Low-latency GNSS multipath simulation and building wall detection in urban environments

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Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)71-89
Number of pages19
JournalSimulation
Volume100
Issue number1
Early online date2023
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2024

Abstract

Precise navigation for fully autonomous driving—especially in dense urban areas—requires periodic precise position estimates. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology has the potential to provide absolute positioning accuracy at a centimeter level. However, buildings in urban environments cause signal distortions and signal reflections—the so-called multipath—which are the most challenging parts in the GNSS error budget. Hence, we developed a scalable real-time multipath simulator for mitigating potential multipath receptions. The simulator uses three-dimensional (3D) building information, satellite, and user positions. The key drivers of latency are the calculation of reflection, diffraction, and line-of-sight, as well as the response time of the 3D building model database. The memory manager of the graphic processing units (GPUs) in combination with a dedicated load balancer enables fast and efficient multipath analysis. Selected case studies demonstrate the simulator’s potential to significantly improve the position accuracy of the processing engine. The use of the multipath simulator reduces the error in 61% of the error measurements in a stress test scenario to less than half of the non-multipath processing. The scalability of the simulator is demonstrated by combining the multipath simulator with a traffic simulator. Furthermore, we present a novel methodology for the detection of walls using GNSS signals to better account for incomplete or erroneous 3D building information in GNSS signal processing.

Keywords

    GPGPU, Real-time simulation, city GML, multipath, ray tracing, urban GNSS positioning

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cite this

Low-latency GNSS multipath simulation and building wall detection in urban environments. / O’Connor, Marcus; Kersten, Tobias; Skupin, Christian et al.
In: Simulation, Vol. 100, No. 1, 01.2024, p. 71-89.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

O’Connor M, Kersten T, Skupin C, Ruwisch F, Ren L, Wübbena T et al. Low-latency GNSS multipath simulation and building wall detection in urban environments. Simulation. 2024 Jan;100(1):71-89. Epub 2023. doi: 10.1177/00375497221145601
O’Connor, Marcus ; Kersten, Tobias ; Skupin, Christian et al. / Low-latency GNSS multipath simulation and building wall detection in urban environments. In: Simulation. 2024 ; Vol. 100, No. 1. pp. 71-89.
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