Airborne DGPS Without Dedicated Base Stations for Mapping Applications

A.M. Bruton, M.M.R. Mostafa and B. Scherzinger

Abstract:	This paper evaluates the potential of deriving reliable and accurate estimates of the position of a survey aircraft without the establishment of dedicated GPS base stations. Although there are several approaches to doing this, the concept studied herein is to make use of data available from existing permanent GPS reference systems to estimate the position of the aircraft. While such stations have been established to support static or low dynamic land based GPS surveying and can be at a considerable distance from the survey area (e.g. 100 to 500 km), they are often large in number and their data is usually freely available. In this research, position is determined using data collected as part of the NGS CORS network in conjunction with the measurements made by the receiver on the survey aircraft. The success of the approach is evaluated empirically based on data collected using the Applanix POS/AVTM. Analyses of the test results show that when using five network stations at average distances between 160 and 420 km, it is possible to achieve an accuracy of 25 cm (RMS) in 3D position while not deviating from the dedicated solution by more than 42 cm at any time during the survey. It is also seen that when the network solution is augmented to include three stations at average distances of between 40 and 90 km, the quality of the 3D positioning information can reach the level of better than 12 cm (RMS) while never deviating from the dedicated solution by more than 28 cm. It is then observed that when positioning information from any of these scenarios is used (in place of that coming from dedicated GPS base stations) as an update to the IMU in the POS/AVTM system, the maximum differences in roll and pitch can reach the level of 3 arc seconds and the maximum difference in heading can be as low as 10 arc seconds. Finally, comments are made regarding the application of this method in practice.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 14th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2001) September 11 - 14, 2001 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	1584 - 1591
Cite this article:	Bruton, A.M., Mostafa, M.M.R., Scherzinger, B., "Airborne DGPS Without Dedicated Base Stations for Mapping Applications," Proceedings of the 14th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2001), Salt Lake City, UT, September 2001, pp. 1584-1591.
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In