There are many drones that utilize a GPS connection through the aircraft, remote control, or both, but there are a few that stand out above the rest. A drone with RTK, short for Real Time Kinematic, will offer the very best in flight precision. RTK is a GPS correction technology, a technique that combines the connection to satellites with photos and positioning to a known ground station.
While the best non-RTK drones hover with accuracy in the range of twenty to fifty inches, an RTK drone can hover with accuracy as low as a couple inches.
For most hobby flights, half a meter is more than accurate enough, but for absolute precision on inspection, surveying and mapping missions, the hover accuracy can make or break the project. Here are some of the best drones that either offer RTK or other similar GPS precision tools, the best GPS drones.
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Best GPS drones
DJI Matrice 300 RTK: Advanced utility drone
The DJI Matrice 300 RTK is a powerful commercial drone, designed for inspection tasks. With RTK GPS, you can expect extreme precision for both your flight paths and the repeated imagery you take of an object. Multiple payloads make the drone ideal for near any aerial imagery task, including infrared inspections and more.
Bottom line, the M300 is a capable drone, and the RTK module ensures you get the most accurate results from the sky.
Why we fly the DJI Matrice 300 RTK
While the Matrice 300 RTK is our top pick for a precision GPS drone, it’s still a high-end inspection drone. If you need to survey a construction site, this is our top pick.
What we like
- Very capable inspection drone
- Accepts multiple operators
- Versatile payload options
What we don’t like
- Big commercial drone
- Versatile commercial platform
- Precise and reliable
The DJI Matrice 300 RTK packs multi-direction obstacle avoidance, advanced airspace awareness and multiple payloads for commercial drone operations.
DJI Matrice 200 RTK: Last gen, but still top notch
The DJI Matrice 200 series of drones together have all of the capabilities of the M300 listed above. Thing is, one of the M200 drones can hang multiple cameras, one can also mount a camera on top, and another yet has RTK GPS.
Check out the options, one of these may be perfect for your needs, but if you don’t know exactly what you need, or just need more, please look at the M300 instead.
Why we fly the DJI Matrice 200
This multi-operator commercial unit has good GPS, but only offers the top-notch RTK GPS in a specific model. I can’t tell you if the functionality of the GPS enabled version is right for you, but I can attest that the M200 series is a very capable platform, and actually a little fun to fly.
What we like
- Powerful commercial drone
- Multiple payloads
- RTK available
What we don’t like
- RTK only on one model
- Multiple versions with different features
- Versatile commercial platform
- Capable payloads
DJI designed the Matrice 200 series to offer a versatile set of inspection capabilities. Choose from various payloads and mounting points to look up, down and all around.
DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise: Consumer-class airframe, Enterprise-class capabilities
The DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise is a superb crossover of a consumer drone with commercial applications. Enhanced software security is a good start, and the ability to attach external modules is invaluable for some operations. The drone was made to satisfy most search and rescue needs, with accessories including a spotlight and a loudspeaker, and the option of an infrared camera.
Why we fly the DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise
The DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise is a solid drone for rapid deployment situations, where portability is a benefit. Make no mistake, the airframe is the same as the Mavic 2 consumer-drones, so you can get the same flight characteristics for less money, if all you need is a flying camera.
What we like
- Versatile platform
- Easy to transport
- Detachable modules
- Easy to fly
- A well upgraded consumer drone
What we don’t like
- Limited installed modules at a time
- Just an upgraded consumer drone
- Versatile rescue drone
- Capable folding drone
Building off of the Mavic 2 platform, the DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise offers new cameras and new accessories such as lights, speakers and beacons.
Yuneec H520: Hexacopter stability
The Yuneec H520 is the kind of commercial drone that proves safe and reliable for more sensitive operations. While a quadcopter is perfectly capable, having six propellers provides more power, more stability, and more reliability. Best of all, if you lose a propeller during flight, you can still safely land.
Why we fly the Yuneec H520
The H520 was built for inspection tasks in high-wind, sensitive areas. The early demonstrations showed the craft inspecting radio towers, power lines, and windmills. After Yuneec teamed up with the Nevada State Highway Patrol, the H520 became well known for its ability to record accident scenes, reducing time on scene, and enhancing accident reconstruction efforts.
While not exclusive for the task, the H520 is proven to be accurate enough to capture evidence for law enforcement.
What we like
- Capable hexacopter
- Reliable and safe
- Proven efficiency with law enforcement
- Compatibility with opensource flight software
What we don’t like
- Older drone
- Limited payloads
- Stable commercial drone
- High wind resistance
Yuneec's reliable hexacopter hardened for the commercial market, the Yuneec H520 is ready for your inspection tasks and more.
DJI Inspire 2: Ready to shoot Hollywood movies
The DJI Inspire 2 is a high-end professional camera drone. Multiple payloads include micro four thirds cameras that shoot up to 6K video, and that’s the whole point, the Inspire 2 is a camera drone, born and breed.
Why we fly the DJI Inspire 2
The Inspire 2 is simply our favorite camera drone. It’s large, hard to transport, and you’d call it cumbersome to manage if you compare to the ease of a Mavic drone, but it’s fast, fun, highly capable and shoots amazing images from the sky.
What we like
- Exceptional cameras
- Hot-swappable cameras
- Two operators: one pilot, one camera
- Fast and fun
What we don’t like
- No RTK, just normal GPS
- Powerful professional drone
- Interchangeable cameras
Generally recognized as one of the best camera drones on the market, the DJI Inspire 2 offers great cameras, superb flight and robust controls for your filming needs.
DJI Phantom 4 RTK: Precision flight from a larger consumer-drone
The DJI Phantom 4 RTK is another powerful creation, taking a proven consumer platform and adding an advanced part to enhance the capabilities. In this case, you’ll be flying a fairly standard Phantom 4 Pro drone, but with RTK GPS precision.
Why we fly the DJI Phantom 4 RTK
We imagine that existing Phantom pilots would have loved to see a user-installable RTK add-on module, instead of needing to buy a full new drone in order to enjoy RTK precision. That kind of sums it up, if you need GPS precision from your reliable Phantom drone, this is the airframe for you.
What we like
- RTK precision
- Familiar and proven platform
- Powerful Phantom drone
What we don’t like
- Just an updated consumer drone
- Extreme GPS precision
- Stable and reliable airframe
The DJI Phantom 4 RTK adds the best GPS precision to the popular <a href="https://dronerush.com/dji-phantom-drones-comparison-guide-3335/">Phantom line</a> of drones. This is a serious tool for drone mapping, surveying and more.
DJI Air 2S: Long range for the win!
The DJI Air 2S is a fantastic little consumer drone, and while the GPS is reliable and precise, it’s just normal GPS modules installed. The real value to this drone when piloting the craft is the long range connectivity.
The Air 2S is rated for 7.5 miles of connectivity, which means that you should never lose connection when flying within visual line of sight. That connection to the controller helps the drone understand where it is in the sky, able to better understand where ‘home’ is, which is a valuable thing to know for a GPS drone.
Why we fly the DJI Air 2S
Did you notice a trend in this article? All those big, expensive commercial drones with RTK offer the best GPS capabilities, but the Air 2S may be the drone for you. If you are like us, then you want an affordable camera drone that is super portable and easy to use.
That’s what the Air 2S provides, one of the very best camera experiences in a drone under $1,000.
What we like
- Easy to fly
- Fun to fly
- Solid 5.4K camera
- 7.5 mile connectivity range
What we don’t like
- Just a consumer drone
- Does not have RTK
- Great camera
- 5.4K video
- 8X zoom
- Compact and easy to use
- Fantastic range
The DJI Air 2S is easily the best camera drone for most uses. The 1-inch sensor produces fantastic images from the sky, and the compact, folding design of the quadcopter is familiar and reliable – it may not be in the name, but this is still a Mavic drone.
Custom commercial drones
Aside from the off-the-shelf offerings above, most all of the custom commercial drones you can commission have RTK or similar precise GPS functionality. Many of these machines have a starting price of around $10,000, but you can select the payloads, flight characteristics, size and more to get the exact drone for your needs.
That’s a solid start for our GPS drones list, we’ll revisit it as we add more professional and commercial drones to our database.
Frequently Asked Questions
GPS on your drone is only as important as you need it to be. GPS enables self-piloted flight, including the ability to program a flight pattern, GPS helps with stability, and GPS is invaluable in finding a drone that has gone out of view.
If you are flying something like a toy drone in the living room, or a racing drone on an indoor track, GPS is not really useful to you. For inspection and mapping tasks, GPS is critical to ensure you are capturing and labeling your images accurately.
Most consumer-grade drones connect to about nine satellites at a time. Some drones will refuse to fly if they do not connect to at least six satellites, and most will try for closer to twelve, but nine is a common average, at least in my part of the world. The more satellites you connect to, the better the accuracy.
Three satellites will generally triangulate to about 30 feet (10 meters) accuracy, where a dozen satellites should be accurate to within a few inches. RTK goes the step beyond, adding fixed point ‘satellites’ on the ground to increase that accuracy to a fraction of an inch. In most cases, our DJI Mavic drones hover within about 2 feet of where we leave them, most of that drift is from GPS corrections, so, we can assume that the drones have about 2 feet of accuracy.
Not at this time. We fully appreciate that many drones are proven to work reliably well at great distance and/or autonomously, but the FAA, and many other aviation authorities around the globe, still have distance and line-of-site rules to follow. Otherwise, GPS does not reduce the risk of your machine falling out of the sky onto people or property below, so those laws remain intact as well.
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