Trimble has announced its acquisition of MidStates VRS, a network previously owned by Butler Machinery and Frontier Precision. The addition of the network, located in North and South Dakota, increases the footprint of Trimble’s VRS Now GNSS corrections service to cover more than one million square miles in North America. Financial terms were not disclosed.

As part of an ongoing expansion strategy, the new coverage for the VRS Now subscription service helps users in more places achieve high-accuracy positioning to increase productivity, reduce operational costs and improve safety. The correction service is ideal for professionals in agriculture, geospatial and construction as well as emerging autonomous applications including lane-keeping for passenger vehicles, Vehicle-to-Anything (V2X) position identification and unmanned aerial system guidance.

Adding 105,000 square miles of coverage, the acquisition expands Trimble’s VRS Now network to be one of the largest in North America — over one million square miles, contributing to Trimble's shift toward a software, services and subscription business emphasis. When using the Trimble VRS Now service, land and construction surveyors, GIS professionals and farmers—with a Trimble or third-party commercial GNSS receiver — can leverage instant high-accuracy corrections delivered via cellular network to improve productivity. 

“The MidStates VRS network covers significant farmland, oil fields and rapidly developing urban areas, providing farmers and surveyors in the region with the real-time GNSS correction services they need to improve their day-to-day work,” said Patricia Boothe, senior vice president of Trimble’s Autonomy Sector. “The purchase of the MidStates network demonstrates Trimble’s ongoing commitment to provide a wide range of correction services for autonomous solutions."