The Application of Multiple Reference Stations to the Determination of Multipath and Spatially Decorrelating Errors

C. C. Varner and M. E. Cannon

Abstract:	The magnitude of many GPS errors grows as the distance between the user and a reference station increases. In carrier phase DifYerential GPS (DGPS), the cycle ambiguities become increasingly difficult to resolve as these errors grow. Therefore, the baseline distance over which fixed integer kinematic carrier phase DGPS can be performed is often limited when using a single reference receiver. However, a network of reference stations, is capable of estimating the spatial decorrelation of the GPS observation errors within the network’s local area, and is also able to estimate multipath that exists on its reference stations. By correcting for the network multipath, and the decorrelation of spatial errors, ambiguity resolution performance is improved. Using data collected by GPS local area networks in New Mexico, and Canada, a demonstration of how this technique is given. The results are compared with standard single station DGPS solutions to show the improvement realized by multi- station carrier phase networks. Based upon the data and algorithms developed in this paper, a 50% reduction in the observation errors is demonstrated. Also shown is that the time required for ambiguity resolution is reduced in proportion to the overall reduction of the observation errors.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1997 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 14 - 16, 1997 Loews Santa Monica Hotel Santa Monica, CA
Pages:	323 - 333
Cite this article:	Varner, C. C., Cannon, M. E., "The Application of Multiple Reference Stations to the Determination of Multipath and Spatially Decorrelating Errors," Proceedings of the 1997 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Santa Monica, CA, January 1997, pp. 323-333.
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