Precise GPS Positioning with Low-Cost Single-Frequency System in Multipath Environment

2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulla Alnaqbi ◽  
Ahmed El-Rabbany

Low-cost, single-frequency GPS systems provide economical positioning solutions to many geomatics applications, including GIS and low-accuracy surveying applications. Unfortunately however, the positioning accuracy obtained with those systems is not sufficient for many surveying applications. This is mainly due to the presence of ionospheric delay and multipath. In this research ionospheric delay is accounted for using regional high-resolution ionospheric maps produced by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The major remaining constraint and challenging problem is multipath. This is because multipath is environmentally-dependent, difficult to model mathematically and cannot be reduced through differential positioning. This research proposes a new approach to identify multipath-contaminated L1 measurements through wavelet analysis. First, the difference between the code and carrier-phase measurements is estimated, leaving essentially twice the ionospheric delay, multipath and system noise. The ionospheric delay is largely removed by using high-resolution ionospheric delay maps produced by NOAA. The remaining residuals contain mainly low-frequency multipath, if it exists, and high-frequency system noise, which are decomposed using Daubechies family wavelets (db8). A satellite signal is identified as contaminated by multipath based on the standard deviation of the low-frequency part of the residual component. The L1 measurements obtained from the satellites with the lowest multipath are used to compute the final positions using two software packages, namely Trimble Total Control (TTC) and Bernese scientific processing software. The Magellan AC12 low-cost single-frequency GPS receiver was extensively tested in static mode. It is shown that accuracies within 5 cm are routinely obtained for baselines up to 65 km under various multipath environments.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulla Al-Naqbi

Positioning using low-cost, single-frequency GPS receivers provides an economical solution, but these receivers are subject to biases leading to degradation of the accuracy required. Factors contributing to degradation in the accuracy of low-cost systems are ionospheric delay, multipath, and measurement noise. Unless carefully addressed, these errors distort the ambiguity resolution process, and result in less accurate positioning solutions. However, with the modern hardware improvements, measurement noise is now almost neglibible. Ionospheric delay has been dramatically reduced with the availablity of global or local ionospheric maps produced by various organizations (e.g., International GNSS Service (IGS), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraion (NOAA). The major remaining constraint and challenging problem is multipath. This is because mulitpath is environmentally dependant, difficult to model mathematically, and cannot be reduced through differential positioning. The research proposes a new approach to identify multipath-contaminated L1 measurements. The approach is based on wavelet analysis using Daubechies family wavelets. First, the difference between the code and carrier phase measurements was estimated, leaving essentially twice the ionospheric delay, multipath and system noise. The ionospheric delay is largely removed by using high resolution ionospheric delay maps produced by NOAA. The remaining residuals contain mainly low-frequency multipath, if existed, and high-frequency part of the residual component described above. The L1 measurements obtaines from the staellites with lowest multipath were used to compute the final positions using Trimble Total Control (TTC) and Bernese scientific processing software packages. The AC12 single-frequency GPS receiver was extensively tested in static and kinematic modes. Accuracies within 5 cm was demostrated for baselines up to 65 km under various multipath environments.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulla Al-Naqbi

Positioning using low-cost, single-frequency GPS receivers provides an economical solution, but these receivers are subject to biases leading to degradation of the accuracy required. Factors contributing to degradation in the accuracy of low-cost systems are ionospheric delay, multipath, and measurement noise. Unless carefully addressed, these errors distort the ambiguity resolution process, and result in less accurate positioning solutions. However, with the modern hardware improvements, measurement noise is now almost neglibible. Ionospheric delay has been dramatically reduced with the availablity of global or local ionospheric maps produced by various organizations (e.g., International GNSS Service (IGS), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraion (NOAA). The major remaining constraint and challenging problem is multipath. This is because mulitpath is environmentally dependant, difficult to model mathematically, and cannot be reduced through differential positioning. The research proposes a new approach to identify multipath-contaminated L1 measurements. The approach is based on wavelet analysis using Daubechies family wavelets. First, the difference between the code and carrier phase measurements was estimated, leaving essentially twice the ionospheric delay, multipath and system noise. The ionospheric delay is largely removed by using high resolution ionospheric delay maps produced by NOAA. The remaining residuals contain mainly low-frequency multipath, if existed, and high-frequency part of the residual component described above. The L1 measurements obtaines from the staellites with lowest multipath were used to compute the final positions using Trimble Total Control (TTC) and Bernese scientific processing software packages. The AC12 single-frequency GPS receiver was extensively tested in static and kinematic modes. Accuracies within 5 cm was demostrated for baselines up to 65 km under various multipath environments.


GPS Solutions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Wang ◽  
Zishen Li ◽  
Ningbo Wang ◽  
Zhiyu Wang

AbstractGlobal Navigation Satellite System raw measurements from Android smart devices make accurate positioning possible with advanced techniques, e.g., precise point positioning (PPP). To achieve the sub-meter-level positioning accuracy with low-cost smart devices, the PPP algorithm developed for geodetic receivers is adapted and an approach named Smart-PPP is proposed in this contribution. In Smart-PPP, the uncombined PPP model is applied for the unified processing of single- and dual-frequency measurements from tracked satellites. The receiver clock terms are parameterized independently for the code and carrier phase measurements of each tracking signal for handling the inconsistency between the code and carrier phases measured by smart devices. The ionospheric pseudo-observations are adopted to provide absolute constraints on the estimation of slant ionospheric delays and to strengthen the uncombined PPP model. A modified stochastic model is employed to weight code and carrier phase measurements by considering the high correlation between the measurement errors and the signal strengths for smart devices. Additionally, an application software based on the Android platform is developed for realizing Smart-PPP in smart devices. The positioning performance of Smart-PPP is validated in both static and kinematic cases. Results show that the positioning errors of Smart-PPP solutions can converge to below 1.0 m within a few minutes in static mode and the converged solutions can achieve an accuracy of about 0.2 m of root mean square (RMS) both for the east, north and up components. For the kinematic test, the RMS values of Smart-PPP positioning errors are 0.65, 0.54 and 1.09 m in the east, north and up components, respectively. Static and kinematic tests both show that the Smart-PPP solutions outperform the internal results provided by the experimental smart devices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 480-487
Author(s):  
Patrick Smith ◽  
Brandon Mattox

The P-Cable high-resolution 3D marine acquisition system tows many short, closely separated streamers behind a small source. It can provide 3D seismic data of very high temporal and spatial resolution. Since the system is containerized and has small dimensions, it can be deployed at short notice and relatively low cost, making it attractive for time-lapse seismic reservoir monitoring. During acquisition of a 3D high-resolution survey in the Gulf of Mexico in 2014, a pair of sail lines were repeated to form a time-lapse seismic test. We processed these in 2019 to evaluate their geometric and seismic repeatability. Geometric repetition accuracy was excellent, with source repositioning errors below 10 m and bin-based receiver positioning errors below 6.25 m. Seismic data comparisons showed normalized root-mean-square difference values below 10% between 40 and 150 Hz. Refinements to the acquisition system since 2014 are expected to further improve repeatability of the low-frequency components. Residual energy on 4D difference seismic data was low, and timing stability was good. We conclude that the acquisition system is well suited to time-lapse seismic surveying in areas where the reservoir and time-lapse seismic signal can be adequately imaged by small-source, short-offset, low-fold data.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 174830181983304
Author(s):  
Hangshuai Ma ◽  
Rong Wang ◽  
Zhi Xiong ◽  
Jianye Liu ◽  
Chuanyi Li

The application of Beidou Satellite Navigation System (BDS) is developing rapidly. To satisfy the increasing demand for positioning performance, single-frequency precise point positioning (SFPPP) has been a focus in recent years. By introducing the SFPPP technique into the INS/BDS integrated system, higher navigation accuracy can be obtained. Cycle slip, which is caused by signal blockage during the measurement of the carrier phase, is a challenge for SFPPP application. In the INS/SFPPP-BDS integrated system, cycle slip can cause serious bias in BDS carrier phase measurements. In this paper, a new INS/SFBDS-PPP tightly coupled navigation system and a robust adaptive filtering method are proposed. Using a low-cost single-frequency receiver integrated with INS, an observation model was built based on the pseudo range and carrier phase by PPP preprocessing. The cycle slip was introduced into the state vector to improve the estimation precision. The test statistics, comprising the innovation and its covariance, were used to estimate the time at which cycle slip occurred and its amplitude to compensate for its effect on the observation. Finally, the proposed system model and algorithm are validated by simulation.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2845
Author(s):  
Janina Boisits ◽  
Marcus Glaner ◽  
Robert Weber

Propagation delays of GNSS signals caused by the ionosphere can range up to several meters in zenith direction and need to be corrected. Geodetic receivers observing at two or more frequencies allow the mitigation of the ionospheric effects by forming linear combinations. However, single frequency users depend on external information. The ionosphere delay model Regiomontan developed at TU Wien is a regional ionospheric delay model providing high accuracy information with a latency of only a few hours. The model is based on dual-frequency phase observations of a regional network operated by EPOSA (Echtzeit Positionierung Austria) and partners. The corrections cover a geographical extent for receiver positions within Austria and are provided in the standardized IONEX format. The performance of Regiomontan as well as its application in Precise Point Positioning (PPP) were tested with our in-house PPP software raPPPid using the so-called uncombined model with ionospheric constraint. Various tests, e.g., analyzing the coordinate convergence behavior or the difference between estimated and modeled ionospheric delay, proving the high level of accuracy provided with Regiomontan. We conclude that Regiomontan performs at a similar level of accuracy as IGS final TEC maps, but with explicitly reduced latency.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1956
Author(s):  
Natalia Wielgocka ◽  
Tomasz Hadas ◽  
Adrian Kaczmarek ◽  
Grzegorz Marut

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have revolutionized land surveying, by determining position coordinates with centimeter-level accuracy in real-time or up to sub-millimeter accuracy in post-processing solutions. Although low-cost single-frequency receivers do not meet the accuracy requirements of many surveying applications, multi-frequency hardware is expected to overcome the major issues. Therefore, this paper is aimed at investigating the performance of a u-blox ZED-F9P receiver, connected to a u-blox ANN-MB-00-00 antenna, during multiple field experiments. Satisfactory signal acquisition was noticed but it resulted as >7 dB Hz weaker than with a geodetic-grade receiver, especially for low-elevation mask signals. In the static mode, the ambiguity fixing rate reaches 80%, and a horizontal accuracy of few centimeters was achieved during an hour-long session. Similar accuracy was achieved with the Precise Point Positioning (PPP) if a session is extended to at least 2.5 h. Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) and Network RTK measurements achieved a horizontal accuracy better than 5 cm and a sub-decimeter vertical accuracy. If a base station constituted by a low-cost receiver is used, the horizontal accuracy degrades by a factor of two and such a setup may lead to an inaccurate height determination under dynamic surveying conditions, e.g., rotating antenna of the mobile receiver.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-161
Author(s):  
A. S. Pustoshilov ◽  
◽  
S. P. Tsarev ◽  

The use of carrier-phase measurements significantly increases the accuracy of solutions when using the measurements of navigation receivers. One of the problems in carrier-phase measurements is discontinuities (cycle slips) in the measurements. The existing algorithms of detection and compensation of cycle slips in carrier-phase measurements of a singlefrequency navigation receiver either require additional information (for example, Doppler measurements), or operate only in differential mode, or can only detect large cycle slips. The purpose of the research is the development of algorithms for detecting small cycle slips in carrier-phase measurements of single-frequency receivers without using additional information. We use methods of filtering of the trend in the carrier-phase measurements using polynomial or adaptive bases, as well as modified sparse recovery algorithms to estimate cycle slips in the difference between code and carrier-phase measurements. The algorithm which is used to search cycle slips in carrier-phase measurements depends on the quality of the reference oscillator of the navigation receiver. For receivers with high-stability reference oscillators (e.g. active hydrogen maser), one can use polynomial filtering of the trend, the filtering result directly detects discontinuities in carrier-phase measurements with a probability close to unity. For navigation receivers with low-stability reference oscillators (quartz reference oscillators), a modified algorithm for minimization of the total variation with filtering of the trend applied to the difference between the code and carrier-phase single-frequency measurements detects discontinuities in 1 cycle slip against the background of the noise component of comparable magnitude with a probability of 0.8. The results may be applied in navigation systems with single-frequency receivers with low stability reference oscillators, as well as in a posteriori processing of receivers’ measurements to correct carrier-phase measurements on the preprocessing stage.


2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Alkan ◽  
M. H. Saka

Low-cost OEM GPS receivers with the capability of tracking the carrier phase are now used for many applications in the navigation and tracking arena. These receivers provide flexibility in applying carrier smoothing algorithms to improve the pseudorange positioning accuracy and even perform carrier-phase differential positioning. In this study, the performance of a low-cost single-frequency OEM GPS receiver for high-accuracy kinematic positioning in marine applications is investigated. As a first step, a set of zero baseline tests were carried out to evaluate the performance of the GPS receivers. In the second stage, a kinematic test was conducted at the Halic (Golden Horn), Istanbul. The results show that kinematic positioning with centimetre level accuracy can be achieved by the low-cost OEM GPS receiver in differential mode, suggesting its use in a variety of kinematic applications. The use of such a system could considerably reduce the cost of the GPS receiver and the total project costs of many applications.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 4185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gérard Lachapelle ◽  
Paul Gratton ◽  
Jamie Horrelt ◽  
Erica Lemieux ◽  
Ali Broumandan

A newly available portable unit with GNSS raw data recording capability is assessed to determine static and kinematic position accuracy in various environments. This unit is the GPSMap 66, introduced by Garmin in early September. It is all-weather and robust for field use, and comes with a helix antenna. The high sensitivity chipset is capable of acquiring and tracking signals in highly attenuated environments. It can track single frequency GPS, GPS + GLONASS or GPS + Galileo and record code, Doppler and carrier phase data every second in the RINEX format. The evaluation presented herein focusses on GPS and Galileo. Static and kinematic test results obtained under a wide range of realistic field conditions are reported. Differential GNSS methods and Precise Point Positioning (PPP) are used to assess absolute position accuracy in ITRF coordinates, which is sufficiently close to the GPS and Galileo reference frame for the current purpose. Under low multipath conditions, measurements are found to be sufficiently accurate to provide single epoch, bias free position accuracy of a few metres. Accuracy is a function of signal attenuation and multipath conditions. The use of an external geodetic antenna significantly reduces measurement noise and multipath in high multipath environments. Carrier phase measurements, available more or less continuously under open sky conditions, significantly improve performance in differential mode. Accuracy in vehicular mode using code and carrier phase differential RTK solution is at the level of a few to several dm. Tests were conducted in parallel with a Huawei P10 Android 8.0 smartphone. The code measurement noise of this unit was found to be significantly higher than that of the GPSMap 66, a major reason being its lower performance PIFA antenna; carrier phase was only available for short time intervals, significantly degrading differential position accuracy performance.


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