Kinematic precise point positioning heights enhancement using static measurements and Voronoi’s corrector surface

ABSTRACT

Recently, the use of Precise Point Positioning (PPP) has spread widely. Unlike Relative Positioning techniques, PPP uses only a single receiver unit. Although it provides sub-centimeter horizontal accuracy, the vertical accuracy of PPP is a hot topic in the research community. In this research, an approach to enhance the accuracy of PPP estimated heights is proposed via the integration of static measurements and corrector surfaces produced based on the Voronoi diagram. The performance of PPP Static and Kinematic measurements was evaluated by comparing their solutions with solutions obtained from Relative Positioning techniques. The Canadian Spatial Reference System-Precise Point Positioning (CSRS-PPP) was used to process measurements collected at the study area of 39 km2 along the coastal zone of the Mediterranean Sea in the northern Delta region of Egypt. Based on the estimated results, the proposed approach significantly reduces the RMSE of the height differences. The average improvement ratio is approximately 73.9%, with the RMSE decreasing from 10.9 cm to 2.79 cm. Moreover, about 95.7% of the 279 tested point height differences show values within ±5 cm or better after applying this approach. Notably, PPP using the proposed approach saved approximately 50% of the time required for the Relative Positioning technique.

KEYWORDS:

• Kinematic measurements
• CSRS-PPP
• static measurements
• corrector surface
• Voronoi diagram

Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge DSR technical and financial support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authorship contribution

Ahmed Alshouny contributed to all the aspects of this study. Yehia Miky: investigation, validation, formal analysis, writing, review and editing, figures drafting. Abdullah Kamel: validation, analysis, writing, and editing. All the authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data used in this study were obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR), King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, under grant number (D-350-137-1441). The authors, therefore, gratefully acknowledge DSR technical and financial support.