CHCNAV is a chinese company. It is set up in 2003. So it already has some great history in the GNSS world.
CHCNAV the company
Company
CHCNAV presents itself as a big growing company. It already has over 1300 employees in and four offices in three different continents. Of course there is the office in the country where it al started: China. Their office stands in Shanghai.
Another office in Asia is located in India. That office is in Gujarat. Besides that they have an office in the USA. To be exact that office is in Scottsdale, Arizona. At last they have an office in Budapest, Hungary in Europe. So they are quite well spread over the world.
From all these offices they divide their products over more their distributors in over 100 different countries. The products they develop and sell all are related with positioning. Most of them have a relation with GNSS, but they also manufacture total stations.
The goal of CHCNAV
CHCNAV started with the goal to create innovative GNSS navigation and positioning solutions. Nowadays their slogan is “Make your work more efficient”. Make peoples work more efficient is a good goal. As Apglos we support that fully with our land survey app Apglos Survey Wizard.
Innovation can be a good way to reach the goal of making the work process more efficient.
History
CHC Navigation started in 2003 as you can find on their website. Already in 2004 they launched their first GNSS receiver. It was the X20. It was small and compact. In 2005 they could make their first fully integrated dual frequency GNSS receiver. They kept on moving forward. Because in 2007 they made the first large scale GNSS CORS network of China. It was a major breakthrough.
As you can see they focussed a lot on China being a Chinese company. That is why they also won lots of rewards in China. After winning a big tender in Myanmar in 2013 on GNSS receivers they started their desire to spread over the world.
This resulted in a new office in Hungary in Europe in 2016. Also in 2019 they opened an office in Arizona in the USA.
GNSS receivers
One of their main product line is the line of the GNSS receivers. That line is of course also the most related to our software Apglos Survey Wizard. The GNSS receivers of CHCNAV and Apglos Survey Wizard can work well together. CHCNAV produces more than one GNSS receiver. Here are some of them.
M6 GNSS receiver
There is the small and compact M6 GNSS receiver.
It is one of the cheapest GNSS receivers of their production line. Price does not say everything. The specifications say more.
- Dimensions: 127x127x87 mm
- Weight: 1040 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: not mentioned in their specification sheet
- Position output: not mentioned in their specification sheet
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, BeiDou B1, B2, Galileo E1, E5a, E5b
- Number of channels: 220
i50 GNSS receiver
One of their popular GNSS receivers is the i50. Also it is in price in the low range. But it is in the i-series.
Also with this GNSS receiver the specifications are important.
- Dimensions: 140x130x106 mm
- Weight: 1290 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, BeiDou B1, B2, B3, Galileo E1, E5a, E5b
- Number of channels: 432
i70 GNSS receiver
Besides the i50 there is in the the same series another GNSS receiver. It is the i70 GNSS receiver.
The i70 GNSS receiver has the following specifications.
- Dimensions: 116x116x135 mm
- Weight: 1100 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, SCMRX
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, BeiDou B1, B2, Galileo E1, E5a, E5b, Altboc
- Number of channels: 220
i80 GNSS receiver
Besides the i70 GNSS receiver there is the i80 GNSS receiver. It is in the same series as the i50.
The looks of the i80 are different from the i70 and the i50. Except for the colors of course. The main differences you should be able to see in the specifications.
- Dimensions: 140x140x124 mm
- Weight: 1020 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, SCMRX
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, BeiDou B1, B2, Galileo E1, E5a, E5b
- Number of channels: 220
i90 GNSS receiver
Finally CHCNAV has the i90 GNSS receiver. They have the original one and a variant on it. The variant is the i90 PRO. Both GNSS receivers look exactly the same.
In the end the looks don’t matter but the specifications do. The i90 GNSS receiver has the following specifications.
- Dimensions: 159x150x110 mm
- Weight: 1260 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, BeiDou B1, B2, B3, Galileo E1, E5a, E5b
- Number of channels: 624
Then in the end you can compare the i90 specifications with the i90 Pro specifications.
- Dimensions: 159x150x110 mm
- Weight: 1260 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, BeiDou B1, B2, B3, Galileo E1, E5a, E5b, Altboc, E6
- Number of channels: 336
Conclusion
As you can see the i90 Pro can receive signals of more satellite constellations. Which is a good thing. But besides that CHCNAV has many different GNSS receivers. Only based on the specifications of the GNSS receivers there is not that much difference.
Surveying software
The amount of GNSS receivers that CHCNAV builds shows where there focus is. It is on building GNSS receivers. Their focus is not in building surveying software. Because they only developed one surveying software. It is Landstar 7.
It is better to add a surveying software to CHCNAV GNSS receivers of a company that is focussed on developing surveying software. That is why Apglos Survey Wizard is a good combination with the GNSS receivers of CHCNAV. CHCNAV acknowledges that too, because they created an Android app.
It is GNSS tool and you can download it from the Google Play Store. The only purpose of this tool is to be able to configure the GNSS receivers of CHCNAV with third party software like Apglos Survey Wizard.