Combined analysis of local influences and multipath effects for a lane-specific positioning of vehicles in traffic streams

Future smart traffic environments require very accurate positioning of vehicles to allow for sophisticated traffic flow modeling or autonomous control of cars. To avoid traffic congestion on motorways, a lane-specific localization of vehicles is required to allow for the detection of short-term deviations of traffic flows due to roadwork or accidents. In this paper, we investigate the accuracy of GNSS-based positioning data with consideration of all relevant impairments of the propagation channel, like molecular scattering, ionospheric scintillation and effects caused by the direct receiver surrounding. Taking into account satellite mobility and constellations, position-specific atmospheric influences and the impacts of shadowing and multipath propagation on the determination of TOA values, the accuracy of a lane-specific positioning is investigated for both GPS and GALILEO. The results presented in this paper are based on a dedicated multiscale simulation framework which includes an exact 3D model of the environment of the GNSS receiver. Based on the investigation of a reference scenario, the results demonstrate the feasibility of lane-specific localization enabled by the compensation of both ionospheric as well as multipath fading effects.