Background

BM System is a software company whose main areas of business include road maintenance and waste management. These areas require reliable positioning for accurate follow-up.

At present, this means using commonly available smartphones and tablets since these have Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS, e.g. GPS, GALILEO) positioning hardware built in. Benefits of this include easy procurement and replacement as well as a familiar interface for end users. Drawbacks include being limited to the precision of the built-in GNSS hardware, commonly on the order of five meters but occasionally being up to twenty-five meters.

Exact positioning benefits the user since this means that e.g. manhole covers can be located even under leaves or snow, or that it is possible to identify if deicing is being done on the sidewalk as opposed to the road, or which lane of a road is being plowed.

In principle, GNSS positioning is easy. Current positions of a number of satellites are known. An accurately timestamped radio signal is sent from each of these, and comparison with the local time at the receiver gives the travel time of the signal. This multiplied by the speed of light gives a distance to each satellite, which gives the position of the receiver by trilateration.

In practice, this is confounded by several effects.

  • Atmospheric effects such as the free electron content in the ionosphere delays the signal from each satellite by some amount.
  • High mountains or dense tree cover limits visibility of satellites.
  • High buildings reflect signals, causing multipath effects.

Work Description

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the feasibility of applying commonly available correction data in software at the user's device. Methods for correcting positions include, but are not limited to

  • Galileo High-Accuracy service as input to a Precise Point Positioning (PPP) algorithm.
  • Using another smartphone as a base station for a Real-Time Kinematics (RTK) approach.
  • Applying correction data from Lantmäteriet in a similar manner as above.

Further, this work will evaluate the performance of the chosen approach(es) by means of a structured field test program, which shall be devised.

The goals of this work are to gain an understanding of the behavior of the positioning chipsets of commonly used hardware, as well as laying a clear base for BM System to continue further work.

The student

We would prefer that you have experience with Android and app development, this experience might come either from relevant courses or personal interest demonstrated by home projects or similar. It is also preferable if the student is familiar with .Net for Android.

Questions

Contact Ludvig Sjöbom ludvigs@bmsystem.se if you have questions regarding this Master’s Thesis.

Submit your application no later than November 29th.