The Precision Agriculture Research Group at UNE is happy to work with OmniStar for delivery of real-time corrections for their differential GPS (dGPS) receivers. The group uses the receivers to collect research data and to introduce students studying Precision Agriculture (PA335) to the types of Global Navigation Satellite System services available today. For over 10 years the group has subscribed to the OmniStar satellite based VBS subscription, on two receivers, which provides them with sub-metre accuracy and high precision. Due to the fact that the VBS signal can be obtained widely across all parts of Australia, researchers are able to collect ground-control-points to rectify, validate and ground-truth satellite imagery knowing that the positions they collect will correctly align. The group also uses the VBS enabled receivers for spatially locating sensor measurements when performing electromagnetic induction soil surveys and on-the-go plant canopy sensing with proximal pasture and crop sensors. Researchers know that they will always be able to find expensive in-situ sensors and soil access tubes in tall crops and big paddocks when their locations are recorded using dGPS. The OmniStar correction service has proved reliable and robust and is a practical solution delivering high accuracy positioning to researchers and students at UNE. More details can be found by visiting the OmniStar website.
