our UAVs are operating two or three kilometers away from our crew, and there can be a lot of movement due to wind. For our customers’ applications, a small error in attitude or position information can have a significant influence on the quality of data you obtain.”

Aeroscout’s answer was to equip the payloads of its UAVs with Honeywell’s HGuide n580 INS/GNSS navigator.

“It is very accurate, even when GNSS conditions are not perfect,” said Eck. “Sometimes we work in valleys where signals are blocked by mountains, but we find that the operation of the HGuide n580 INS/GNSS remains very precise and accurate.