Advantages of Hybrid Global Navigation Satellite Systems

Abstract

In a decision-making situation, what kind of GPS equipment to purchase, one always has a dilemma, tobuy hybrid (GPS+GLONASS) or only GPS receivers? In the case of completeness of the GLONASS satellite system, this dilemma probably would not have existed. The answer to this dilemma is given in the present paper, but for the constellation of the GLONASS satellites in summer 2006 (14 satellites operational). Due to the short operational period of these satellites (for example GLONASS-M), 5 years, and not launching new ones, at this moment (February 25, 2007), only 10 satellites are operational. For the sake of research and giving answers to these questions, about 252 RTK measurements have been done using (GPS) and GNSS receivers, on points with different obstructions of horizon. Besides that, initialisation time has been investigated for both systems from about 480 measurements, using rover's antenna with metal cover, during a time interval of 0.5, 2 and 5 seconds. Moreover, accuracy, firmware declared accuracy and redundancy of GPS and GNSS RTK measurements have been investigating.