Maximizing GPS Accuracy in GIS Data Collection-Unprotected

Maximizing GPS Accuracy in GIS Data Collection
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Maximizing GPS
Accuracy in GIS Data
Collection
Presenters:
Myles Sutherland
Shane Clarke
Good morning. My name is Myles Sutherland, and I'm a product manager with the
Mobile team here in Redlands, California. Joining me today is Shane Clarke who is the
Technical Sales Manager out of the Olympia office, also with ESRI. I want welcome you
all to today's live training seminar.
Copyright © 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved. 1

Seminar overview
¾ Topics
Introduction to GPS
Integrating GPS with mobile GIS
How to maximize GPS accuracy
¾ Format
Topics include slide presentations, reviews, and Q & As
Send in your questions any time during the presentation
Copyright © ESRI. All rights reserved.
The title for today's seminar is Maximizing GPS Accuracy in GIS Data Collection. For
today's session, we're going to cover three key topics: An introduction to the Global
Positioning System, we're going to touch on integrating your GPS with the mobile GIS
solution, and then we're going to cover how to maximize your GPS accuracy.
The format for today consists of a set of topics delivered through slide presentations,
followed by a review, and then questions and answers. If at any time throughout the
session you have any questions, please send them in and we'll do our best to answer
them after each topic.

Overview of
GPS
So let's start by looking at the Global Positioning System.

GPS is critical to your work
Efficient operations
Find projects and jobs
Map assets and resources
Record events and incidents
Locate co-workers
Intelligent business
Competitive advantage
Global technology utility
Provides reliable positioning
Ensures accurate spatial data
Good business decisions rely on accurate spatial data
GPS is critical to your work. It’s critical for a number of reasons. The first is it helps you
be more efficient in your operations. You can use a GPS in the field to help your field-
workers find their projects and jobs, it can be used to map the locations of assets and
resources, to record information about events and incidents, and also to locate
coworkers.
The GPS is also critical because it helps your business be more intelligent. Not only
does it provide you with a competitive advantage, but it is also a global utility. A GPS
can be used anywhere within the world and provides the most reliable positioning
source available today. One of the key things about using a GPS is it helps you ensure
the accuracy of your spatial data. Good business decisions rely on accurate spatial
data, and GPS is one of the best ways to help support this.

Global Positioning System (GPS)
Network of satellites
Department of Defense
Broadcast radio signals
Provide work wide location
GPS receivers
Embedded in mobile devices
Track and process signals
Report GPS positions
Using GPS for mobile GIS

Locate yourself on the map
Collect feature locations
So let's take a look at the Global Positioning System itself in more detail. The GPS
system is really just a network of satellites that's maintained by the U.S. Department of
Defense, and they're designed to broadcast a set of radio signals that are used by GPS
receivers to generate their locations. The GPS receivers themselves take many different
forms and shapes. In the past, these were very specialized devices. Over time, we've
seen the GPS chip sets become embedded in more of the consumer mobile devices.
The chip sets themselves are designed to work with the radio signals from the satellites
to track them and process those signals.
Using software or, more specifically, firmware that is built for the GPS receivers, they
are able to generate locations and report their positions. The GPS has many different
use cases throughout the world and different industries. However, when we think about
it with mobile GIS, there are really two key use cases. The first is being able to use the
GPS position to locate yourself within or on a map, and also being able to collect new
information; in this case, the geometries of features that go into making up any of your
maps.

Differential GPS (DGPS)
Improves accuracy of the GPS
Consumer device 2–5 m
Professional device > 1 m
Survey device > 10 cm
Relies on reference networks

Measure against a known location
Calculates sets of corrections
Broadcast and applied by GPS
Corrects some errors in GPS

Ionosphere and troposphere impacts
Satellite and clock issues
Does not correct environmental influences
The GPS system itself can provide you different types of accuracy. The autonomous
system, by default, will give you anywhere in the range of, say, five to 20 meters,
depending on the types of conditions and GPS chip sets that you're using. One of the
techniques that’s been developed over time is the differential GPS, or DGPS. This is a
technique for augmenting the accuracy and actually improving the accuracy of the GPS
positions that the receiver is going to report to you. And again, the range of different
accuracies that you can expect based on the type of device you are using—the
consumer device, you might expect somewhere in the range of, say, two to five meters.
With a professional device, something that's been designed for the GIS market, you'd
expect anywhere in the range of one meter to sub-meter, and then for some specific
types of survey workflows, the survey GPS devices can support anywhere from
decimeter or sub-ten centimeters down to even sub-centimeter accuracy.
The differential GPS system relies on a reference network. These are reference stations
or base stations—basically other GPS receivers that have been located over a known
location. This is a location that we've surveyed, and we understand very accurately it's
location in the real world. These GPS receivers, or base stations, are being able to track
the same GPS satellite signals and generate a set of corrections or adjustments

between what they expected the measured distance to be, and what they actually
observed. These corrections are then broadcast from the base station, or the reference
network, to the roving GPS device. These corrections can then be applied by the GPS
device to improve the accuracy.
One of the great things about the differential GPS system is that it actually corrects for a
large number of the errors in the GPS system. You can correct for some of the
ionosphere and tropospheric impacts; also some of the satellite and clock issues that
are inherently part of the GPS network in the system. However, it is important to
remember that the differential GPS does not necessarily correct for any of the
environmental influences. As you'll see throughout our presentation, we're going to
cover some of the topics of how to actually improve the accuracy of the GPS.

Integrating GPS
with mobile GIS
So that was just a quick introduction to the Global Positioning System, and now we're
going to step through how GPS has been integrated with different mobile GIS solutions.

GPS is used widely with mobile GIS
UTILITIES PUBLIC SAFETY

Field inspectors First responders
GOVERNMENT CONSTRUCTION
GPS mapping Site observers
As you're well aware, GPS is used in many different industries. When we think about
mobile GIS, there are a number of different industries that are already applying the use
of GPS today.
In the utilities market, there are a large number of customers who are already looking to
use GPS to support their field inspection workflows. These are where inspectors are
taking out existing asset information on their maps and using their GPS to help them
locate those assets and perform simple inspections, updating key information or
descriptive information about those particular assets.
In the public safety market, first responders and observers are using GPS on a daily
basis to support their needs: for instance, being able to route themselves to incidents, or
even to be able to sketch on the map around their current location to record different
types of observations.
In the construction and engineering markets, a lot of site observers are using GPS also
to locate themselves. This enables them to be able to create more accurate crises type
sketches or designs on the fly in the field.

Another area that GPS is being applied heavily is in the government, especially in the
local, state, and federal space, where GPS is actually being used to accurately map the
locations of different objects in the field. For example, using high-accuracy GPS to
accurately locate street furniture, or even assets and other types of information that they
need to collect, to build up very detailed maps.

Map content and GPS solutions
Base maps provide real-world context

Topographic, streets, parcels, buildings, and many other layers
Collected from survey GPS, lidar, or image processing
When we think about the Global Positioning System and how it integrates with our
mobile GIS, it is important to understand that there is actually a relationship between the
type of map content that you're working with or wanting to inspect or collect, and the
right GPS solution for your needs. When we think of a GIS map we really think of it
containing three different types of layers. These are the base layers the provide a lot of
context in the field; the operational layers which contain a lot of the business data that
you want to work with and manipulate, and also some of the real-time layers that
provide you with additional context about not only your location, but also other
information going on around you.
With the basemaps, these provide you with a real-world context. Examples of these are
things like topographic maps, street maps, parcels or building layers that are part of
your particular basemap. A lot of the information contained in basemaps is traditionally
collected with a survey GPS system; maybe with lidar or some form of image
processing. These are very detailed and complex workflows that provide the most
accurate spatial data possible to support your basemap needs.

Operational layers contain key business data

Assets, resources, incidents, events, and many feature types
Collected using consumer and professional GPS devices
Full operational layers that contain a lot of your key business data, this is where you're
going to manage and manipulate information about your assets, resources, could be
incidents or events—there are many different types of features that you're going to work
with here. Typically we see these types of features being collected using either a
consumer or professional GPS device, depending on the scale that you're going work
at, and the level of accuracy you need to achieve to be able to make the right decision
from this information.

Real-time layers show instant results

Current location, breadcrumb trails, co-worker locations
Collected using GPS devices and other tracking solutions
It's important not to forget about the real-time layers within your maps. These are layers
that show instant results. It could be information about your current location using the
GPS. Maybe it's displaying a bread-crumb trail of where you've been throughout the
day, or perhaps even it helps you view coworker locations coming from other GPS
devices. Or, perhaps there's a specialist system like an AVL or APL system. These are
typically collected straight from the GPS device itself, or maybe some other tracking
solution that's been designed for that dedicated purpose.

Mobile GIS applications use of GPS
Connect directly to GPS receivers
NMEA protocol supported
Other third-party extensions
Trimble, TopCon, SiRF, Magellan, and others
Locate and navigate the map with GPS

Find features near your location
Navigate through the map
As the crow flies or using streets
Collect feature geometries with GPS

Average positions: Points/vertices
Stream positions: Lines/polygons
When we think of the integration between the Global Positioning System and the mobile
GIS applications, it's important to understand what the key touching points are. One of
the great things about our mobile GIS solutions are that they connect directly to a broad
range of GPS receivers. This is possible thanks to the National Marine and Electronics
Associations protocol. This is an industry-standard protocol for reporting key
information from GPS receivers. All of our solutions are designed to work closely with
the NMEA protocol.
One of the key things to understand about the NMEA protocol is that it's a one-way
reporting protocol. So our software connects to the GPS receiver using NMEA, and
listens to this information—perhaps the positional information and some of the
associated metadata such as the number of satellites that are being used or the current
DOP—and uses this information to present it to you within the mobile GIS application
itself.
In many cases, especially in the high-accuracy data collection markets, there is a need
to be able to also control the GPS receiver and be able to log or capture additional GPS
information that goes beyond what is available with the NMEA protocol. And this is

where we work closely with a number of our different partners that build third-party
extensions to many of our different softwares. You can look for these types of solutions
from folk like Trimble and TopCon, and even SiRF and Magellan, and many others.
Our mobile GIS applications are designed to work closely with the GPS system to help
you locate and navigate yourself within the map. Many of the different use cases that
we touched on earlier are relying on the GPS to help the actual field-worker find
features near their current location. So being able to view the map around their current
location provides them with contextual information, being able to find and select those
features, and then also being able to navigate through the map to them.
There are a couple of different ways that we use the GPS to help us navigate. It could
be as the crow flies, where we're using the GPS and a bearing to help guide us to a
particular feature. This is extremely effective if you're working in a large park or maybe a
forestry type of situation. Or perhaps we can navigate using the streets, where we're
using more of a turn-by-turn voice guidance type of experience where the GPS itself is
tied up to very detailed street information that can give us that specific guidance.
We also integrate closely with the GPS to help support the collection of feature
geometries. So with our GIS features, obviously we like to collect the locations of points
or perhaps even to be able to sketch out lines and polygons that represent those types
of features. And there are a couple of different techniques that you can use that we've
designed to integrate directly with the GPS. The first is to average some of the
positions. This is a great technique when you're collecting a point for a point feature, or
perhaps individual vertices that are going to feed into a line feature. Or, you can look to
stream the GPS positions where as you walk along, using the GPS, it’s going to log
every single position and use that to build up the particular geometry.

Review and Q & A
¾ GPS is critical for your work
¾ Differential GPS provides good accuracy
¾ Many industries leveraging GPS and GIS
¾ Match your GPS selection with map layer needs
¾ Mobile GIS tightly integrated with GPS
Photo of
Presenters
So that's just the first section. So I'm just going to run through a quick review and then
take our first chance to answer some of the questions that you've been sending in. So if
you have any questions now, please start to send them in.
What we've touched on today is that GPS is definitely critical for your work; the
differential GPS system provides very good accuracy; and there are many different
industries that are leveraging GPS and GIS together. One of the key things to
remember is that it’s important to understand the type of accuracy that you need and
the relationship between what the GPS can provide to you and the map layers that
you're going to be working with. And finally, we're continually working to improve our
products and integrate our mobile GIS applications with the Global Positioning System.
What I'm going to do now is hand over to Shane, who is going to run through some of
the questions that you've sent in, and provide you with some answers.
Thank you, Myles. We have a number of really good questions, so we'll try to answer as
many of them as we can. The first question comes from Gregory from Mozambique,
who asks whether the information is LTS is also relevant to the Russian GLONASS

system. And the answer is yes. These principles and concepts that we are discussing
are relevant to all of the Global Positioning Systems, including the Russian GLONASS,
the European Galileo system (when it becomes operational), and in a few years' time,
the Chinese COMPASS system.
Our next questions come both from Eber in Houston as well as Jose in Littlefield, who
ask whether ESRI has any recommendations on which GPS devices to use. There is no
right or wrong answer for this, and since the requirements of various mobile applications
are very different and varied, and so there is no perfect GPS receiver for everyone. So
what you really need to do is look at what your requirements are. What are your
accuracy requirements, what is your budget, and how reputable is the vendor that
you're looking at? Have they been in business for a number of years? You don't want to
buy an expensive receiver and then find out that their support is not very good. What
you can also do is look at ESRI's Web site and ESRI does resell some GPS receivers
that you may want to consider looking at.
The next question comes from Charles from Olympia who asks, “How can accuracy be
maximized under forest canopy?” Forest canopy is probably one of the most difficult
environments to get GPS signals, as well as to create or capture accurate GPS data.
However, there are a number of tools/techniques that you can use to improve your GPS
accuracy. The first thing to consider is to get an external antenna or larger antenna,
placed on a range pole so you mount it above your head. That will allow your GPS
receiver to receive more signals from your GPS satellites and more signals, higher yield
means that you've got a greater chance of getting a GPS position. The other technique
is to use averaging, as Myles has discussed. Averaging can definitely improve your
accuracy once you've got positions or GPS satellite that you're connecting to. And when
all else fails, another option is to use a range finder. If you are able to get a GPS
position, in most cases you would most likely want to use post-processing to maximize
your GPS accuracy.

The next question comes both from Mike in Fort Walton Beach as well as Monica in the
Otis NG Base, and it's regarding which datum should you use—the WGS 84 datum or
the datum of your base station? This is a lengthy topic all on its own, but what it does
illustrate is the importance of making sure you use the correct datums. If you don't use
the correct datums, you will often find that your data has shifted, say, two, two and a
half feet to a specific direction. So if you're seeing a regular shift of your GPS data from
known coordinates or known positions, one of the first things to do is look at your
datums. So the answer to the question is: it depends on what GPS fix you are using. If
you are using autonomous GPS, then you do want to use the default WGS 84 datum. If
you are using some form of differential correction, you need to find out what datum that
differential correction is based on, what datum the base stations are using and are
broadcast in a differential correction. How can you find that? You need to go to the Web
site of those differential correction services and that Web site should let you know what
datum they're using. So make sure that you are using the correct datum to eliminate any
errors from datum shifts.
So that's all the questions that we'll answer at this point, we'll come back to some
additional questions later. Myles?
Thanks, Shane. So some great questions there. I can see we're jumping into a lot of the
details. So as we work through the rest of the session, I hope we're going to provide you
with a lot more information and answer some of those questions as we go.

Maximizing GPS
accuracy for GIS
So the next section we're going to cover is maximizing GPS accuracy for your GIS.

Common GPS accuracy questions
1. What type of device should I use?

2. When is the best time to go into the field?
3. How does environment impact accuracy?
4. What are the best collection methods?
5. Do I need to post-process GPS data?
And in this section, we're going to actually work through a set of common questions that
we receive when we're working with a number of our customers regarding GPS and its
accuracy. Some of these questions that we work along are things like: What type of
device should I use? When is the best time to go into the field? How does the
environment impact the actual accuracy I'm going to get? What are some of the best
collection methods that I could use or employ in the field? And do I need to actually
post-process my GPS data?

1. What type of GPS device should I use?
Consumer GPS devices
Ideal for inspection workflows
Tuned for walking and navigating
Designed to smooth many signals
Good yield/poor accuracy
Professional GPS devices

Ideal for collection workflows
Tuned for mapping and capture
Designed to filter poor or bad signals
Good accuracy/poor yield
So let's take a look at question number one. What type of GPS device should I use?
That's a great question, and something that Shane's already touched on briefly there.
When you're thinking of the different types of devices on the market today, there are a
broad range, from some of the tracking devices that we mentioned earlier on, to
consumer devices, professional devices, and then the survey type of devices. Typically
in the GIS space, when we're looking to collect information in the field, we're looking to
use either a consumer GPS device or a professional GPS device.
When we think about a consumer GPS device, these are typically a mobile device,
maybe it's a like a Windows Mobile type of smart phone that's been integrated with a
GPS chip set. These are really ideal for inspection types of workflows. And the reason
for this is that typically the GPS chip set that's being used has been tuned for walking or
navigation purposes. These GPS chip sets are actually going to smooth many of the
signals. The reason they do this is that they are designed for this navigation experience
where you want to get a very good feedback, or a continual yield showing you that I
have position—it's to do with the user experience. So these GPS devices provide you a
very high yield, which means that you get positions in a broad geographic area.
Perhaps it's around buildings or maybe under some tough canopy conditions.

One of the things to consider, though, is that they're not necessarily designed to provide
you with high accuracy. So when you're looking to use a consumer type of device, these
can be really ideal if you're thinking about it based on your budget. But if you're looking
to go and accurately capture the spatial locations of, say, the hydrants within your city,
they may not be the most ideal device to use.
On the other hand, some of the professional GPS devices that have been designed for
the GIS market are really ideal for the collection and mapping workflows. And again, the
reason for this is that they've been tuned specifically to use the GPS system to help
capture the best possible accuracy, based on the type of workflow you're going to have
in the field. These devices actually are designed to filter out many of the poor or bad
signals—things like multipath signals that we'll touch on later in the presentation. And as
a result, they can provide you a very good accuracy, especially when you're in the open
areas. But also, the tradeoff here is that because they’re filtering out many of the poor or
bad signals, you get a lower yield. And so this means you might need to look at other
techniques to try and capture information using the GPS, if you're in the areas where
you have a very tough environment.
So when you're thinking about the device to use, first you need to understand what it is
that the field-worker is going to be performing. And once you know that, then you need
to look at each of the individual types of devices within that class of device.

Understand differences in GPS devices
If you can, use a professional GPS device for best accuracy

Just to help highlight this, we've got a simple graph here, which just shows you some of
the different types of accuracy you can get from these classes of device. On the screen,
you see within the graph, we are displaying to you a position count. So this is the
number of positions that have been logged over time, and then the distance from truth
that have been measured. You can see that with the green line for the professional
device we're getting a pretty consistent result, anywhere within sort of the sub-meter
range.
With the blue line we're showing the consumer device, where the accuracy is probably
in the range of about three meters overall, but you can see there's a really broad
variability in the positions that are coming out of this device. So when you're thinking
about it, if you're looking to do inspection types of workflows and just find and navigate
to features, then a consumer device is really ideal. If you're looking to really accurately
and capture and provide the best accuracy in the field, then you should be looking
towards more of the professional GPS devices.

2. When is the best time to go into the field?
GPS constellation varies
Health of satellites changes
Orbits are adjusted daily
Monitor dilution of precision (DOP)

Relative geometry of satellites
Multiplier of GPS errors
PDOP Rating
1 Ideal
5 OK
10 Poor
The second question we're going to take a look at today is: When is the best time to go
into the field? This is a really, really popular question, and we get a lot of questions
about this. And the key thing to remember is that the Global Positioning System is a
network of satellites, and these satellites have their own individual orbits that are
constantly maintained by the Department of Defense. One of the key things about the
constellation is that it does vary. It's not necessarily consistent. This is because the
health of the satellites can change, or the orbits are constantly adjusted.
So one of the things that you want to do is to be able to plan when you go to the field as
to what is the status of the constellation? One way to do this is to actually monitor or
understand the particular measure that we use within the GPS industry that is called the
dilution of precision, sometimes referred to, for short, as the DOP. The DOP is really
just a relative measure of the geometry of the satellites. That gives you an indication
about the quality of the network. When you're thinking about how DOP impacts the
accuracy of the data that you're going to collect, it's really just a multiplier of those GPS
errors. So when you're using your GPS software and you're monitoring the DOP, what
you want to look for is a really low value. So if you have a value around 10, that means
that the DOP is currently pretty poor. If it's five, then maybe it's okay to do some data

collection. If it's in the range of two or one, then it's definitely ideal and would be a great
time to be collecting your GPS information.

Understand satellite geometry
High DOP Value Low DOP Value

Only three satellites in view Now seven satellites in view
Two outside elevation filters Satellites moved with time
Two blocked by obstacles Spread across each quadrant
Look for periods where DOP is small and constellation is strong

DOP can be a really confusing topic, so we're just going to spend a little bit more time
on this, to help you understand how to analyze the geometry of the satellite network. On
the screen at the moment you'll see what we refer to as a sky plot. This is really just a
view or graphic illustrating a view of what you'd expect to see if you were looking up
from your GPS receiver's antenna directly up into the sky. In this case for this graphic,
we have a high DOP. The reason for this is that we only have three satellites that are
currently in view, and the spread of the satellites throughout our sky view, or our sky
plot, is very poor. The reason for this is that we have a couple of mountains and a
building in one quadrant that are blocking a couple of satellites, and then we also have
two satellites that are very low on the horizon that have been filtered out by the GPS
receiver. Perhaps they're being filtered because the GPS receiver is assuming that the
ionosphere and tropospheric impacts of the signals coming at such a low angle is too
great to use those measurements. So in this scenario, the DOP measure that we would
see would probably be very high—maybe seven or eight, or maybe even nine.
On the flip side of this, if you're looking for a low DOP value, you want to see a good
spread of the satellites throughout the sky, and you want to have a large number of
them as well. In this case here, we have seven satellites in view, and you can see that a

couple of our satellites have actually moved. The two at the bottom, over time, within
their orbit have actually moved and so at their current location now we actually can use
those GPS satellites. We've also moved our location so we're no longer being blocked
by the buildings and the mountains, and the two satellites in the top left quadrant are
now available. This is highlighting a situation where you have a very low DOP value,
and it's really an ideal time to be collecting GPS information in the field. So the key thing
here is to look for periods where the DOP is small and the constellation is very strong.

3. How does environment impact accuracy?
Signal blockages
Common in valleys and depressions
Caused by regional topography
Related to satellite constellation
Signal interference
Common on engineering sites
Caused by electronic noise
Often the result of microwave antennas
Signal obstructions
Common under dense canopy
Caused by vegetation or buildings
Results in multipath signals
The third question we're going to address is: How does the environment actually impact
your accuracy? There are three areas we're going to cover here. The first is signal
blockages. Signal blockages are pretty common. This is where we're going to be
working with our GPS receiver, perhaps in a valley or a depression, where the regional
topography is blocking consistently the satellites that we can see below a certain
elevation. This has a huge impact on the satellite constellation and, of course, if we now
understand DOP, we can measure this and understand that perhaps it's not the best
place to be collecting our GPS information.
You also come across cases where the signal interfered with. This is definitely not the
most common case, but something to keep an eye on, especially if you're working
around engineering or marine sites with some form of noise or microwave antennas that
can impact the GPS receivers themselves directly. Then also there are signal
obstructions. These are where the signals themselves are not necessarily blocked but
perhaps they are bounced off a particular object. This is common in dense canopy,
where maybe it's a vegetation scenario with very dense trees with large tree trunks, or
maybe you're in an urban canopy scenario where you're around a large number of
buildings. This is what we refer to as multipath, when you get signal obstructions and

large numbers of multipath signals. This has a big impact on the GPS receiver, and the
accuracy it's going to provide to you.

What is multipath?
Line-of-sight signals
So let's take a look at multipath in more detail. When we're working with our GPS
receiver, at all times we want to maximize the number of GPS satellites that we can see
directly. We refer to this as a line-of-sight signal. You can see on the graphic here we're
tracking two satellites and we can directly track the radio signal from those satellites.
Because the GPS system is a timing-based system, it's using the timing information
from these radio signals to determine the distance between the satellite and the GPS
receiver.

What is multipath?
Blocked signal
Of course, if we have an obstruction in the way—something like a building that's going

to block some of our signals—then we're not going to make a measurement from a
particular satellite.

What is multipath?
Multipath signal
However, one of the more important cases to understand is where the signal itself is
being bounced off this building, or a multipath signal. The reason this is a issue for us is
because of the GPS system and the way that it's measuring its distance between the
satellite and the GPS receiver. In this case, it's expecting the distance or it's calculating
the time of arrival of the signal, and the time it's actually calculating for the signal to
arrive at the GPS receiver is longer than what it would have been if it was a direct line-
of-sight. So as a result, the distance that the GPS receiver is measuring is going to be
longer than what was expected.

Best results in the open
Canopy area Open area

High multipath Low multipath
If you can, collect GPS data in an open sky view location

Another good way to think about this is the actual positions that the receiver is going to
generate. So on the screen here, we have two simple graphs which highlight to us the
positions that are logged at a known location. On the left-hand side, we're looking at the
canopy area. This is where the GPS receiver perhaps is sitting in a tough environment.
Maybe it's near some trees or even under the tree canopy directly, and it's got a high
multipath environment. A number of the signals are being bounced off the trees or off
the buildings and, as a result, the GPS receiver is generating these positions that vary
greatly in their particular location.
As you can see in the graph, the positions are very well spread out and not very
precise. On the right side, we've got a GPS receiver that is sitting in an open area,
where it's measuring a lot of line-of-sight signals and, as a result, the GPS positions that
are being generated are very consistent and the data is very, very precise. So the key
message here is that if you can, look to collect your GPS data in an open sky-view
environment. This is definitely going to provide you with the most precise and accurate
data. And if you are looking in canopy areas, then you're going to need to understand
the impact of the multipath on the end positions you're going to get.

As you'll see in the next couple of questions we're going to address, some of the ways
to mitigate against that.

Review and Q & A
¾ To maximize GPS accuracy:
¾Use a professional GPS device
¾Operate during good constellation periods
¾Avoid obstacles and dense canopy
Photo of
Presenters
So we've been covering a lot of different content in this section, so we're just going to
split it up here and quickly review this, and then jump into some more questions and
answers.
So to maximize your GPS accuracy, some of the key messages for today are: Definitely
look to use a professional GPS device; if you can, operate during good constellation
periods and analyze when the best time is to go in the field; and look to avoid obstacles
and dense canopy that can have a big impact on the quality of the GPS signals that the
receiver is working with.
I'm just going to hand over the Shane, who is going to work through some of the
questions that you've been sending in.
Thank you, Myles. Our first questions comes from Ken in Parma who asks, is WAAS—
the Wide Area Augmentation System a type of differential correction? And yes, it is.
WAAS fits into the family of satellite-based augmentation systems or SBAS, and WAAS
is the North American system. There are other systems in different parts of the world,
such as the EGNOS in Europe.

There have been a number of questions on PDOP and how to use PDOP, so let's go
through some of those. The first question is from Brandon in Minnetonka who asks,
“How are you able to control the PDOP?” In one sense, you can't, because PDOP is a
function of the current position of the satellites, and the arrangements of those satellites.
But in another sense, you can control it, because you can choose the optimum time to
go into the field when you have the optimum arrangement and number of satellites
available. Secondly, you can also try and minimize the interference or the blocking of
any satellite signals, from buildings or obstructions, as Myles has discussed. So the
goal that you always want to aim for is to have as many satellites as possible that are
viewable, and choose the optimum time of the day when the arrangement of these
satellites is optimum.
Another question is from Jan in Puerto Rico who asks whether only professional units
give DOP readings. And in most cases, most consumer recreational-grade receivers do
give PDOP readings. It may not be as obvious as in professional-grade receivers. Even
though these consumer-grade receivers may not display the PDOP, if you are using
mobile GIS software, in most cases, the GPS engine or receiver actually reports the
PDOP to the mobile GIS software, along with all the other GPS information, and the
mobile GIS software is able to report that PDOP value.
Arthur in London asks whether the number of satellites available affects a PDOP value.
Again, this is a yes-and-no answer to this question. You do need a minimum number of
satellites; ideally, you need a minimum of four satellites for an optimum arrangement of
your satellites, and the more satellites you have available, the greater the probability
that you'll have an optimum arrangement of satellites for low PDOP values. But there
does come a point when having additional satellites does not necessarily decrease the
PDOP value.
Next question is from Heather in Jasper who asks, “How accurate is the accuracy value
provided by a consumer GPS unit? If it says the accuracy is three meters, is it actually

three meters, or is it worse than that?” The answer to this question is that whenever a
GPS receiver reports accuracy, it's an estimated accuracy. GPS receivers ultimately are
estimating the accuracy and some receivers have better algorithms than others. If your
consumer-grade receiver is reporting an accuracy of three meters, it is most probably
connecting to some differential correction source such as WAAS. It may be three
meters, it may be better, it may be worse. But don't put a lot of value on the reported
accuracy of any GPS receiver. You need to test it and verify that that, indeed, is the
accuracy that the receiver delivers.
Our last question from this section also comes from Heather in Jasper who asks, “How
accurate can you expect the elevation provided by a recreational-grade GPS unit in
mountainous terrain?” And essentially this question relates to all GPS receivers. What
accuracy can you expect in elevational z-values? The general rule of thumb is that your
elevation accuracy is about two to three times worse than your horizontal accuracy. So,
for example, if your GPS receiver is giving you an accuracy of about a meter, you can
expect an accuracy in the z-values or elevation of anywhere between two and three
meters. And this is true, whether you're using a recreational-grade receiver or a
professional-grade receiver, and in any environment that you're working in.
So those are all the questions we'll answer at this point. Over to Myles for the last
section.
Thanks, Shane. So there were some great questions coming in there, and we've got
one more section we're going to cover here in the presentation. So we'll have some time
at the end to answer as many questions as possible, so this is your opportunity to keep
sending those questions in and we'll do our best to answer those at the end of our
session today.

4. What are the best collection methods?
GPS is also an art form
Training is critical to maximizing accuracy
Field staff are modeling the real world
Maximize accuracy by:

Averaging GPS positions
Applying distance and bearing offsets
Using a range pole and tripod
So let's continue on with maximizing our GPS accuracy for our GIS data collection. And
the fourth question that we often try our best to answer is: What are the best collection
methods when working with the GPS? I think you've just seen today that GPS is not
only just a science, but it's also definitely an art form in how you use your mobile GIS
tools to accurately capture spatial information. A big part of this is training. So the
training is definitely critical for your field teams to help them understand the best
techniques for maximizing their accuracy. And the way to think about this is, if you're
looking to really collect accurate spatial data in the field, those field staff are modeling
the real world. They're making decisions when they're using the GPS on how they're
actually going to collect a piece of information that's going to represent perhaps a tree,
maybe it's a hydrant, maybe it's a path, perhaps it's a curved path. These are all
different types of features that you have in the real world. The person who is going to
actually capture these is effectively modeling them in the real world. So you need to
train them in the best techniques.
You can maximize the accuracy when you're using the GPS by using three simple
techniques. You can look to average the GPS positions, you can look to apply distance
and bearing offsets, you can look to use a range pole or a tripod in certain situations.

Average GPS positions
Averaging is a mitigation technique
Provides redundancy in the final coordinate
Minimizes risk of using a single multipath position
Ideal under canopy conditions
Actual position
Initial
GPS
position
GPS average
What we're going to do here is step through each of these techniques and provide you
with some more detail. Throughout the presentation we've referred to averaging GPS
positions on a number of occasions. Averaging—you can think of it as really a mitigation
technique. It helps provide some redundancy in the final coordinate that you're going to
use as part of the geometry of your GIS feature. What it does is, it helps minimize the
risk of using a single, multipath position when you're using the GPS. So the way to think
of this is that, if you were to go to the field with your GPS receiver and you were to
capture just a single position and use that position, if you're in an open-sky view
environment, then it's highly likely that's going to be a reasonably good and accurate
position, especially if you're using a professional GPS device.
However, if you were to do this in more of a tough environment, say, next to some
buildings or around some vegetation, then there is a chance that that position is going to
be a multipath position. And so what we want to do is look to provide some averaging,
or collect a numerous number of positions and use them to build up a final location.
So if you look at the graphic on the screen here, we've got a little icon showing the guy
with his device and his actual position. We've then got him retrained over here to an

initial GPS position. In this case, it was a multipath position and you can see it's quite a
wee way away from our actual position. Then what we've done is, over time, collected a
few more positions (the black triangles), and then we've created the average, which is
our final GPS position—the red cross. And you can see the location of this has ended
up being much closer to our actual position. This is just a graphic that highlights why we
want to average some of the GPS positions in the field.

Averaging improves accuracy
Averaging improves redundancy and reduces impact of multipath measurements

Another way to think about this, or to look at it, is based on the impact of averaging on
the actual accuracy. So we have a simple graph here showing the difference between
working in an open environment and in a canopy environment. And in this case here,
we've actually used the GPS receiver and we've logged the location and you can see
that we're showing to you the occupation time or the time that we've spent at a
particular location, and the accuracy we're getting over that time.
You can see in an open environment, because the satellite constellation is reasonably
consistent and the GPS receiver is a pretty good GPS receiver, we're getting accuracies
in the range of about 40 centimeters. It's consistent throughout the occupation time.
What this tells us is that there's no real benefit to averaging when you're in this open
environment. Perhaps it may be only worth capturing one, two, or even three positions
just to provide some minimal redundancy. However, if you're working in a canopy
environment—perhaps it's under a forest situation—you can see that, in this particular
scenario, averaging provides us with some improvement in the accuracy.
There is definitely a trade-off between how much time you're going to occupy and the
improvement in the actual accuracy you're going to get. So the key message here is

that averaging can improve not only the redundancy, but also reduces the impact of the
multipath measurements on your final location.

Applying offsets
Bearing and distance for points/vertices
North
Calculate
bearing
Measure
distance GIS feature
location
Average
GPS positions
Another big part of your GPS workflow in the field is to consider where you can actually
collect information using the GPS. As we've seen previously, you can get into a lot of
situations where the signals are being blocked or obstructed. These are situations that
we would like to avoid if possible. So if we're looking to capture a tree or some other
asset that's located next to a large object; in this case, we've got a little icon showing a
tunnel—clearly, we're not going to be able to stand right next to that and view all of the
satellites and the constellation above us—what we want to do is actually use a bearing
and distance offset. We do this by using a laser range finder and locating ourselves
away from that particular feature. So if we're in a park, for example, then we'd want to
stay in the best open location possible and use our laser range finder and our GPS to
first collect the average of our GPS positions, and then to shoot the distance and the
bearing from our current location to the particular feature that we're trying to map.
We do this by using our laser range finder which will provide to us the distance
measurement and the bearing. Much of our software has been designed to integrate
tightly with the laser range finders, so it makes this workflow extremely easy for your
field-worker.

Applying offsets
Right or left with distance for lines/polygons
Left offset, distance: 5 m Right offset, distance: 5 m
You can also apply offsets when you're trying to locate line or polygon features. For
example, if you're looking to map the outside of our park again, and perhaps there's a
fence around the park and a number of trees up against the fence, you're not going to
be able to walk on top of or underneath that fence. So what you're going to do, is look to
walk either on the inside or the outside of it in a consistent direction, and then apply an
offset either to the left or to the right, depending on which side you're on.
You can also do this for line features. Perhaps you're trying to map a pathway and that
path has been covered by a row of trees, or perhaps you're trying to map the riverbed or
a stream bed. Of course it doesn't make sense to be walking down the middle of it, so
you're going to walk next to it and apply a simple offset, either to the left or to the right.
So those are some simple techniques to help you work with the GPS and maximize the
accuracy to be able to work in the best environments to log the most accurate GPS
positions and still be able to capture the final location of that GIS feature.

Using a range pole
Another technique to consider is actually to use a range pole or a tripod. So a number of

the different types of features that we like to collect as part of our operational layers can
be either very small features or features that are underground, or something that we
need to really accurately understand the location of. Perhaps it's some underground
cabling or wiring. We want to ensure if anyone else is going to dig into the ground that
they're not going to cut this wire or cable with a spade or a shovel. So in this scenario,
one of the best things you can do is to use a range pole, which allows you to occupy
that location for a longer period of time and also ensure that the actual antenna of the
GPS receiver is directly over the feature.
One thing you'll find is that, when you deploy your field teams, sometimes they can
capture information using the GPS but make mistakes in the actual physical technique
they use. Perhaps they hold the antenna up and the device off to the left. Maybe it's a
meter away from the feature. This can have a huge impact on the end accuracy you're
going to get. This is where a range pole really helps you mitigate that situation.

5. Do I need to post-process GPS data?
Helps guarantee accuracy
Apply differential corrections in the office
Doesn’t rely on a satellite or wireless connection
Provides best accuracy possible for your data
1. GPS measurements logged on handheld

2. Corrections logged at reference station
3. Downloaded to desktop or server machine
4. GPS data post-processed differentially
The fifth and final question for today is: Do I need to post-process my GPS data? This is
a good question. It depends on what your use case is. Clearly, if you're looking to just
navigate to features within your map, then the real-time GPS provides the best solution.
It's giving you the best accuracy in the field, and you're trying to perform a task on
demand. However, if you're looking to collect GPS information to model your GIS
features, then the real-time clearly provides a great solution when you're in the field. But
you can be in situations where you're not able to actually collect those corrections.
Perhaps you can't access the radio signal that's broadcasting the corrections, or maybe
you're working in a tough environment where you can't actually access the Wide Area
Augmentation System’s satellites that are broadcasting the corrections.
In this case, if you're looking to guarantee the accuracy of your data, then you're going
to want to look to apply some form of post-processing technique to that GPS. The GPS
post-processing relies heavily on being able to log the GPS measurements with the
device in the mobile GIS software itself, being able to also access those corrections that
are being measured at the reference station, and then bring them together at your
desktop or server machine and be able to perform the processing after the fact.

One of the great things here is, it doesn't necessarily rely on the satellite or wireless
connection in the field, and it does provide you with the best possible accuracy when
you're looking to manage and manipulate your GPS data.

Test your environmental conditions
Run GPS tests to analyze accuracy
Target your environment
Find a representative location
Survey known locations
Static analysis
Occupy a known location for 72 hours
Log all GPS positions every second
Analyze using HRMS statistics
Line analysis
Walk or drive a known line
Log all GPS positions every second
Analyze line length and cross-line error
One final point before we get onto our next and final review, is that a lot of things that
we've discussed today are about techniques on how to maximize your GPS accuracy.
One of the things that, from our experience, we always recommend, is that if you have
the capabilities, is to definitely look at testing your particular environment.
If you can, look to run your own specific GPS tests so that you get familiar with how the
GPS devices work and how they actually perform within your particular environment,
especially if you're going to work in a tough, canopy environment, maybe in a forest
scenario or under dense vegetation. So definitely target your own environment, look to
find a representative location or a known location that you can survey where you can
set up your GPS receiver to collect positions and perform some simple analysis.
You can really do this in two ways. The first and most common way is to do a static
analysis where you're going to occupy a particular location with your GPS receiver,
perhaps on a tripod, for at least 72 hours, and log all of those GPS positions. You can
then take all these positions and export them out to a format where you can perform
some simple statistical analysis, looking to create measures about the HRMS of those
GPS positions. The HRMS value is a good one to use, because a lot of the GPS

vendors will use this and report that information about their own GPS receivers on their
data sheets. So you can use this analysis of your own to compare it to what the vendors
are reporting about the GPS devices themselves.
You can also look to do some line analysis. This is a lot more tricky, but it's something
that, if you have the time is well worth doing. And that's where you look to walk or drive
a known line. You want to log all the GPS positions again for every second, and then
analyze this data back in the office, looking to compare the line links that you measured
between your particular GPS receiver working in this environment, and the known line
link that you've measured using a survey system or some other measuring technique.

Review and Q & A
¾ Average GPS positions under canopy
¾ Apply distance and bearing offsets
¾ Use range pole or tripod for high accuracy
¾ Post-processing fills gaps in real-time DGPS
¾Test your accuracy in your environment
Photo of
Presenters
Okay, so we're just coming up to our final review here. If you have any questions,
please send them in. What we've covered today—we've looked at averaging GPS
positions under the canopy; looking to apply distance and bearing offsets; the value of
using a range pole or a tripod, and also where post-processing can help fill in some of
the gaps where you don't have a real-time differential GPS solution; and, finally, if you
have the capabilities, definitely look to test the accuracy of your GPS receivers in your
specific environment.
So I'm just going to hand over the Shane here, because we've got a lot of questions
coming in, and I'm going to let him answer some of those for you now.
Thank you, Myles. One of the most common questions that a number of people have
sent in is illustrated by Lynn Sue in Minnesota who asks, “Where can I find information
about where the satellites are located at a given time?” There are many GPS vendors
who provide free tools for what is termed mission planning. So the best way is to go to
your favorite search engine and enter in "mission planning GPS," and you'll find a list of
a number sites that have free software where you can download and run it on your
desktop, and determine the optimum time to go out into the field.

The next question comes from Cindi in Alpine who asks, how does cloud cover, low
clouds, fog, et cetera, affect collection accuracy? And the good news is that cloud cover
or lack of cloud cover has no real impact on the GPS accuracy. So whether you have
clouds or rain, it doesn't impact GPS reception or accuracy at all.
There also have been a number of questions on averaging. Illustrated, for example, by
Kevin in Eugene who asks, “How many positions should you collect when averaging
positions under forest canopy?” Charles in Minnesota asks, “How do you determine the
optimum number of points to average?” And Caitlyn in Little Rock asks, “Is there a
minimum number of points one should collect to average in covered areas?” There is no
right or wrong answer to this. However, there are a couple of factors that you need to
always bear in mind. Firstly, the only way to be sure that you are getting the accuracy
that you need is to test a representative environment against known positions and
compare that to determine the accuracy.
So first of all, I'd recommend that you go and try a number of different durations of
averaging and determine which one works best for you. The other two factors to bear in
mind are that there are costs involved, and time is money and so the longer you spend
averaging, the less positions you are going to be able to collect in a day, so that's a
factor. How many positions do you need to collect in a day? I'm sure most people don't
have the time to spend hours sitting in a particular location to report a single GPS
position.
The third aspect to consider is that there comes a point when averaging more positions
doesn't really gain you a whole bunch in increased accuracy. So, sort of a general rule
of thumb that many people use is to average between 20 to 30 positions as a good rule
of thumb. Now in some cases, you may need to average more than that, and in some
cases averaging, less than that may be sufficient.

The next question is from Joe in Westminster who asks, “Is it possible to use post-
processing to improve the accuracy of collected elevation values?” And the answer is
yes. All differential correction, whether it be a real-time differential correction or post-
processing differential correction, also improves the accuracy of your elevation values.
Talking about elevation values, Andrew in Santa Rosa asks, “How do you know if you're
collecting z-values?” And there are two aspects to bear in mind here. Most GPS
receivers will report the type of fix—GPS fix—that you're getting. If the GPS is only
recording its y-values, it will report it as a 2D fix. If they are calculating z-values, then
the GPS receiver will report it as a 3D fix. So first of all, make sure that the GPS
receiver is reporting a 3D fix.
The other half of that equation is you need to look at the data format that you're storing
your data in. For example, if you're using shapefiles, there are different types of
shapefiles. You could have a shapefile that's only defined as a 2D shapefile. So even
though your GPS and mobile GIS software may be calculating these z-values, the
underlying data format has not been defined to store the z-values. So make sure that
your data has been defined as 3D or capable of storing z-values.
Next questions come…there are two similar questions. Adriana in Miami Beach and
Rob Roy in Redlands who ask, “How can I avoid multipath in a city?” or “How can I limit
multipath impact in a high-canopy area?” The only real way to do this is to use a
professional-grade GPS receiver that has built-in technology, both hardware and
firmware software to detect and eliminate multipath. And this is one significant reason
why professional receivers typically cost a lot more than a consumer-grade receiver.
Because they do have additional technology that helps you to detect and eliminate
multipath interference.
Our last question comes from Batavia who asks, “If seven satellites are in view, won't all
seven be averaged in, or will the GPS choose the best four?” The point to understand
here is that in most cases, it’s your mobile GIS software that does the averaging. The

GPS receiver uses the satellites, however many satellites it's needing and using to
calculate a position. It sends these positions to your mobile GIS software and then your
mobile GIS software averages the position. So the receiver uses multiple satellites,
calculates a single position, and the mobile GIS software collects these positions for
however many durations you've asked it to average and then averages from these
collected positions.
So that's all the time we've got for questions, and I'm going to hand back to Myles for
the wrap-up. Thank you.

For more information
Web training
Working with ArcPad
Instructor-led training
Building Applications Using the ArcGIS Mobile SDK
Other resources
ESRI Web Help on projection and datum considerations
Thanks, Shane. So before we go I'd like to point you to a few additional resources. We
have available some additional Web training, covering working with ArcPad. This also
touches on how ArcPad works directly with the Global Positioning System. We have
some newly developed instructor-led training for Building Applications using the ArcGIS
Mobile SDK. This has a great section on how to develop your own custom applications
that work with the Global Positioning System.
We got some great questions about projections and datums, and so one of the other
resources I'd like to point you to is ESRI's Web Help. Within our Web help, we have
some great sections and topics covering projections and datums. This is a really good
reference for you.
Your comments help us improve our seminars. Please take a moment to complete our
survey. Just click the Give Us Feedback link to take the survey. We hope you enjoyed
today's seminar. On behalf of ESRI, I'd like to thank you all for attending.

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 Using GPS for mobile GIS

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 Relies on reference networks

 Corrects some errors in GPS

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UTILITIES PUBLIC SAFETY

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Base maps provide real-world context

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Operational layers contain key business data

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Real-time layers show instant results

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 Locate and navigate the map with GPS

 Collect feature geometries with GPS

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1. What type of device should I use?

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 Professional GPS devices

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If you can, use a professional GPS device for best accuracy

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 Monitor dilution of precision (DOP)

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High DOP Value Low DOP Value

Look for periods where DOP is small and constellation is strong

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Using GPS for mobile GIS

Relies on reference networks

Corrects some errors in GPS

Locate and navigate the map with GPS

Collect feature geometries with GPS

Professional GPS devices

Monitor dilution of precision (DOP)

Maximize accuracy by: