Precise Point Positioning in the Airborne Mode

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is widely used for positioning in the airborne mode such as in navigation as a supplementary system and for geo-referencing of cameras in mapping and surveillance by aircrafts and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The Precise Point Positioning (PPP) approach is an attractive positioning approach based on processing of un-differenced observations from a single GPS receiver. It employs precise satellite orbits and satellite clock corrections. These data can be obtained via the internet from several sources, e.g. the International GNSS Service (IGS). The data can also broadcast from satellites, such as via the LEX signal of the new Japanese satellite system QZSS. The PPP can achieve positioning precision and accuracy at the sub-decimetre level. In this paper, the functional and stochastic mathematical modelling used in PPP is discussed. Results of applying the PPP method in an airborne test using a small fixed-wing aircraft are presented. To evaluate the performance of the PPP approach, a reference trajectory was established by differential positioning of the same GPS observations with data from a ground reference station. The coordinate results from the two approaches, PPP and differential positioning, were compared and statistically evaluated. For the test at hand, positioning accuracy at the cm-to-decimetre was achieved for latitude and longitude coordinates and doubles that value for height estimation.