Improving GNSS Positioning in Challenging Urban Areas by Digital Twin Database Correction

TL;DR

This work tackles the challenge of GNSS positioning accuracy during urban environment transitions by introducing a digital-twin–aided correction framework. A central server builds a grid-based digital twin, simulates GNSS pseudorange measurements via ray-tracing, and derives a statistical correction database to enhance real-receiver positioning without increasing receiver complexity. The approach yields significant improvements in 2D positioning error in urban tests, reducing mean error and RMS substantially, though occasional epochs lack correction and the solution lacks smoothness. The findings demonstrate practical potential for urban navigation, with future directions focusing on probabilistic smoothing, extended dynamic modeling, and scalable, efficient simulation to support large-area deployment.

Abstract

Accurate positioning technology is the foundation for industry and business applications. Although indoor and outdoor positioning techniques have been well studied separately, positioning performance in the intermediate period of changing the positioning environment is still challenging. This paper proposed a digital twin-aided positioning correction method for seamless positioning focusing on improving the receiver's outdoor positioning performance in urban areas, where the change of the positioning environment usually happens. The proposed algorithm will simulate the positioning solution for virtual receivers in a grid-based digital twin. Based on the simulated positioning solutions, a statistical model will be used to study the positioning characteristics and generate a correction information database for real receivers to improve their positioning performance. This algorithm has a low computation load on the receiver side and does not require a specially designed antenna, making it implementable for small-sized devices.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: NLOS reception (in blue) and multipath effect (in yellow).
• Figure 2: System structure of the proposed DT-aided GNSS positioning algorithm.
• Figure 3: Valid GNSS signal reception in the realistic measurement simulation. (a) LOS reception. (b) NLOS reception.
• Figure 4: Demonstration of position correction estimated from digital twin database. (a) Positioning error simulation of original candidates; (b) Collecting solutions biased to the same candidate according to digital twin; (c) Estimation of the overall correction vector corresponding to a particular resulting candidate position.
• Figure 5: Experiment setup. GNSS antenna is attached to the researcher's head. A camera is also attached to record ground truth information.