FOIF is manufacturer of land survey equipment. It is a Chinese company.
FOIF the company
FOIF might not be that known in some parts of the world. They do exist already a very long time. The company started in 1958 as you can see in the logo. The company started in those days with the development and manufacturing of land survey equipment.
The official name of the company is Suzhou FOIF Co., Ltd. Their main products are on mapping and surveying instruments. All more than 500 employees focus on those instruments like GNSS receivers, total stations and automatic levels.
For those instruments they are one of the main leading manufacturers in China. Outside of China they are less known. They do their absolute best to build up a bigger name. For example they have been in the last Intergeo fairs in Germany, where they promote their products like their GNSS receivers.
GNSS receivers of FOIF
A20 GNSS receiver
The product most close to the GPS land survey app Apglos Survey Wizard are the GNSS receivers. One of their models is the A20.
From far it looks a bit like the SP80 and the SP85 of Spectra. Of course only the specifications matter.
- Dimensions: 228x204x95 mm
- Weight: 1700 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, PPS
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 10 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 20 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, GLONASS L1, L2
- Number of channels: 120
There is an option to have more channels and to track more GNSS signals.
A30 GNSS receiver
Another one of their GNSS receivers is the A30. It looks already very different from the A20 GNSS receiver.
But the specifications of the A30 GNSS receiver are also different.
- Dimensions: 200x200x110 mm
- Weight: 1500 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, 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, GALILEO E1, E5A, E5B AltBOC
- Number of channels: 220
Also for this GNSS receiver FOIF has different options.
A60 GNSS receiver
The third GNSS receiver of this company is the A60. They present it on their website as light weighted.
It should also be lighter than its brothers A20 and A30, because those GNSS receivers are kind of heavy compared to the GNSS receivers of the competitors. So let’s check the specifications.
- Dimensions: 125x125x135 mm
- Weight: 1350 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, 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
- Number of channels: 220
The weight is indeed smaller, but the change of size with the other two GNSS receivers of FOIF is huge. The A60 GNSS receiver is much smaller.
A90 GNSS receiver
And then there is the A90 GNSS receiver. It looks a bit like the A30.
There are two different versions. There is one version with 336 channels. And there is another one with 555 channels. Here we gathered the specifications of A90 GNSS receiver with 336 channels.
- Dimensions: 156x156x76 mm
- Weight: not mentioned in specifications sheet
- Ingress protection: IP68
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, sCMRx
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 0,5 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 0,5 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, BEIDOU B1, B2, B3, GALILEO E1, E5a, E5b, AltBOC
- Number of channels: 336
Surveying software for GNSS receivers of FOIF
Besides a GNSS receiver people need surveying software for land surveying. So FOIF mentions three software packages on their website. These are:
- SuperGIS
- FieldGenius
- SuperGIS-Desk
Only FieldGenius is suitable for land surveying. Only that land surveying software is not of FOIF. Because Microsurvey developed FieldGenius.
Another land survey app that works great with the GNSS receivers of FOIF is Apglos Survey Wizard. In the specifications of the GNSS receivers you can see that the output of the GNSS receivers is NMEA. And since Apglos Survey Wizard works with NMEA messages, the combination of a FOIF GNSS receiver with Apglos Survey Wizard is great.
Total stations of FOIF
Besides GNSS receivers FOIF also produces total stations. They have their normal total stations but they also manufacture robotic total stations. Check out their website for more information.