scholarly journals Performance Analysis of Positioning Solution Using Low-Cost Single-Frequency U-Blox Receiver Based on Baseline Length Constraint

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (19) ◽  
pp. 4352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu ◽  
Ma ◽  
Wu ◽  
Chen

With the rapid development of the satellite navigation industry, low-cost and high-precision Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning has recently become a research hotspot. The traditional application of GNSS may be further extended thanks to the low cost of measuring instruments, but effective methods are also desperately needed due to the low quality of the data obtained using these instruments. Thus, in this paper, we propose the analysis and evaluation of the ambiguity fixed-rate and positioning accuracy of single-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) and BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) data, collected from a low-cost u-blox receiver, based on the Constrained LAMBDA (CLAMBDA) method with a baseline length constraint, instead of the classical LAMBDA method. Three sets of experiments in different observation environments, including two sets of static short-baseline experiments and a set of dynamic vehicle experiments, are adopted in this paper. The experiment results show that, compared to classical LAMBDA method, the CLAMBDA method can significantly improve the success rate of the GNSS ambiguity resolution. When the ambiguity is fixed correctly, the baseline solution accuracy reaches 0.5 and 1 cm in a static scenario, and 1 and 2 cm on a dynamic platform.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Yanlong Chen ◽  
Jincheng Fan ◽  
Guobin Chang ◽  
Siyu Zhang

GNSS (global navigation satellite system) compass is a low-cost, high-precision, and temporally stable north-finding technique. While the nonlinear baseline length constraint is widely known to be important in ambiguity resolution of GNSS compass, its direct effect on yaw angle estimation is theoretically analyzed in this work. Four different methods are considered with different ways in which the length constraint is made use of as follows: one without considering the constraints, one with simple scaling, one with indirect statistical scaling, and one with direct statistical scaling. It is found that simple scaling does not have any effect on yaw estimation; indirect and direct statistical scalings are equivalent to each other with both being able to increase the precision. The analysis and the conclusion developed in this work can go in parallel for the case of the tilt angle estimation.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kan Wang ◽  
Pei Chen ◽  
Peter Teunissen

The Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) satellite system has placed in orbit four satellites by October 2017. The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) system has launched the new satellite IRNNSS-11 in April 2018, completing seven operational satellites. Together with the GPS block IIF satellites and the Galileo satellites, four different global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) are providing precise L5 signals on the frequency of 1176.45 MHz. In this contribution, we challenge the strength of the multi-GNSS model by analysing its single-frequency (L5), single-epoch (instantaneous) precise positioning capabilities under high-elevation masking (up to 40 degrees). With more satellites available, multi-GNSS real time kinematic (RTK) positioning is possible using L5-only signals with a high customary elevation mask. This helps to enable positioning in areas with constrained measurement geometry, and could significantly reduce the multipath effects in difficult measurement environments like urban canyons and mountainous areas. In this study, benefiting from the location of the Asia–Australia area, instantaneous multi-GNSS L5 RTK analysis is performed with respect to the ambiguity resolution and positioning performance. Formal results are shown and discussed for baselines located in different grids covering Australia, part of the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and Asia, and empirical analysis is given for two baselines in Perth, Australia. Compared to the stand-alone cases, for baselines in Perth, it is shown that combining L5 signals from GPS/Galileo/QZSS/IRNSS significantly improves both the ambiguity success rates (ASR) and the positioning performance under high elevation mask. While the average single-system ASR is under 50% even with a low elevation mask of 10 degrees, combining all the four systems increases the ASR to above 95% under an elevation cut-off angles of 40 degrees. With an elevation mask of 40 degrees, using satellites from one system does not allow for meaningful positioning solutions of more than 8 h within the test day, while mm-to-cm level ambiguity-fixed standard deviations could be obtained based on the positioning results of almost the entire day when combining all the four systems. In addition to that, simulation was also performed for receivers with larger signal standard deviations, i.e., for low-cost receivers or receivers located in environments with larger multipath.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1621
Author(s):  
Duojie Weng ◽  
Shengyue Ji ◽  
Yangwei Lu ◽  
Wu Chen ◽  
Zhihua Li

The differential global navigation satellite system (DGNSS) is an enhancement system that is widely used to improve the accuracy of single-frequency receivers. However, distance-dependent errors are not considered in conventional DGNSS, and DGNSS accuracy decreases when baseline length increases. In network real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning, distance-dependent errors are accurately modelled to enable ambiguity resolution on the user side, and standard Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services (RTCM) formats have also been developed to describe the spatial characteristics of distance-dependent errors. However, the network RTK service was mainly developed for carrier-phase measurements on professional user receivers. The purpose of this study was to modify the local-area DGNSS through the use of network RTK corrections. Distance-dependent errors can be reduced, and accuracy for a longer baseline length can be improved. The results in the low-latitude areas showed that the accuracy of the modified DGNSS could be improved by more than 50% for a 17.9 km baseline during solar active years. The method in this paper extends the use of available network RTK corrections with high accuracy to normal local-area DGNSS applications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanke Liu ◽  
Mingkui Wu ◽  
Xiaohong Zhang ◽  
Wang Wang ◽  
Wei Ke ◽  
...  

AbstractThe BeiDou global navigation satellite system (BDS-3) constellation deployment has been completed on June 23, 2020, with a full constellation comprising 30 satellites. In this study, we present the performance assessment of single-epoch Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning with tightly combined BeiDou regional navigation satellite system (BDS-2) and BDS-3. We first investigate whether code and phase Differential Inter-System Biases (DISBs) exist between the legacy B1I/B3I signals of BDS-3/BDS-2. It is discovered that the DISBs are in fact about zero for the baselines with the same or different receiver types at their endpoints. These results imply that BDS-3 and BDS-2 are fully interoperable and can be regarded as one constellation without additional DISBs when the legacy B1I/B3I signals are used for precise relative positioning. Then we preliminarily evaluate the single-epoch short baseline RTK performance of tightly combined BDS-2 and the newly completed BDS-3. The performance is evaluated through ambiguity resolution success rate, ambiguity dilution of precision, as well as positioning accuracy in kinematic and static modes using the datasets collected in Wuhan. Experimental results demonstrate that the current BDS-3 only solutions can deliver comparable ambiguity resolution performance and much better positioning accuracy with respect to BDS-2 only solutions. Moreover, the RTK performance is much improved with tightly combined BDS-3/BDS-2, particularly in challenging or harsh conditions. The single-frequency single-epoch tightly combined BDS-3/BDS-2 solution could deliver an ambiguity resolution success rate of 96.9% even with an elevation cut-off angle of 40°, indicating that the tightly combined BDS-3/BDS-2 could achieve superior RTK positioning performance in the Asia–Pacific region. Meanwhile, the three-dimensional (East/North/Up) positioning accuracy of BDS-3 only solution (0.52 cm/0.39 cm/2.14 cm) in the kinematic test is significantly better than that of the BDS-2 only solution (0.85 cm/1.02 cm/3.01 cm) due to the better geometry of the current BDS-3 constellation. The tightly combined BDS-3/BDS-2 solution can provide the positioning accuracy of 0.52 cm, 0.22 cm, and 1.80 cm, respectively.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 2594
Author(s):  
Aiden Morrison ◽  
Nadezda Sokolova ◽  
James Curran

This paper investigates the challenges of developing a multi-frequency radio frequency interference (RFI) monitoring and characterization system that is optimized for ease of deployment and operation as well as low per unit cost. To achieve this, we explore the design and development of a multiband global navigation satellite system (GNSS) front-end which is intrinsically capable of synchronizing side channel information from non-RF sensors, such as inertial measurement units and integrated power meters, to allow the simultaneous production of substantial amounts of sampled spectrum while also allowing low-cost, real-time monitoring and logging of detected RFI events. While the inertial measurement unit and barometer are not used in the RFI investigation discussed, the design features that provide for their precise synchronization with the RF sample stream are presented as design elements worth consideration. The designed system, referred to as Four Independent Tuners with Data-packing (FITWD), was utilized in a data collection campaign over multiple European and Scandinavian countries in support of the determination of the relative occurrence rates of L1/E1 and L5/E5a interference events and intensities where it proved itself a successful alternative to larger and more expensive commercial solutions. The dual conclusions reached were that it was possible to develop a compact low-cost, multi-channel radio frequency (RF) front-end that implicitly supported external data source synchronization, and that such monitoring systems or similar capabilities integrated within receivers are likely to be needed in the future due to the increasing occurrence rates of GNSS RFI events.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-112
Author(s):  
Mostafa Hamed ◽  
Ashraf Abdallah ◽  
Ashraf Farah

Abstract Nowadays, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a very popular technique for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning. The advantage of PPP is its low cost as well as no distance limitation when compared with the differential technique. Single-frequency receivers have the advantage of cost effectiveness when compared with the expensive dual-frequency receivers, but the ionosphere error makes a difficulty to be completely mitigated. This research aims to assess the effect of using observations from both GPS and GLONASS constellations in comparison with GPS only for kinematic purposes using single-frequency observations. Six days of the year 2018 with single-frequency data for the Ethiopian IGS station named “ADIS” were processed epoch by epoch for 24 hours once with GPS-only observations and another with GPS/GLONASS observations. In addition to “ADIS” station, a kinematic track in the New Aswan City, Aswan, Egypt, has been observed using Leica GS15, geodetic type, dual-frequency, GPS/GLONASS GNSS receiver and single-frequency data have been processed. Net_Diff software was used for processing all the data. The results have been compared with a reference solution. Adding GLONASS satellites significantly improved the satellite number and Position Dilution Of Precision (PDOP) value and accordingly improved the accuracy of positioning. In the case of “ADIS” data, the 3D Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) ranged between 0.273 and 0.816 m for GPS only and improved to a range from 0.256 to 0.550 m for GPS/GLONASS for the 6 processed days. An average improvement ratio of 24%, 29%, 30%, and 29% in the east, north, height, and 3D position components, respectively, was achieved. For the kinematic trajectory, the 3D position RMSE improved from 0.733 m for GPS only to 0.638 m for GPS/GLONASS. The improvement ratios were 7%, 5%, 28%, and 13% in the east, north, height, and 3D position components, respectively, for the kinematic trajectory data. This opens the way to add observations from the other two constellations (Galileo and BeiDou) for more accuracy in future research.


Author(s):  
M. Rehak ◽  
J. Skaloud

Mapping with Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs whose weight does not exceed 5&amp;thinsp;kg) is gaining importance in applications such as corridor mapping, road and pipeline inspections, or mapping of large areas with homogeneous surface structure, e.g. forest or agricultural fields. In these challenging scenarios, integrated sensor orientation (ISO) improves effectiveness and accuracy. Furthermore, in block geometry configurations, this mode of operation allows mapping without ground control points (GCPs). Accurate camera positions are traditionally determined by carrier-phase GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) positioning. However, such mode of positioning has strong requirements on receiver’s and antenna’s performance. In this article, we present a mapping project in which we employ a single-frequency, low-cost (<&amp;thinsp;$100) GNSS receiver on a MAV. The performance of the low-cost receiver is assessed by comparing its trajectory with a reference trajectory obtained by a survey-grade, multi-frequency GNSS receiver. In addition, the camera positions derived from these two trajectories are used as observations in bundle adjustment (BA) projects and mapping accuracy is evaluated at check points (ChP). Several BA scenarios are considered with absolute and relative aerial position control. Additionally, the presented experiments show the possibility of BA to determine a camera-antenna spatial offset, so-called lever-arm.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 2374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hang Yu ◽  
Houzeng Han ◽  
Jian Wang ◽  
Haiping Xiao ◽  
Chuanyang Wang

Single-frequency GPS/BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS) real-time kinematic (RTK) and inertial navigation system (INS) integration has wide range of application prospects due to the global deployment of GPS along with the rapid development of BDS. The instantaneous single-frequency ambiguity resolution will be significantly improved by the combined GPS/BDS and INS configuration. Owing to road conditions and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) on the carrier not being rigidly mounted, biased measurements in the IMU will occasionally emerge, leading to biased INS predictions. However, bias or inaccuracy from INS-predicted position can prevent the successful resolution of the whole set of ambiguities. This paper proposes the use of a positional polynomial fitting (PPF) constraint to compensate for the epochs with abnormal INS predictions. The aid from PPF is provided at two levels, i.e., at the ambiguity resolution (AR) level and at the solution level. In order to further increase the availability of ambiguity-fixed positioning solutions, a partial ambiguity resolution (PAR) strategy is introduced when full ambiguity resolution (FAR) fails. A field vehicular experiment was performed to show the validity of the proposed PPF-aided method by comparing different schemes regarding different INS-aided satellite system configurations, different AR strategies, and whether the PPF-aided method was adopted. The results show that the most attractive scheme is to combine the PAR with the PPF-aided dual-constellation and INS integration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 285
Author(s):  
Chenlong Deng ◽  
Qian Liu ◽  
Xuan Zou ◽  
Weiming Tang ◽  
Jianhui Cui ◽  
...  

The loose combination (LC) and the tight combination (TC) are two different models in the combined processing of four global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). The former is easy to implement but may be unusable with few satellites, while the latter should cope with the inter-system bias (ISB) and is applicable for few tracked satellites. Furthermore, in both models, the inter-frequency bias (IFB) in the GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) system should also be removed. In this study, we aimed to investigate the performance difference of ambiguity resolution and position estimation between these two models simultaneously using the single-frequency data of all four systems (GPS + GLONASS + Galileo + BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS)) in three different environments, i.e., in an open area, with surrounding high buildings, and under a block of high buildings. For this purpose, we first provide the definition of ISB and IFB from the perspective of the hardware delays, and then propose practical algorithms to estimate the IFB rate and ISB. Thereafter, a comprehensive performance comparison was made between the TC and LC models. Experiments were conducted to simulate the above three observation environments: the typical situation and situations suffering from signal obstruction with high elevation angles and limited azimuths, respectively. The results show that in a typical situation, the TC and LC models achieve a similar performance. However, when the satellite signals are severely obstructed and few satellites are tracked, the float solution and ambiguity fixing rates in the LC model are dramatically decreased, while in the TC model, there are only minor declines and the difference in the ambiguity fixing rates can be as large as 30%. The correctly fixed ambiguity rates in the TC model also had an improvement of around 10%. Once the ambiguity was fixed, both models achieved a similar positioning accuracy.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document