Communications of the ACM
Researchers Improving Gps Accuracy in the 3rd Dimension
Ohio State University professor Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska
Credit: OSU
Ohio State University researchers have developed software that can fix global positioning system (GPS) errors by taking a more accurate measurement of altitude.
Although the software is still being developed, it allowed for centimeter-scale GPS positioning, including altitude, as much as 97 percent of the time in initial testing. As the level of GPS precision increases, so do potential applications for scientific research, according to Ohio State professor Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska.
The altitude-ready GPS software is necessary for recognizing small shifts in top soil that could lead to dangerously destructive landslides. The researchers focused on troposphere delays, which are caused by the lowest level of the atmosphere. The researchers used ground station receivers in the Carpathian Mountains in Poland to collect GPS data over a 13-hour period.
The researchers used the Ohio State software to test three different methods of measuring the accuracy of the receivers, which were in pairs 32 meters apart in height and 380 meters apart in height. "Of the three methods we tested, the third and most accurate was also the most complicated," Grejner-Brzezinska says.
From Ohio State University Research News
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