u-blox: high-precision positioning – the cornerstone of autonomous driving systems

u-blox is headquartered in Switzerland and was founded in 1997. Hu Yang, commercial director of u-blox North China, said that u-blox’s products include positioning, cellular communications and services. The rich product lines can help customers achieve seamless technology integration and accelerate customers' time to market. Since its inception, u-blox has regarded automobiles as an important market. As the absolute leader in the automotive GNSS market, on average, one in every two vehicles uses u-blox positioning products. In terms of positioning, u-blox has completely own chips and IP.

At the same time, Hu Yang said that in addition to communication security, positioning security is of great significance to autonomous driving. u-blox positioning solutions cover various automotive applications. The main technical components of M9L are single frequency point, multi-galaxy, inertial navigation; F9L is multi-frequency point, multi-galaxy, inertial navigation; F9K is multi-frequency point, multi-galaxy, inertial navigation, RTK , supports NOA (L2+, L2++ level assisted driving system) lane-level maintenance in high-speed and urban scenarios.

Hu Yang | Commercial Director of u-blox North China

The following is the summary of the speech:

u-blox is a publicly traded company headquartered in Thalwil, Switzerland, founded in 1997. The products mainly cover 4 parts: positioning, cellular communications, short-range communications and data services. The most widely known among them is the GNSS product line, with global shipments of more than 100 million units last year; u-blox uses its own core chips in both the positioning product line and cellular product line, and 100% of its positioning products use u-blox’s own core chips and communication product line core chips also cover the LPWA market; u-blox also covers short-range communications and cooperates with first-line chip suppliers in the industry to not only produce modules but also develop its own algorithms. Make it simple and easy for customers to use; the red box is u-blox's data service product line. Automotive-related applications mainly include AGPS services that shorten positioning startup time and SSR differential data services broadcast through satellites; the rich product lines can help customers achieve Seamless technology integration accelerates customers' time to market, and close cooperation with the same supplier greatly reduces risks in the process. At the same time, its own core technology can ensure the stable supply of customer products, especially long-life cycle products such as automobiles.

Source: Guest speech materials

To sum up, u-blox can provide customers with a complete set of solutions from chip to cloud.

u-blox has always regarded automobiles as its most important market since its establishment. As the absolute leader in the automotive GNSS market, on average, one out of every two vehicles is using u-blox positioning products. As a result, u-blox positioning products have gained rich experience in mass production; u-blox is always committed to bringing the latest technology to customers, while constantly expanding product series and adding product features; quality, reliability and product life cycle management are extremely important to automotive customers Importantly, u-blox products fully comply with vehicle regulations from chips to modules, production, and quality control. Product quality requires a defective rate of 0 parts per million, allowing customers to use it with peace of mind; u-blox's rich product lines can cover many automotive applications such as cockpit, TCU, ADAS, V2X, vehicle and driver behavior monitoring, charging piles , etc.; in In the field of positioning, u-blox has completely own chips and IP. It has more than 25 years of R&D experience, has a more thorough understanding of the automotive market, and has accumulated rich experience.

Reliable location information is critical

The current trends in the automotive market are mainly reflected in the evolution of the value chain and ecosystem.

Autonomous driving can be divided into four main functional modules, mapping and positioning, environment perception, planning and control. Among them, the two functional modules of mapping, positioning, and environment perception have very high requirements for the reliability of positioning. Sensors that provide location information are more than just positioning modules. They usually also include cameras , lidar , millimeter-wave radar , high-energy maps and other technologies. However, GNSS is the only sensor that provides the absolute position of a vehicle.

Reliable location is critical for self-driving cars. Position output that may bring potential danger includes oncoming lane positioning errors, viaduct positioning errors, and main and auxiliary road positioning errors. These three errors will directly affect the passengers' intuitive feelings and determine whether the autonomous driving function should be entered and exited under the current road conditions. , resulting in wrong decisions and even huge security risks.

Among u-blox's main positioning solutions, M9L is u-blox's single-frequency inertial navigation module, which supports 4 galaxies working at the same time. It also supports the Super-S super signal function, which can ensure that the positioning accuracy is improved by 25% under weak signal conditions. ; The new function of M9L is Wake on motion dynamic wake-up, which is suitable for cockpit domain, e-call, and T-BOX application scenarios; F9L is a dual-frequency inertial navigation module without RTK, which realizes sub-meter navigation through dual-frequency plus inertial navigation. Level of continuous positioning can cover application scenarios such as cockpit domain, T-BOX, V2X, intelligent speed limit, etc.; F9K is a leading product in the field of autonomous driving and assisted driving. I will mention this product repeatedly later. It has multiple frequency points, The combination of full-galaxy, inertial navigation, and RTK capabilities is particularly suitable for autonomous driving and assisted driving in high-speed and urban scenarios. F9K supports domestic mainstream OSR and SSR and RTCM data broadcast by self-built stations. In overseas parts, u-blox’s PointPerfect SSR RTK can perfectly cooperate with F9K in terms of technology and business; u-blox's safety-grade products, combined with the safety positioning engine and PointSafe SSR-RTK, are already in the world's first approved L3 level autonomous vehicle on the road. Got commercial use.

The main component of the high-precision positioning solution, taking SSR as an example, the SSR ground observation station will upload the observation data to the differential data platform, and then upload it to the L-frequency satellite; customers can obtain the SSR differential data according to the path they want, To choose, one path is to receive the differential data broadcast by the L-frequency satellite through the L-frequency receiver . The other path is that the car factory backend first obtains the differential data from u-blox's differential data platform, and then sends it through the vehicle-mounted communication unit. Give GNSS receivers, such as our F9K, to achieve multi-dimensional fusion and output high-precision position, velocity and time information.

To sum up the technical capabilities of F9K in one sentence, it is multi-frequency points, multi-galaxies, inertial navigation, and RTK.

F9K is a GNSS module that provides centimeter-level positioning and 30ns timing for the mass market. The output of F9K includes PVT (positioning), velocity (speed) and timing (time, including GTC time and 1PPS second pulse). Therefore, F9K not only provides a stable position, but also provides an important data source for the odometer and vehicle system timing, especially the timing accuracy of 30ns. In addition to serving the time synchronization between various ECUs of the bicycle, it can also provide better It fully meets C-V2X’s time synchronization requirements and truly realizes synchronization between vehicles and vehicles and between vehicles and roads. F9K can be ideal for ADAS and V2X. F9K supports dual frequency points, built-in IMU and RTK algorithms, helping customers easily achieve ternary fusion. Low latency is a very important concern for autonomous driving and V2X. The position update rate of F9K is as high as 50Hz, which is the output of 50 position points per second. F9K is a series of products that are fully compatible with each other and can meet the different requirements of customers. ZED-F9K-01A in F9K supports L1+L2 and L1+L5 frequency point selection through instructions. F9K is currently the absolute leader in vehicle-mounted high-precision positioning modules. It has been widely confirmed by car yards and has rich mass production experience. Going alone is fast, but working together is far. F9K has rich ecological partner resources that can help customers improve ease of use, R&D, and production efficiency.

F9K includes sensor fusion, RTK ambiguity resolution, signal acquisition and tracking, RF filter , positioning engine, GNSS baseband , IMU, flash memory , and passive components .

Regarding the F9K frequency point selection, before 2027, the satellite availability of L1+L2 will be higher than that of L1+L5, because taking GPS as an example, although many L5 satellites can be observed, their status is in trial operation and unhealthy. Yes, this will bring unpredictable risks to RTK applications. u-blox recommends using L1+L2 as the frequency point selection for high-precision autonomous driving before 2027.

Summarize

High-precision positioning is the cornerstone of autonomous driving systems . Because more and more applications require GNSS-based position input positioning functions to become the core of assisted driving, autonomous driving, AR navigation and V2X; usually, the sources of positioning data mainly include GNSS, IMU, millimeter wave radar, cameras, lidar, High-precision maps, etc.