Higher accuracy for smartphone positioning: post-processing, centre points and repetition

Abstract

The importance of smartphone positioning for contemporary society is on the constant rise, as is the demand and potential for its higher accuracy. National mapping agencies see crowdsourcing by smartphone measurements as an interesting opportunity for data collection in the future. In this study, the purpose was to investigate the reality of smartphone positioning accuracy in the crowdsourcing context. The enhancement of plain real-time smartphone positioning was carried out by post-processing calculations with reference stations, centre point averaging and repeated measurements. The results were benchmarked against professional real-time kinematic measurements, and accuracies below 1.5 m were achieved at best by the mentioned techniques combined. The reached accuracy level is already useful for many mapping purposes and the latest developments in satellite positioning are still about to decrease measurement inaccuracies.