Methods for Aiding Height Determination in Pseudolite-Based Reference Systems Using Batch Least-Squares Estimation
Abstract
There are many situations in which GPS is either unable to provide the desired level of accuracy or is unavailable. Use of a pseudolite-based reference system for navigation can be a means for positioning during these times. While there are advantages in using a pseudolite-based reference system, there are still implementation issues and deficiencies that must be addressed. In many cases, a pseudolite system with ground-based transmitters has difficulty determining the height of the receiver accurately. This is due to the poor vertical observability inherent in the geometry of the system. A common approach in naval applications for solving the problem of poor vertical observability is to use a height constraint, which is well known when travelling on a surface of water. For a ground-based vehicle, knowledge of the surface topography can be obtained, but it cannot be readily used in the same manner as in marine cases, since the height is often a varying function of position. This research investigates and develops five methods of incorporating the known surface topography in a non-linear batch least squares estimation algorithm using carrier-phase measurements from pseudolites. The floating point carrier-phase ambiguities are estimated in this process. Real and simulated data sets are used to evaluate the performance of the five algorithms. In simulation, all methods performed equally well on a flat surface. When simulating a hill, constraining the solution to lie in a plane tangent to the surface topography appeared to aid the solution with the best knowledge of the terrain. Use of a pseudo-measurement, a commonly used approach, did not provide the best results, and indicates the inadequacy of using this method for pseudolite-based systems. Results using data from a real system on a ground-based vehicle demonstrated sub-decimeter level positioning accuracy in all three dimensions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA447070
Entities
People
- John H. Amt
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology