International Global Navigation Satellite Systems Association
IGNSS Conference 2016
Colombo Theatres, Kensington Campus, UNSW Australia
6 – 8 December 2016
Inter-Pseudolite Range Augmented GNSS PPP
Navigation for Airborne Pseudolite System
Panpan Huang
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
p.huang@student.unsw.edu.au
Chris Rizos
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
c.rizos@unsw.edu.au
Craig Roberts
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
c.roberts@unsw.edu.au
ABSTRACT
Ground-based pseudolite navigation systems have several limitations, such
as low vertical accuracy, susceptibility to multipath effects, and near-far
signal problems. These limitations could be addressed with an airborne
pseudolite system. However, to ensure high user positioning accuracy the
aerial signal transmitters have to be accurately positioned. Commonly used
methods are based on the “inverted GNSS” principle, with ground stations
monitoring the pseudolites, or the differential GNSS (DGNSS) technique
with one or more reference stations. However, the inverted GNSS method
introduces delay for user positioning, while DGNSS has stringent
requirements that include simultaneous measurements made by both the
pseudolite(s) and the reference station(s), and a limitation on the distance
between pseudolite(s) and reference station(s). To address such problems the
authors propose an airborne pseudolite system, consisting of some ground
pseudolites (G-PLs) and airborne pseudolites (A-PLs). The A-PLs in the
proposed system are positioned using the GNSS Precise Point Positioning
(PPP) technique. To enhance the A-PL positioning performance, inter-PL
range measurements could be used as additional observations. The
performance of the proposed system is validated using simulation tests. The
results show that A-PL achieves the best positioning accuracy with
measurements from both G-PLs and limited GNSS satellites or only from G-
PLs where no satellite signals are available.
KEYWORDS: GNSS PPP, Inter-PL range, A-PL positioning, A-PL
