Potential and limitations of processing smartphone GNSS raw observation data in PPP

Since the release of Android 7.0 in 2016, raw GNSS measurements tracked by smartphones operating with Android can be accessed. Before this date, solely the position solution of the smartphone's internal "black box" algorithm could be further processed in various applications. Now the smartphone's GNSS observations can be used directly to estimate the user position with specialized self-developed algorithms and correction data. Since smartphones are equipped with simple, cost-effective GNSS chips and antennas, they provide challenging, low-quality GNSS measurements. Furthermore, most smartphones on the market offer GNSS measurements on just one frequency. 

Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is one of the most promising processing techniques for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data. PPP is characterized by the use of precise satellite products (orbits, clocks, and biases) and the application of sophisticated algorithms to estimate the user's position. In contrast to relative positioning methods, PPP does not rely on nearby reference stations or a regional reference network. Furthermore, the concept of PPP is very flexible, which is another advantage considering the challenging nature of (single frequency) GNSS measurements from smartphones.

In this contribution, we present PPP results applying the uncombined model on raw GNSS observations from various smartphone devices. In contrast to the typical use of the ionosphere-free linear combination for PPP, this flexible PPP model applies the raw GNSS observation equations, is suitable for any number of frequencies, and allows the utilization of ionosphere models as an ionospheric constraint. We explore the potential and limitations of using raw GNSS observations from smartphones for PPP to reach a position accuracy at the decimeter level. Therefore, we test different correction data types and algorithms and examine diverse ways to handle the tropospheric and ionospheric delay. The PPP calculations are performed with our self-developed in-house software raPPPid.