Pseudolite Antenna Calibration Algorithm using a Multi-Antenna Receiver

Abstract

The need for position information in indoor environments has been growing lately. Several indoor navigation systems have been studied. Among them, pseudolite-based indoor positioning systems are one of the best systems to obtain precise position measurements. However, the installation of such systems is very difficult because the calibration of pseudolite antenna position is complicated. For precise calibration, the use of carrier phase measurements is necessary, and whenever carrier phase measurements are considered, problems with cycle ambiguity appear. In this paper, a new approach to calibrate the positions of pseudolite antennas is proposed. By using a multi-antenna, the ambiguity can be eliminated, epoch by epoch, for every single carrier phase measurement. Moreover, the number of calibration points can be reduced down to 3 by use of measurements collected at unknown positions. Using the proposed methods, the process of the collection of carrier phase measurements becomes considerably simple and convenient. Simulation results are presented to verify the proposed algorithms.