MODES OF MEASUREMENTS IN RADIO POSITIONING

Range Range
Rho Rho
Rho Theta
Hyperbolic

Electronic Equipments for Radio Positioning are;

Transponders, Responders, Beacons, Transducer,
Availability of shore controls assumed
Range Range
Transmitter carried on board.
Signal received at 2 or more transponders ashore.
Retransmitted to vessel.
Intersection of 2 range circles.
Most accurate due to strong geometry of the pattern of
intersecting circles.
Limited number of vessels to use same shore control
simultaneously.
Mainly for microwave based equipment

Rho Rho
The ship does not carry transmitter.
Both shore transmitter and ship- borne receiver are controlled
by precise atomic frequency standard.
Once synchronized in both rate and epoch with the shore
transmitter the receiver should show no phase change until
the ship moves.
The receiver position is ro.
Any phase change indicate ro .

Current ship range r = ro + ro.

Good geometry as range range.
Measurement accuracy inferior to r-r because of small
frequency difference of the atomic drift (parts in 1014).
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 No transmitter or large antenna on board.
Greater range of larger, more efficient shore antenna
employed.
No limit to number of users.
Cheaper since one needs only receiver on board.

Rho Theta
Receiver on board
Measures azimuth and range
Poor geometry.
Cheaper.

Hyperbolic.
Master transmitter a shore; master-slave baseline concave to
service area.
Shipborne receiver measures t between the master signal
and that master elicits from slaves.
Different frequencies used to identify signals from each
station.
ts converted to range differences which plot as hyperbolae.
Weak pattern geometry.
No limit to number of users.
Receive less expensive.
All MF, LF, VLF systems can be used in this mode.

Error Source in Radio Positioning.

1. Zero Erro.
All radio measuring systems to be calibrated for zero error.
Microwave systems calibrated between geodetic control
stations or on known baselines.

This is done by bringing the ship close to slave transmitter

and measuring the range simultaneously by microwave and
by the MF or LF system.

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 Slave transmitter adjusted or the ships receive offset until
the two ranges a free.
For the Rho Rho the frequency standards must be
properly synchronized to cater for frequency offset.

2. Circle Identification Error.

Except microwave pulse matching system all R.P system

suffer from cycle ambiguity.
Solved by instrumentally using coarse lane identification
patterns.
These techniques breakdown under bad conditions such as
high nose and long range.
Improve condition.
With MF and LF system independent fix is used.

3. Propagation Velocity Error.

For microwave only the atmospheric refractivity affect

velocity and ranges are so short that use is made of mean
velocity without significant error.
For the ground wave systems ground conductivity and
other factors introduces a secondary phase lag in addition
to the primary phase lag.
Over water this phase lag can be predicted accurately.
Detailed calibration required for overland signals.
Could be over 150m for ranges over 600km.

4. Errors Resulting from Radio Noise.

(including sky wave reference)
Noise can be defined as any radiation, man made or
natural within the frequency pass band of the receiver,
other than the measuring signal.
Causes of jitters of 2 or more hundredths of .
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 Some receivers damped to reduce noise affect.
In MF, LF system, the strength of unwanted sky wave
signal increases with distance (especially at night).
Whereas ground wave signal strength decreases with
range.
Sky wave interference causes loss of lock.

5. Error in Frequency Standard

All R.P. systems use frequency standards to make

measurements.
Accuracy requirement not critical in the lieu of standards
available (part in 1014).
Rho Rho systems, however, depend on maintaining a
constant, well-defined, clock rate (frequency offset)
between the atomic frequency standard over long periods.
Require five orders of magnitude better frequency control
than other systems.
A reasonable error in determining clock rate of 0.05 us per
day (1 part in 1013) will introduce range error at the rate of
15m per day.

6. Pulse Amplitude in Microwave Systems.

Measures travel time of a pulse without phase
comparison.
Liable to read too far back in return pulse when signal
amplitude falls off.
Produces too great a distance.