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Absolute field calibration for multi-GNSS receiver antennas at ETH Zurich

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Abstract

ETH Zurich developed an absolute GNSS antenna calibration system based on measurements taken in the field. An industrial robot is used to rotate and tilt the antenna to be calibrated. This procedure ensures good coverage of the antenna hemisphere and reduces systematic errors. The calibration system at ETH Zurich is validated by a direct comparison of the obtained calibrations with calibrations from the anechoic chamber method (University of Bonn) and from another absolute field calibration method (Geo++® GmbH). Calibrations by ETH Zurich agree on the sub-millimeter level with both reference calibrations. A second validation was conducted using real measurements on short baselines. Data were acquired on four stations in direct vicinity and processed using different phase center correction models. The experiment shows that individual corrections of ETH Zurich reduce the residuals in the coordinate domain when compared to type-mean calibrations of the International GNSS Service (IGS). However, residual biases between GPS and Galileo coordinates remain. These biases are efficiently reduced when using the new type-mean calibrations from the IGS that include calibration values for all GNSS, including Galileo. The ETH Zurich calibration system is proven to deliver meaningful calibrations that agree with other calibrations on the millimeter level in the azimuth and elevation domain. The field validation shows evidence that the consistency of the Galileo and GPS calibration should be further enhanced by performing a combined GPS and Galileo analysis, which is not yet implemented.

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Data availability

The ETH Zurich absolute field calibrations for the six antennas used within this study are available as ANTEX files under https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000332282.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Benjamin Männel and Markus Bradke from GFZ for lending us the two geodetic Javad antennas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, ETH Zurich, Robert-Gnehm-Weg 15, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Daniel Willi & Markus Rothacher

  2. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo, Seftigenstrasse 264, 3084, Wabern, Switzerland

    Daniel Willi, Simon Lutz & Elmar Brockmann

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  1. Daniel Willi
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  2. Simon Lutz
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  3. Elmar Brockmann
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  4. Markus Rothacher
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Correspondence to Daniel Willi.

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Willi, D., Lutz, S., Brockmann, E. et al. Absolute field calibration for multi-GNSS receiver antennas at ETH Zurich. GPS Solut 24, 28 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-019-0941-0

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