Integrated Precise Positioning System for Autonomous Level II Driving Offering Lane Level Accuracy

Precise Point Positioning (PPP) has become an attractive topic as consumer low-cost receivers are able to provide raw observations and signals with multiple frequencies and support multiple GNSS systems. Generally, PPP can provide sub-meter level accuracy in favorable environments. However, such an accuracy degrades in challenging environments where the GNSS observations are attenuated or blocked. In order to reach seamless and reliable navigation performance, in this research, PPP is designed to integrate with a low-cost IMU which runs the Inertial Navigation System (INS) algorithm on it. A low-cost Profound-IP3/DR (dead reckoning) integrated navigation system targeted for precise vehicular navigation is proposed. The integrated system is accessed through various road tests which cover good LOS GNSS environments, sub-urbans, short-term GNSS outages, and complete GNSS outages. The results indicate that the Profound-IP3/DR is able to maintain sub-meter RMS accuracy in open-sky and sub-urban areas. For complete GNSS outages and challenging downtown environments with severe multi-path and signal blockages, the Profound-IP3/DR shows robust long-term performance with decimeter to meter-level accuracy. The high positioning accuracy supports Profound-IP3/DR to be a key player in continuous and precise vehicular navigation applications such as asset tracking and car navigation. Moreover, such accurate navigation performance shows the potential and readiness to be integrated with other sources of update such as vision, LiDAR, radar and digital maps to fully benefit the technologies for navigation of autonomous systems.