Exploring Multipath Mitigation Mechanism of Circular Smartphone Antenna Motion With C/N0 and Multipath Frequency

Multipath effect is currently a major error source for high-precision global navigation satellite system (GNSS) applications on smartphones. We explore the multipath mitigation mechanism of smartphone circular antenna motion through the proposed carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N0) and multipath frequency models. Furthermore, we study the relationship between circular motion parameters, observations, and multipath effects, focusing on multipath frequency characteristics, and explore how circular motion improves data quality and positioning accuracy. Two smartphones, Xiaomi MI8 and Huawei P40, conducted experimental demonstrations in open-sky and urban environments. The results show that the multipath frequency increases during circular motion and is related to the rotation frequency. With an appropriate motion scheme, the signal strength remains unaffected and the code multipath error component is reduced, thereby mitigating multipath effects. It is worth noting that the ranging accuracy is increased by 47% on average, and the positioning accuracy can be increased by up to 53%. The proposed C/N0 and multipath frequency models also can be used in other GNSS applications such as multipath detection.