• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.119-127
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• 2019

COsmicheskaya Sisteyama Poiska Avariynich Sudov Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (COSPAS-SARSAT) is an international communication support program to perform search and rescue (SAR) operations in emergency situations by using satellite signals relayed from a beacon. The legacy COSPAS-SARSAT was originally composed of low altitude and geostationary Earth orbit satellites; thus, a limited number of directional dish antennas was sufficient to cover the limited number of visible satellites at the local user terminal. However, the second generation COSPAS-SARSAT newly added the medium Earth orbit satellites, e.g., Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to the existing system, so that the number of visible satellites increase dramatically, and the system upgrade to cover all the visible satellites is foreseen. The additional use of planned Korea Positioning System (KPS) to existing GNSS is envisaged to provide a better performance of their SAR service. This paper presents the benefits of the additional use of KPS together with the phased array antennas at the local user terminal of the COSPAS-SARSAT. This is to effectively response to the increase of the number of visible satellites. Numerical simulation is included to evaluate the performance improvement of COSPAS-SARSAT in terms of the number of visible satellites, geometry between satellites and user, and position estimation accuracy.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.995-1002
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• 2022

Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS) is a convenient system that acquires position and time information of a receiver if only satellite signals can be received anywhere in the world. However navigation signals include errors and a position error occurs according to the reception state of the signal. Also, a position error is affected by the geometric arrangement of the satellites. Therefore a receiver position performance varies by the number and status of visible satellites The condition of satellite signals is not good when the satellite rises or sets and the position change of receiver occurs when the signal is blocked by an obstacle such as a building in the urban area. In this paper, we proposed methods to improve the GNSS performance by using pseudorange correction method estimating the correction amount and the visible satellites selection method. By applying the proposed methods to an environment in which the number of visible satellites changes variously, the performance enhancement was verified.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1996.07b
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• pp.970-973
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• 1996

In this paper, Modified GPS Kalman filter algorithms which allow user to estimate its position when the number of visible GPS satellites becomes less than four are presented. They are derived using the previous estimation of altitude and clock bias. Thus, it is possible to estimate 3-dimensional user position even when only two GPS satellites are visible. The algorithms are ideally suited to car navigation in urban areas where lack of GPS visibility is the major problem because of the frequent blockage of the GPS signals by tall buildings and other structures. Simulation results in this paper show that modified GPS Kalman filter provide better performances than a general GPS Kalman filter or any other instantaneous GPS solution algorithm, especially in the case which the number of visible GPS satellites becomes less than four.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 2007

This paper describes the availability of the forthcoming integrated GNSS(Global Navigation Positioning System) positioning that includes GPS(Global Positioning System), Galileo, and QZSS(Quasi-Zenith Satellites System). We built a signal propagation model that identifies direct, multipath, and diffraction signals, using the principles of specular reflection and ray tracing technique. The signal propagation model was combined with 3D GIS(three-dimensional geographic information system) in order to measure the satellite visibility and positioning error factors, such as the number of visible satellites, average elevation of visible satellites, optimized DOP(dilution of position) values, and the portion of multipath-producing satellites. Since Galileo and QZSS will not be fully operational until 2010, we used a simulation in comparing GPS and GNSS positioning for a $1km{\times}1km$ developed area in Shinjuku, Tokyo. To account for local terrain variation. we divided the target area into 40,000 $5m{\times}5m$ grid cells. The number of visible satellites and that of multipath-free satellites will be greatly increased in the integrated GNSS environment while the average elevation of visible satellites will be higher in the GPS positioning. Much decreased PDOP(position dilution of precision) values indicate the appropriate satellite/user geometry of the integrated GNSS; however, in dense urban areas, multipath mitigation will be more important than the satellite/user geometry. Thus, the efforts for applying current technologies of multipath mitigation to the future GNSS environment will be necessary.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• v.2
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• pp.243-246
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• 2006

This study investigates the improvement in the theoretical success rate of the integer ambiguity resolution in GPS/GNSS carrier-phase positioning by using many visible satellites. It estimates the dependence of the rate on the baseline length in relative positioning under the condition of the use of double/triple-frequency navigation signals. The calculation results show that the use of 14 navigation satellites (i.e., seven GPS and seven Galileo ones) remarkably improves the success rate under the condition of very short baseline length, compared with the use of seven GPS ones. The numerical reliability of the calculated success rates is strictly tested by examining the tightness of the union and minimum-distance bounds to the rate. These bounds are also shown to be effective to investigate the realization of the high success rates.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.269-275
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• 2001

In land navigation applications, two kinds of GPS/DR integration schemes are commonly used; the loosely-coupled integration scheme and the tightly-coupled one. The loosely-coupled integration filter has a simple structure and is easy to implement. When the number of visible satellites is insufficient, however, it cannot calibrate the errors of the DR sensors. On the contrary the tigthly-coupled integration filter can sup-press the growth of the error in the DR output even when the visibility is poor. However, it has larger com-putation load due to the state dimension and is inconsistent because of the variation in the measurement dimension. This paper presents a GPS/DR integration scheme with dual integration mode. During when the number of visible satellites is sufficient, the proposed scheme operates in a loosely-coupled integration mode. When the visibility becomes poor, it is switched into a tightly-coupled integration mode. Consequently, the pro-posed scheme can calibrate the DR sensors even when the visibility is poor. In addition, its computation time remains constant even if the number of visible satellites increases. Field experiment results show that the performance of the proposed integration method is almost similar to that of the tightly-coupled one.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2014

Differential Global Positioning System-Correction Projection (DGPS-CP) algorithm, which has been suggested as a method of correcting pre-calculated position error by projecting range-domain correction to positional domain, is a method to improve the accuracy performance of a low price GPS receiver to 1 to 3 m, which is equivalent to that of DGPS, just by using a software program without changing the hardware. However, when DGPS-CP algorithm is actually realized, the error is not completely eliminated in a case where a reference station does not provide correction of some satellites among the visible satellites used in user positioning. In this study, the problem of decreased performance due to the difference in visible satellites between a user and a reference station was solved by applying the Multifunctional Transport Satellites (MTSAT) based Augmentation System (MASA) correction to DGPS-CP, instead of local DGPS correction, by using the Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) operated in Japan. The experimental results showed that the accuracy was improved by 25 cm in the horizontal root mean square (RMS) and by 20 cm in the vertical RMS in comparison to that of the conventional DGPS-CP.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.181-190
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• 2003

Since the operation of the first satellite-based navigation service, satellite positioning has played an increasing role in both surveying and geodesy, and has become an indispensable tool for precise relative positioning. However, in some situations, e.g. at a low angle of elevation, the use of satellites for navigation is seriously restricted because obstacles like buildings and mountains can block signals. As a mean to resolve this problem, the quasi-zenith satellite system has been proposed as a next-generation satellite navigation system. Quasi-zenith satellite is a system which simultaneously deploys several satellites in a quasi-zenith geostationary orbit so that one of the satellites always stay close to the zenith if viewed from a specific point on the ground of East Asia. Thus, if a position measurement function compatible with CPS is installed in the quasi-zenith and stationary satellites, and these satellites are utilized together with the CPS, four satellites can be accessed simultaneously nearly all day long and a substantial improvement in position measurement, especially in metropolitan areas, can be achieved. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of quasi-zenith satellite system on positioning accuracy improvement through simulation by using precise orbital information of the satellites and a three-dimensional digital map. Through this developed simulation system, it is possible to calculate the number of simultaneously visible satellites and available area for positioning without the need of actual observation. Furthermore, this system can calculate the Dilution Of Precision (DOP) and the error distribution.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics S
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• v.36S no.8
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• pp.17-29
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• 1999

Inter-Satellite Links(ISL) technique in the Polar Orbit Satellite plays the key role in the communication methods in IRIDIUM system, where the ISL is commonly established between neighbor satellites. The system has major drawbacks in maintaining the multi-hopping link connectivities while the satellite nodes are communicating each other. The proposed system is newly designed to allow diagonal link connections between the satellites and shows how it does improve the performance. The optimized number of satellites in the terms of their altitudes and visible distance are calculated. The traffic parameters and the probability of blocking are analyzed to compare the visible satellite link method with the neighbor link method mathermatically.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.297-304
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• 2022

The models used for ionosphere error correction in positioning using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) are representatively Klobuchar model and NeQuick model. Although these models can correct the ionosphere error in real time, the disadvantage is that the accuracy is only 50-60%. In this study, a method for polynomial modeling of Global Ionosphere Map (GIM) which provides Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) in grid type was studied. In consideration of Ionosphere Pierce Points (IPP) of satellites with a receivable elevation angle of 15 degrees or higher on the Korean Peninsula, the target area for model generation and provision was selected, and the VTEC at 88 GIM grid points was modeled as a polynomial. The developed VTEC polynomial model shows a data reduction rate of 72.7% compared to GIM regardless of the number of visible satellites, and a data reduction rate of more than 90% compared to the Slant Total Electron Content (STEC) polynomial model when there are more than 10 visible satellites. This VTEC polynomial model has a maximum absolute error of 2.4 Total Electron Content Unit (TECU) and a maximum relative error of 9.9% with the actual GIM. Therefore, it is expected that the amount of data can be drastically reduced by providing the predicted GIM or real-time grid type VTEC model as the parameters of the polynomial model.