Central Location System for Satellite Positioning Refinement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current satellite-based navigation systems face challenges in providing accurate location estimates in urban areas due to signal obstruction and the inability of single-frequency receivers to compute atmospheric delays, leading to reduced accuracy in location estimations.
Innovation Solution
A central location system that provides corrections for atmospheric delays and signal reception errors to single-frequency receivers using data from dual-frequency receivers, and increases ionospheric delay coverage by relocating or activating dual-frequency receivers in areas with insufficient coverage, enabling refined location estimates even in areas with limited satellite visibility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If standard RTK methods are used with single-frequency receivers, then location estimation can be computed, but accuracy is reduced because atmospheric delays cannot be computed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a central location system as an intermediary that computes atmospheric delays using data from dual-frequency receivers and provides corrections to single-frequency receivers. This mediator enables single-frequency receivers to achieve high accuracy without requiring the complex capability to compute atmospheric delays themselves.
Solution Approach 2:
The central location system serves multiple functions: it collects data from dual-frequency receivers, computes atmospheric delays, generates corrections for various error sources, and distributes these corrections to both single-frequency and dual-frequency receivers, enabling a unified high-accuracy positioning service across different receiver types.
2Measurement precision
If receivers require unobscured signals from four or more satellites, then accurate location estimation is achieved, but reliability is reduced in urban areas with signal obstruction
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses feedback from multiple receivers (both single-frequency and dual-frequency) to continuously monitor satellite signal conditions and atmospheric delays. This feedback loop enables the central location system to compute real-time corrections that account for signal obstruction and atmospheric effects, maintaining accuracy even when direct satellite signals are obscured.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges data from multiple receivers with different capabilities (single-frequency and dual-frequency) to compute atmospheric delays and signal reception corrections. By combining observations from multiple sources, the system overcomes individual receiver limitations and provides robust corrections even when some receivers experience signal obstruction.
3Measurement precision
If dual-frequency receivers are deployed to provide atmospheric delay corrections, then ionospheric delay coverage is improved, but device distribution and coverage area are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The central location system acts as an intermediary that aggregates atmospheric delay measurements from distributed dual-frequency receivers and interpolates these measurements to provide coverage corrections across the entire service area. This allows sparse dual-frequency receiver deployment to support a much larger coverage area through central processing and distribution.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates copies of atmospheric delay corrections computed from dual-frequency receiver data and distributes these corrections to multiple single-frequency receivers across the coverage area. This copying approach enables a limited number of dual-frequency receivers to provide atmospheric delay compensation to many more single-frequency receivers throughout the service region.
Data Source
AI summary
A central location system provides an end-to-end high-accuracy positioning solution that provides navigation, geo-tagging, and general positioning data to receivers. The central location system does this by providing a cloud correction service and a robust positioning engine. For example, the central location system may provide single-frequency receivers with corrections for atmospheric delays and multipath throughout different geographic regions. The central location system computes corrections by leveraging location data from dual-frequency receivers. The central location system may also increase ionospheric delay coverage of portions of a geographic region. With increased ionospheric delay coverage, receivers can compute better location estimates. The central location system may also compute refined location estimates of single-frequency receivers and/or dual-frequency receivers for receivers with limited access to signals transmitted from satellites. The central location system may do this by estimating a receiver's location with respect to the location estimates of other receivers.