Democratising precision-guided agriculture: an ever-expanding Centipede-RTK network

The Centipede-RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) project was created to provide farmers with inexpensive, reliable and easy-to-use solutions that make precision guidance technologies in agriculture more accessible to all.

These precision technologies make best use of resources, reducing environmental impacts and lightening the work burden for agricultural businesses. And precision is indeed required, since certain agricultural tasks call for levels of GPS accuracy down to the nearest centimetre, including seeding and hoeing, section control (to reduce application overlaps and gaps when spreading fertiliser), precision spraying, and the monitoring of water levels in gravity-fed irrigation systems.

First imagined in 2019 on a farm in Charente-Maritime, the project was then developed using INRAE’s CATI GEDEOP^[1] platform.

The goal set by the project was to establish a dense network of satellite navigation base stations (GNSS, Global Navigation Satellite System) with the help of the RTKbase, and to use this to provide a correction data service in real time that would be open to all. This would enable high-precision positioning that could be accessed for free and independently of commercial products. 

This open network was developed through a collaborative process, mobilising farmers, private businesses, scientists and communities, who together have installed the connections they need across the landscape to provide coverage tailored to their individual needs. Each base can be installed by the end-user with the help of on-line tutorials, and advice is available from the network community if users run into difficulties.

Since the project began, 625 bases have been installed in mainland France, with a further 860 bases now in operation across the world (in 30 different countries). There has been marked enthusiasm for Centipede-RTK in Hungary, where full national coverage has been achieved in under two years, with over 130 bases installed by local farmers. Other countries, too, are beginning to make use of the system, with regional clusters of GNSS bases emerging in Senegal, Serbia, England, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Canada, for example. Beyond these groupings, individual farmers across the world, particularly in Equador, Israel and South Africa, are now using and contributing to the network.  

Scientists, too, particularly those working at INRAE and the IUEM (European Institute for Marine Studies, Brittany), are using this technology in their work on meteorological monitoring, coastal monitoring, water and forest management, etc.

The formation of the non-profit Centipede-RTK association in August 2024 has made it possible to strengthen collaborations with various partners such as PCH (Packet Clearing House), the intergovernmental treaty organisation, with the specific purpose of expanding the network, originally centred on France, to become an international data infrastructure that remains open access.