INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,
MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)
ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XIII, Issue V, May 2024
www.ijltemas.in Page 378
When the first Android Nougat 7 was introduced in May 2016, GNSS observations could be processed by Android-dedicated
applications and recorded into files. Since then, GNSS observation data like code pseudo range, carrier-phase data and doppler
GNSS measurements obtained from mobile phones have been topical in the scientific community. Presently, common users can
exploit signals from the four global navigation satellite systems and most low-cost systems easily function on PPP. PPP is becoming
increasingly used than differential techniques because of its ease of use. With PPP, precise satellite orbit and clock corrections are
calculated using numerous IGS permanent stations used as reference stations in the ITRS/ITRF. PPP performance is usually
analyzed as a function of the receiver and antenna type, measurement utilized and observation considered. Generally, more than 20
satellites are above the visible horizon at any time for a receiver in open-sky conditions. This can empower positioning accuracy
up to cm level in real time for low-cost equipment. However, it is very difficult to fix ambiguities to their correct integer values
since PPP is not a differential technique and hence, cannot build double difference to eliminate phase biases originating from
satellite and receiver hardware. Starting from the study of Wubbena et al, several researchers have found different ways to fix the
un-differenced phase ambiguities to their correct integer values and calculate a fixed PPP solution introducing the PPP-RTK
technique. PPP-RTK, also known as PPP with integer ambiguity resolution extends the PPP concept by providing to single-receiver
user information about satellite phase and code biases and atmospheric delays in addition to orbit and clock correction data, thus,
enabling single-receiver ambiguity resolution. The PPP-RTK methods differ in the models used, the corrections applied and the
estimation strategies employed. Generally, three cases of smartphone positioning accuracy evaluation exploited in this research
were summarized and presented as follows;
The work of Marcin Uradzinski and Mieczyslaw Bakula
The following work, titled “Assessment of Static Positioning Accuracy using Low-cost smartphone GPS devices for geodetic survey
points’ determination and monitoring” was carried out in 2020 where the performance of carrier phase ambiguity fixing and
positioning accuracy of the latest Huawei P30 Pro smartphone equipped with a dual frequency GNSS receiver was investigated. By
so doing, 3hours of raw static data was collected in separate observation sessions at a known location where the smartphone was
mounted vertically for two sessions and horizontally for the third session. At the same time, a high-class geodetic receiver was used
for L1 and L5 signals comparison purposes. The carrier phase measurements were processed using commercial post-processing
software with reference to the closest base station observations located about 4km away. In order to also check the accuracy of the
survey results in fast static mode, an additional 1hour static session divided into 10-, 15-, 20- and 30-minutes sub-session was
executed. All the three 1hour static session results were at cm level of accuracy, ranging from 1cm to 4cm. For the fast static
surveying mode, the best results were obtained for 20 to 30min sessions where average accuracy was also at the cm level. The main
drawback was the antenna reference point, ARP of the smartphone which is not pointed out by the manufacturers. It was however
suggested that it is located at the top of the smartphone above the line of the upper camera.
The work of Gerard Lachapelle and Paul Gratton
In this research, titled, “GNSS Precise Point Positioning with Android Smartphones and Comparison with High Performance
Receivers”, the smartphone used was Huawei Mate 20X and the geodetic receiver used was Leica GS16 which is a high-end multi-
constellation and multi-frequency receiver. The measurements intercompared among them include; 1) Single frequency code, 2)
Single frequency code and carrier-phase, 3) Dual frequency code, 4) Dual frequency code and carrier-phase. Huawei Mate 20X has
the capability to capture and record code, carrier-phase, Dopler and C/No measurements every second on GPS L1/L5, GLONASS
E1/E5a, BeiDou and QZSS L1/L5. The data logger used was the Geo++RINEX logger and the PPP post-processing was performed
with the NRCan CSRS PPP 2.26.1 online software that can process GPS, GLONASS or GPS-GLONASS L1/L2 in either static or
kinematic mode. However, the results were analyzed based on GPS and GLONASS L1. DGNSS performance evaluation was
conducted using RTKLib, a well-known open-source software, producing high cm level accuracy and hence, their positions served
as reference to evaluate the Mate 20X derived positions. In PPP static mode and under low multipath line of sight conditions, the
phone delivered coordinate accuracy of the order of 1m using 30mins of data. A major drawback here was the fact that the mate
20X is equipped with a planner inverted F antenna like in many other smartphones and this is a well-known limitation for GNSS
measurements that results in high code measurement noise and multipath. Secondly, raw data recorded on the L5 carrier waves
were not analyzed by the post processing software used.
The work of Lachlan L. Ng
This work was carried out on “The Performance Evaluation of a Dual-frequency Multi-constellation GNSS smartphone”. It was
aimed at evaluating the positioning performance of L1 and L5 dual-frequency GNSS observations from three Xiaomi Mi8
smartphones. Here, a ground control point was established using a high-grade GNSS equipment, Leica Viva GS16 and analyzing
post-processed smartphone observations relative to the ground control point. Raw data logging was by using the Android app
Geo++RINEX Logger through an external antenna fixed to the smartphone firmly held horizontally over the control point. The first
experiment was conducted on three control points (CP1, CP2 and CP3) in an open environment with baseline of approximately 20m
and 1.450km from the reference station. The second experiment investigates the performance of the smartphone GNSS observations
post-processed relative to other smartphone observations in short baseline of approximately 5m, logging with Geo++ for 6h. The
smartphone observations were post-processed in ITRF2014, using RTKLib 2.4.2 which computes static relative positioning in
double-difference mode to eliminate satellite and receiver clock biases and mitigate ionospheric and tropospheric errors. The
smartphone accuracy was measured as the differences between each Cartesian dimension of the post-processed coordinates and the