Characterization of Earth-Surface Multipath Error for Aircraft GPS Receivers

Zhen Zhu and Frank van Graas

Abstract:	For aircraft precision approach operations, earth-surface multipath as observed by the aircraft GPS antenna could potentially affect the smoothed pseudorange performance. Of particular concern are stable approaches over water where the water reflection could generate sustained multipath error. A combination of computer simulation and flight test data analysis is used to evaluate the multipath errors for two receiver architectures. Smoothed pseudorange bias errors of up to 0.3 m were found for both receiver architectures. The errors, however, are a function of the receiver architecture and are dissimilar between the two receivers for a particular multipath fading frequency scenario.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2005) September 13 - 16, 2005 Long Beach Convention Center Long Beach, CA
Pages:	2688 - 2696
Cite this article:	Zhu, Zhen, van Graas, Frank, "Characterization of Earth-Surface Multipath Error for Aircraft GPS Receivers," Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2005), Long Beach, CA, September 2005, pp. 2688-2696.
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