A Method for Testing GPS in Obstructed Environments Where GPS/INS Reference Systems Can Be Ineffective 2011-01-1036

When vehicles share certain information wirelessly via Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), they enable a new layer of electronic vehicle safety that, when needed, can generate warnings to drivers and even initiate automatic preventive actions. Vehicle location and velocity provided by Global Navigation Systems (GNSS), including GPS, are key in allowing vehicle path estimation. GNSS is effective in accurately determining a vehicle's location coordinates in most driving environments, but its performance suffers from obstructions in dense urban environments.

To combat this, augmentations to GNSS are being contemplated and tested. This testing has been typically done using a reference GNSS system complimented by expensive military-grade inertial sensors, which can still fail to provide adequate reference performance in certain environments.

This paper proposes a test procedure for locating systems that uses data from traditional geodetic static land surveys as the main component of the truth reference. The advantages of this approach are that it is effective in even the most challenging environments and it offers potential cost savings. The procedure is illustrated using data from an application of this approach in a dense urban area.