Smartphone GNSS Performance in an Urban Scenario with RAIM Application

Abstract

In an urban scenario, GNSS performance is strongly influenced by gross errors in the measurements, usually related to multipath and non-line-of-sight phenomena. The use of RAIM algorithms is a common approach to solve this issue. A significant amount of the existing GNSS receivers is currently mounted on smart devices, above all, smartphones. A typical drawback of these devices is the unavailability of raw measurements, which does not allow fully exploiting the GNSS potential; in particular, this feature limits the use of RAIM algorithms. Since 2016, for few smart devices, it has been finally possible to access GNSS raw measurements, allowing the implementation of specific algorithms and enabling new services. The Xiaomi Mi 8 is equipped with the Broadcom BCM47755 receiver, able to provide dual-frequency raw measurements from quad-constellation GPS, Glonass, Galileo, BeiDou. In this work, the performance in an urban area of the Xiaomi Mi8 GNSS was analyzed. An important issue of smartphone GNSS is related to the antenna, which is not able to protect from the multipath phenomenon; this issue has a large probability to emerge in hostile environments like urban areas. As a term of comparison, the high-sensitivity receiver NVS NV08C-CSM, connected to a patch antenna, was used. In particular, the considered receivers were placed in the same location, and their positions were estimated in single point positioning, applying a classical RAIM algorithm. An error analysis was carried out, and the obtained results demonstrated the effectiveness of RAIM when applied to Xiaomi Mi8 GNSS measurements.