Cost-effective Precise Positioning using Carrier
Phase Navigation-Grade Receiver
Constantin-Octavian Andrei
Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics
School of Engineering, Aalto University, 00076 AALTO, Finland
Email: octavian.andrei@aalto.fi
AbstractThe market for Global Navigation Satellite System
(GNSS) based applications requiring accurate positioning infor-
mation has been steadily growing over the recent years. As
a consequence of technological advances in GNSS technology,
single-frequency, navigation-grade receivers capable to provide
carrier phase data can be a cost-effective alternative to the high-
professional, geodetic-grade receivers. Navigation-grade receivers
are mainly attractive as their cost ranges around of few hundred
euros. In addition, the carrier phase measurements are the most
accurate observables collected from a GNSS system. As a result,
the positioning accuracy obtained with navigation-grade receivers
can reach levels that may raise interest various communities that
use positioning information.
The main purpose of this study is to analyze the performance of
high-sensitivity carrier phase-based positioning using navigation-
grade equipment. A few static tests covering different time inter-
vals and various baselines with different lengths are investigated.
In addition, several kinematic tests are also conducted. The ob-
tained positioning solutions and baseline lengths are compared to
the corresponding ones derived from observations collected with
professional equipment. The test results demonstrate that cm-
level accuracy can be achieved with navigation-grade equipment
when it can output carrier phase data. This level of accuracy
may be attractive to various applications, such as land, marine or
aerial surveying, structural monitoring or early warning systems.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Precise positioning has been obtained traditionally using
high-quality, geodetic-grade GNSS receivers and antennas.
Geodetic-grade means the receivers are usually dual frequency
in order to mitigate the ionosphere influence and obtain
faster ambiguity resolution, while the antennas are precisely
calibrated to reduce phase center variations and antenna phase
center offset, and designed to minimize multipath. Although
geodetic quality equipment allows users to obtain high ac-
curacy positioning solutions down to millimeter level, its
financial cost is still high, ranging between 10000 to 30000
C [1]. As a result, precise positioning solutions have been
constrained to areas and applications that can justify the cost
of the measuring instruments. However, the market for GNSS
precise positioning applications requiring better than 10 cm
accuracy has been steadily growing over recent years.
As a consequence of technological advances in the GNSS
technology, the GNSS precise positioning has been achieved
also with survey-grade, single-frequency receivers if the base-
line length is below 10 km to 15 km [2]. The main requirement
for this type of receiver is to output carrier phase measure-
Paper presented at the 2012 International Conference on Localization and GNSS (ICL-GNSS 2012), Starnberg,
Germany, June 25-27, 2012.
ments, the most accurate measurements provided by a GNSS
system. Although carrier phase measurements are indirect and
ambiguous, they are very precise because of their resolution.
For example, the wavelength of L1 carrier is around 20 cm.
In addition, the fraction part of a given wavelength can be
measured with a precision of 1% of a wavelength (i.e., 2 mm).
Because of the high resolution, the carrier phase measurements
enable relative positioning with respect to a known point with
cm level accuracy or even mm-level if the measurement period
lasts a few hours. This level of accuracy can be achieved either
in post-processing mode or real-time mode only after correct
determination of the integer ambiguities [3]. Although survey-
grade receivers meet the needs of the surveyor, the hardware
cost is still high, i.e. few thousand euros.
Over the last years, various researchers have investigated
the potential of GNSS receivers and antennas that are less
expensive than the geodetic- or survey-grade equipment.
One less expensive solution uses the original equipment
manufacturer OEM-boards. [4] proposed a low-cost single-
frequency Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)-capable OEM-sensor
that can obtain nominal accuracies of 20 cm or better under
any given dynamics. Based on a similar OEM receiver, [5]
described a carrier phase-based GPS positioning system based
on a low-cost hardware configuration. The system integrates
the receiver with an embedded PC card. The results indicate
that the occupation time for each baseline in the rapid static
positioning mode is of the order of 10 minutes, although it
varies for different antenna environments. In addition, GPS
kinematic positioning with centimetre accuracy using on-the-
fly ambiguity resolution is not reliable enough, though the
system is capable of delivering 1 to 2 decimetre accuracy.
Using a different OEM-sensor (i.e., iTrax03), [6] demonstrated
short baseline vectors with centimeter level accuracy.
Another less-expensive solution involves small GNSS/GPS
modules. [7] showed float solutions with the Garmin carrier
phase can achieve better than 20 cm in 15 minutes, and
approximately 5 cm with 30 minutes in a post-processing
mode. Using a similar decoding software, [8] analyzed Garmin
eTrex Vista handheld GPS receiver for precise positioning. The
study demonstrates that precise positioning could be reached
only for static case. If obstructed sites as well as multipath
and diffraction effects are avoided, accuracies below 10 cm
are attainable using the phase signal for post-processing. A
receiver from the Garmin-family (Garmin GPS25) was also
investigated in [9]. The researcher examined the usability of
a low-cost carrier-phase-based GPS positioning system for
surveying applications. The results showed position accuracy
at a few centimeter-level is possible for the short baselines
(i.e, 6 km) when the occupation time of 60 minutes or more
is used.
A further less-expensive solution employs the navigation-
grade receivers. These receivers are attractive because they
are significantly cheaper (starting from 100 to 500 C) than
the geodetic- or survey-grade receivers. Additionally, the
navigation-grade receivers are up to 30 dB more sensitive [10],
[11] and thus they enable higher GNSS signal availability
in places such as urban canyons or even indoor environ-
ments. Similar to survey-grade receivers, the main requirement
for a navigation-grade receiver is to output carrier phase
measurements. Sub-decimetre level coordinate determination
in differential post-processing mode using low-cost single-
frequency receiver was reported in [12], [13].
Despite these results, there are few such type of receivers
currently on the market. In addition, some of the manufac-
turers (e.g., Garmin) do not provide official interface for raw
phase data, while others (e.g., SiRF) document only internally
their phase data, with no access for potential users [2]. On
the other hand, very few other manufacturers, such as u-
blox, give access to their receiver technical documentation.
Having this said, this paper analyzes the performance of high-
sensitivity carrier-phase positioning using navigation-grade u-
blox LEA 6T receiver. The positioning methods as well as
the hardware and software equipment are described in Section
II. The numerical results from various field tests and the
corresponding analysis are shown and presented in Section
III. The conclusions are reported in Section IV.
II. METHODS AND EQUIPMENT
A. GNSS positioning methods
The dynamic evolution of satellite measurement technolo-
gies in the last decade, such as the Global Navigation Satellite
System (GNSS) technology, has constantly increased the de-
mand for applications requiring accurate position information.
The position information can be obtained through several
positioning methods mainly depending on the accuracy re-
quirement and the type of the GNSS receiver. As a stand-alone
positioning technique, GNSS has a limited accuracy due to
various GNSS error sources. A common way to remove or mit-
igate the most severe error sources and improve the positioning
accuracy is to use differentiation principle. The principle can
be applied in two ways. With Differential GNSS (DGNSS), a
roving receiver receives corrections for the measured pseudor-
anges from a base station and performs point positioning with
corrected values. The use of corrected pseudoranges improves
the positioning accuracy with respect to the base station.
DGNSS is mainly based on code-only or phase-smoothed code
observations. Alternatively, the differentiation principle is used
by the relative positioning. In relative positioning, the rover
receiver receives the time-tagged measurements from a base
Paper presented at the 2012 International Conference on Localization and GNSS (ICL-GNSS 2012), Starnberg,
Germany, June 25-27, 2012.
Fig. 1. Navigation-grade equipment used during field operation: USB
interface cable (a), installation CD (b), navigation-grade receiver (c), and low-
cost patch antenna (d).
station. At the rover, the received measurements are differ-
enced with the corresponding rover-collected measurements.
In the end, the rover receiver estimates its own position relative
to the base station by calculating the vector between the two
points. Although the relative positioning can be performed
with both code and phase data, only the phase-based approach
is considered because the positioning solutions based on phase
measurements are far more accurate than the ones obtained
using code measurements. Currently, there are different ways
how relative positioning is implemented or used, such as static
positioning, single reference station real-time kinematic (RTK)
or network RTK (e.g. with the virtual reference station or the
master-auxiliary corrections method).
B. Equipment
The positioning methods were applied in combination with
various hardware and software equipments during the data
field collection process. A short overview is presented below.
1) Hardware: Figure 1 illustrates the EVK-6T precision
timing evaluation kit package including the compact box (74
x 54 x 24 mm) that contains the LEA-6T module, the low-
cost patch active antenna, and the USB interface cable. The
built-in USB interface is used for both power supply and high-
speed data transfer. In addition, the package includes also
a CD-ROM containing: the evaluation software, the USB-
driver software and technical documentation. The u-center
software is an interactive tool allowing the configuration,
testing, visualization and/or data analysis of the receiver. As
a result, the EVK-6T can be used with a notebook or PDA,
making it suitable for use in both indoor and outdoor locations.
The main feature of the LEA-6T comes from the fact that it
supports raw data output at an update rate of 5 Hz. According
to the technical documentation, the UBX-RXM-RAW message
includes carrier phase with half-cycle ambiguity resolved,
code phase and Doppler measurements, which can be used in
 Fig. 2. Equipment set-up at the various locations in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area
external applications that offer precision positioning, real-time
kinematics (RTK) and attitude sensing [11].
In addition to the low-cost equipment, high-professional
equipment was used for data collection. A pair of high-
end, dual-frequency receivers with fully integrated GNSS
receiver/antenna (i.e, Topcon HiPer Pro) were used to assess,
compare, and validate the positioning performance of the
LEA-6T system (i.e., receiver and antenna). These receivers
provide code and phase observations on both L1 and L2
frequencies that allow to compute high accurate positioning
solutions.
2) Software: Many of the open-source, commercial or
scientific GNSS processing software programs allow to work
with either proprietary formats or the standard Receiver IN-
dependent EXchange (RINEX) format. As mentioned, LEA-
6T outputs both code and phase data in a binary format
(i.e., ubx proprietary format). The resulted ubx file can
be converted into RINEX format using, for example, TEQC
freeware software developed and maintained by UNAVCO
[14], [15]. TEQC utility (i.e., version 2011Oct11) can be
downloaded freely from the Internet and is an excellent tool
for format translation, data editing and quality-check before
post-processing.
After RINEX conversion, the data collection is imported
into a processing software. Over the last decade, many orga-
nizations have developed various processing packages. These
packages are mainly used to process GNSS data from small
or large networks and very often pricy. In this research, we
use two software packages. One package, Topcon Tools 8,
is a powerful post-processing solution, network analysis and
adjustment of GNSS data provided by the manufacturer of
the geodetic quality equipment. The other package is the
RTKLIB open-source program library for GNSS standard
and precise positioning [12], [16]. RTKLIB is a compact
and portable program library to provide several application
programs for RTK-GNSS applications, such as RTKPOST
(post-processing analysis) or RTKNAVI (real-time position-
ing). The library implements fundamental navigation functions
and carrier-based relative positioning algorithms [17]. The
integer double-difference ambiguities are determined by the
LAMBDA (Least-squares AMBiguity Decorrelation Adjust-
Paper presented at the 2012 International Conference on Localization and GNSS (ICL-GNSS 2012), Starnberg,
Germany, June 25-27, 2012.
ment) method [18]. This study exploits RTKLIB version 2.4.1
[19].
III. TESTS AND RESULTS
Various field tests were conducted in the Helsinki
Metropolitan Area (HMA), in order to investigate the posi-
tioning performance and accuracy of the u-blox 6T system.
Two LEA-6T receivers were deployed at several locations
through HMA to measure baselines with various lengths.
The same baselines were measured with geodetic-grade, dual-
frequency GNSS receivers in order to generate the reference
baselines and coordinates at all occupied points. Additionally,
two Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) were
integrated in the post-processing analysis. Furthermore, to
demonstrate the feasibility of using navigation-grade equip-
ment within a CORS network, network-based observation
data were generated using virtual reference station (VRS)
technique. All the observation data were collected/generated
at a recording rate of 1 Hz, with an elevation cut-off angle of 5
degrees. All the observations were stored on a PC. Although
the tests were static, the data were processed in kinematic
mode, which means that the solutions were generated on a
epoch-to-epoch basis.
A. Professional vs. cost-effective baseline
Five baselines with lengths ranging from 0.5 to 22.8
km were measured using the cost-effective, navigation-grade,
single-frequency receiver and antenna. Four stations (FGI0,
TIIL, SMOK and OTA9) were set up on a tripod, while one
station (KAIV) was mounted on a concrete pillar. Figure 2
illustrates the equipment set-up in all these stations. The time
interval of the observation session was determined depending
on the length of the baseline using the empirical formula:
20min+ 2min/km. The collected binary data were converted
into RINEX format and introduced for analysis in the Topcon
Tools 8 processing software. The baseline vector components
were determined using GPS+ post-processing module. Table
I gives an overview of the measured cost-effective baselines,
the observation session lengths and the processing statistical
indicators.
Figure 3 depicts the error ellipses together with their ori-
entation for all low-cost baselines. They are derived from the
 Fig. 3. Cost-effective baseline ellipses and their orientation

TABLE I
covariance matrix, and provide a graphical means of viewing P OST- PROCESSING STATISTICAL INDICATORS FOR THE COST- EFFECTIVE
the post-processing results. BASELINE VECTORS

In order to evaluate the accuracy of the cost-effective base-

line vector solutions, the same baselines were also measured Baseline Length Duration Epochs Precision [mm]
name [m] [H:MM:SS] North East Vert Horiz 3D
with professional, geodetic-grade equipment. The collected
FGI0-KAIV 22821,535 1:19:08 4748 8,4 7,1 17,8 11,0 20,9
dual-frequency data along with the Topcon Tools software FGI0-SMOK 16424,979 0:52:01 3121 4,6 4,0 11,8 6,1 13,2
were used to estimate the geodetic baseline vectors. Table SMOK-TIIL 11623,102 0:40:01 2401 5,4 2,0 12,3 5,7 13,5
FGI0-TIIL 4871,501 0:31:01 1861 1,9 1,3 4,4 2,3 5,0
II displays the low-cost baseline errors with respect to the OTA9-SMOK 481,253 0:25:01 1501 4,2 3,5 8,3 5,4 10,0
geodetic baselines along each baseline component. The results
indicate an agreement on centimeter level, with errors below
TABLE II
5 cm along all three baseline components. C OST- EFFECTIVE BASELINE VECTOR COMPARISON WITH RESPECT TO THE
GEODETIC BASELINES
B. Cost-effective precise positioning
Baseline Baseline length Baseline error Errors in the baseline components [cm]
To have an indication of the accuracy of the cost-effective name [m] [cm] dX dY dZ
positioning system, the coordinates of the measured points FGI0-KAIV 22821,535 1,9 -0,7 1,7 -2,6
are determined using three different positioning modes: post- FGI0-SMOK 16424,979 -4,6 3,3 -3,3 0,1
processing, RTK and network RTK. For the coordinate deter- SMOK-TIIL 11623,102 -2,2 -2,0 2,0 -4,8
FGI0-TIIL 4871,501 2,1 -2,3 1,2 -1,2
mination process, data collected from two additional CORS OTA9-SMOK 481,253 1,5 0,0 0,1 -3,6
stations are considered. In the post-processing mode, the
coordinates of the all points are determined using ubx data
and keeping one point fixed (i.e, FGI0). The FGI0 coordinates
C. Kinematic real-time positioning
are calculated based on CORS data. In addition, the same two
stations are used in RTK mode to individually georeference Two-round pedestrian walking tests were conducted to test
each of the measured points using ubx-only data. Although the real-time capability. Fig. 5 gives a general illustration of
the closest CORS station is chosen, the distances to the the surrounding environment in which the test was conducted.
base station vary between 8.5 to 14.5 km. Furthermore, VRS For this test, a VRS station was generated in the proximity
solutions are computed in the network RTK mode. Thus, VRS of the testing area in order to process the navigation-grade
data are generated for all the points in their vicinity. The receiver observation. Fig. 6 shows the ground plot of the
computed coordinates from all the modes are firstly obtained reference trajectory during the pedestrian walk. The horizontal
in a geocentric coordinate system (i.e., EUREF-FIN) and positioning errors are grouped according to different threshold
then transformed into local coordinate system (i.e, ETRS- values: larger than 50 cm (red), between 50 and 20 cm (blue),
TM35FIN) using a coordinate system transformation service between 20 and 10 cm (green), and smaller than 10 cm (black).
[20]. The colors are intended for better visualization of the variation
Fig. 4 summarizes the coordinate differences to geode- and degradation in accuracy. It can be seen that the precision
tic coordinates for different positioning modes when using improves as the time elapses. For illustration purposes, the
navigation-grade data. The differences from the geodetic co- second round is shifted with -10 m in North and East direction,
ordinates range from -3.6 to 6.3 cm. In general, the largest respectively. The positioning results indicate a degradation
deviations are along the East direction. This result may be in precision due to the multipath effects. The multipath is
explained by the mis-resolved ambiguities. In addition, the generated by the presence of the leaf foliage in the northern
differences along the East component are twice larger than part. On the other hand, when there are no restrictions on
the corresponding differences along the North direction. signal reception (i.e, free sky-view), such as in the eastern

Paper presented at the 2012 International Conference on Localization and GNSS (ICL-GNSS 2012), Starnberg,
Germany, June 25-27, 2012.
 Fig. 5. General view of the surrounding environment for the kinematic
pedestrian walking test.

Kinematic real-time positioning (pedestrian walking)

40
> 0.5m
0.2m to 0.5m
30 0.1m to 0.2m
< 0.1m
20

10
Round 1
0
North [m]

-10
Round 2
-20

-30

-40

-50

-60
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
East [m]

Fig. 6. Ground trajectory for the two-round pedestrian walking test. For
illustration purposes, the 2nd round is shifted in North and East direction
with -10 and -10 m, respectively.

Fig. 4. Coordinate differences of various positioning modes with respect to

geodetic coordinates when using navigation-grade receiver TABLE III
P OSITIONING ERROR DISTRIBUTION WITH RESPECT TO DIFFERENT
THRESHOLDS

part, the precision of the positioning solution is better than 10

cm. Tab. III summarizes the positioning results. The precision Threshold value Processed epochs
of the positioning solution is better than 20 cm for 58.9% of Number Percentage
the processed epochs. larger than 0.5m 276 18.3
between 0.5m and 0.2m 345 22.8
IV. C ONCLUSION between 0.2m and 0.1m 538 35.6
This paper offers an investigation analysis on the positioning smaller than 0.1m 352 23.3
performance using high-sensitivity navigation-grade u-blox TOTAL 1511 100.0
LEA-6T receiver. Being the latest u-blox receiver, LEA-6T
is capable to output code and phase data using officially

Paper presented at the 2012 International Conference on Localization and GNSS (ICL-GNSS 2012), Starnberg,
Germany, June 25-27, 2012.
 documented proprietary format. Several static and kinematic
tests are conducted to analyze the precision and accuracy
of different positioning techniques. The results demonstrate
that cost-effective precise positioning at centimeter level is
possible using navigation-grade receivers. In a clean envi-
ronment, the accuracy level is better than 2 cm. However,
the accuracy decreases in challenging environments and, thus,
more robust algorithms need to be applied. Additionally, the
investigation indicates high positioning solution repeatability
even if some systematic errors may still contaminate the data.
This level of performance together with the economically
affordable devices utilized in this paper support the current
trend towards cost-effective solutions for accurate or precise
positioning determination. As a result, new market areas may
be opening for various applications, such as land, marine or
aerial surveying, GIS applications, structural monitoring, or
early warning systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would kindly acknowledge Geotrim Oy (Mr.
Seppo Totterstrom) for providing access to VRS data.
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