GPS is the first real Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).

It has introduced and

proven the advantages of worldwide, satellite-based navigation—and much more.

HISTORY:-

Since the early 1970s, the United States Government has spent tens of billions of dollars
to develop, produce, and operate GPS as a dual-use (military and civilian) system. GPS is
operated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). But even before the system reached
its full operational capability in 1995, the civilian user community had enthusiastically
adopted GPS for its own applications. This civilian endorsement has profoundly
influenced the Government’s evolving vision of the system’s future capabilities and
direction. Knowing your exact location can greatly improve how you work. GPS gives
millions of people that knowledge on demand, around the clock and around the world,
dramatically increasing their productivity and, in many cases, enabling them to do things
they couldn’t do before. GPS has found its way into cars, boats, planes, surveying and
construction equipment, cameras, farm machinery, laptop computers, cell phones, and
virtually any other type of gear that can put knowledge of position to work for its users.
As an added benefit, every GPS receiver also can provide near-atomic-clock-accurate
time. In the first 30 years, significant advances in technology have made GPS receivers
far more capable, more accurate, and easier to use. The first GPS receivers were
refrigerator-sized boxes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that provided very
rudimentary capabilities (rudimentary by today’s standards; revolutionary then).

Today, basic GPS receivers have been condensed to just a few integrated circuits with
very powerful software and are becoming ever more economical. This makes the
technology accessible to and usable by virtually everyone. Public knowledge and
acceptance of GPS have dramatically increased. GPS now is an integral part of the
world’s infrastructure and has literally become a new utility.
In the years ahead, GPS will be joined by other similar systems being developed in other
parts of the world. Systems like Navic-IRNSS (India), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo
(Europe), Compass Or AlBei-Dou (China),Quasai-Zenith Satellite System(QZSS-
Japan) either already exist or are being developed. Each is planned as a GNSS in its own
right. But they also are expected to be mutually compatible. Receivers will be capable of
using the signals from all the satellites to provide a virtually universal GNSS, providing
far better, more robust performance and capabilities than any of the individual systems.
We’re not there yet. We don’t even really know where “there” ultimately will be. But
we’re well under way. And GPS will help us get there and tell us where we are, every
step of the way. Exactly.

GPS
The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) is a worldwide radio-navigation
system formed by a constellation of 24 or more satellites, several ground stations, and
millions of users like you. These system segments—space, ground, and user—work
together to provide accurate positions anytime, anywhere in the world.

GPS System can be successfully used for many civil applications like:-
1. Providing Geodetic control
2. Photogrammetry
3. Finding out location of offshore drilling
4. Pipe line and Power line Survey
5. Navigation of civilian ships and planes
6. Crustal Movement studies
This whole system is since basically for defence use it is an absolute passive system, and
is based on Radio Navigation System which provide precise three-dimensional position
and time information.

Depending on your needs, you can use one of three common forms of GPS to tell you
where you are to ever-increasing levels of accuracy:
 Even a modest, handheld GPS receiver, costing less than $100, can determine
your location to within 15 meters (m). The rest of Part 1 explains the basic
operation of this autonomous, or stand-alone, positioning.
 Slightly more expensive receivers, which use a second signal source for
reference, can pinpoint your location to about 1 m. This form, called differential
GPS (DGPS).
 The Real-Time Kinematic (RTK):- Surveyors and other professionals use
advanced receivers and techniques to get precise measurements down to a
centimeter (cm) or less.

Characteristics of GPS satellite:-

 Orbital height ------ 20,200 Kms

 Period ------ 12th
 Frequencies ------ 1575 MHz
 Navigational data ------ 1228 MHz
 Availability ------ continuous
 Accuracy ------ 15m in point positioning
 Satellite constellation ----21-24
 Geometry ----Repeating
 Satellite clocks ----Rubidium. Cesium (Atomic)

As stated the GPS system can provide an accuracy of 10to 15 meter in point positioning
mode provide no selective availability (S.A) or Antispoofing is on. However, such
accuracy is not sufficient for geodetic purpose. To overcome this problem the surveyors
are using the system mostly in relative (Translocation) mode where most of the errors due
to S.A, Tropospheric and Ionosphere gets cancelled out and we get instead of position the
distance between two points of a very high accuracy which can be used for first order
Survey.

Segments of GPS:-

1. Space Segment
The space segment is a constellation of 24 satellites in precise, nearly circular
orbits about 20,200 kilometers (km) above the earth. Several additional satellites are also
in orbit. They are designated as “spares” but are fully operational. So even if failure or
planned maintenance takes one or more satellites out of service for some period, the
constellation should always contain at least 24 operational satellites.

The satellites are arranged in six orbital planes. Each plane is tilted at 55 degrees
relative to the equator, to provide polar coverage. Each satellite orbits the earth twice a
day. As a result, at least four satellites are “in view” at any time, from any place on or
near the earth’s surface. This is significant because a GPS receiver requires signals from
at least four satellites in order to determine its location in three dimensions (3D).

Each satellite is an autonomous navigation beacon in space. Each one

continuously broadcasts low-power radio signals that identify it and provide information
about its location in space, as well as system timing and other data. The signals are
broadcast using two carrier frequencies in the “L” band of the ultrahigh frequency (UHF)
range:
 L1 (1575.42 MHz)
 L2 (1227.60 MHz).
Rain, fog and snow have no effect on these signals, making GPS an all-weather system.

The satellites continuously point their solar panels toward the sun and their transmitting
and receiving antennas toward the earth. Each satellite contains several atomic clocks to
keep very, very accurate time (to a billionth of a second). Each satellite also contains a
computer, a radio transmission system, solar panels and batteries, and various other
components. Over time, the system and the satellites are being improved to provide ever-
higher levels of capability: better accessibility for civilian users, improved security for
military users, and increased reliability and accuracy for everybody.

Thus far, the major generations are Block I (Development & Research satellites) and
Block II (Production or operating satellites) Block III (Replenishment satellites) is
currently being defined.
 Block I satellites were used for research and development and for gaining
operational experience. No Block I satellites are still in use.
 Several versions of Block II satellites comprise today’s operational system.
 The first Block II satellite was launched in 1989. The system reached full
capability with 24 active satellites in 1995.
  As of early 2007, some 19 additional Block II GPS satellites have been
launched to maintain the operational configuration and to introduce
upgraded capabilities.
 Seventeen more satellites are scheduled to be launched through 2012. For more
information about Block II satellites, see Appendix A.
 Block III, the “GPS for the next three decades,” is under development. The first
Block III satellite is projected to be launched in 2013.

2. Control Segment
There are Nine Monitor station around the world which continuously track all the
satellite and feed the information to the master control station at Colorado. At
monitor stations the pseudo ranges are determined to all visible satellites and along
with local meteorological data this information is sent to master control station.
from these data the master control station, pre-computes satellite ephemeris and
the behavior of the satellite clocks and formulate navigation data (message).The
message data are transmitted to the ground antenas and uplinked via S-band to the
satellites. Because of global distribution of the upload antenas at least three
contacts per day can be realized between control segment and each particular
satellite.

In nut shell the job of the control segment can be summarized as below:
 Monitor and control the satellite system continuously
 Determine the GPS system
 Predict the satellite ephemeredes and the behavior of the satellite clocks.
 Up-date periodically the navig ation message for each particular satellite.
 3. User segment
A user segment consist of an appropriate GPS receiver with antenna and power supply
unit. A Geodetic receiver should have enough channel to collect data from all available
satellites. It should have all noise level. A minimum of eight channels is recommended.
An antenna can be of chock ring or microstrip.it should have a ground plate to minimize
multipath error.
It’s a dual-use system, which means that it is intended for use by both military and
civilian applications. So to be realistic about it, there are two distinct user segments
 Military users can employ special system capabilities and have a very different list
of applications than the rest of us.
 Civilians, generally want to use the positioning and timing capabilities for
everyday activities
 The civilian applications are virtually limitless; The specialized types of receivers
are legion. And the benefits to the user community are huge in terms of
productivity, cost savings, safety, and even the ability to do things that couldn’t be
done before.

How GPS Works

To compute your exact position, your GPS receiver determines the distance to each of
several satellites by:
 computing exactly where each satellite is in space,
 measuring the travel time from there to here of radio signals broadcast by the
satellites, and
 Accounting for delays the signals experience as they travel through the earth’s
atmosphere.
First, Find the Satellites

we’re going to use the GPS satellites as reference points. But how do we know where
they are, other than they’re way out in space and moving very fast?

It’s easy: the satellites tell us. Each satellite knows where it is, based on a model of its
orbit called an ephemeris. Each includes its ephemeris data as part of the information it
broadcasts continuously.

 The ephemeris for each satellite slowly changes. The medium-earthorbit altitude of
some 20,200 km is well above the earth’s atmosphere, where there’s almost no
atmospheric drag. The orbits are very stable and precise but not perfect.
 The satellites tend to “drift” from their planned orbits very slowly over time. The
drift is caused by gravitational pulls from the moon and sun and by the pressure of
solar radiation.
 The “ephemeris errors” caused by the drift are very slight, but they must be
accounted for in order to maintain the precision of the system.
 Each satellite is always in view of at least two ground stations. The ground stations
continuously monitor the satellite’s position, altitude, and speed with high precision
and report the results to the master control station.

Trilaterating from Satellites

The process of determining where something is by measuring its distances from other
objects is called trilateration.

One Satellite Suppose we measure our distance from a satellite and find it to be 20,200
km. This tells us we are located somewhere on the surface of a sphere with a radius of
20,200 km, centered on this satellite.

Two Satellites
Next, we measure our distance from a second satellite and determine that it is 23,000 km
away. So we’re also on the surface of a sphere with a 23,000-km radius, centered on the
second satellite. This limits our possible locations to somewhere on the circle where the
first and second spheres intersect.

Three Satellites

If we then measure to a third satellite and find that we’re 25,800 km from that one, our
position is one of the two points where the 25,800-km sphere cuts through the circle of
intersection of the first two spheres.

A fourth measurement will tell us, and has the additional important function of
synchronizing your receiver’s clock with the satellites’ time. . Now that we’ve got the big
picture, let’s see how the system actually measures the distances.
Measuring Distance From a Satellite (Ranging) or Observation Principle:-

The basic principle of determining of determining the position by using GPS satellites is
based on measurement of distances from the point of observing the signal time travel.
This is done by comparing the reading of transmitter antenna time with the receiver
antenna time. It cannot be assumed that the two clocks will be strictly in synchronization.
Since the clocks used in the present type of receivers are quartz clocks to reduce the cost
of the receiver. The observed signal time will have a systematic synchronization error.
Since the measured range has got this systematic error in it, the computed distances will
also biased, and therefore, these are called pseudo-range. To compute the position based
on this pseudo-range the error due to time bias has to be corrected and therefore, this is
also taken as an unknown and determined before deriving the true range. As we know
from the simple formula of distance computation that

R=√ ¿ ¿ ¿
Where, x,y,& z are the co-ordinate of the station, therefore unknown and XY,Z are the
coordinates of the satellite, which is a broadcast information.
To find the true range the time bias “t” is also has to be considering, therefore
R=(X-x)2+(Y-y)2+(Z-z)2+C
Where C is the velocity of light, R is pseudo-range
Now in this equation there are four unknown therefore, to solve this at least 4 satellites
will have to be observed. The minimum requirement in this case is
1. To know the co-ordinate of satellite antenna
2. To know the Satellite time at the time of emission of the signal
3. Minimum 4 satellite, 4th one required to determine the time bias.(Fig 4.2)
The GPS Signal

All GPS satellites broadcast on the same two frequencies. The primary signal is broadcast
on what is referred to as L1 frequency, which is 1,575.42 MHz. The signals are broadcast
using spread-spectrum techniques, which allow many signals to coexist on the same
frequency, and for receivers to detect and separate the different signals from each other.
The L1 signal is modulated with two information signals called C/A (for Coarse and
Acquisition code) and P (for Precise code). In addition, the satellites also broadcast a
copy of the P code on the second frequency called L2, which is 1,227.60 MHz. (Note that
later satellites may add additional codes to L1 and/or L2, and may also add extra
frequencies.)

The PRN Code

The satellites and your receiver use a signal called a pseudo-random number (PRN) code
to determine travel time and, therefore, distance. The PRN code is one of the key
elements of GPS.

 uniquely identifies each satellite,

 provides the timing coordination for the system, and
 makes it possible to “amplify” the low-power GPS signal, so the receivers don’t
need big satellite dishes.

Each satellite broadcasts two PRN codes that identify the specifific satellite and provide a
system time reference:

 A Coarse Acquisition (C/A) code for civilian users on the L1 carrier.

 A Precise (P) code for military users on both L1 and L2 carriers.

The GPS signals must provide a mean to determine the position in real time basis to
achieve this the carrier phase is modulated with Pseudo Random Noise (PRN) codes
these codes are in the binary form and the signals is modulated as below:
The pseudo ranges are derived from the travel time of an identified coded PRN signal.
There are two types of codes in use. The P-codes and the C/A code
P-code – Precision or Protected
C/A – Clear/acquisition

 The P-code has a frequency of 10.23MHz i.e. a sequence of 10.23 million binary
digit or chips/seconds. This is also called as chipping rate of the P-code. The
corresponding Wavelength of one chip is 30m.
 The chipping rate of C/A code is only 1.023 MHz and corresponding wavelength is
300 meters.

Correlating the Codes

The process of matching the satellite’s PRN code with a PRN code generated by
your receiver is called correlation.

To determine the signal propagation time, the user needs a copy of the code sequence in
his receiver. This code sequence is code shifted in time step by step and correlated with
receiver code signal until maximum correlation is received. The necessary phase shift in
the two sequences of codes is a measure of the signal travel time between the satellite and
the receiver antennas. This technique can be explained as code phase observation.

For precise geodetic application, the pseudo range has to be determined by phase
measurement from the carrier signals because of much better resolution. Survey of India
uses only phase measurement for precise geodetic applications.

How GPS Receiver Works

All GPS receivers have a similar core operation:
■ collect the data broadcast by the satellites,
■ measure the signals, and
■ compute position, velocity, and time (PVT).

 The antenna and a radio-frequency (RF) receiver (often called the RF front end)
collect and amplify the incoming very low-power GPS radio signals.

 The digital signal processor detects (acquires) and tracks the unique signals from
multiple satellites. The signal processor also measures various parameters of each
tracked signal. In most receivers, an individual “channel” is assigned for each
satellite signal. Most modern GPS receivers have at least 12 channels; some have
many more.
 Using the measurements, the navigation processor calculates the PVT solution
(often called a position “fix”). Once the solution is known, the receiver displays it
in an appropriate form or sends it on to the rest of a larger system in which the
receiver may be operating.
 To further improve the final PVT solution, the receiver may also use data from
other sensors or from differential GPS reference sources.

The End Result (Accurate Position, Velocity, Time)

Remember that we defined two user segments: military and civilian. Accordingly, there
are two levels of accuracy standards:
 PPS: Precise Positioning Service provides special capabilities for users with
military receivers; civilian receivers cannot access this service.
 SPS: Standard Positioning Service is the level of accuracy available with your
civilian receiver.
 How the GPS system works

GPS ERROR SOURCES

GPS errors definition:-The GPS error can be defined as the error of component in distance
from satellite to a receiver.
The atomic clocks in GNSS satellites are very accurate but a very small drift in them results in
inaccuracy in the satellite clock results in significant error in the position calculated by the
receiver. Each GPS block 2 and block 1 satellite contains two caesium and two rubidium
atomic clocks. The satellite clock error is about 8.64 to 17.78 nanoseconds per day. GPS
receiver in contrast use expensive crystal clocks. Errors depend on geometric dilution of
precision and the sources such as atmospheric effects, multipath effects, signal arrival time
measurement natural sources of interference, artificial sources of interference, natural sources of
interference, relativity, ephemeris and clock errors, selective availability which are discussed
below.
RANGING ERRORS AND HOW GPS DEALS WITH THEM
With a system this complex, operating in widely (sometimes wildly) varying conditions, there is
plenty of potential for errors. Some of them can be predicted fairly accurately and factored out;
others can’t. Ranging errors can be grouped into two general categories:
■ User Range Errors (URE): these are errors due primarily to the space and ground control
segments of the system, such as ephemeris and satellite clock errors, and atmospheric errors
caused by signal delays in the ionosphere and troposphere.
■ User Equipment Errors (UEE): these errors are due primarily to your equipment and local
conditions. They include antenna orientation, receiver noise, and problems such as multipath
reception and electromagnetic interference. There are also just plain User Errors—mistakes—
that you can make in using the equipment or interpreting the results. The system cannot predict
them or factor them out. Only you can, by thinking through the process and not making the
mistake in the first place.
1. Ephemeris Errors
As described previously, the system monitors satellite drift and computes and broadcasts
ephemeris corrections. However, even the updates are slightly off and slightly old, so errors in
knowing the satellites’ exact positions are inevitable. These ephemeris errors may add up to 2 m
to your total range error.
2. Satellite clock errors
Although the atomic clocks on the satellites are excellent, they are not perfect and drift very
slowly. This gradual drift, even though monitored and corrected by the ground segment, can
account for up to 2 m of range error.
3. Ionospheric delay
The ionosphere is the upper layer of the atmosphere, ranging in altitude from 50 to 500 km.
It consists largely of ionized (charged) particles which can delay the GPS signals. The delay
varies by location and time; the effects are most significant in the equatorial and polar regions.
Ionospheric delay errors are typically in the range from 2 to 5 m in autonomous civilian
receivers.
Ionospheric delay can be greatly affected by the 11-year sunspot cycle. Since its last peak
in 2001, solar activity has been relatively low; as a result, even modest, autonomous GPS
receivers often have provided good accuracies (down to a couple of meters). This may not be
true when sunspot activity increases in the next few years. The next “up” cycle is expected to
reach its peak around 2012
4. Tropospheric delay
The troposphere is the lower part of the earth’s atmosphere where all our weather occurs.
It’s full of water vapor and varies in temperature and pressure, but actually causes relatively little
error in the GPS signal transmission. Tropospheric delay errors are typically about 0.5 m.
5. Atmospheric error modelling
The “raw” errors caused by the ionosphere and troposphere are actually larger than
described above. Mathematical models (predictions) of the atmosphere are built into most GPS
receivers and take into account the charged particles in the ionosphere and the varying gaseous
content of the troposphere. The satellites constantly transmit updates to the basic ionospheric
model. The result is that most of the tropospheric error and some of the ionospheric error are
removed through mathematical modelling in your receiver.
Other ways around atmospheric errors
Other techniques can remove most of the atmospheric error, reducing it to the range of 1 to
2 m. These include:
Differential GPS
DGPS receivers, which receive corrections from a second receiver at a known location, are
able to accurately account for the atmospheric delays.
Dual frequency carrier phase measurements
Lower-frequency signals are slowed more than higher-frequency signals as they travel
through the ionosphere. Some advanced civilian receivers are able to compare both the L1 and
L2 carriers to more accurately correct for the ionospheric delays.
USER EQUIPMENT ERRORS
The other error sources—the receiver and antenna, interference from other signals, and
multipath—are referred to as UEE.
1. Receiver errors
GPS receivers can have minor errors in their ability to measure all signals equally. For
example, the antenna may have different delays for signals at different elevations. Better
receivers and antennas are capable of more accurate measurements to minimize such ranging
errors, which can amount up to 3m.
2. Multiple path errors
All GPS ranging calculations assume the shortest possible direct path from the satellite to
the receiver. Multipath errors occur when a signal reflects off nearby objects such as buildings
before reaching the receiver. The result can be multiple signals arriving at the receiver: first the
direct signal, then one or more delayed, reflected signals. If these “bounced” signals are strong
enough, they can confuse the receiver and cause range measurement errors. The potential
ranging errors due to multipath can be as high as 10 m, but are usually much lower, on the order
of 1 m. Sophisticated receivers use a variety of signal processing tricks to make sure that they
only consider the earliest arriving (most direct) signals.
Because the multipath condition varies as the satellites move, its effects often change
over fairly short periods of time, especially if you remain in a fixed position.
Conversely, multipath effects are less severe in situations in which the receiver is
moving, such as in cars or airplanes.
3. EMI/RFI
Because GPS uses very low-power signals that the receiver has to “dig out” of the
background noise, the system is subject to degradation by electro-magnetic or radio frequency
interference (EMI/RFI).
4. Jamming
GPS signals can be overwhelmed by other radio signals or electromagnetic radiation.
Such “jamming” typically occurs as a side-effect of legitimate signals (such as general RFI) or
intense solar sun-spot activity. It could also result from a hostile electronic attack, or from U.S.
Government actions to deny access to GPS to hostile forces, although neither of these two
situations has occurred.
More advanced, higher-level receivers can minimize jamming. The addition of new
frequencies and more powerful signals in later Block II satellites and the Block III system will
reduce the likelihood of jamming.
5. Spoofing
Spoofing is the transmission of a GPS-like signal intended to “fool” GPS receivers so
they compute erroneous times or locations. The military signals are encrypted for anti-spoofing
operations.
6. Selective availability
In the early days of GPS, the U.S. Government used Selective Availability (S/A) to
degrade system accuracy for civilian users. The idea was to prevent a hostile force from using
GPS accurately for their own purposes. S/A caused continuously varying position errors that
could reach as much as 100 meters.
S/A was turned off in 2000 by Presidential Decision Directive. This was done partly
because of the system’s rapidly increasing importance in business applications worldwide, and
also because the growing use of DGPS essentially removed the S/A errors anyway. It appears
that S/A is not likely to be turned on again in the future. However, the Government retains
capabilities to deny civilian GPS service if deemed necessary.
Error Budget
The list of potential ranging error sources and their magnitudes is called the error budget and is
shown in the following table for autonomous GPS.

Our receiver has now done its job and calculated our position. Speaking autonomously, it
appears that the solution is probably accurate to within 10 m unless we’ve got significant
multipath problems. Not bad. But not true. These ranging errors aren’t the same as position
errors, which are almost always larger. There are a few other considerations involved.
Other considerations
Remember, the errors we’ve discussed are ranging errors, not position errors. The actual position
errors encompass the ranging errors multiplied by a factor called the dilution of precision (DOP).
And it’s even possible that YOU have committed some kind of mistake, (not likely, of course,
but possible) which might make the solution wrong by hundreds of meters!
Dilution of Precision
Different satellite geometries (the locations of the satellites in view relative to each other
and to the receiver) affect the accuracy of your receiver’s final position solution. The effect is
quantified as the DOP value, which changes continuously as the satellites move across the sky.
There are several components of the overall DOP value, but we’ll just deal with the big picture
here, and talk primarily about Position DOP (PDOP).
Remember this important point: the satellite geometry can affect the vertical and
horizontal components of position differently. The vertical component usually is worse than the
horizontal, so GPS vertical accuracies aren’t as good as horizontal accuracies.The PDOP value is
not used in the actual calculation of your position, but as a reference to evaluate the probable
accuracy of the position.A PDOP of 2 (a typical number) means that, in the worst case, a 1-m
URE will result in a 2-m positional error.
In general:
 Wider angles between the satellites lower the PDOP and provide a better measurement.
 Poor satellite geometry (all in a line or at small angles) yields a higher PDOP and poorer
measurement accuracy.
 PDOP values range from 1 to infinity:
 1 to 4 results in accurate positions.
 6 or greater is poor.

Most GPS receivers can display the calculated PDOP for the current
Position. If the PVT data is being supplied for use by another system or for postprocessing, the
PDOP data is usually recorded for reference along with the rest of the data.
Most modern GPS receivers can analyse the positions of the available satellites and use those
that provide the best geometry and PDOP. Many receivers also can ignore or eliminate GPS
readings with PDOP values that exceed user-defined limits.
Mask Angle
As we have seen previously, the distance a signal travels through the atmosphere is
affected by the satellite’s position (overhead, at the horizon, or somewhere in between). One way
to minimize atmospheric errors is to set a mask angle that tells the receiver not to use satellites
that are low on the horizon. A typical mask angle setting is 10 degrees to 15 degrees.
Number of Satellites in View
In the early days of GPS, before the full constellation of satellites was deployed, users
needed to pay close attention to the times that at least four satellites would be visible in their
locations. There often were days with only a few short windows of time during which operation
was possible. However, this has not been a problem since full operational capability was attained
in 1995. The number of satellites your receiver can see at any time depends partly on your
location and partly on the mask angle set into the receiver. Regardless, you should always have
four or more satellites in view. In the temperate regions of the world, typically about 1/3 of the
constellation (some 8 to 9) satellites will be in view. But if your mask angle is set to 15 degrees,
the number is reduced to about 1/4 of the constellation (about 6 or 7 satellites). You’ll do a bit
better in the tropics and worse in the Polar Regions.
Canopy, Canyons and Other Obstructions
The line-of-sight GPS signals can be obstructed by solid or semi-solid
Objects, such as mountains, buildings, or tree canopy, making GPS usage spotty or difficult in
such surroundings.
There are various possibilities for achieving successful operation in
Such areas:
  GPS receivers vary in their abilities to function in obstructed areas; some are especially
designed for maximum sensitivity to low-power signals.
 Other types of sensors or devices can aid your GPS receiver to maintain an accurate
position. As one example, inertial navigation technology (based on gyros) can keep the
receiver on track in areas where GPS is limited. GPS and inertial technologies are highly
complementary. Inertial systems can be very accurate but tend to drift over time; GPS
positions can be used to reset the inertial positions to minimize the drift.
 In some cases, surveyors and mappers can get around the problem by collecting an offset
point in an area in which GPS signals are available and then recording the distance,
bearing and slope to the obscured position of interest.
User Errors
User errors (blunders) aren’t listed in the error budget, yet they can be the largest single flaw in
the position solution. The most common type of user error—not carefully setting and recording
the location format (coordinate system, map projection and map datum)—can result in errors of
hundreds of meters.
 This is not really an issue if you are using a “closed system,” such as a handheld receiver
for personal navigation or an in-vehicle system while driving your car, in which the
positions are presented in a standard, pre-determined form.
 But surveyors, map-makers, and many other specialized users who tie-in their GPS
measurements with other systems and data, must be very sure to use the proper
coordinate system, datum, and other factors to achieve proper information integration.
So make sure you do your job right, and your receiver will do its part.

Accuracy and Precision

Accuracy and precision are often used to describe the how good is the position acquired
by GPS receiver. A distinction should be made between accuracy and precision.
Accuracy is the degree of closeness of an estimate to its true, but unknown value and the
precision is the degree of closeness of observations to their means. Figure 1 illustrates
various relationships between these two parameters. The true value is located at the
intersection of the crosshairs, the center of the shaded area is the location of the mean
estimate, and the radius of the shaded area is a measure of the uncertainty contained in
the estimate.
• Accuracy
“The nearness of a measurement to the standard or true value”
• Precision
“The degree to which several measurements provide answers very close to each other”
Is military GPS more accurate than civilian GPS?

The user range error (URE) of the GPS signals in space is actually the same for the
civilian and military GPS services. However, most of today's civilian devices use only
one GPS frequency, while military receivers use two.

Using two GPS frequencies improves accuracy by correcting signal distortions caused by
Earth's atmosphere. Dual-frequency GPS equipment is commercially available for
civilian use, but its cost and size has limited it to professional applications.

With augmentation systems, civilian users can actually receive better GPS accuracy than
the military.

If a particular receiver is specified with accuracy to within, say, 10 meters, just what does
that mean? That depends on several things.
 A Moving Experience While Standing Still
A typical GPS receiver calculates its position once every second. Each measurement is
subject to a variety of errors. Therefore each position is slightly different from the
previous one, even if the receiver is stationary at one location.
If you set up a GPS receiver over a point and record its computed positions over a period
of time, you’ll get a scatter plot of the positions

 Statistical Accuracy vs. Fixed Bias

Any measure of GPS accuracy is statistical in nature. We can’t guarantee it will always
be better than a certain value, say 10 meters, for all measurements. But we can say it will
be better than that for a certain percentage of measurements. This way of specifying
accuracy is much different from what we think of as “fixed error” (a bias in which a
device always gives the same answer for the same measurement, even though the answer
may be wrong).
With GPS measurements, the statistical part of accuracy is usually much larger than the
bias error. So we can ignore the bias when thinking about specifications. But statistical
measures can be misleading. The same GPS receiver can have different accuracies
depending on:
■ What percentage of the measurements is specified, and
■ Whether you’re talking about horizontal, vertical or 3-dimensional accuracy.

 Horizontal Accuracy
Most terrestrial users of GPS care more about horizontal accuracy than vertical accuracy.
They want to know where they are on a map or in a field or on the ocean. Vertical
accuracy is less important in these
Applications. That’s a good thing, because GPS gives better horizontal accuracy than
vertical accuracy.
Most manufacturers specify horizontal accuracy separately from vertical accuracy (which
sometimes is not mentioned at all). Terrestrial receivers rarely give a 3-dimensional
accuracy specification, since that would make the receiver look less accurate than it
actually is for horizontal measurements. Common horizontal specifications are horizontal
rms (also called drms), 2drms, and circular error probable (CEP). These are two-
dimensional measurements. The following definitions assume that the north-south and
the east-west statistics are similar.

CEP—the radius of the circle (centered on the antenna) in which half of the
measurements occur.
■ Rms—the radius of the circle in which 63 percent of the measurements occur.
■ 2drms—the radius of the circle twice that of rms, in which 98 percent of the
measurements occur.

So be careful when you compare accuracy claims of GPS receivers. An accuracy claim of
10 meters can mean different things depending on its basis. As an example, the table lists
the various approximate horizontal accuracies for receivers rated at 10 meters for each
definition.

 Vertical Accuracy
Vertical accuracy is typically given as rms, which is the distance from the center of the
distribution in which 68 percent of the distribution occurs. Twice rms (2drms)
encompasses 95 percent of the distribution. These percentages differ from their horizontal
cousins simply because they are one-dimensional distributions.

Factors influencing GPS accuracy

Biases and errors affect all GPS measurements – GPS biases may have the following
characteristics:
 Affects all measurements made by a receiver by an equal (or similar) amounts.
 Affects all measurements made to a particular satellite by an equal (or similar)
amounts.
 Unique to a particular receiver-satellite observation.

Biases and errors

Their combined magnitude will affect the accuracy of the positioning results. Errors
may be considered synonymous to internal noise or random errors. Biases on the other
hand may be defined as being those measurement errors that cause true ranges to be
different from measured ranges by a ‘syst ematic amount’, such as, for example, all
distances being measured either too short, or too long.
In the case of GPS, a very significant bias was ‘Selective Availability (SA)’ a policy of
US Government imposed on 25th March, 1990 and finally revoked on the 1st May,
2000. SA was a bias that caused all the distances from a particular satellite an instant in
time, to be in error by up to several tens of meters. The magnitude of SA – induced bias
varied from satellite to satellite, and over time, in an unpredictable manner. The policy
Anti-Spoofing (AS), on the other hand, although not a signal bias, does affect the
positioning accuracy as it prevents the civilian users access to the second GPS code i.e.
encryption of the P-Code. Only authorized users will have the means to get access to the
P-Code when Anti-spoofing is activated.
Biases must somehow be accounted for in the measurement model used for data
processing if high accuracy is sought. There are several sources of biases with varying
characteristics of magnitude, periodicity, satellite or receiver dependency etc. Biases
may be physical biases, such as atmospheric effects on signal propagation, but may also
enter at the data processing stage through imperfect knowledge of constants, for example
any fixed parameters such as satellite orbit, station coordinate etc. Residual biases may
therefore arise from incorrect or incomplete observation modelling, and hence it is useful
to assemble under the heading of ‘error’ all random measurement process effects, as well
as any modelled biases that remained after ‘data reduction’

Absolute and relative positioning

There are two GPS positioning modes which are fundamental to the considerations of (a)
bias propagation into (and hence accuracy of) GPS results and (b) the datum to which
GPS results refer.
The first is absolute or point positioning, with respect to a well-defined coordinate system
such as WGS 84 or ITRS and is often referred to as single-point positioning. As the
satellite coordinates are essential for the computation of user position, any error in these
values will directly affect the quality of the position determination. The satellite-receiver
geometry will also influence the error propagation into GPS positioning results.
Higher accuracy is possible if the relative position of two GPS receivers, simultaneously
tracking the same satellite is computed. Because many errors will effect the absolute
position of two or more GPS users to almost the same extent, these errors largely cancel
when differential or relative positioning is carried out. This was particularly effective in
overcoming the effect of SA – induced biases.

Other factors influencing accuracy

GPS accuracy is also dependent on host of other operational algorithmic and other
factors:
 Whether the user is moving or stationary. Clearly repeat observations at static station
permit an improvement in precision due to the effect of averaging over time. A
moving GPS receiver does not offer this possibility and accuracy is dependent as
single epoch processing.
 Whether the results are required in real time or if the post processing of data is
possible. The luxury of post-processing the data permits more sophisticated
modelling of GPS data in order to improve the accuracy and reliability of results.
 The level of measurement noise has a considerable influence on the precision
attainable with GPS. A low measurement noise would be expected to result in
comparatively high accuracy. Hence carrier phase measurements are the basis for
high accuracy techniques, while pseudo range measurements are used for
comparatively low accuracy applications.
 The degree of redundancy in solution as provided by extra measurements, which may
be a function of number of tracked satellites as well as the number of observables (eg
carrier phase and pseudo range data on L1 and L2).
 The algorithm type may also have an impact on GPS accuracy. In the case of carrier
phase – based positioning, to ensure Cm-level accuracy it is crucial that a so-called
‘ambiguity fixed’ solution be obtained.
 ‘Data enhancement’ and ‘solution aiding’ technique may be employed. For example,
the use of carrier phase – smoothed pseudo range data, external data such as from
inertial navigation system (and other such devices), additional constraints etc.

The Evolution in Accuracy

The accuracy provided by an autonomous GPS receiver will continue to improve in the
coming years, as shown in the following table.