PPK Or RTK – Which is best?

Tom Garnett

7:00 am GMT •

August 11, 2021

Know your PPK from your RTK: how GPS correction systems are changing our understanding
of landscapes
Accuracy and precision are essential for any mapping or surveying task. When deploying a drone to
do either, pinpoint location information can be enabled with GPS correction technology. There are
two emerging and developing methods for doing this, namely Real Time Kinematic (RTK) and Post
Processing Kinematic (PPK). RTK and PPK build on and enhance the traditional method of deploying
Ground Control Points (GCP).
In this Blog you will learn;
 What Are GCP’s?
 What Is RTK?
 What Is PPK?
 The Development of GPS
 Real World Applications
 The Future Of Survey/Mapping Drones
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Up in the sky, but guiding us down on the ground
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a network of satellites which track position and aid
navigation. GPS may still seem like magic to many of us but the technology has actually been around
for some time. Just think of your smartphone, which uses GPS technology to track your location at
any time, including where you are currently.
Smartphones are still comparatively recent nonetheless. Originally developed in the 1970s by the US
military, within a couple of decades GPS systems had been opened up to the public and are now very
much a part of our daily lives.
Anyone with a standard GPS receiver can determine where they are on the planet. The accuracy isn’t
100 percent though and when a more precise location is needed, GPS data must be corrected. This is
important when you’re modelling a map or surveying a site where the need for precision is
paramount. There are a number of ways to do this, but when looking at drone surveys, two methods in
particular are paramount.
These methods are required to correct GPS data in real time or apply the corrections after GPS data
has been collected. That brings us to GCPs and PPK and RTK techniques. Which one is used – and
how they are used – can have significant implications for any mapping or surveying project.
Why precise locations are essential for drone operations?
A standard drone without the ability to return accurate location information is essentially just a flying
machine with a camera on it – great for shooting videos over beauty spots but not much use for
surveying purposes.
Being extremely accurate, keeping to time constraints and budget is crucial for certain drone
operations, notably mapping and surveying. These essential requirements become even more
important the larger the scale of the project.
Traditionally, the responsibility for returning accurate location data lay with the surveyor on the
ground. Surveying techniques have developed since ancient times as explorers began traversing the
globe in search of new lands and precious wonders. But the fundamental truth remains: to determine
locations and distances, the positions of objects needs to be recorded and the distance and angles
between each point need to be calculated.

Introducing the GCP

Ground Control Points (GCPs) are built on this principle. GCPs are simply a location or an object
(often denoted by a painted cross) located on the ground that has accurately known coordinates. GCPs
are used to provide precise geo-references. Using GCPs enables a drone to return very accurate data
on exactly where it is and how far it has travelled between two places. GCPs are the original way of
enabling location accuracy when flying a UAV and they consistently return high levels of accuracy.
The trouble with GCPs
The thing with GCPs is that they’re a bit of a pain to set up. Laying them takes a lot of time and the
task can require a crew of people, vehicles and equipment along with paperwork requirements for
access authorisations and permissions.
As with anything which is inefficient, clever and quicker solutions have been developed. Using
drones to map or survey large areas is intended to be lightning quick compared with a team of
surveyors painting crosses on the ground. And a sufficient number of known points (GCPs) are
needed to verify and adjust the drone imagery to the ground. All of this is resource-intensive.
Sometimes GCPs are either just impossible to set up in remote locations or hazardous in certain
environments.

The development of drone GPS Correction Technology

GPS Correction Technology inbuilt to the processing of a drone doesn’t require the same, timely,
expensive prep work as setting up GCPs. Differential correction techniques are used to enhance the
quality of the location data gathered from GPS receivers. This is Differential GPS (DGPS).
The drone buyer has two options for implementing a DGPS solution – PPK or RTK. There is some
debate as to which is the better choice.
What is PPK and RTK?
It’s still pretty simple though. RTK is applying correction to location errors during the drone flight.
PPK is applying correction after the flight.
Real Time Kinematic (RTK) is a GPS correction technology technique that provides real-time
corrections to location data as the drone is surveying and capturing images from a site.
Post Processed Kinematic (PPK) is a GPS correction technology technique that corrects location data
after it is collected and uploaded. The data can be uploaded to the cloud for processing or processed
using specialise software on your desktop after the flight has been concluded.
Drone RTK processing records GPS information and geotags the images taken as they’re captured
during the flight. The ground station also sends raw GPS data to the drone. Software combines that
info along with the UAV’s own observations to accurately determine the flight unit’s position relative
to the base. Data is fed via mobile data, Bluetooth or WiFi connection.

With PPK techniques, the drone will geotag coordinates to each image it collects. While this is
happening, a base is also recording positional information, using accurate triangulation calculations.
After the flight is over, the two sets of GPS data are matched up. Then the initial, somewhat
inaccurate, onboard GPS data is corrected, which provides precise geotags for the points being
surveyed.
So which is best: PPK or RTK?
While our innate disposition to want everything faster, live and in real-time might immediately steer
us to RTK technology, it certainly isn’t always the case that RTK is superior to PPK. In fact, the
opposite is often true.
Both of the technologies are quite similar but which is best for any given project largely depends on
the nature of the task at hand.
The pros and cons of RTK
As deploying an RTK drone provides live corrections to data onsite and geo-tags throughout the flight
in real-time, RTK saves time by ensuring no post-processing is required.
However, a drone utilising an RTK system requires a constant and consistent connection. Outages do
happen and signals can be disrupted if the drone is being flown over a large area. If signals are lost,
then it can result in a loss of correction data with the potential for inaccurate gaps during the flight.
A little bit like driving your car, when an outage in GPS signal disrupts the sat-nav system, while you
might get a little confused or momentarily lost during a road trip, the results are far more significant
when drone mapping and surveying.
RTK works well in flat terrains without trees, mountains or other obstructions and landmarks to get in
the way of the communication between the drone and the required base station.
RTK also works best with a solid spec setup. Strong communication systems and a consistent
connection both from the ground and the device in the air are essential. The DJI Phantom 4 RTK is a
good example of an effective RTK drone which has done well in survey-grade tests producing good
results in point-to-point measurements.
The pros and cons of PPK
There is an argument that PPK systems can actually be quicker than RTK’s real-time recording.
That’s because PPK doesn’t require a team to spend time setting up a data connection upon arrival on
site. Whether this is a tangible time saving will depend on the conditions on-site and the scale of the
area in which the drone is being deployed. Inherently a PPK drone survey will require more time after
the flight to allow for processing the data gathered and to implement GPS corrections.
Certainly, PPK is likely to be more dependable than RTK, as the activity does not depend on signal
strength or GPS communication between the drone and the base site. PPK systems allow for greater
flexibility and can be flown in more challenging environments where signals might otherwise be
blocked by large obstructions disrupting communications.
A PPK drone would outperform an RTK one on longer flights and PPK drones are particularly suited
to Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) activities. BVLOS operations are likely to become more
commonplace as the versatility and application of drones becomes ever more proven when performing
over greater distances. The Wingtra Fixed Wing PPK drone is a particularly robust UAV suited for
long flights and long-distance surveying applications.

Cool real-world examples of PPK and RTK drone applications

Whichever system is the “best” or simply the “best suited” for the project being planned, it is
abundantly clear that drones fitted with GPS correction systems are revolutionising mapping and
surveying. This is in terms of efficiency, the quality of data and imagery captured, and is just as
importantly in relation to safety.
And it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. For example, during the massive task of accurately
mapping sections of the Yangtze river – the longest in Asia – The People’s Municipal Government of
Zhenjiang commissioned a provider to survey the 400 square kilometre area. They used both PPK and
RTK systems, coupled with marked control points which were still set up to confirm the accuracy of
the data being returned. The team then used a Pix4DMapper to reprocess the images captured from
the drones. Fabled explorer Marco Polo was one of the early Europeans to travel the Yangtze in the
13th and 14th century and his writings were used to produce the first maps of the 6,300 km waterway.
The drone team completed the entire project in just one month. Signore Polo took years and years.
Elsewhere, when Shetland College joined with the Institute of Northern Studies and Shetland Flyer
Aerial Media in 2019 to explore the remote and mysterious Kame of Isbister, they utilised a DJI
Phantom 4 RTK SUA. The drone was equipped with a real-time RTK system manufactured by Emlid.
The collaboration created a 3D model of the headland and mapped the late Pictish/early Medieval
monastic structures on the rocky promontory. The drone with GNSS RTK receiver onboard proved it
could gather high-accuracy data to create accurate models and maps of a hard to reach archaeological
site.
It’s not just beautiful – if not remote locations – where drones with GPS correction tools can achieve
great results either. When the world’s biggest blasting and commercial explosive services company,
Orica, wanted to survey the enormous Union Bridge Quarry in Maryland, USA they too turned to A
DJI Phantom 4 drone equipped with both RTK sensors and PPK tech to do so.
The UAV returned thousands of geotagged images to survey the site to determine blast volumes ahead
of the quarry’s planned decommissioning at the end of 2020. The drone application has replaced the
once-yearly helicopter or aeroplane survey. Orica now assesses the site on a monthly basis which has
significantly increased the information that the company possesses on the limestone quarry, which
produces some 3.5 million tonnes per annum.
It really is impressive stuff. And while those examples are on a large scale, the use of PPK and RTK
is spreading throughout all manner of sectors. From the relatively small agricultural farming to the
longest rivers and biggest mines in the world, the small flying machine returning enormous amounts
of accurate and precise location and measuring data has a big role to play.
If this article has piqued your interest in drones and you like to learn more you can speak to one of
one our experts here.