Threshold Determination of The GPS Carrier Acceleration, Ramp, and Step on the Normal Condition

ABSTRACT In this study, the carrier acceleration-ramp-step test was applied to GPS carrier phase measurements, and the results were compared and analyzed. In the carrier acceleration-ramp-step test, the acceleration, ramp, and measurements are estimated using 10 consecutive carrier phase measurements for satellites observed at the same time based on the least square method. As for the characteristic of this test, if failure occurs in the measurement, the value jumps significantly compared to the previous result; but it judges that failure has occurred in all the satellites although failure has occurred in one satellite. Therefore, in this study, a method that eliminates a satellite with failure was suggested, and thresholds of the carrier acceleration, ramp, and step were suggested. The evaluation of the failure detection performance of carrier phase measurement using the suggested thresholds showed that failure could be detected when the carrier phase measurement changed abruptly by more than about 0.1 cycles.