A Low-Cost Compact GNSS Heading Determination Method

Accurate attitude measurement is crucial for small platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles and portable devices. However, traditional high-precision global navigation satellite system (GNSS) heading determination equipment often fails to meet the strict volume and cost constraints due to their long baselines and high costs. To address this issue, this paper proposes a low-cost and compact GNSS heading determination method based on ultra-short baselines. This method relies solely on carrier phase observations and fully utilizes the geometric characteristics of ultra-short baselines. It directly solves the integer cycle ambiguity using the Rounding method. Based on the theory of hypothesis testing, an analytical relationship model between baseline length and observation noise and the fixed success rate of integer cycle ambiguity is quantitatively established. Experiments show that while significantly reducing the size and hardware cost of the equipment, accurate headings can still be calculated, effectively addressing the application limitations of single-antenna heading determination in static/low-speed scenarios. This research provides an engineering-able system solution for cost and volume-sensitive applications.