Development of GPS multipath error reduction method based on image processing in Urban area

To determine the position of receiver, the GPS (Global Positioning System) uses position information of satellites and pseudo ranges based on signals. These are reflected by surrounding structures and multipath errors occur. This paper proposes a method for multipath error reduction using digital images to enhance the accuracy. The goal of the study is to calculate the shielding environment of receiver using image processing and apply it to GPS positioning. The proposed method, firstly, performs a preprocessing to reduce the effect of noise on images. Next, it uses hough transform to detect the outline of building roofs and determines mask angles and permissible azimuth range. Then, it classifies the satellites according to the condition using the image processing results. Finally, base on point positioning, it computes the receiver position by applying a weight model that assigns different weights to the classified satellites. We confirmed that the RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) was reduced by 2.29m in the horizontal direction and by 15.62m in the vertical direction. This paper showed the potential for the hybrid of GPS positioning and image processing technology.