Satellite-based positioning, which started being developed in the mid-1960s for military purposes, is now used in almost every area. For the studies single and/or double frequency receivers are used. The cost of a receiver and antenna couple that have capable of high coordinate accuracies ranges from $3000 to $15000. With the production of Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) receivers, the cost of satellite-based location determination decreases to approximately one in 10 for the civilian user compared to the operations performed with geodetic receivers and antennas. However, although these receivers collect data in multi-Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and frequencies, the accuracy of the coordinate values estimated is not as high as geodetic receivers and antennas. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out an accuracy study to obtain information about which studies can be used in. In this study, measurements were made at the UZEL point located on the roof of the Yıldız Technical University Geomatics Engineering Department by using the ZED-F9P-02B OEM multi GNSS receiver and ANN-MB L1/L2 multi-band GNSS patch antenna. The performance of the test results has been examined by comparing the results from CSRS(Canadian Spatial Reference System)-PPP with the coordinates of the UZEL point. As a result of the comparison, the difference between the coordinate determined with collected 3.5 hr data and the coordinates of the UZEL point has been determined as – 1.4 cm, 2.8 cm, and 9.3 cm in the East, North, and Height directions, respectively

The paper deals with large-scale crustal deformation due to hydrological surface loads and its influence on seasonal variation of GPS estimated heights. The research was concentrated on the area of Poland. The deformation caused by continental water storage has been computed on the basis of WaterGAP Hydrological Model data by applying convolution of water masses with appropriate Green’s function. Obtained site displacements were compared with height changes estimated from GPS observations using the Precise Point Positioning (PPP) method. Long time series of the solutions for 4 stations were used for evaluation of surface loading phenomena. Good agreement both in amplitude and phase was found, however some discrepancies remain which are assigned to single point positioning technique deficiencies. Annual repeatability of water cycle and demanding procedure for computing site displacements for each site, allowed to develop a simple model for Poland which could be applied to remove (or highly reduce) seasonal hydrological signal from time series of GPS solutions.

This paper provides analyses of the accuracy and convergence time of the PPP method using GPS systems and different IGS products. The official IGS products: Final, Rapid and Ultra Rapid as well as MGEX products calculated by the CODE analysis centres were used. In addition, calculations with weighting function of the observations were carried out, depending on the elevation angle. The best results were obtained for CODE products, with a 5-minute interval precision ephemeris and precise corrections to satellite clocks with a 30-second interval. For these calculations the accuracy of position determination was at the level of 3 cm with a convergence time of 44 min. Final and Rapid products, which were orbit with a 15-minute interval and clock with a 5 minute interval, gave very similar results. The same level of accuracy was obtained for calculations with CODE products, for which both precise ephemeris and precise corrections to satellite clocks with the interval of 5 minutes. For these calculations, the accuracy was 4 cm with the convergence time of 70 min. The worst accuracy was obtained for calculations with Ultra-rapid products, with an interval of 15 minutes. For these calculations, the accuracy was 10 cm with a convergence time of 120 min. The use of the weighting function improved the accuracy of position determination in each case, except for calculations with Ultra-rapid products. The use of this function slightly increased the convergence time, in addition to the CODE calculation, which was reduced to 9 min.

This review paper presents research results on geodetic positioning and applications carried out in Poland, and related to the activities of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) Commission 4 “Positioning and Applications” and its working groups. It also constitutes the chapter 4 of the national report of Poland for the International Union of Geodesy and Geodynamics (IUGG) covering the period of 2015-2018. The paper presents selected research, reviewed and summarized here, that were carried out at leading Polish research institutions, and is concerned with the precise multi-GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) satellite positioning and also GNSS-based ionosphere and troposphere modelling and studies. The research, primarily carried out within working groups of the IAG Commission 4, resulted in important advancements that were published in leading scientific journals. During the review period, Polish research groups carried out studies on multi-GNSS functional positioning models for both relative and absolute solutions, stochastic positioning models, new carrier phase integer ambiguity resolution methods, inter system bias calibration, high-rate GNSS applications, monitoring terrestrial reference frames with GNSS, assessment of the real-time precise satellite orbits and clocks, advances in troposphere and ionosphere GNSS remote sensing methods and models, and also their applications to weather, space weather and climate studies.

A robust Kalman filter improved with IGG (Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics) scheme is proposed and used to resist the harmful effect of gross error from GPS observation in PPP/INS (precise point positioning/inertial navigation system) tightly coupled positioning. A new robust filter factor is constructed as a three-section function to increase the computational efficiency based on the IGG principle. The results of simulation analysis show that the robust Kalman filter with IGG scheme is able to reduce the filter iteration number and increase efficiency. The effectiveness of new robust filter is demonstrated by a real experiment. The results support our conclusion that the improved robust Kalman filter with IGG scheme used in PPP/INS tightly coupled positioning is able to remove the ill effect of gross error in GPS pseudorange observation. It clearly illustrates that the improved robust Kalman filter is very effective, and all simulated gross errors added to GPS pseudorange observation are successfully detected and modified.