Low-Cost Satellite-Based Correction Service for Precise Point Positioning in Latin America

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) applications have been continuously expanding during the last years. When centimeter-level accuracy is required, the use of a single conventional GNSS receiver is not suitable because of the presence of different error sources that degrade the quality of its measurements. Precise Point Positioning (PPP) methods depend on applying corrections to significantly improve the accuracy of a single receiver allowing to obtain centimeter-level performance. This paper focuses on the design of a satellite-based service that broadcast the open access corrections for PPP generated by the International GNSS Service (IGS) being appropriate for real-time applications. The proposed system is based on the Argentinian geostationary satellite ARSAT 2 capable of providing service to Latin America. The system requirements and specifications are defined in order to deliver a good quality of service reducing the complexity and the cost of the users receivers. Thoroughly analyzes and calculations carried out demonstrate that, adopting practical design criteria, a low-cost implementation is possible. We present the main characteristics of the uplink ground station and downlink user receivers. Moreover, different user receiver architectures as well as the design of a simple antenna are proposed. Simulation results using real data show that our solution is able to provide up to centimeter-level accuracy achieving a performance similar to other costly commercial correction services.