Preliminary Results on Tropospheric ZTD Estimation by Smartphone

Lorenzo Benvenuto,Paolo Dabove,Domenico Sguerso,Ilaria Ferrando

doi:10.3390/rs13224567

Lorenzo Benvenuto, Paolo Dabove + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224567

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Abstract

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver is one of the many sensors embedded in smartphones. The early versions of the Android operating system could only access limited information from the GNSS, allowing the related Application Program Interface (API) to obtain only the location. With the development of the Android 7.0 (Nougat) operating system in May 2016, raw measurements from the internal GNSS sensor installed in the smartphone could be accessed. This work aims to show an initial analysis regarding the feasibility of Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) estimation by GNSS measurements extracted from smartphones, evaluating the accuracy of estimation to open a new window on troposphere local monitoring. Two different test sites have been considered, and two different types of software for data processing have been used. ZTDs have been estimated from both a dual-frequency and a multi-constellation receiver embedded in the smartphone, and from a GNSS Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS). The results have shown interesting performances in terms of ZTD estimation from the smartphone in respect of the estimations obtained with a geodetic receiver.

Highlights

The applications exploiting Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning have increased in recent years [1,2]
This work aims to show an initial analysis regarding the feasibility of Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) estimation by GNSS measurements extracted from smartphones, evaluating the accuracy of estimation to open a new window on troposphere local monitoring
ZTDs have been estimated from both a dual-frequency and a multi-constellation receiver embedded in the smartphone, and from a GNSS Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS)

Summary

Introduction

The applications exploiting Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning have increased in recent years [1,2]. The first methodology (NRTK) has been investigated and considered for many purposes, where precision farming [5], autonomous navigation, maritime survey [6], and meteorological monitoring [7,8,9,10,11] are only a few examples This positioning technique has allowed the attainment of impressive accuracy, even for singlefrequency GNSS receivers [12], and it has permitted the increased performance of the low-cost ones [13,14,15,16] since the implementation of studies into the potentialities of the GNSS system embedded in the smartphones [17]. The spread of low-cost technologies such as smartphones and tablets, with their rapid evolution in terms of the quality of their installed sensors, has increased the interest in these systems and the management

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