A Positioning System in an Urban Vertical Heterogeneous Network (VHetNet)

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel urban vertical heterogeneous network (VHetNet) that combines HAPS and 5G gNBs to enhance GNSS positioning accuracy in urban environments, addressing limitations of standalone GNSSs.

Contribution

It introduces a VHetNet architecture utilizing HAPS and gNBs, and evaluates their impact on improving vertical positioning accuracy and integrity monitoring in urban areas.

Findings

gNB density significantly improves vertical positioning accuracy

gNB pseudorange error affects overall system performance

RAIM algorithms enhance integrity monitoring in urban VHetNet

Abstract

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) are essential in providing localization and navigation services to most of the world due to their superior coverage. However, due to high pathloss and inevitable atmospheric effect, the positioning performance of any standalone GNSS is still poor in urban areas. To improve the positioning performance of legacy GNSSs in urban areas, a positioning system, which utilizes high altitude platform station (HAPS) and 5G gNodeBs (gNBs), in a futuristic urban vertical heterogeneous network (VHetNet) is proposed. In this paper, we demonstrate the effectiveness of gNBs in improving the vertical positioning accuracy for both the GPS-only system and the HAPS-aided GPS system by analyzing the impact of the density of gNBs and the pseudorange error of gNB on the positioning performance of the gNB augmented positioning systems. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) algorithms on the HAPS and/or gNB aided GPS systems in urban areas.