Generating statistically robust multipath stacking maps using congruent cells

Multipath effects caused by reflections in the near-field and far-field of a GNSS antenna represent a major error source in static and kinematic GNSS positioning applications. Since these effects are strongly site-specific, a generally valid and practicable analytical multipath model is still lacking. In contrast, using GNSS carrier phase observation residuals, the multipath stacking (MPS) methods are able to take site-specific conditions into account. We propose an advanced approach to performing residual-based MPS in the space domain. Being superior to most conventional attempts in which stacking cells have a fixed azimuthal resolution, our suggested method makes use of congruent cells and rigorous statistical assessments in terms of outlier detection and significance evaluation of the stacked values. The advanced stacking approach is applied to representative phase residuals from static precise point positioning. The results show that the use of congruent cells allows for MPS at high elevation angles and with a fine spatial resolution. Applying the resulting MPS maps at the residual level, both near-field and far-field effects at high and low elevation angles, respectively, can be significantly mitigated. In comparison with the conventional approach, the advanced one enables a larger reduction of about 20 % in the SD of residuals.