A Precise Heave Determination System Using Time-Differenced GNSS Carrier Phase Measurements

In this study, a system that precisely determines the heave of ship hull was designed using time-differenced GNSS carrier phase measurement, and the performance was examined. First, a technique that calculates precise position relative to the original position based on TDCP measurement for point positioning using only one receiver was implemented. Second, to eliminate the long-cycle drift error occurring due to the measurement error that has not been completely removed by time-differencing, an easily implementable high-pass filter was designed, and the optimum coefficient was determined through an experiment. In a static experiment based on the precise heave measurement system implemented using low-cost commercial GNSS receiver and PC, the heave could be measured with a precision of 2 cm standard deviation. In addition, in a dynamic experiment where it moved up and down with an amplitude of 48 cm and a cycle of 20 seconds, precise heave without drift error could be determined. The system proposed in this study can be easily used for many applications, such as the altitude correction of fish detection radar.