COMPARING THE ACCURACY OF GNSS POSITIONING VARIANTS FOR UAV BASED 3D MAP GENERATION

Abstract. GNSS stands for Global Navigation Satellite System and is the standard generic term for satellite navigation systems that provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning with global coverage. The advantage of having access to multiple satellites is accuracy, redundancy, and availability at all the times. Though satellite systems do not often fail, if one fails GNSS receivers can pick up signals from other systems. If the line of sight is obstructed, having access to multiple satellites is also a benefit. GPS (Global Positioning System, USA), GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System, Russia), BeiDou (Compass, China), and some regional systems are positioning systems that are usually used. In recent years with the development of the UAVs and GNSS receivers, it is possible to manage an accurate PPK (Post Processing Kinematic) networks with a GNSS receiver mounted on a UAV to achieve the position of images principal points WGS1984 and to reduce the need for GCPs. But the most important challenge in a PPK task is, which a combination of different GNSS constellations would result in the most accurate computed position in checkpoints. For this purpose, this study focused on a PPK equipped UAV to map an open pit (Golgohar mine near Sirjan city). For the purpose, different combination of GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou used for position computed. Results are plotted and compared and found out having access to multiple constellations while doing a PPK task would bring higher accuracies in building photogrammetric models although it may cause some random error due to the higher values of noise while the number of the satellites increases.