Analysis and modeling GPS NLOS effect in highly urbanized area

Abstract

Current GPS positioning accuracy in urban areas is still unsatisfactory for various applications, including pedestrian navigation and autonomous driving. Due to the ineffectiveness of special corrector designs against non-line-of-sight (NLOS) reception, the research regarding NLOS signals has been increasing in the recent years. This study first develops an algorithm to detect NLOS signals from the pseudorange measurements by using a 3D building model, ray-tracing simulation, and known receiver position. According to the analysis of 24 h of collected NLOS data, a new finding is that NLOS pseudorange delay is highly correlated with the elevation angle of satellite instead of the received signal strength. Thus, we further propose an innovative NLOS model using two variables, the elevation angle and the distance between the receiver and building that reflect the NLOS. The proposed model is evaluated in both pseudorange and position domains. Based on the experiment results regarding pseudorange error, the difference between the proposed model and the collected NLOS measurement is very small. Finally, the proposed model is applied to a hypothesis-based positioning method and achieves about 6.3 m in terms of horizontal positioning accuracy, which is only slightly worse than the method applied with ray-tracing simulation.