A New Approach to GPS Carrier-Phase Ambiguity Resolution Using a Reference Receiver Network

A new approach is presented for performing carrier-phase ambiguity resolution and precise positioning using a network of reference receivers. In this approach, a leastsquares condition adjustment is performed which “encapsulates” the information from all of the reference receivers into corrected code and carrier-phase measurements of a single reference receiver. As a result, there is only one set of carrier-phase ambiguities to be estimated. Standard carrier-phase ambiguity resolution can then be performed between the single corrected reference receiver and a mobile receiver, with an improvement in results due to the use of the reference network. This method is tested using a network of four dualfrequency reference receivers separated by 25‐120 km. Applying the network-derived measurement corrections to the reference receiver reduces by about 50% the time required to correctly resolve the integer ambiguities. A discussion of the strengths, limitations, and potential applications of this method is also presented.