TERRASTAR® – Precise Point Positioning Service for Land and Near Shore Applications

G. Mack, D. McHardy, P. Toor, G. Wilcock

Abstract:	This paper will provide an overview of TERRASTAR®, a new independent GNSS global precise positioning service provider. TERRASTAR® provides GNSS product manufacturers with the opportunity to offer precise positioning solutions as part of their product range, without the need for supporting the underlying reference station infrastructure. TERRASTAR® compatible products manufactured by several well known GNSS companies are now becoming available on the market. The TERRASTAR® services are widely applicable by professionals in key areas of the land positioning industry - including agriculture and forestry, survey and construction, mining, aerial survey, and land oil and gas exploration and production. This paper will describe the TERRASTAR® redundant and diverse network infrastructure examining the reference station network, correction generation and service delivery to the end users via geostationary satellites or over the internet. At the core of the system is an orbit and clock determination system. A global network of stations is used to determine the corrections for the GPS and GLONASS satellite orbit & clocks, as well as generating traditional pseudo range corrections. At present TERRASTAR® offers two commercial augmentation services which will be described in detail in this paper. The TERRASTAR-MTM which is a differential GNSS service delivering metre level accuracy while the TERRASTAR-DTM services which is based on the precise point positioning technique delivers decimetre level accuracy. Both services provide GPS and GLONASS augmentation data, allowing land based users to benefit from all satellites in view in a wide range of application environments. Also an integral part of the infrastructure is the e-commerce system that provides user direct activate/deactivate control over a wide range of subscription options as well as other subscription functions as, for example, invoicing. Such a system, easy to use and accessible 24/7, is key to providing users in a wide range of field of applications continuous access to the services. TERRASTAR® works in close cooperation with GNSS manufacturers, under technology licence and commercial agreements, to maximise the combined service & product benefits. Further down the value chain reseller agreements are put in place for the distribution of the services to the end user. Examples of some of the applications will be covered in this paper.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 26th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2013) September 16 - 20, 2013 Nashville Convention Center, Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, TN
Pages:	2292 - 2298
Cite this article:	Mack, G., McHardy, D., Toor, P., Wilcock, G., "TERRASTAR® – Precise Point Positioning Service for Land and Near Shore Applications," Proceedings of the 26th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2013), Nashville, TN, September 2013, pp. 2292-2298.
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