Assessing of low cost GLONASS/GPS receivers versus GPS receivers in Egypt

The Global Positioning System (GPS) was Fully Operational Capacity (FOC) in 1995 and it remained for a long time the only GNSS that can be used by civilian users till 2007 when the Russian decided to support and provide an open access to civilian user without limitation on Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). Satellite navigation technology is increasingly used almost in all sectors and activities; it has become an essential tool for every demanding professional, commercial and scientific application. The use of GNSS system has been widely used in many industries; maritime, communication, agriculture and banking. Due to the increase of the number of GNSS users in different industries there was a production of low-cost GNSS receivers, these receivers are of different types and models, some models work with the GPS system, others work with the GLONASS system. In the last few years there was a trend of producing a new type of receivers that receive both GLONASS and GPS signals at the same time, so as to calculate the position and time with better accuracy. The Egyptian government intended lately to develop and modernize many services especially; the transportation sector which includes many fields that need to be supported by GNSS such as railways for trains' monitoring specially with the increase of the speeds of trains lately, navigation in the Nile River, transportation by trucks which need monitoring on high ways to control the traffic flow and finally the mega project of Suez canal. The enormous need of GNSS system in Egypt is still booming day after day, for that there is a need to measure the accuracy, repeatability, reliability and accessibility of the lowcost receivers. This paper provides analysis of a static test to measure the difference between low-coast standalone GPS receiver and the integrated GLONASS/GPS receiver in terms of accuracy, repeatability, reliability and accessibility. To accomplish this target a low-cost receivers will be used for data collection during 24 hours.