Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2023 Mar 15;18(3):e0283090. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283090. eCollection 2023.
Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) technologies are actively being developed to address the demand for enhanced positional accuracy. Smartphones are the most prevalent GNSS receiver today and have garnered attention thanks to improved positional accuracy and usability that can be accessed at an affordable price. In a forested environment, multipath error can deteriorate the positional accuracy, depending on the state of nearby vegetation. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the impacts of the size and location of vegetation on positional accuracy of GNSS receivers to determine whether the errors observed are systematic. Twenty-six control points within the Whitehall Forest GPS Test site in Athens, Georgia were used to evaluate positional accuracy of three different GNSS receivers (two traditional handheld GNSS receivers (including Garmin and Trimble receivers) and a smartphone). Thirty-five forest variables were developed from information around each control point to conduct a correlation analysis with observed horizontal position error in the positions determined by each device. In this study, we confirmed that the positional error of the smartphone was significantly lower than the Garmin receiver, and similar, but significantly different than the positional error observed by the Trimble receiver. It was confirmed that correlations between forest variables and horizontal position error regardless of the GNSS receiver employed were significant, yet trends were not consistent. The effect of the size of nearby trees on horizontal position error could not be generalized; however, the location of nearby trees on horizontal position error could.
全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）技术正在积极发展，以满足增强位置精度的需求。智能手机是当今最流行的 GNSS 接收器，由于其改进的位置精度和可用性，价格合理，因此引起了人们的关注。在森林环境中，多径误差会根据附近植被的状态而降低位置精度。因此，本研究旨在调查植被的大小和位置对 GNSS 接收器位置精度的影响，以确定观察到的误差是否具有系统性。在佐治亚州雅典的 Whitehall 森林 GPS 测试场，使用了 26 个控制点来评估三种不同的 GNSS 接收器（两种传统的手持 GNSS 接收器（包括 Garmin 和 Trimble 接收器）和智能手机）的位置精度。从每个控制点周围的信息中开发了 35 个森林变量，以与每个设备确定的位置的观测水平位置误差进行相关分析。在这项研究中，我们证实智能手机的位置误差明显低于 Garmin 接收器，与 Trimble 接收器观察到的位置误差相似，但明显不同。无论使用哪种 GNSS 接收器，都证实了森林变量与水平位置误差之间的相关性具有统计学意义，但趋势并不一致。附近树木大小对水平位置误差的影响不能一概而论；然而，附近树木的位置对水平位置误差有影响。
