A Low-Cost, High-Precision Vehicle Navigation System for Deep Urban Multipath Environment Using TDCP Measurements

In this study, we developed a low-cost, high-precision vehicle navigation system for deep urban multipath environments using time-differenced carrier phase (TDCP) measurements. Although many studies are being conducted to navigate autonomous vehicles using the global positioning system (GPS), it is difficult to obtain accurate navigation solutions due to multipath errors in urban environments. Low-cost GPS receivers that determine the solution based on pseudorange measurements are vulnerable to multipath errors. We used carrier phase measurements that are more robust for multipath errors. Without correction information from reference stations, the limited information of a low-cost, single-frequency receiver makes it difficult to quickly and accurately determine integer ambiguity of carrier phase measurements. We used TDCP measurements to eliminate the need to determine integer ambiguity that is time-invariant and we combined TDCP-based GPS with an inertial navigation system to overcome deep urban multipath environments. Furthermore, we considered a cycle slip algorithm for its accuracy and a multi-constellation navigation system for its availability. The results of dynamic field tests in a deep urban area indicated that it could achieve horizontal accuracy of at the submeter level.