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Satellite visibility analysis considering signal attenuation by trees using airborne laser scanning point cloud

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Abstract

The number of visible global navigation satellite system (GNSS) satellites is an important indicator for evaluating positioning accuracy. In urban areas, buildings and trees cause serious satellite signal obstruction and attenuation. Studies have used three-dimensional (3D) city models or 2D panoramic imagery to calculate the visibility of satellites in some areas at a certain time. However, the production of accurate 3D models involves heavy manual work and is expensive, while public panoramic imagery mainly spreads over roads and cannot support 3D analysis. Also, the existing studies seldom consider the impact of urban on satellite signals. We thus propose a method that considers the influence of both trees and buildings. A full-path propagation model for GNSS signals is established. Then, a fast visibility analysis of satellites using an airborne laser scanning point cloud is performed. Hence, the number of visible satellites at a specific time can be mapped. In addition, real-time and forecast visibility maps are generated according to the GNSS ephemeris. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we collected field measurement data for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of experiments. The experiments demonstrated that the proposed method provides an easy-to-use and high-precision solution to map the spatio-temporal visibility of satellites in 3D urban space, which serves as an important reference for applications like unmanned aerial vehicles route planning.

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The GNSS observational data can be made available upon request by contacting the author.

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Acknowledgements

This research gets support from the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFB3903604), the Projects Funded by the Central Government to Guide Local Scientific and Technological Development (Grant No. 22ZY1QA005), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42161069), and the Basic research top talent plan of Lanzhou Jiaotong University (Grant No. 2022JC39).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Ruixiong Kou & Shuwen Yang

  2. Wuhan Geomatics Institute, Wuhan, 430019, China

    Renchun Tan & Shiyun Wang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Bisheng Yang, Zhen Dong & Fuxun Liang

  4. School of Traffic and Transportation, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Ruixiong Kou

Authors
  1. Ruixiong Kou
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  2. Renchun Tan
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  3. Shiyun Wang
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  4. Bisheng Yang
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  5. Zhen Dong
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  6. Shuwen Yang
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  7. Fuxun Liang
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Contributions

RK, ZD, BY, and FL contributed to the conception of the study. RK, FL, SW, and ZD discussed and proposed the research methodology. SW, RT, RK, and FL collected and analyzed the data. RK, SY, SW, and BY performed the experiment and verified the results. RK and FL prepared all figures and tables. RK, ZD, FL, and BY wrote the main manuscript text. SY and RK provided funding. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ruixiong Kou.

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Kou, R., Tan, R., Wang, S. et al. Satellite visibility analysis considering signal attenuation by trees using airborne laser scanning point cloud. GPS Solut 27, 64 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-023-01404-w

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