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Improving PPP smartphone processing with adaptive quality control method in obstructed environments when carrier-phase measurements are missing

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Abstract

High received signal noise and limited multipath suppression capabilities cannot be neglected when it comes to smartphone-grade GNSS receivers and antennas and, along with frequent carrier-phase measurement discontinuities and losses, pose a challenge for advanced GNSS positioning techniques. To effectively utilize all satellite measurements in the absence of phase measurements, we proposed a pseudorange-only measurement enhanced PPP method with single- and dual-frequency combinations. In other words, the enhanced PPP utilizes the satellites with pseudorange-only observations that are typically excluded in traditional PPP processing with precise corrections. Validated with ten vehicle tests under different driving environments, the results show that application of the enhanced PPP approach surpasses the traditional PPP strategy for smartphone tracking through diverse obstruction and multipath profiles, and significant improvements of 64%, 23%, and 46% can be observed in the 95th percentile positioning error, 68th percentile positioning error, and overall root-mean-square (RMS) statistics, respectively. In addition, a new adaptive post-fit residual threshold is introduced to optimize the measurement quality control scheme. The results show that the solutions can be further improved with a 95th percentile positioning error of 1.8 m and overall RMS with 1.4 m for the horizontal component. These combined improvements further increase the utility of PPP processing in smartphone-based mobile positioning for mass-market applications.

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Data availability

The observation data presented in this study are available from the authors on reasonable request. The final precise satellite orbit and clock products provided by GFZ are available at ftp://ftp.gfz-potsdam.de/GNSS/products/mgex/.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank their colleagues at the GNSS Laboratory for their invaluable support in data collection, technical discussions, and reviewing of this research. The authors would also like to acknowledge the support provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and York University for providing funding for this work. Furthermore, the authors would like to extend their thanks to German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), International GNSS Services (IGS) and Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) for their data contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada

    Ding Yi, Jiahuan Hu & Sunil Bisnath

Authors
  1. Ding Yi
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  2. Jiahuan Hu
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  3. Sunil Bisnath
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Contributions

DY contributed to methodology, software, investigation, visualization, resources, and writing—original draft. JH contributed to methodology, software, investigation, and writing—original draft. SB contributed to conceptualization, supervision, and writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Jiahuan Hu.

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Yi, D., Hu, J. & Bisnath, S. Improving PPP smartphone processing with adaptive quality control method in obstructed environments when carrier-phase measurements are missing. GPS Solut 28, 56 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-023-01596-1

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