A Comparative Study for Performance Analysis of Kinematic Multi-Constellation GNSS PPP in Dynamic Environment

Abstract

This case study aims to investigate the effect of different Multi-GNSS EXperiment (MGEX) precise products provided by International GNSS Service (IGS) Analysis Centers (ACs) on post-processing kinematic Precise Point Positioning (PPP) accuracy performance with different satellite system combinations in a dynamic environment. Within this frame, a test was carried out in a lake and kinematic data were collected over 6 h at 1 Hz rate from the available Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) constellations with the geodetic-grade receiver fixed on a marine vehicle for bathymetric mapping. PPP-derived coordinates were determined by a commercial GNSS post-processing software with different processing approaches as GPS (Global Positioning System)-only, GPS+GLObal’naya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (GLONASS), GPS+GLONASS+European Global Navigation Satellite System (Galileo), GPS+GLONASS+Chinese Global Navigation Satellite System (BeiDou), and GPS+GLONASS+Galileo+BeiDou. The PPP coordinates were then compared to the reference coordinates obtained from the post-processed carrier phase-based differential kinematic solutions. In general, the results showed that the kinematic multi-constellation GNSS PPP technique could provide positioning accuracy from cm to decimeter level as depending on the collected data constellations and used precise products in the processing. Among all solutions, the GPS+GLONASS+Galileo+BeiDou combination with German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ)’s precise products presented the best multi-GNSS PPP performance, rather than the other combinations and quad-constellation alternatives using different precise products. In this study, the test procedure and the obtained results are given in detail.