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Concept
Real-time kinematic positioning
Summary
Real-time kinematic positioning (RTK) is the application of surveying to correct for common errors in current satellite navigation (GNSS) systems. It uses measurements of the phase of the signal's carrier wave in addition to the information content of the signal and relies on a single reference station or interpolated virtual station to provide real-time corrections, providing up to centimetre-level accuracy (see DGPS). With reference to GPS in particular, the system is commonly referred to as carrier-phase enhancement, or CPGPS. It has applications in land surveying, hydrographic surveying, and in unmanned aerial vehicle navigation.
GPS signals and GNSS positioning calculation
The distance between a satellite navigation receiver and a satellite can be calculated from the time it takes for a signal to travel from the satellite to the receiver. To calculate the delay, the receiver must align a pseudorandom binary sequence contained in the signal to an internally generated pseudorandom binary sequence. Since the satellite signal takes time to reach the receiver, the satellite's sequence is delayed in relation to the receiver's sequence. By increasingly delaying the receiver's sequence, the two sequences are eventually aligned.
The accuracy of the resulting range measurement is essentially a function of the ability of the receiver's electronics to accurately process signals from the satellite, and additional error sources such as non-mitigated ionospheric and tropospheric delays, multipath, satellite clock and ephemeris errors.
GNSS enhancement#Carrier-phase tracking (surveying)GPS carrier-phase tracking
RTK follows the same general concept, but uses the satellite signal's carrier wave as its signal, ignoring the information contained within. RTK uses a fixed base station and a rover to reduce the rover's position error. The base station transmits correction data to the rover.
As described in the previous section, the range to a satellite is essentially calculated by multiplying the carrier wavelength times the number of whole cycles between the satellite and the rover and adding the phase difference.
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