Beeline RT20 - a Compact, Medium Precision Positioning system with an Attitude.

Tom Ford, Waldemar Kunysz, Rod Morris, Janet Neumann, Jim Rooney, Theo Smit

Abstract:	Methods that transform phase differences to vehicle orientation are well known in the GPS community. These generally involve some combination of phase measured at multiple antenna/receivers such that the phase data from the various receivers is combined and used to generate attitude in an external processor. Usually these systems generate attitude as their primary function and pseudo range position as a secondary function. NovAtel has developed a system that generates both single axis attitude (measuring azimuth and pitch) and a position solution with medium precision (10 to 20 cm RMS). The integration of these technologies is novel in that all of the measurements are made by a single receiver processing data from 2 different antennas. In order to accomplish this, modifications to the RF and signal processing sections of the receiver were made. These modifications, along with the overall system integration are discussed. Also described is the attitude determination technique, which uses the fixed baseline length constraint between antennas to help resolve L1 carrier ambiguities. The medium accuracy positioning method combines both pseudo range and L1 carrier measurements taken at both the primary antenna of the local receiver and at a base station receiver. Test results that illustrate the system performance are presented.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 10th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1997) September 16 - 19, 1997 Kansas City, MO
Pages:	687 - 695
Cite this article:	Ford, Tom, Kunysz, Waldemar, Morris, Rod, Neumann, Janet, Rooney, Jim, Smit, Theo, "Beeline RT20 - a Compact, Medium Precision Positioning system with an Attitude.," Proceedings of the 10th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1997), Kansas City, MO, September 1997, pp. 687-695.
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