• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.30 no.10 s.116
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• pp.839-845
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• 2006

A laser docking system provides a centimeter-level accuracy distance from jetty mounted laser sensors in order to help a vessel to approach to a pier. It is very accurate & useful, whereas there are too many considerable problems. Laser sensors of the laser docking system need to be correctly positioned and installed on a jetty to allow for full range of vessels to be berthed and to consider loading condition and tidal variations. Above all, the laser docking system is expensive and its service coverage is limited. In order to solve these problems, CDGPS positioning method using GPS satellites has been proposed. This paper presents that, through RHDOP simulation, the previous CDGPS positioning method using only GPS satellites is not able to provide the continuous service with centimeter-level positioning accuracy. And this paper proposes a pseudolite-augmented positioning method for vessel docking in order to solve the problem of the continuous service on the previous CDGPS positioning method. In this paper, pseudolite is used to aid in CDGPS positioning. This paper shows that the proposed method can provides the continuous service through comparison analysis of RHDOP simulation results between the GPS satellite constellation and the pseudolite-augmented GPS satellite constellation. Furthermore, it is shown that the proposed positioning method satisfies the positioning performance required for vessel automatic docking at a test bed designed for performance evaluation.