Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica ›› 2019, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (7): 879-888.doi: 10.11947/j.AGCS.2019.20180479

• Geodesy and Navigation • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The minimum analysis of geometric dilution of precision in celestial positioning

CHEN Zhanglei, LI Chonghui, ZHENG Yong, CHEN Bing, HE Donghan   

  1. Information Engineering University, Zhengzhou 450001, China
  • Received:2018-10-18 Revised:2019-02-13 Online:2019-07-20 Published:2019-07-26
  • Supported by:
    The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41604011; 11673076); The Information Engineering University Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (No. 2016611705)

Abstract: Celestial positioning is an important method in positioning and navigation, which is widely used in the fields of geodetic astrometry and celestial navigation. The selection of stars in this method affects the accuracy of positioning. At present, there is a lack of research on the optimal selection of stars for the celestial positioning algorithm which determinates longitude and latitude simultaneously. With the improvement of the automation level of observation instruments, the acquisition of observation data becomes more efficient. Therefore, it is necessary to study the optimal selection of stars to achieve the highest accuracy of positioning. Based on the concept of geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) in satellite navigation, this paper studies the influence of the number and distribution of stars in zenith-method on the accuracy of positioning. Finally, the conclusion is verified by the simulation experiment and the measured data. When the statistical characteristic of observation error on zenith distance is fixed, GDOP can be used to describe the effect of star distribution on the accuracy of positioning, and the error of positioning is minimal when the azimuth of stars is uniformly distributed. Considering that the residual error of atmospheric refraction correction of zenith distance of stars with different heights is different, the stars with equal zenith distance and azimuth distributed evenly should be used as far as possible in actual measurement.

Key words: GDOP, astronomical positioning, Monte Carlo simulation, optimal stars distribution

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