Precise GNSS single epoch positioning with multiple receiver configuration for medium-length baselines: methodology and performance analysis

The configuration of multiple GNSS antennas and receivers on a common moving platform is widely used for attitude determination. This rigid configuration with nearby antennas can form several constraints, which can be used in order to improve the accuracy of the solution. In particular, known baseline length, relationships between ambiguities on different baselines as well as similar tropospheric and ionospheric delays can be applied in the relative positioning model. The objective of the presented research was to develop a method for taking advantage of the abovementioned constraints in order to improve the ambiguity resolution and consequently the performance of the precise GNSS positioning. This study is based on the processing of medium length baselines up to 70 km length in the instantaneous mode. The results show clear improvement in ambiguity resolution domain in comparison to the commonly used ionosphere-weighted troposphere-estimated geometry based model. (paper)