An eMobility rider's experience hinges on being able to pinpoint the exact location of their bicycle or scooter. The efficiency with which one can locate a bike upon request is essential, but so is the efficiency with which one can manage the fleet's operating costs.
The cost of charging, which includes the time it takes to pick up and drop off the bike or scooter, is high, according to a 2019 McKinsey & Company report. It might be highly costly to send a paid service team member to look for a misplaced bicycle.
Excellent location precision is required for riding, battery swapping, servicing vehicles and parking compliance. Non-electric, lightweight stations and parking lots are becoming increasingly popular. The GNSS Module Micromobility receiver is crucial for bikes and scooters because they lack a built-in GPS.
Suppose you want to know if a car was parked in a lightweight station or a designated parking area painted on the side of the roadway; every extra metre of precision counts. Micro-mobility businesses may incur high costs from municipal parking fees.
Adding a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver to an eBike is a quick and easy way to track it down. Today's GNSS receivers, however, struggle in dense metropolitan environments. How terrible is it? In practice, blunders of 100 metres are common.
There are three ways in which location precision could be enhanced:
l GNSS Module Micromobility receivers that can receive signals on two frequencies at once (L1 and L5 or L1 and L2).
l An inertial reference frame for the dead reckoning (IMU)
l Real-time kinematic and angular velocity corrections for the Global Navigation Satellite System (RTK)
GNSS Corrections and RTK
Due to well-understood errors, standalone GNSS Module Micromobility location accuracy is about 1 m. However, these inaccuracies can be reduced to a centimetre level with RTK employing corrections from a nearby GNSS base station or a network of GNSS base stations. RTK could be helpful in two situations:
These methods are not novel in the technological sense, as they have been used for years in high-end navigation systems. However, the newest generation of technology is required to execute these methods for under $10 and with shallow power usage.
Below is a list of the hardware installed on an eScooter and put through its paces as the effects of L1, L1+L2, and L1+L5 were tested. Lyft selected a sample size of seven test locations, each chosen because it was representative of normal usage and had previously been surveyed. Latitude and longitude coordinates for the seven places depicts an aerial view of those locations.
GPS L5 and international variants have a wider signal bandwidth and are less prone to multipath-induced errors. Receivers that can pick up both L1 and L2C signals exist on the market, and the latter's entire constellation and maturity are a significant plus. In the same experimental setup as the primary data (shown in Figure 5), the accuracy gain achieved by switching to a dual-band receiver is visible.
The chart is crucial since it demonstrates that an L1+L5 receiver's accuracy is significantly better than alternatives even while tracking fewer satellites (which has the benefit of lower power consumption).
l The Urban Gorge of Downtown
l Precise geofencing, which can be used in places like parking enforcement
However, RTK is unable to mitigate the effects of multipath errors. Therefore, centimetre accuracy is out of the question in dense metropolitan environments. Using RTK in urban settings improved accuracy by 30% in our tests. More significant benefits can be expected in places with higher sky visibility.
One promising application of RTK in eMobility is precise geofencing. For illustration's sake, let's pretend a city has rules that only allow parking on the street or sidewalk. Image 10 shows an eScooter parked on the grass next to the curb. The RTK approach offered a simple, direct repair.
SPP (standard point placement), which is not RTK, is not unambiguous. This could lead to an issue raised by a city official or a citizen that could damage the eMobility service provider's image.
The RTK answer is obvious. The eMobility service provider can inform the user of the infraction and arrange for the bicycle to be relocated to the sidewalk.
Conclusions
Accurate location and positioning solutions are essential for GNSS Module Micromobility eMobility services to keep up with rising demand, decrease the expense of maintenance and operations, and conform to brand-new rules in different jurisdictions. Dual-band L1+L5 receivers with dead reckoning and RTK can double accuracy.
Store
.jpg)
