EFFECTS OF TERRAIN ON SATELLITE-BASED POSITION ACCURACY FOR STATIONARY AND MOVING TARGETS

This paper presents an integrated toolset for position accuracy predictions of stationary or moving objects on the ground in diverse terrain environments. Whether running simulations for wargames or planning routes on the ground for operational troop movements, it's important to account for the degradation of position accuracy from a GPS navigation solution due to local terrain. This end-to-end analysis pipeline allows the user to select an area of interest, automatically find and process terrain files for the region, and prompt the user to upload a route or design a new route through a point-and-click interface. The results emphasize the importance of good satellite geometry and high-fidelity models for terrain. Additionally, the simulations prove that the position accuracy for moving targets is highly depen- dent on the vehicle's speed and path, as well as surrounding terrain, thus making the solutions unpredictable when compared to stationary targets.