Real-Time Kinematic positioning,
made visible
Drag to orbit the scene. Watch the base station stream corrections to the rover and collapse its position uncertainty from meters to centimeters. The amber ring marks a float solution; teal means fixed.
High-precision positioning techniques compared
RTK strikes the best balance of accuracy, latency and cost — which is why it remains the industry workhorse for centimeter-level applications.
| Technique | Typical accuracy | Latency | Service cost | Typical use cases | Precision tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single Point Positioning (SPP) | 2–5 m | Real-time | No external service | Navigation, LBS apps | |
| Code Differential (DGPS) | 0.3–1 m | Real-time | Low | Maritime, tractor guidance | |
| RTK Carrier-Phase Differential | 1–3 cm | Real-time (<1 s) | Base station / CORS subscription | Surveying, UAVs, autonomous driving | |
| PPP-RTK (SSR) | 2–5 cm | Convergence <1 min | Satellite-delivered augmentation | Wide-area, offshore & remote ops |
Five constellations, one engine
The more satellites and frequencies in view, the faster and more reliable the ambiguity fix. Select a constellation to inspect its open-service frequencies.
BDS (BeiDou)
44+ satellites in orbitInside the RTK engine
- 01
Signal Acquisition
All-constellation, all-frequency search with adaptive C/N₀ thresholds
- 02
Tracking Loops
PLL/FLL carrier tracking paired with DLL code loops
- 03
Observable Generation
Carrier phase, pseudorange, Doppler and signal-to-noise per epoch
- 04
Error Modeling
Ionosphere, troposphere, clock biases, phase wind-up, multipath
- 05
Ambiguity Resolution
LAMBDA integer least-squares search with partial fixing
- 06
Fixed Solution Output
Ratio-test validation with integrity flags per epoch
NTRIP: the base station, as a cloud service
NTRIP (Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol) lets any rover tap into a CORS network over mobile IP and receive Virtual Reference Station corrections as RTCM streams — no proprietary base required, fix on power-up. Decentralized (DePIN) networks now extend this model to community-operated triple-band reference stations at global scale.
- RTCM 3.x — standardized differential message format (MSM multi-signal messages)
- VRS / FKP / MAC — the three dominant Network RTK correction models
- DePIN RTK — decentralized networks crowdsourcing triple-band base stations
- ≥70 km — effective Network RTK service radius
- <1 s — end-to-end correction latency