Assessing Android Smartphone Based GNSS Positioning Accuracy

High precision positioning based on mobile terminals has an important impact on current mapping surveys, intelligent transportation, smart cities, disaster emergency response, public safety and other fields. In 2016, Google released the Android 7.0 operating system, low-cost mobile platforms began to support GNSS raw observation output, from then on, high precision positioning based on Android intelligent devices became possible. However, multi-path effect and antenna phase center error have great influence when using GNSS module built-in in intelligent equipment for positioning, which cannot meet the needs of high-precision mapping tasks. This article gives an assessment of the positioning accuracy based on two smartphones, one is the Huawei P10 with single-frequency GNSS module, the other is the Xiaomi 8 with dual-frequency GNSS module. These tests were done in both kinematic and stationary modes. Besides these two smartphones, a geodetic GNSS dual-frequency receiver was also used for reference. The GNSS measurements were processed using a post differential strategy. The horizontal positioning accuracy obtained with the Huawei P10 was about 50 cm, and with the Xiaomi 8 it was about 10 cm, with respect to the Novatel GNSS dual-frequency receiver solution. The Xiaomi 8 gave a 10–30 cm accuracy level in stationary positioning test. It shows that the positioning accuracy of the GNSS module based on intelligent equipment can reach a good level, which means that it has potential to be use in less demanding topographic surveys and also in other fields like pipeline and urban surveys, GIS, intelligent transportation, among others, in which the positioning accuracy is not so demanding.