Performance assessment of GNSS single point positioning with recent smartphones

The new generation of Android smartphones are equipped with high performance Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chips. These new chips are capable of tracking dual frequency multi constellation data. Moreover, starting from version 9 of Android users can disable the duty cycle power saving option, thus it is feasible to acquire good quality raw carrier-phase measurements. Nevertheless, there is still a need to evaluate the accuracy, which may be reached with current smart devices in a standard navigational solution. In this work we assessed the performance of GPS + Galileo single point positioning of three recent smartphones, namely Xiaomi Mi 8, Xiaomi Mi 9 and Huawei P30. The best positioning accuracy, in terms of horizontal root mean square error (DRMS), was obtained by Huawei P30 with a DRMS of 4.46 m. Xiaomi MI8 shows very similar performance (4.56 m of DRMS) but these results were subject to outliers. Finally Xiaomi Mi9 shows a DRMS of 7.26 m, and therefore demonstrates the poorest accuracy among tested smart devices.