Optimal weighting approach for real-time positioning with Android smartphones

Abstract

The performance of real-time positioning with Android smartphones is evaluated in this study considering two fundamental weighting approaches, which rely on satellite elevation angle and carrier to noise ratio (C/N0) values, respectively. The experimental test conducted in this study includes the observation dataset of Xiaomi Mi 8 and Google Pixel 4 smartphones collected by the Android GPS team in the kinematic environment. First, this study analyzes the observation dataset to understand the stochastic characteristics of observations acquired from smartphones. The analyses revealed that the dependency of smartphone observations on satellite elevation angle is considerably lower compared with high-grade geodetic receivers. The experimental tests indicated that it is possible to obtain more accurate positioning solutions when applying the C/N0-dependent weighting approach. Compared with the elevation-dependent weighting approach, the C/N0-dependent weighting approach improves the positioning performance of Xiaomi Mi 8 and Google Pixel 4 smartphones by 30.1% and 36.5%, respectively.