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This article considers the challenge of accommodating outlier measurements in state estimation. The Risk-Averse Performance-Specified (RAPS) state estimation approach addresses outliers as a measurement selection Bayesian risk minimization problem subject to an information accuracy constraint, which is a non-convex optimization problem. Prior explorations into RAPS rely on exhaustive search, which becomes computationally infeasible as the number of measurements increases. This paper derives a convex formulation for the RAPS optimization problems via transforming the mixed-binary variables into linear constraints. The convex reformulation herein can be solved by convex programming toolboxes, significantly enhancing computational efficiency. We explore two specifications: Full-RAPS, utilizing the full information matrix, and Diag-RAPS, focusing on diagonal elements only. The simulation comparison demonstrates that Diag-RAPS is faster and more efficient than Full-RAPS. In comparison with Kalman Filter (KF) and Threshold Decisions (TD), Diag-RAPS consistently achieves the lowest risk, while achieving the performance specification when it is feasible., Comment: Accepted by the 2024 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) aided Inertial Navigation System (INS) is a fundamental approach for attaining continuously available absolute vehicle position and full state estimates at high bandwidth. For transportation applications, stated accuracy specifications must be achieved, unless the navigation system can detect when it is violated. In urban environments, GNSS measurements are susceptible to outliers, which motivates the important problem of accommodating outliers while either achieving a performance specification or communicating that it is not feasible. Risk-Averse Performance-Specified (RAPS) is designed to optimally select measurements to address this problem. Existing RAPS approaches lack a method applicable to carrier phase measurements, which have the benefit of measurement errors at the centimeter level along with the challenge of being biased by integer ambiguities. This paper proposes a RAPS framework that combines Real-time Kinematic (RTK) in a tightly coupled INS for urban navigation applications. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of this RAPS-INS-RTK framework, achieving 85.84% and 92.07% of horizontal and vertical errors less than 1.5 meters and 3 meters, respectively, using a smartphone-grade Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) from a deep-urban dataset. This performance not only surpasses the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) requirements, but also shows a 10% improvement compared to traditional methods., Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. accepted by the 27th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (IEEE ITSC 2024)

Reliable and precise absolute positioning is necessary in the realm of Connected Automated Vehicles (CAV). Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provides the foundation for absolute positioning. Recently enhanced Precise Point Positioning (PPP) technology now offers corrections for GNSS on a global scale, with the potential to achieve accuracy suitable for real-time CAV applications. However, in obstructed sky conditions, GNSS signals are often affected by outliers; therefore, addressing outliers is crucial. In GNSS applications, there are many more measurements available than are required to meet the specification. Therefore, selecting measurements to avoid outliers is of interest. The recently developed Risk-Averse Performance-Specified (RAPS) state estimation optimally selects measurements to minimize outlier risk while meeting a positive semi-definite constraint on performance; at present, the existing solution methods are not suitable for real-time computation and have not been demonstrated using challenging real-world data or in Real-time PPP (RT-PPP) applications. This article makes contributions in a few directions. First, it uses a diagonal performance specification, which reduces computational costs relative to the positive semi-definite constraint. Second, this article considers GNSS RT-PPP applications. Third, the experiments use real-world GNSS data collected in challenging environments. The RT-PPP experimental results show that among the compared methods: all achieve comparable performance in open-sky conditions, and all exceed the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) specification; however, in challenging environments, the diagonal RAPS approach shows improvement of 6-19% over traditional methods. Throughout, RAPS achieves the lowest estimation risk., Comment: 7 pages,2 figures, Accepted by 2024 American Control Conference

We propose to achieve joint detections of frequency and direction of arrival in wideband using single sensor based on an active metasurface with programmable transmission states of pass and stop. By integrating two PIN diodes with the opposite directions into the proposed single-layer and ultrathin meta-atom, the transmission performance with 10 dB difference between the pass and stop states is realized in the bandwidth from 5.9 GHz to 8.8 GHz using field-circuit co-simulations. Accordingly, random receiving patterns are generated by controlling the programmable metasurface composed of the switchable meta-atoms. Afterwards, the frequency and direction information of sources located in the far field are detected using the modified algorithm of estimating signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) and the compressive sensing method, respectively. A sample of the programmable metasurface is fabricated and the voltage control system is built up correspondingly. To entirely verify the validity of the proposed method, we conduct three kinds of experiments with one single source, double sources with different frequencies, and double sources with the same frequency, respectively. In all cases, the source information of frequency and direction has been detected preciously in measurements in the frequency band from 6.2 GHz to 8.8 GHz.

High-definition (Hi-Def) digital maps are an indispensable automated driving technology that is developing rapidly. There are various commercial or governmental map products in the market. It is notable that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) map tool allows the user to create MAP and Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT) messages with free access. However, an analysis of the accuracy of this map tool is currently lacking in the literature. This paper provides such an analysis. The analysis manually selects 39 feature points within about 200 meters of the verified point and 55 feature points over longer distances from the verified point. All feature locations are surveyed using GNSS and mapped using the USDOT tool. Different error sources are evaluated to allow assessment of the USDOT map accuracy. In this investigation, The USDOT map tool is demonstrated to achieve 17 centimeters horizontal accuracy, which meets the lane-level map requirement. The maximum horizontal map error is less than 30 centimeters., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

Differential GNSS (DGNSS) has been demonstrated to provide reliable, high-quality range correction information enabling real-time navigation with centimeter to sub-meter accuracy, which is required for applications such as connected and autonomous vehicles. However, DGNSS requires a local reference station near each user. For a continental or global scale implementation, this information dissemination approach would require a dense network of reference stations whose construction and maintenance would be prohibitively expensive. Precise Point Positioning affords more flexibility as a public service for GNSS receivers, but its State Space Representation format is not supported by most receivers in the field or on the market. This article proposes a novel Virtual Network DGNSS (VN-DGNSS) approach and an optimization algorithm that is key to its implementation. The approach capitalizes on the existing PPP infrastructure without the need for new physical reference stations. By connecting to public GNSS SSR data services, a VN-DGNSS server maintains current information about common-mode errors. Construction of the RTCM Observation Space Representation messages from this SSR information requires both the signal time-of-transmission and the satellite position at that time which are consistent with the time-of-reception for each client. This article presents an algorithm to determine these quantities. The results of real-time stationary and moving platform evaluations are included, using u-blox M8P and ZED-F9P receivers. The performance surpasses the SAE specification (68% of horizontal error <= 1.5 m and vertical error <= 3 m) and shows significantly better horizontal performance than GNSS Open Service. The moving tests also show better horizontal performance than the ZED-F9P receiver with SBAS enabled and achieve the lane-level accuracy (95% of horizontal errors less than 1 meter)., Comment: 14 pages, 8 tables, 4 figures, Code and data are available at https://github.com/Azurehappen/Virtual-Network-DGNSS-Project