Analysis of GNSS Positioning Precision on Android Smart Devices

In recent years, the positioning function of smart devices, such as mobile phone and tablets, gets more and more popular, which is a great convenience to people's daily life. Now, the best horizontal accuracy of positioning that most ordinary smart devices can achieve is about 5 meters. In 2016, Google Inc. launched Android Nougat (7.0) operating system, supporting the compatible smartphone and tablets to obtain global navigation satellite system (GNSS) raw measurements, which makes it possible to compute pseudorange and carrier phase measurements to achieve precise handset positioning. The target of this paper is to evaluate the precision of different positioning methods on the smart devices. A Huawei P9 smartphone was used as experimental devices and set statically in good observation condition to collect GNSS raw measurements. We compute the positioning precise, analyze the accuracy and compare the accuracy with that of the NovAtel DL-V3-L1 receiver which was set nearby at the same time. Experimental results show that the Huawei P9 smartphone can achieve decimeter-level positioning accuracy through precise point positioning or static relative surveying.