Penalized GNSS Ambiguity Resolution

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) carrier phase ambiguity resolution is the process of resolving the carrier phase ambiguities as integers. It is the key to fast and high precision GNSS positioning and it applies to a great variety of GNSS models which are currently in use in navigation, surveying, geodesy and geophysics. A new principle of carrier phase ambiguity resolution is introduced. The idea is to give the user the possibility to assign penalties to the possible outcomes of the ambiguity resolution process: a high penalty for an incorrect integer outcome, a low penalty for a correct integer outcome and a medium penalty for the real valued float solution. As a result of the penalty assignment, each ambiguity resolution process has its own overall penalty. Using this penalty as the objective function which needs to be minimized, it is shown which ambiguity mapping has the smallest possible penalty. The theory presented is formulated using the class of integer aperture estimators as a framework. This class of estimators was introduced elsewhere as a larger class than the class of integer estimators. Integer aperture estimators, being of a hybrid nature, can have integer outcomes as well as non-integer outcomes. The minimal penalty ambiguity estimator is an example of an integer aperture estimator. The computational steps involved for determining the outcome of the minimal penalty estimator are given. The additional complexity in comparison with current practice is minor, since the optimal integer estimator still plays a major role in the solution of the minimal penalty ambiguity estimator.