Institute of Geodesy Research Research Projects
Modeling and correction of GNSS multipath effect through Software receiver and Ray tracing

Modeling and correction of GNSS multipath effect through Software receiver and Ray tracing

Led by:  Prof. Dr.-Ing. Steffen Schön
E-Mail:  schoen@ife.uni-hannover.de
Team:  M.Sc. Marios Smyrnaios
Year:  2011
Funding:  BMWI and German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Is Finished:  yes

In our days, most of the GNSS error sources can be modeled or significantly reduced by differential techniques. Site dependent errors, which cannot be mitigated by such approaches, are having a great contribution in the total error budget. One such error is multipath, were the superposition of direct and indirect signals introduces errors in the observed carrier and code phase observations. Although many approaches for multipath mitigation have been proposed, all of them resulted in sub-optimal solutions. In the framework of BERTA project, multipath effects are going to be investigated by the use of GNSS software receiver and ray tracing simulations. In Jacob M. et al. (2009) it has been shown that ray tracing can be a very useful tool for that kind of signal investigations. Receiver internal techniques via specialized multipath mitigation signal processing algorithms will be developed and tested in comparison will ray tracing. Modern geodetic receivers and different antennas will be also analyzed. The deviations between observed and simulated results will give us a gain for the deeper understanding of these signal variations in order to conclude in a correction model, with phase multipath correction being the primary goal.

The BERTA project started on the 1st of October 2010 with three years duration, funded by DLR.