scholarly journals On the feasibility of resolving Android GNSS carrier-phase ambiguities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianghui Geng ◽  
Guangcai Li

High-precision navigation using low-cost handsets has profound potential for mass-market applications, which has been being boosted by the release of raw GNSS data from Google Android smart devices. However, integer ambiguity fixing for centimeter-level GNSS positioning is prevented by the unaligned chipset initial phase biases (IPBs) found within Android carrier-phase data. In this study, we thus investigate the temporal behaviors of those chipset IPBs using zero baselines where smart devices are linked to external survey-grade antennas, and find that the IPBs are generally stable over time as the mean standard deviation of single-epoch IPB estimates derived from continuous carrier-phase data is as low as 0.04 cycles for all satellites. Unfortunately, these chipset IPBs differ randomly among satellites and change unpredictably if carrier-phase signals are re-tracked, discouragingly suggesting that the chipset IPBs cannot be pre-calibrated or even calibrated on the fly. We therefore have to presumably correct for them in a post-processing manner with the goal of inspecting the potential of Android GNSS ambiguity resolution if hopefully the IPBs can be gone. For a vehicle-borne Nexus 9 tablet with respect to a survey-grade receiver located 100-2000 m away, we achieve the first ambiguity-fixed solution within 321 s and finally 51.6% of all epochs are resolved; the ambiguity-fixed epochs can achieve a positioning accuracy of 1.4, 2.2 and 3.6 cm for the east, north and up components, respectively, showing an improvement of 30%-80% compared to the ambiguity-float solutions. While all smart devices above are connected to external survey-grade antennas, we find that a Xiaomi 8 smartphone can be coupled effectively with a miniaturized portable patch antenna, and then achieve commensurate carrier-phase tracking and ambiguity-fixing performance to those of a commercial μ-blox receiver with its dedicated patch antenna. This is encouraging since a compact and inexpensive patch antenna paired with smart devices can promote the democratization of high-precision GNSS.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 3254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jungbeom Kim ◽  
Minhuck Park ◽  
Yonghwan Bae ◽  
O-Jong Kim ◽  
Donguk Kim ◽  
...  

In this study, we developed a low-cost, high-precision vehicle navigation system for deep urban multipath environments using time-differenced carrier phase (TDCP) measurements. Although many studies are being conducted to navigate autonomous vehicles using the global positioning system (GPS), it is difficult to obtain accurate navigation solutions due to multipath errors in urban environments. Low-cost GPS receivers that determine the solution based on pseudorange measurements are vulnerable to multipath errors. We used carrier phase measurements that are more robust for multipath errors. Without correction information from reference stations, the limited information of a low-cost, single-frequency receiver makes it difficult to quickly and accurately determine integer ambiguity of carrier phase measurements. We used TDCP measurements to eliminate the need to determine integer ambiguity that is time-invariant and we combined TDCP-based GPS with an inertial navigation system to overcome deep urban multipath environments. Furthermore, we considered a cycle slip algorithm for its accuracy and a multi-constellation navigation system for its availability. The results of dynamic field tests in a deep urban area indicated that it could achieve horizontal accuracy of at the submeter level.


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.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1355
Author(s):  
Euiho Kim

To enable Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based precise relative positioning, real-time kinematic (RTK) systems have been widely used. However, an RTK system often suffers from a wrong integer ambiguity fix in the GNSS carrier phase measurements and may take a long initialization time over several minutes, particularly when the number of satellites in view is small. To facilitate a reliable GNSS carrier phase-based relative positioning with a small number of satellites in view, this paper introduces a novel GNSS carrier phase-based precise relative positioning method that uses a fixed baseline length as well as heading measurements in the beginning of the operation, which allows the fixing of integer ambiguities with rounding schemes in a short time. The integer rounding scheme developed in this paper is an iterative process that sequentially resolves integer ambiguities, and the sequential order of the integer ambiguity resolution is based on the required averaging epochs that vary for each satellite depending on the geometry between the baseline and the double difference line-of-sight vectors. The required averaging epochs with respect to various baseline lengths and heading measurement uncertainties were analyzed through simulations. Static and dynamic field tests with low cost GNSS receivers confirmed that the positioning accuracy of the proposed method was better than 10 cm and significantly outperformed a conventional RTK solution in a GNSS harsh environment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (15) ◽  
pp. 5308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Uradziński ◽  
Mieczysław Bakuła

Recent developments enable to access raw Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements of mobile phones. Initially, researchers using signals gathered by mobile phones for high accuracy surveying were not successful in ambiguity fixing. Nowadays, GNSS chips, which are built in the latest smartphones, deliver code and primarily carrier phase observations available for detailed analysis in post-processing applications. Therefore, we decided to check the performance of carrier phase ambiguity fixing and positioning accuracy results of the latest Huawei P30 pro smartphone equipped with a dual-frequency GNSS receiver. We collected 3 h of raw static data in separate sessions at a known point location. For two sessions, the mobile phone was mounted vertically and for the third one—horizontally. At the same time, a high-class geodetic receiver was used for L1 and L5 signal comparison purposes. The carrier phase measurements were processed using commercial post-processing software with reference to the closest base station observations located 4 km away. Additionally, 1 h sessions were divided into 10, 15, 20 and 30 min separate sub-sessions to check the accuracy of the surveying results in fast static mode. According to the post-processing results, we were able to fix all L1 ambiguities based on Global Positioning System (GPS)-only satellite constellation. In comparison to the fixed reference point position, all three 1 h static session results were at centimeters level of accuracy (1–4 cm). For fast static surveying mode, the best results were obtained for 20 and 30 min sessions, where average accuracy was also at centimeters level.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5552
Author(s):  
Daniel Janos ◽  
Przemysław Kuras

Positioning with low-cost GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) receivers is becoming increasingly popular in many engineering applications. In particular, dual-frequency receivers, which receive signals of all available satellite systems, offer great possibilities. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the accuracy of a position determination using low-cost receivers in different terrain conditions. The u-blox ZED-F9P receiver was used for testing, with the satellite signal supplied by both a dedicated u-blox ANN-MB-00 low-cost patch antenna and the Leica AS10 high-precision geodetic one. A professional Leica GS18T geodetic receiver was used to acquire reference satellite data. In addition, on the prepared test base, observations were made using the Leica MS50 precise total station, which provided higher accuracy and stability of measurement than satellite positioning. As a result, it was concluded that the ZED-F9P receiver equipped with a patch antenna is only suitable for precision measurements in conditions with high availability of open sky. However, the configuration of this receiver with a geodetic-grade antenna significantly improves the quality of results, beating even professional geodetic equipment. In most cases of the partially obscured horizon, a high precision positioning was obtained, making the ZED-F9P a valuable alternative to the high-end geodetic receivers in many applications.


2014 ◽  
Vol 536-537 ◽  
pp. 748-755
Author(s):  
Tong Yue Gao ◽  
Hai Lang Ge

Recently, the SUAV has become the research focus at home and abroad. There is a new aircraft type: double ducted tilting Subminiature UAV system, this paper put forward a new attitude navigation system:AHRS-based low-cost GPS carrier phase orientation Navigation System. AHRS aids GPS fastly fix the attitude.This article proposed application the constraint solving the ambiguity basic model, which is based on the double differential equations of the carrier phase measurement. Then we use baseline length and the inaccurate attitude angle constraint to solver integer ambiguity. By the static experimental results show that this method is fast, effective, the AHRS-GPS system can provide high accuracy navigation for SUAV.


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