scholarly journals Quantifying errors in GNSS antenna calibrations

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sten Bergstrand ◽  
Per Jarlemark ◽  
Magnus Herbertsson
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Component ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Geometric Constraints ◽  
Laser Tracker ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Antenna Phase ◽  
Antenna Calibration

Abstract We evaluated the performance of GNSS absolute antenna calibrations and its impact on accurate positioning with a new assessment method that combines inter-antenna differentials and laser tracker measurements. We thus separated the calibration method contributions from those attainable by various geometric constraints and produced corrections for the calibrations. We investigated antennas calibrated by two IGS-approved institutions and in the worst case found the calibration’s contribution to the vertical component being in excess of 1 cm on the ionosphere-free frequency combination L3. In relation to nearby objects, we gauge the $$1\sigma $$ 1 σ accuracies of our method to determine the antenna phase centers within $$\pm \,0.38$$ ± 0.38  mm on L1 and within $$\pm \,0.62$$ ± 0.62  mm on L3, the latter applicable to global frame determinations where atmospheric influence cannot be neglected. In addition to antenna calibration corrections, the results can be used with an equivalent tracker combination to determine the phase centers of as-installed individual receiver antennas at system critical sites to the same level without compromising the permanent installations.

GNSS antenna calibration tables evaluated by means of large volume metrology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sten Bergstrand ◽  
Per Jarlemark ◽  
Magnus Herbertsson
Keyword(s):  
Reference Frames ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Method Error ◽  
Calibration Methods ◽  
Antenna Phase ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Anchor Points ◽  
Gnss Processing ◽  
Gnss Observations

<p>We have developed a novel method in which a pair of GNSS antennas with similar characteristics are used to evaluate hidden systematic errors in existing GNSS calibrations with the help of high-end industrial metrology equipment. We tilt the calibrated antennas out of parallel and sort the observations in individual antenna reference frames rather than epoch time. With the combined and compared measurements, we can sort out the different elevation dependent uncertainties in the GNSS observations and quantify the errors of the calibration methods. We show the extent to which the calibration method error systematically maps as troposphere and height components in the GNSS processing and in the worst case found this to be > 1 cm in the vertical when using the ionosphere-free frequency combination L3. While showing results in the presentation for the full elevation range in 5° elevation cells, we report here the 1σ uncertainties of our method for 30° elevation at ±0.38 mm on L1 and ±0.62 mm on L3 with respect to the antenna phase centers. Once uncertainties have been characterized at this level, the etalon antennas can be deployed as space geodetic anchor points at core sites without compromising existing installations.</p>

Calibration method for initial position of miss distance in femtosecond laser tracker

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 117001 ◽  
Author(s):  
崔成君 Cui Chengjun ◽  
劳达宝 Lao Dabao ◽  
董登峰 Dong Dengfeng ◽  
高强 Gao Qiang ◽  
周维虎 Zhou Weihu
Keyword(s):  
Femtosecond Laser ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Laser Tracker ◽  
Miss Distance

scholarly journals High Quality Zenith Tropospheric Delay Estimation Using a Low-Cost Dual-Frequency Receiver and Relative Antenna Calibration

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Krietemeyer ◽  
Hans van der Marel ◽  
Nick van de Giesen ◽  
Marie-Claire ten Veldhuis
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Ground Plane ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Single Frequency ◽  
Tropospheric Delay ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Dual Frequency ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Mean Square Errors ◽  
Antenna Calibration

The recent release of consumer-grade dual-frequency receivers sparked scientific interest into use of these cost-efficient devices for high precision positioning and tropospheric delay estimations. Previous analyses with low-cost single-frequency receivers showed promising results for the estimation of Zenith Tropospheric Delays (ZTDs). However, their application is limited by the need to account for the ionospheric delay. In this paper we investigate the potential of a low-cost dual-frequency receiver (U-blox ZED-F9P) in combination with a range of different quality antennas. We show that the receiver itself is very well capable of achieving high-quality ZTD estimations. The limiting factor is the quality of the receiving antenna. To improve the applicability of mass-market antennas, a relative antenna calibration is performed, and new absolute Antenna Exchange Format (ANTEX) entries are created using a geodetic antenna as base. The performance of ZTD estimation with the tested antennas is evaluated, with and without antenna Phase Center Variation (PCV) corrections, using Precise Point Positioning (PPP). Without applying PCVs for the low-cost antennas, the Root Mean Square Errors (RMSE) of the estimated ZTDs are between 15 mm and 24 mm. Using the newly generated PCVs, the RMSE is reduced significantly to about 4 mm, a level that is excellent for meteorological applications. The standard U-blox ANN-MB-00 patch antenna, with a circular ground plane, after correcting the phase pattern yields comparable results (0.47 mm bias and 4.02 mm RMSE) to those from geodetic quality antennas, providing an all-round low-cost solution. The relative antenna calibration method presented in this paper opens the way for wide-spread application of low-cost receiver and antennas.

scholarly journals Flexible method for accurate calibration of large-scale vision metrology system based on virtual 3-D targets and laser tracker

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 172988141989351
Author(s):  
Xi Zhang ◽  
Yuanzhi Xu ◽  
Haichao Li ◽  
Lijing Zhu ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Precision ◽  
Stereo Vision ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Vision System ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Laser Tracker ◽  
Calibration Target ◽  
Pose Tracking

For the purpose of obtaining high-precision in stereo vision calibration, a large-size precise calibration target, which can cover more than half of the field of view is vital. However, large-scale calibration targets are very difficult to fabricate. Based on the idea of error tracing, a high-precision calibration method for vision system with large field of view by constructing a virtual 3-D calibration target with a laser tracker was proposed in this article. A virtual 3-D calibration target that covers the whole measurement space can be established flexibly and the measurement precision of the vision system can be traceable to the laser tracker. First, virtual 3-D targets by calculating rigid body transformation with unit quaternion method were constructed. Then, the high-order distortion camera model was taken into consideration. Besides, the calibration parameters were solved with Levenberg–Marquardt optimization algorithm. In the experiment, a binocular stereo vision system with the field of view of 4 × 3 × 2 m3 was built for verifying the validity and precision of the proposed calibration method. It is measured that the accuracy with the proposed method can be greatly improved comparing with traditional plane calibration method. The method can be widely used in industrial applications, such as in the field of calibrating large-scale vision-based coordinate metrology, and six-degrees of freedom pose tracking system for dimensional measurement of workpiece, as well as robotics geometrical accuracy detection and compensation.

Development of the calibration method for multiwavelength beam coaxiality of femtosecond laser tracker

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (12) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Dabao Lao ◽  
Chengjun Cui ◽  
Guoming Wang ◽  
Weihu Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Femtosecond Laser ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Laser Tracker

Calibration method for initial position of miss distance in femtosecond laser tracker

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 117001
Author(s):  
崔成君 Cui Chengjun ◽  
劳达宝 Lao Dabao ◽  
董登峰 Dong Dengfeng ◽  
高强 Gao Qiang ◽  
周维虎 Zhou Weihu
Keyword(s):  
Femtosecond Laser ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Laser Tracker ◽  
Miss Distance

A Simple Two-step Geometric Approach for the Kinematic Calibration of the 3-PRS Parallel Manipulator

Robotica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 837-850
Author(s):  
Genliang Chen ◽  
Lingyu Kong ◽  
Qinchuan Li ◽  
Hao Wang
Keyword(s):  
Parameter Identification ◽  
Parallel Manipulator ◽  
Parallel Manipulators ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Kinematic Parameter ◽  
Geometric Constraints ◽  
Kinematic Calibration ◽  
Kinematic Parameters ◽  
Positioning Accuracy ◽  
Kinematic Parameter Identification

SummaryKinematic calibration plays an important role in the improvement of positioning accuracy for parallel manipulators. Based on the specific geometric constraints of limbs, this paper presents a new kinematic parameter identification method for the widely studied 3-PRS parallel manipulator. In the proposed calibration method, the planes where the PRS limbs exactly located are identified firstly as the geometric characteristics of the studied parallel manipulator. Then, the limbs can be considered as planar PR mechanisms whose kinematic parameters can be determined conveniently according to the limb planes identified in the first step. The main merit of the proposed calibration method is that the system error model which relates the manipulator’s kinematic errors to the output ones is not required for kinematic parameter identification. Instead, only two simple geometric problems need to be established for identification, which can be solved readily using gradient-based searching algorithms. Hence, another advantage of the proposed method is that parameter identification of the manipulator’s limbs can be accomplished individually without interactive impact on each other. In order to validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method, calibration experiments are conducted on an apparatus of the studied 3-PRS parallel manipulator. The results show that using the proposed two-step calibration method, the kinematic parameters can be identified quickly by means of gradient searching algorithm (converge within five iterations for both steps). The positioning accuracy of the studied 3-PRS parallel manipulator has been significantly improved by compensation according to the identified parameters. The mean position and orientation errors at the validation configurations have been reduced to 1.56 × 10−4 m and 1.13 × 10−3 rad, respectively. Further, the proposed two-step kinematic calibration method can be extended to other limited-degree-of-freedom parallel manipulators, if proper geometric constraints can be characterized for their kinematic limbs.

Accuracy calibration of a 3-CRU translational parallel robot based on the subset of error measurements

2020 ◽  
pp. 095440622096769
Author(s):  
Tie Zhang ◽  
Guangcai Ma ◽  
Yachao Cao ◽  
Yingwu He
Keyword(s):  
Linear Combination ◽  
Error Compensation ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Parallel Robot ◽  
Laser Tracker ◽  
End Effector ◽  
Structural Error ◽  
Robot Accuracy ◽  
Calibration Methods ◽  
Complete Set

Robot accuracy calibration is an effective method to improve its kinematic accuracy. However, most of the existing calibration methods need to measure the complete set of 6-dimensional pose errors of the end-effector, which makes the calibration process especially complicated. In this paper, an accuracy calibration method for a 3-CRU translational parallel robot is proposed based on the subset of error measurements. The process is implemented by four steps: 1) the error model is established based on matrix method. Then the structural errors to be identified are separated. 2) part of pose errors of the end-effector are measured by laser tracker and used to form the subset of error measurements. 3) the minimum structural error linear combination affecting robot accuracy is determined according to the minimum parameter error linear combination theorem. After that, the structural errors can be identified based on the subset of error measurements. 4) error compensation based on the identification results. This method can not only ensure the identifiability of the structural errors, but also can realize error identification based on the subset of error measurements, which will significantly reduce the calibration workload and improve the calibration efficiency. Experiments are carried out to prove the effectiveness of the calibration method.

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