Ultra-Low-Cost Tightly Coupled Triple-Constellation GNSS PPP/MEMS-Based INS Integration for Land Vehicular Applications

The rapid rise of ultra-low-cost dual-frequency GNSS chipsets and micro-electronic-mechanical-system (MEMS) inertial sensors makes it possible to develop low-cost navigation systems, which meet the requirements for many applications, including self-driving cars. This study proposes the use of a dual-frequency u-blox F9P GNSS receiver with xsens MTi670 industrial-grade MEMS IMU to develop an ultra-low-cost tightly coupled (TC) triple-constellation GNSS PPP/INS integrated system for precise land vehicular applications. The performance of the proposed system is assessed through comparison with three different TC GNSS PPP/INS integrated systems. The first system uses the Trimble R9s geodetic-grade receiver with the tactical-grade Stim300 IMU, the second system uses the u-blox F9P receiver with the Stim300 IMU, while the third system uses the Trimble R9s receiver with the xsens MTi670 IMU. An improved robust adaptive Kalman filter is adopted and used in this study due to its ability to reduce the effect of measurement outliers and dynamic model errors on the obtained positioning and attitude accuracy. Real-time precise ephemeris and clock products from the Centre National d’Etudes Spatials (CNES) are used to mitigate the effects of orbital and satellite clock errors. Three land vehicular field trials were carried out to assess the performance of the proposed system under both open-sky and challenging environments. It is shown that the tracking capability of the GNSS receiver is the dominant factor that limits the positioning accuracy, while the IMU grade represents the dominant factor for the attitude accuracy. The proposed TC triple-constellation GNSS PPP/INS integrated system achieves sub-meter-level positioning accuracy in both of the north and up directions, while it achieves meter-level positioning accuracy in the east direction. Sub-meter-level positioning accuracy is achieved when the Stim300 IMU is used with the u-blox F9P GNSS receiver. In contrast, decimeter-level positioning accuracy is consistently achieved through TC GNSS PPP/INS integration when a geodetic-grade GNSS receiver is used, regardless of whether a tactical- or an industrial-grade IMU is used. The root mean square (RMS) errors of the proposed system’s attitude are about 0.878°, 0.804°, and 2.905° for the pitch, roll, and azimuth angles, respectively. The RMS errors of the attitude are significantly improved to reach about 0.034°, 0.038°, and 0.280° for the pitch, roll, and azimuth angles, respectively, when a tactical-grade IMU is used, regardless of whether a geodetic- or low-cost GNSS receiver is used.