POSITIONING PERFORMANCE OF LOW-COST U-BLOX NEO-M8U MODULE IN URBAN ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning is nowadays used for many applications, including navigation of various man-drived or autonomous vehicles and pedestrians. As a significant part of these activities take place in cities or other environments which are not favourable for GNSS signal transmission, there is an option to improve the quality of positioning in them by combining the GNSS with other technologies. A fusion with inertial measurement units is probably the most common. The main objective of this paper was the evaluation of low-cost u-blox NEO-M8U module in kinematic positioning. Despite the module is primarily aiming on automotive industry, it was tested for a performance in low speed scenarios. The fusion mode combining input from a single-frequency multi-GNSS receiver and inertial unit was initialized and firstly calibrated on a standard passenger car and lately tested on a remotely controlled small vehicle. In a set of testing drives on three individual routes with a speed of motion around 5 km/h, the accuracy of horizontal position of the u-blox M8U module was in 35% of all measurements better than 1 m and in 84% better than 3 m.