The Technical Benefits of Future GNSS for Taiwan

The next decade promises drastic improvements and additions to global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). Plans for GPS modernization include a civilian code measurement on the L2 frequency and a new L5 signal at 1176.45 MHz. Current speculations indicate that a fully operational constellation with these improvements could be available by 2013. Simultaneously, the Galileo Joint Undertaking is in the development and validation stages of introducing a parallel GNSS called Galileo. Galileo will also transmit freely available satellite navigation signals on three frequencies and is scheduled to be fully operational as early as 2008. In other words, a dual system receiver (e.g., GPS+GALILEO) for general users can access six civil frequencies transmitted by at least fifty eights navigation satellites in space. The advent of GALILEO and the modernization of GPS raise a lot of attention to the study of the compatibility and interoperability of the two systems. A number of performance analyses have been conducted in a global scale with respect to availability, reliability, accuracy and integrity in different simulated scenarios (such as open sky and urban canyons) for the two systems individually and when integrated. Therefore, the scope of this article aims at providing the technical benefits analysis for Taiwan specifically in terms of the performance indices mentioned above in a local scale, especially in typical urban canyon scenarios. The conclusions gained by this study will be applied by the Land Survey Bureau of Taiwanese as the guideline for developing future GNSS tracking facilities and dual GNSS processing module for precise surveying applications in static and kinematic modes.