Multi-Frequency Precise Point Positioning using GPS and Galileo data with smoothed ionospheric corrections

The poor signal visibility and continuity associated with urban environments together with the slow convergence/reconvergence time of Precise Point Positioning (PPP), usually makes PPP unsuitable for land navigation in cities. However, results based on simulated open areas demonstrated that, once Galileo reaches final operational capability, PPP convergence time will be cut in a half using dual-constellation GPS/Galileo observations. Therefore, it might be possible to extend the applicability of PPP to land navigation in certain urban areas. Preliminary results, based on simulations, showed that GPS/Galileo PPP is possible where buildings are relatively short and satellites minimum visibility requirement is met for most of the time. In urban environments, signal discontinuity and reconvergence still represent the major problem for traditional PPP, which is based on the ionosphere-free combination of two-frequency pseudo-range and carrier phase. An alternative method to mitigate the ionosphere delay is proposed in order to ensure the best positioning performance from multi-frequency PPP. Instead of using the ionosphere-free combination, here low noise dual- or triple-frequency pseudo-range combinations are corrected with ionosphere delay information coming from federated carrier smoothing (Hatch) iono-estimation filters for each satellite. This method provides faster re- convergence time and ensures the best possible positioning performance from the Galileo Alternative BOC modulation in multi-frequency PPP. Indeed, even though Galileo E5 has small tracking noise and excellent multipath rejection, its PPP positioning performance is limited by the influence of E1 signal errors in the ionosphere-free combination, degrading the quality of the measurements

Desarrollo de algoritmos para el tratamiento de datos GNSS : su aplicación a los escenarios GPS modernizado y Galileo

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Matemáticas, Sección Departamental de Física de la Tierra, Astronomía y Astrofísica I (Geofísica y Meteorología) (Astronomía y Geodesia), leída el 24-07-2012Nowadays, the major GNSS systems are the american GPS and the russian GLONASS, however, in a near future the european project Galileo and the chinesse system COMPASS will become part of the current GNSS scenario. These systems will transmit for the first time three different frequencies, giving place to a multi-system and multi-frequency scenario which will dramatically push the boundaries of the positioning techniques. Currently, one of the most studied positioning techniques is known as Precise Point Positioning (PPP), which is aimed at estimating precise receiver position from undifferenced GNSS code and carrier phase observations and precise satellite products. In this thesis, some new and original algorithms for static PPP have been developed, which are able to deal with the future multi-system and multifrequency GNSS observations. The new algorithms have been named MAP3. In the new approach, the least squares theory is applied twice to estimate the ionospheric delay, initial ambiguities and smoothed pseudodistances from undifferenced observations, which in turn are used to recover the receiver position and its clock offset. MAP3 provides position estimations with an accuracy of 2.5 cm after 2 hours observation and 7 mm in 1 day, being at the same level as other PPP programs and even better results are obtained with MAP3 in short observation periods. Moreover, MAP3 have provided some of the first results in positioning from GIOVE observations and GPC products. In addition, these algorithms have been applied in the analysis of the influence of ionospheric disturbances on the point positioning, concluding that the presence of a high ROT (Rate of TEC), observed at equatorial latitudes, reflects a significant degradation of the point positioning from dual-frequency observations.Actualmente, los únicos sistemas globales de navegación por satélites operativos son GPS y GLONASS, sin embargo, en un futuro cercano el proyecto europeo Galileo y el sistema chino COMPASS entrarán a formar parte del actual escenario GNSS. Estos sistemas emplearán por primera vez, tres frecuencias distintas, dando lugar a un escenario multi-frecuencia que revolucionará las técnicas de posicionamiento. Entre las técnicas actuales de posicionamiento con GNSS destaca el Posicionamiento Preciso Puntual (PPP), que consiste en determinar la posición de un receptor a partir de observaciones de código y fase no differenciadas y productos precisos. En este trabajo de tesis se han desarrollado unos nuevos y originales algoritmos para PPP estático, llamados MAP3, capaces de procesar observaciones GNSS multifrecuencia y multi-sistema del futuro escenario GNSS y determinar la posición de un receptor de forma precisa y exacta. Los algoritmos MAP3 se dividen en dos partes en las cuales se ha aplicado la teoría mínimos cuadrados y se han obtenido expresiones explícitas para estimar el retraso ionosférico, ambigüedades de fase inicial y pseudodistancias suavizadas, que se emplean para determinar la posición del receptor y el offset de su reloj. MAP3 proporciona una estimación de la posición con una exactitud de 2.5 cm tras 2 horas de observación y de 7 mm tras 24 h, resultados que mejoran los obtenidos hasta el momento con otros programas para PPP en periodos cortos de tiempo. Además, MAP3 han proporcionado los primeros resultados en el posicionamiento con observaciones GIOVE y productos del GPC. Por otro lado, estos algoritmos se han aplicado al análisis de los efectos de ciertas perturbaciones ionosféricas en el posicionamiento concluyendo que la presencia de un ROT (Rate of TEC) elevado, observado en latitudes ecuatoriales, refleja una degradación significativa del posicionamiento puntual con observaciones doble frecuencia.Unidad Deptal. de Astronomía y GeodesiaFac. de Ciencias MatemáticasTRUEunpu

Performance Analysis of Using the Next generation Australian SBAS with Precise Point Positioning Capability for Intelligent Transport Systems

© 2019 IEEE. In 2018, a next-generation Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) test-bed was launched in Australia/New-Zealand in preparation for building an operational system. This new generation SBAS includes Ll legacy SBAS, new dual-frequency multi-constellation (DFMC) SBAS, and orbit and clock corrections for precise point positioning (PPP) using GPS and Galileo. In this paper, the next generation SBAS and its models are first presented, and the benefits of using its new components are discussed. Test results for lane identification applications in Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are presented and analyzed. Kinematic tests were performed in different ITS environments. These are characterized by different levels of sky-visibility and multipath, including clear sky, suburban, low-density urban, and high-density urban environments. Performance analysis show that results vary widely depending on the operational conditions but all SBAS solutions have better positioning accuracy compared with the standalone solutions that are currently used in transport applications. The DFMC SBAS slightly outperformed the Ll SBAS, with accuracy at sub-meter, and it has advantages during periods of fluctuations of the ionosphere with an extended coverage area. As expected, the SBAS-based PPP solutions have shown to give the best positioning precision and accuracy among all tested solution types, with sub-decimeter level accuracy, provided that enough convergence time is available. The paper concluded by giving remarks on the use of this new technology for ITS

Concept for a Dual Frequency Dual Constellation GBAS

This paper proposes one possible concept for a dual frequency dual constellation GBAS architecture. It is based on a single frequency L5/E5a mode as primary processing scheme for best standard performance, a switch to an ionosphere free combination in case of ionospheric disturbances and supporting also classical GBAS approach service types (GAST) C and D for single frequency GPS-based CAT I and CAT II/III modes. The concept is supported by a proposal of how to transmit the required corrections in the existing capacity limited VDB broadcast and is backwards compatible to legacy GBAS. A discussion about the benefits and remaining issues of the proposed architecture concludes the paper

SBAS DFMC service for road transport: positioning and integrity monitoring with a new weighting model

In 2017, the new generation satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) test-bed was initiated by Australia and New Zealand, which supports the dual-frequency multi-constellation (DFMC) positioning with both GPS and Galileo signals. This new SBAS DFMC service allows the elimination of the first-order term of the ionospheric delays, and extends the service area to the entire footprint of the geostationary satellite. In addition to the satellite clock and orbital corrections, the integrity information is also broadcast by the SBAS satellite to users, so that protection levels can be computed to bound the positioning errors with a pre-defined probability of hazardous misleading information. Different from the aeronautical applications, the ground-based applications for road transport may suffer from new problems in different measurement environments, e.g. complicated multipath behaviours and frequent filter re-initialisations during positioning in urban areas. A new weighting model allowing different impacts of the elevation angles, the signal-to-noise-ratios and the smoothing time after re-initialisations is proposed and compared with the traditional elevation-dependent weighting model. The model is applied to the carrier-smoothed code measurements in different environments, i.e., the open-sky scenario, the suburban scenario and the urban scenario. It is found that the new weighting model effectively de-weights the large residuals in the suburban and the urban scenarios, where the mean values and the standard deviations of the overbounding excess-mass cumulative density function can be significantly reduced for the combined weighted noise and multipath. Using 1 Hz GNSS observations measured in these three measurement environments, the horizontal positioning errors (HPEs) and the horizontal protection levels (HPLs) are computed for different filter smoothing windows. Applying the new weighting model, significant reduction can be observed in the mean HPLs in the suburban and urban scenarios. Among them, the reduction in the HPLs have reached about 35–40% in the suburban scenario. The mean absolute HPEs are also reduced by about 10% in the urban scenario. However, when under the open-sky scenario, the traditional elevation-dependent weighting model is sufficient for the positioning and integrity monitoring using the SBAS DFMC service

Second Generation SBAS – Performance Analysis and Bridging Positioning and Integrity Monitoring during SBAS Outages in the Urban Environment

Improved SBAS is expected to be a primary positioning method for many land applications such as Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). In 2017, a second-generation SBAS test-bed was initiated in Australia and New-Zealand in preparation for building an operational system. In addition to the traditional L1 legacy SBAS signals, the Australian/NZ SBAS provides dual-frequency multi-constellation (DFMC) SBAS signals and SBAS-based PPP service for GPS and Galileo observations. This article addresses the use of SBAS in land applications from three important aspects. Firstly, the performance of the different SBAS solution methods is assessed in two main applications, transportation and mining. Tests were conducted under various environments, including open sky, low- and high-density urban, and mining. Performance analysis showed that SBAS solutions provide better positioning than single point positioning, and the DFMC SBAS solutions have better precision than L1 SBAS solutions. Furthermore, SBAS-based PPP solutions delivered a few-dm accuracy, which is a bit worse than traditional PPP with corrections received via the Internet. It is shown that SBAS performance is strongly dependent on the application environment. Secondly, tests show that SBAS outages may occur in urban areas, thus, the paper proposed prediction of the SBAS orbit and clock corrections as time series to enable positioning. The orbits are predicted using Holt-Winters’ method and clock corrections were predicted using a second order polynomial with sinusoidal components. A position error due to prediction grow with time, but was less than 0.26m after 15 minutes of prediction. Finally, the impact of SBAS outages on computation of the protection levels (PL) needed for integrity monitoring of the new DFMC SBAS is illustrated. It is shown that Horizontal-PLs can reach more than 10 m, which is not suitable for ITS when the previous SBAS parameters before the outage were used, and thus methods are proposed for future research

Wide Area RTK: a satellite navigation system based on precise real-time ionospheric modelling

The Wide Area Real Time Kinematic (WARTK) is an augmentation system concept for multi-frequency users based on precise real-time ionospheric modeling. It is able to provide a high accuracy and integrity GNSS positioning service over continental areas using the infrastructure of a network of permanent ground monitor stations, such as the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) network of Ranging and Integrity Monitoring Stations (RIMS) in Europe. In this way, it allows an additional benefit to be obtained from these reference stations, that is, the network has the potential to support two independent systems: a satellite-based augmentation system, such as EGNOS, and a high-precision positioning service, based on WARTK. Indeed, thanks to the accuracy of the ionospheric corrections provided, WARTK users have available in real-time an extra constraint per satellite between the carrier phase ambiguities, which helps solve them quickly. Once such ambiguities have been solved, the GNSS user obtains navigation accurate to within 20 cm at the 95th percentile (about 10 cm RMS). Moreover, this precise positioning is achieved in a few minutes (with two frequency signals) or in a single epoch, after initial convergence of the tropospheric delay (with three frequency signals), even up to hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest reference station. While previous WARTK research has been devoted to implementing the concept and assessing its feasibility, considering in particular the accuracy achievable, the work reported in this paper focused on consolidating the results by analyzing a large and representative data set, and on deeper analysis of the integrity issue. It was carried out in the context of the Multi-constellation Regional System (MRS) project, within the European Space Agency GNSS Evolution Programme, with the aim of designing a high accuracy service for GPS and/or Galileo. Three months of actual data, from more than 25 permanent GPS stations in Europe, have been processed (some of them as a roving user), for high-, mid- and low-solar cycle conditions (in 2002, 2004 and 2006 respectively). In addition, several ionospheric storms occurred during the selected periods, with Dst values reaching up to −150 nT. Results based on these data show that user domain integrity was maintained for baselines of up to 400 km. At the 95th percentile, the daily horizontal and vertical position errors were 20 and 30 cm, respectively, and the corresponding protection levels were about 1 and 2 m. The convergence time was around 5 minutes with actual GPS constellation data. The benefits of using a multi-constellation system were also studied, with simulated GPS and three-frequency Galileo data, showing that it is possible to reduce the convergence time to a few seconds.Postprint (published version

Ionospheric Regional modeling Algorithm based on GNSS Precise Point Positioning

Precise point positioning (PPP) is an absolute spatial positioning technology different from carrier phase relative positioning. With the continuous development of Global navigation satellite system (GNSS), multi-constellation GNSS further provides PPP with more abundant observation information and useful spatial geometric observations, which improves positioning performance and robustness. In recent years, the un-difference and un-combined precise point positioning (UPPP) has been continuously developing. Firstly, we introduce the basic theory of GNSS positioning and compare the position performance between UPPP and ionospheric-free PPP (IF PPP). The positioning performance of the four mainstream GNSS systems, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou, the PPP floating-point solutions of the four satellite systems all converge within 60 minutes and their error are less than 10cm. Secondly, a two-dimensional (2-d) model is proposed to fit the vertical total electronic content (VTEC) in the ionosphere with the ionospheric delays extracted by UPPP. With the model constraining the ionospheric delay in UPPP, the convergence is 2 minutes shorter than using the global ionospheric map (GIM) from IGS. Thirdly, to solve the limitation of the traditional methods in 2d representation, a method is proposed represent the ionosphere in 3D, called Compressed Sensing Tomography (CST). Comparing the simulated single-difference slant total electron content (STEC) and the input single- difference STEC between satellites, the root mean square (RMS) of the reference station’s error is less than 1 TEC uni

Performance of precise marine positioning using future modernised global satellite positioning systems and a novel partial ambiguity resolution technique

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) established a set of positioning requirements for future Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) constellations in IMO resolution A.915. It is important to be able to determine if these requirements can be met, and what shore infrastructure would be required. This thesis describes the collection of data in a marine environment and the analysis of these data with regards to the requirements. The data collection exercise was held at the beginning of May 2008 and saw THV Alert navigate into Harwich Harbour whilst Global Positioning System (GPS) observation data were recorded from onboard the vessel and from shore-based reference stations. Additional data were obtained from nearby Ordnance Survey reference stations, and two total stations were used to track the vessel’s passage to provide a truth model. Several modernised GPS satellites were tracked. The data were processed under different scenarios, using software developed at UCL, and the positioning performance was analysed in the context of the IMO requirements. Potential performance improvements from modernised GPS and Galileo were then discussed. Providing integrity through single-epoch real-time kinematic positioning, required to meet the strictest IMO requirements, is particularly difficult. The identification of phase observation outliers is not possible before the integer ambiguities are resolved, but an undetected outlier could prevent successful ambiguity resolution. It will not always be necessary to fix all the ambiguities to achieve the required positioning precision, particularly with a multi-GNSS constellation. This thesis introduces a new algorithm for partial ambiguity resolution in the presence of measurement bias. Although computationally intensive, this algorithm significantly improves the ambiguity resolution success rate, increasing the maximum baseline length over which the highest requirements are met with dual-frequency GPS from 1 km to 66 km