Abstract
GNSS observations from smartphones have gained popularity in recent years due to the high precision achieved in various applications. While most studies have focused on signal quality evaluation, few have explored static and kinematic positioning. Furthermore, the majority of these studies have primarily concentrated on European and Asian countries. Therefore, we present the first study conducted in Northwest Mexico, which evaluates the performance of static and kinematic positioning using code and phase observations obtained from the Xiaomi Mi 8 smartphone. In addition, we assess the signal quality of ~ 100 available GNSS satellites. This study proposes an alternative method for analyzing the observed Carrier-to-Noise Density Ratio (\(C/{N}_{0}\)) of GNSS observations in relation to theoretical reference values. The results reveal that the average \(C/{N}_{0}\) value of the GNSS satellites is approximately 18% lower than the reference values. Furthermore, the pseudorange observations indicate a significant multipath error, with magnitudes close to 200 cm for L1/E1 and less than 86 cm for L5/E5a, highlighting the susceptibility of the smartphones GNSS antenna to this type of error. The static experiment demonstrates RMS positioning errors of 0.7 cm, 1.2 cm, and 4.2 cm for the E, N, and U components, respectively. Moreover, the kinematic experiment exhibits discrepancies of 1.4 cm due to the circular trajectory of the smartphone. Finally, the results suggest that dual-frequency smartphones offer promising positioning capabilities, presenting opportunities for engineering applications, including structural health monitoring, among others.
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Data availability
The datasets analyzed during the current study is available in the data repository of Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8206887).
Code availability
The Open-Source Program Package for RTK-GPS used to process the GNSS observations retrieved by the smartphone was developed by Tomoji Takasu and is available under the GNU General Public License. The program package can be accessed and downloaded from the website: (https://rtklib.com/).
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Acknowledgements
The authors express their gratitude to the Autonomous University of Sinaloa for their support in conducting this study. Special thanks are extended to the National Council of Humanities, Sciences, and Technologies (CONAHCyT) in Mexico for granting a scholarship to accomplish this study. However, it should be noted that the results, observations, and conclusions presented in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring organizations.
Funding
This research work was funded by to the National Council of Humanities, Sciences, and Technologies (CONAHCyT) in Mexico by the grant # 859589.
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J.R.V.O: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing - Original draft preparation, Visualization, Validation. C.A.M.F: Visualization, Investigation, Supervision, Writing- Original draft preparation. A.M.M: Writing- Reviewing and Editing. L.R.S: Writing- Reviewing and Editing. G.E.V.B: Reviewing. J.R.G.C: Reviewing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Communicated by: H. Babaie
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Vazquez-Ontiveros, J.R., Martinez-Felix, C.A., Melgarejo-Morales, A. et al. Assessing the quality of raw GNSS observations and 3D positioning performance using the Xiaomi Mi 8 dual-frequency smartphone in Northwest Mexico. Earth Sci Inform 17, 21–35 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-023-01148-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-023-01148-8