Lecture-8

4.10 Satellite Geometry based Measures

 Clock or orbital biases measurement: All GPS measurements including pseudo range, carrier
phase & Doppler frequency are very sensitive to the biases and errors; their combined effect
alters the positioning results. For high accuracy work biases must be accounted in processing step
of GPS data processing. Sources of biases may be grouped depending upon their characteristics
such as magnitude, periodicity, satellite and receiver dependencies. Manly biases can introduced
by effects i.e. atmospheric effects and signal propagation, but they can also introduced in the data
processing stage due to poor knowledge of fixed constants (like satellite orbit, station coordinates,
velocity of light) to the user. By considering errors we can consider the biases, which are
correlated in space and time. .
 Positioning modes: Both the mode of positioning, absolute or point positioning and relative
positioning, are fundamental to consideration of error /biases in datum related to GPS results.
Point positioning with respect to well defined coordinate system (WGS84 Cartesian reference
system). This coordinate system is direct realized to the monitoring station coordinates and
transferred to all users on the basis of coordinated of GPs satellite. User position and any error or
biases computation is basically done by satellite coordinates which directly changes the accuracy
as well as precision of results.
 DOP (Dilution of Precision); In case of navigation application, DOP is defined as an effect of
geometry related to satellite configuration. It is also expressed as the ratio of positional to
measurement accuracy.
 Higher accuracies can be obtained by the relative positioning mode using the two receivers at
different positions, tracing the same satellites, because of absolute positioning of two GPS
receivers is affected by many errors at same extent which will be subtracted in differential or
relative positioning mode.
 Satellite and receiver position geometry: Accuracy of satellite measurements also act as a
function of geometry of satellite receiver. Lesser the DOP, value higher will be the accuracy of
GPS observations and errors associated with measurements are not so much amplified. Higher
values of DOP make the position a point too much unreliable, called outage. DOP varies with
time and geography of an area, although for same area it is same in ideal condition. DOP plays a
vital role in point positioning, although its role is limited in the relative positioning. Figure 4.5
shows the various scenarios in which we get poor of good GDOP.

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 Figure 4.5: Bad PDOP vs. Good PDOP

 Pre and post processing algorithms, operational modes, and others: accuracy is also dependent on
whether the user is stationary or moving condition, repeated observations are taken in stationary
operation of receiver which gives higher accuracy.
 Post processing improves the accuracy of results by removing or lowering the errors associated.
 The level of measurement noise considerably affects the accuracy.
 Degree of redundancy in measurements.
 Algorithm type used in processing of data.

Summary
The various source of error in GPS observations with respect to the GPS segments can be
summarized as below:
Space Segment
• Satellite clock and navigation facility
• Estimation of satellite perturbations
• Other with thermal radiations

Ground Control Segment

• Ephemeris or orbital prediction
• Thruster performance and others

Signal Propagation
• Ionospheric delay
• Tropospheric Delay
• Multipath

User Segment
• Receiver noise and Resolution

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The combined effect of these errors can be evaluated as "1σ system User Equivalent Range Error"
(UERE)