Accuracy and efficiency of RTK measurements

Abstract

Satellite positioning, especially the Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) method, is a fundamental technique in engineering geodesy and land
surveying these days. More often than not, observations are taken using corrections from one of the GNSS infrastructures. On the one hand, RTK measurements proved to be convenient, efficient and accurate enough for many applications. On the other hand though, the accuracy and efficiency of the RTK measurements highly depend on external conditions as well as the quality of GNSS services. Therefore, quality control of the services, automated, real-time and online publication of its main elements are of utmost importance. This paper presents two methods to monitor the accuracy of RTK measurements and the initialisation time. The first method uses monitoring stations with low-cost, dual-frequency, good-quality RTK receivers. The second one applies the near real-time processing of raw observations recorded by geodetic receivers on independent permanent stations with the open-source software RTKLIB. These analyses are crucial under the current 11-year period ionospheric activity maximum. Methods have already been tested in Budapest; the results are in accordance with practical experience.
the results are in accordance with practical experience.