scholarly journals Performance Analysis of Network-RTK Techniques for Drone Navigation considering Ionospheric Conditions

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tae-Suk Bae ◽  
Minho Kim

Recently, an accurate positioning has become the kernel of autonomous navigation with the rapid growth of drones including mapping purpose. The Network-based Real-time Kinematic (NRTK) system was predominantly used for precision positioning in many fields such as surveying and agriculture, mostly in static mode or low-speed operation. The NRTK positioning, in general, shows much better performance with the fixed integer ambiguities. However, the success rate of the ambiguity resolution is highly dependent on the ionospheric condition and the surrounding environment of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning, which particularly corresponds to the low-cost GNSS receivers. We analyzed the effects of the ionospheric conditions on the GNSS NRTK, as well as the possibility of applying the mobile NRTK to drone navigation for mapping. Two NRTK systems in operation were analyzed during a period of high ionospheric conditions, and the accuracy and the performance were compared for several operational cases. The test results show that a submeter accuracy is available even with float ambiguity under a favorable condition (i.e., visibility of the satellites as well as stable ionosphere). We still need to consider how to deal with ionospheric disturbances which may prevent NRTK positioning.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (16) ◽  
pp. 4375
Author(s):  
Veton Hamza ◽  
Bojan Stopar ◽  
Tomaž Ambrožič ◽  
Goran Turk ◽  
Oskar Sterle

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology is widely used for geodetic monitoring purposes. However, in cases where a higher risk of receiver damage is expected, geodetic GNSS receivers may be considered too expensive to be used. As an alternative, low-cost GNSS receivers that are cheap, light, and prove to be of adequate quality over short baselines, are considered. The main goal of this research is to evaluate the positional precision of a multi-frequency low-cost instrument, namely, ZED-F9P with u-blox ANN-MB-00 antenna, and to investigate its potential for displacement detection. We determined the positional precision within static survey, and the displacement detection within dynamic survey. In both cases, two baselines were set, with the same rover point equipped with a low-cost GNSS instrument. The base point of the first baseline was observed with a geodetic GNSS instrument, whereas the second baseline was observed with a low-cost GNSS instrument. The results from static survey for both baselines showed comparable results for horizontal components; the precision was on a level of 2 mm or better. For the height component, the results show a better performance of low-cost instruments. This may be a consequence of unknown antenna calibration parameters for low-cost GNSS antenna, while statistically significant coordinates of rover points were obtained from both baselines. The difference was again more significant in the height component. For the displacement detection, a device was used that imposes controlled movements with sub-millimeter accuracy. Results, obtained on a basis of 30-min sessions, show that low-cost GNSS instruments can detect displacements from 10 mm upwards with a high level of reliability. On the other hand, low-cost instruments performed slightly worse as far as accuracy is concerned.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Pepe

In recent years, the use of low cost GNSS receivers is becoming widespread due to their increasing performance in the spatial positioning, flexibility, ease of use and really interesting price. In addition, a recent technique of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) survey, called Network Real Time Kinematic (NRTK), allows to obtain to rapid and accurate positioning measurements. The main feature of this approach is to use the raw measurements obtained and stored from a network of Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) in order to generate more reliable error models that can mitigate the distance-dependent errors within the area covered by the CORS. Also, considering the huge potential of this GNSS positioning system, the purpose of this paper is to analyze and investigate the performance of the NTRK approach using a low cost GNSS receiver, in stop-and-go kinematic technique. By several case studies it was shown that, using a low cost RTK board for Arduino environment, a smartphone with open source application for Android and the availability of data correction from CORS service, a quick and accurate positioning can be obtained. Because the measures obtained in this way are quite noisy and, more in general, increasing with the baseline, by a simple and suitable statistic treatment, it was possible to increase the quality of the measure. In this way, this low cost architecture could be applied in many geomatics fields. In addition to presenting the main aspects of the NTRK infrastructure and a review of several types of correction, a general workflow in order to obtain quality data in NRTK mode, regardless of the type of GNSS receiver (multi constellations, single or many frequencies, etc.) is discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Omar Ali Ibrahim

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is considered to be one of the most crucial tools for different applications, i.e. transportation, geographic information systems, mobile satellite communications, and others. Without a doubt, the GNSS has been widely employed for different scientific applications, such as land surveying, mapping, and precise monitoring for huge structures, etc. Thus, an intense competitive has appeared between companies which produce geodetic GNSS hardware devices to meet all the requirements of GNSS communities. This study aims to assess the performance of different GNSS receivers to provide reliable positions. In this study, three different receivers, which are produced by different manufacturers, were fixed to form a triangle. Simultaneous observations were made in static mode (2.5 to 3 hours). This observation technique was carried out three times by changing the location of receivers in each time to ensure that three receivers observed each station three times. To evaluate the performance of each receiver, OPUS web-based processing software and TOPCON TOOLS were used to process the raw GNSS observations. The distances between adjacent stations were computed for each observation and compared to standard distances, which were measured using a total station. Furthermore, the internal angles were also computed and compared to those measured by Total Stations. The results showed that some calculated distances are closer to the corresponding distances measured by the total station. This indicates that the receivers involved in the composition of these distances are the most accurate.  


Sensors ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 391
Author(s):  
Zhonghan Li ◽  
Yongbo Zhang

The indoor autonomous navigation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is the current research hotspot. Unlike the outdoor broad environment, the indoor environment is unknown and complicated. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals are easily blocked and reflected because of complex indoor spatial features, which make it impossible to achieve positioning and navigation indoors relying on GNSS. This article proposes a set of indoor corridor environment positioning methods based on the integration of WiFi and IMU. The zone partition-based Weighted K Nearest Neighbors (WKNN) algorithm is used to achieve higher WiFi-based positioning accuracy. On the basis of the Error-State Kalman Filter (ESKF) algorithm, WiFi-based and IMU-based methods are fused together and realize higher positioning accuracy. The probability-based optimization method is used for further accuracy improvement. After data fusion, the positioning accuracy increased by 51.09% compared to the IMU-based algorithm and by 66.16% compared to the WiFi-based algorithm. After optimization, the positioning accuracy increased by 20.9% compared to the ESKF-based data fusion algorithm. All of the above results prove that methods based on WiFi and IMU (low-cost sensors) are very capable of obtaining high indoor positioning accuracy.


Smart Cities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1219-1241
Author(s):  
Alex Minetto ◽  
Fabio Dovis ◽  
Andrea Vesco ◽  
Miquel Garcia-Fernandez ◽  
Àlex López-Cruces ◽  
...  

In urban contexts, the increasing density of electronic devices equipped with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers and complementary positioning technologies is attracting research and development efforts devoted to an improvement of the quality of life towards the smart city paradigm. Vehicular and pedestrian positioning and navigation capabilities are among the major drivers for innovation in this process. Ultra-low-cost electronics such as smartphones and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors aim at providing accurate and reliable positioning solutions through a set of promising solutions. Among these, snapshot positioning allows to remotely perform the post-processing of GNSS signals in IoT sensor networks while Wi-Fi™ ranging and cooperative positioning provide auxiliary anchors of opportunity to enhance indoor/outdoor positioning capabilities. This paper presents an innovative platform to perform a centralised testing and assessment of such positioning and navigation technologies along with a set of results obtained in the context of the European project HANSEL, by relying on current network technologies and infrastructures (i.e., Wi-Fi™ and cellular connectivity).


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matej Bažec ◽  
Franc Dimc ◽  
Polona Pavlovčič-Prešeren

Understanding the factors that might intentionally influence the reception of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals can be a challenging topic today. The focus of this research is to evaluate the vulnerability of geodetic GNSS receivers under the use of a low-cost L1/E1 frequency jammer. A suitable area for testing was established in Slovenia. Nine receivers from different manufacturers were under consideration in this study. While positioning, intentional 3-minute jammings were performed by a jammer that was located statically at different distances from receivers. Furthermore, kinematic disturbances were performed using a jammer placed in a vehicle that passed the testing area at various speeds. An analysis of different scenarios indicated that despite the use of an L1/E1 jammer, the GLONASS (Russian: Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema) and Galileo signals were also affected, either due to the increased carrier-to-noise-ratio (C/N0) or, in the worst cases, by a loss-of-signal. A jammer could substantially affect the position, either with a lack of any practical solution or even with a wrong position. Maximal errors in the carrier-phase positions, which should be considered a concern for geodesy, differed by a few metres from the exact solution. The factor that completely disabled the signal reception was the proximity of a jammer, regardless of its static or kinematic mode.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 6666
Author(s):  
Veton Hamza ◽  
Bojan Stopar ◽  
Tomaž Ambrožič ◽  
Oskar Sterle

Low-cost Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers are currently used in various engineering applications. These low-cost devices are regarded as suitable sensors for applications in areas with a high risk of instrument damage. The main objectives of this research were to identify the size of displacements that can be detected in relative and absolute positioning modes by low-cost GNSS instruments and to compare the results of selected antennas. Additionally, geodetic and low-cost GNSS instruments were compared in the level of observations. For this study, low-cost SimpleRTK2B V1 boards, which house ZED-F9P GNSS chips, and three low-cost antennas, namely, Survey, Tallysman TW3882, and Survey Calibrated, were selected. While antenna calibration parameters are known for the last antenna, this is not the case for the first two. For testing purposes, a geodetic network consisting of four points was established; horizontal and vertical movements were imposed by a special mechanism with high accuracy. In relative positioning mode, the results indicate that the Survey Calibrated antenna can detect horizontal and vertical displacements with sizes of 4 mm, and 6 mm, respectively. In the detection of horizontal displacements, the performance of the Survey antenna was not as good as that of Tallysman, and the sizes of detected displacements were 6 mm and 4 mm for the first, and second antennas, respectively. Vertical displacements of 9 mm were detected using both Survey and Tallysman antennas. In absolute positioning mode, Survey Calibrated also had better performance than the Tallysman antenna, and spatial displacements of 20 mm or greater were detected by low-cost GNSS instruments. The observations made with low-cost and geodetic GNSS instruments were compared, and the latter showed better performance. However, the differences in cycle slips and the noise of phase observations were inferior. Considering their cost and proven performance, it can be concluded that such sensors can be considered for setting up a highly accurate but low-cost geodetic monitoring system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsushi Ito ◽  
Yosuke Nakamura ◽  
Yuko Hiramatsu ◽  
Tomoya Kitani ◽  
Hiroyuki Hatano

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning is a widely used and a key intelligent transportation system (ITS) technology. An automotive navigation system is necessary when driving to an unfamiliar location. One difficulty regarding GNSS positioning occurs when an error is caused by various factors, which reduces the positioning accuracy and impacts the performance of applications such as navigation systems. However, there is no way for users to be aware of the magnitude of the error. In this paper, we propose a cognitive navigation system that uses an error map to provide users with information about the magnitude of errors to better understand the positioning accuracy. This technology can allow us to develop a new navigation system that offers a more user-friendly interface. We propose that the method will develop an error map by using two low-cost GNSS receivers to provide information about the magnitude of errors. We also recommend some applications that will work with the error map.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Shi ◽  
Xuebin Zhuang ◽  
Liwei Xie

AbstractThe autonomous navigation of the spacecrafts in High Elliptic Orbit (HEO), Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) are considered feasible in many studies. With the completion of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System with Global Coverage (BDS-3) in 2020, there are at least 130 satellites providing Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) services. In this paper, considering the latest CZ-5(Y3) launch scenario of Shijian-20 GEO spacecraft via Super-Synchronous Transfer Orbit (SSTO) in December 2019, the navigation performance based on the latest BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), Global Positioning System (GPS), Galileo Navigation Satellite System (Galileo) and GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) satellites in 2020 is evaluated, including the number of visible satellites, carrier to noise ratio, Doppler, and Position Dilution of Precision (PDOP). The simulation results show that the GEO/Inclined Geo-Synchronous Orbit (IGSO) navigation satellites of BDS-3 can effectively increase the number of visible satellites and improve the PDOP in the whole launch process of a typical GEO spacecraft, including SSTO and GEO, especially for the GEO spacecraft on the opposite side of Asia-Pacific region. The navigation performance of high orbit spacecrafts based on multi-GNSSs can be significantly improved by the employment of BDS-3. This provides a feasible solution for autonomous navigation of various high orbit spacecrafts, such as SSTO, MEO, GEO, and even Lunar Transfer Orbit (LTO) for the lunar exploration mission.


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.


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