Patent ID: 8271194

Claim:
A method of locating GNSS-defined points and deriving distances, directional attitudes or closed geometric shapes from the locations of such points, which method comprises the steps of: providing a base with a base antenna; locating said base antenna in relation to a desired distance, attitude or shape; defining the location of said base antenna using GNSS; providing a rover with a rover receiver and a rover antenna connected to said receiver; connecting said base antenna to said rover receiver with an RF cable; locating additional points on said desired distance, attitude or shape with said rover antenna using GNSS; providing a microprocessor connected to said rover receiver and adapted for receiving as input GNSS-defined data from said rover receiver; calculating with said microprocessor a distance, attitude or shape using said GNSS-defined data; providing a graphical user interface (GUI) with a display; connecting said GUI to said rover receiver; transmitting code and carrier phase data from said base to said multiple-antenna rover; said processor determining the relative locations and relative ambiguities of the multiple rover antennas using an attitude solution that takes advantage of known constraints in geometry or clock; storing the rover-determined attitude solution locations and ambiguities; time-tag matching the data from the base; storing the current GNSS carrier phase observations; and improving positioning results by avoiding extrapolation errors by time tag matching base and rover data.