Instant PPP with Low-Cost Multi-constellation Dual-Frequency GNSS Chipset

With increased measurement quality of low-cost Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) becomes feasible using a low-cost multi-constellation single-frequency GNSS receiver. Profound Instant PPP (IP3), for example, is a real-time fast convergence PPP technology that offers world-wide 50-cm circular error probability (CEP) PPP solution using a low-cost GNSS chipset. IP3 is able to output precise positioning solutions within seconds, which makes it suitable for various emerging applications such as self-driving cars, UAV and smartphones. With strong demand on higher accuracy by those applications, several low-cost dual-frequency GNSS chipset products (e.g. u-blox F9P, Broadcom BCM47755, etc.) have been released to market. The availability of GNSS observations at the second frequency can further improve the positioning accuracy with low-cost GNSS chipsets. Compared to single-frequency PPP, a dual-frequency PPP system not only increases the redundancy of the positioning system but also helps mitigate the ionospheric effect, leading to more accurate and robust positioning solutions. This paper describes the development of a dual-frequency based Instant PPP system (DF-IP3) using low-cost multi-constellation dual-frequency GNSS chipsets. This system is able to output precise positioning solutions at 30 cm CEP within a few seconds and can be applied to support a wide range of applications.