New Methodology of Designation the Precise Aircraft Position Based on the RTK GPS Solution.

Kamil Krasuski,Damian Wierzbicki,Mieczysław Bakuła,Adam Ciećko,Grzegorz Grunwald

doi:10.3390/s22010021

Abstract

The paper presents the results of research on improving the accuracy of aircraft positioning using RTK-OTF (Real Time Kinematic–On The Fly) technique in air navigation. The paper shows a new solution of aircraft positioning for the application of the differential RTK-OTF technique in air navigation. In particular, a new mathematical model is presented which makes it possible to determine the resultant position of an aircraft based on the solution for the method of least squares in a stochastic process. The developed method combines in the process of alignment of GPS (Global Positioning System) observations, three independent solutions of the aircraft position in OTF mode for geocentric coordinates XYZ of the aircraft. Measurement weights as a function of the vector length and the mean vector length error, respectively, were used in the calculations. The applied calculation method makes it possible to determine the resultant position of the aircraft with high accuracy: better than 0.039 m with using the measurement weight as a function of the vector length and better than 0.009 m with the measurement weight as a function of the mean error of the vector length, respectively. In relation to the classical RTK-OTF solution as a model of the arithmetic mean, the proposed method makes it possible to increase the accuracy of determination of the aircraft position by 45–46% using the measurement weight as a function of the vector length, and 86–88% using the measurement weight as a function of the mean error of the vector length, respectively. The obtained test results show that the developed method improves to significantly improve the accuracy of the RTK-OTF solution as a method for determining the reference position in air navigation.

Highlights

GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) satellite technology enables determination of aircraft position using absolute and differential satellite measurements [1]
As the results presented in the paper show, the arithmetic mean model can be replaced by an alignment model using measurement weights, which further improves the positioning accuracy
The paper proposes the use of a weighted mean model in a stochastic process to determine the resultant position of an aircraft

Summary

Introduction

GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) satellite technology enables determination of aircraft position using absolute and differential satellite measurements [1]. The control of position indications determined in relation to the reference position is a key parameter in determining the accuracy of GNSS satellite positioning in aviation. This raises the research problem of how to optimally determine the reference position of the aircraft flight and what geometric configuration of the reference station deployment to use. In previous scientific research conducted around the world, the reference trajectory of an aircraft was determined based on the differential phase RTK-OTF technique [8]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion