Precise Velocity Estimation with a Stand-Alone GPS Receiver

A scrutiny of the existing time differencing carrier phase (TDCP) velocity estimation algorithms has revealed several shortcomings which could be further improved. One of those is that the velocity estimation at epoch t would require the receiver positions at epoch t+Δt or more are available. Another one is the usage of satellite velocities in the calculations which would increase the receiver computational load and degrade the accuracy. In this paper, an improved TDCP velocity estimation approach has been proposed and tested. The new approach depends only on receiver position at epoch t and satellite positions at epoch t and t+Δt. Satellite velocities are not required in this calculation. This proposed algorithm has been validated using static and kinematic field test data, showing that equivalent velocity accuracy achievable by using differential GPS techniques can be made possible with the proposed standalone GPS method.