Accuracy assessment of relative and precise point positioning online GPS processing services

Abstract

Abstract Over the last few years, several institutions, research centers, and organizations have developed different strategies for GPS data processing and analysis to obtain high accurate coordinates. They are taking into considerations overcoming restrictions and limitations such as necessity of using relative positioning, time consuming, and high cost of different processing software. One of these developed strategies is the web–based online GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) processing service which estimates coordinates with centimeter or decimeter level accuracy. This study aims to represent the most popular of these services, namely AUSPOS, OPUS, APPS, GAPS, Trimble RTX, and CSRS–PPP, also to perform in-between comparison of these services with respect to their achieved accuracy using field observations with different durations. The obtained results were compared with a real field data measured using traditional relative positioning technique with high accuracy standards. The set of data used in this study was performed in the Eastern zone in Egypt. The results of this comparison indicate that these services can be used as an alternative method for relative positioning technique due to their simplicity, cost-effective and saving in time. They saved about 75 % from the time required for traditional method to produce coordinate with reasonable accuracy. The maximum standard deviation obtained was 15.4 cm from APPS service with time less than two hours, while the minimum standard deviation was 0.07 cm and obtained from CSRS–PPP with time duration from 6 to 12 hours. For achieving more accurate results, it is recommended to use time duration more than two hours.