Masking and Multipath Analysis for UAVs in an

Urban Environment
Suraj Bijjahalli, Subramanian Ramasamy and Roberto Sabatini
School of Engineering-Aerospace and Aviation Discipline
RMIT University
Melbourne, VIC 3000
roberto.sabatini@rmit.edu.au
AbstractGNSS based UAS navigation in urban
environments is limited in terms of accuracy and integrity by the
presence of severe signal multipath and antenna masking. An
Aircraft-Based Integrity Augmentation (ABIA) system for GNSS
receivers is presented. The proposed system relies on detailed
models of signal propagation and multipath to predict GNSS
positioning accuracy in urban environments. This capability is
used to augment path-planning functionalities in UAS Traffic
Management (UTM). The performance of the proposed system is
demonstrated in simulated trajectories in urban canyons,
wherein positioning integrity is threatened by multipath and
masking.

Integrity requirements for manned and unmanned aircraft

navigating by means of the Global Navigation Satellite
System (GNSS) are specified for different applications [1]
and can be described by the following variables:
1.

2.

Keywords GNSS integrity, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; urban

navigation; Masking; Multipath.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The anticipated growth in Unmanned Aerial Systems

(UAS) for beyond line-of-sight usage in densely crowded
environments has prompted the development of a UAS Traffic
Management (UTM) system to improve flight efficiency and
inter-flight coordination while meeting safety requirements in
increasingly crowded airspaces. The Safety of Life (SoL)
application of UTM requires safety protocols that meet the
Required Navigation Performance (RNP), which defines and
bounds the Total System Error (TSE) for different missions.
The components of TSE are illustrated in Figure 1.In order to
meet the RNP, navigation systems are required to comply with
threshold values of accuracy, integrity, continuity and
availability as specified by the ICAO. System integrity is a
measure of confidence in the position estimates delivered by
the navigation system. Integrity augmentation systems monitor
sensor data and issue timely alerts when the sensors data is
faulty and should not be used.

3.
4.
5.

6.

Horizontal Alert Limit (HAL): Radius of a circle in the

local horizontal plane (which is tangent to the ellipsoidal
earth model) with its centre being at the true position,
that describes the region that is required to contain the
computed horizontal position with the required
probability for a given navigation mode.
Vertical Alert Limit (VAL) : Half the length of a vertical
segment , with its centre being at the true position, that
describes the region that is required to contain the
computed vertical position with the required probability
for a given navigation mode.
Time To Alert (TTA): The maximum allowable time
measured from the onset of a positioning failure to the
annunciation of the alert to the autopilot/mission-planner.
Integrity risk: The probability of computing a position
that is out of defined bounds without warning the
autopilot/mission-planner within the TTA.
Horizontal Protection Level (HPL): Radius of a circle in
the local horizontal plane (which is tangent to the
ellipsoidal earth model) with its centre being at the true
position, that describes the region that is assured to
contain the computed horizontal position.
Vertical Alert Limit (VAL): Half the length of a vertical
segment, with its centre being at the true position, which
describes the region that is assured to contain the
computed vertical position.

FIG. 1. COMPONENTS OF TOTAL SYSTEM ERROR.

Fig. 2: Positioning protection levels and alert limits.

In the event that either of the protection levels exceed the

alert limits, integrity monitoring is said to be unavailable since
the monitoring system cannot assure that the computed
position is within the region defined by the HAL and VAL.
The relationship between HPL/VPL and HAL/VAL is shown
in Figure 2. The allocation of HAL and VAL is closely linked
to the navigation airspace (G-class in this context).

GNSS integrity monitoring techniques used in civil

aviation cannot be directly adapted to low-altitude UAS owing
to the unique challenges posed by urban environments. In
particular GNSS antenna masking and signal multipath tend to
dominate GNSS errors in urban environments owing to the
presence of a large number of obstacles and reflectors
(buildings).

It can be seen that GNSS integrity impacts key UTM functions

such as navigation within geo-fenced regions, trajectory
planning and adjustment, and a failure to monitor GNSS
integrity is a safety and liability risk. GNSS error sources can
be attributed to:
1. Atmospheric errors
2. Ephemeris errors
3. Satellite clock errors
4. Antenna masking
5. Multipath

The link between GNSS error sources and UTM

functionalities is illustrated in Figure 3. GNSS faults affect the
received data from the satellites and skew the computed
position. Antenna masking and multipath dominate the total
system error in urban environments. The lowered confidence
in GNSS data impacts primary UTM functionalities like
trajectory management, safe-separation and geo-fencing. A
clear synergy is therefore present between UTM and Integrity
Augmentation Systems.
Existing GNSS integrity augmentation methods include
Ground-Based Augmentation Systems (GBAS), Satellite-

Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) and Aircraft-Based

Augmentation Systems (ABAS). Of these systems, the first
two are differential techniques, requiring the use of groundbased and satellite-based reference receivers respectively.
Both techniques incur a higher cost in terms of required
infrastructure, require a minimum number of visible satellites
and additionally, are not capable of addressing GNSS faults in
the immediate vicinity of the UAS receiver like multipath.
Therefore ABAS has an advantage for the application at hand,
in that the integrity processing of GNSS data is performed
onboard the UAS itself, and can be aided by additional

sensors. This paper presents an Aircraft-Based Integrity

Augmentation (ABIA) system that relies on detailed models of
GNSS antenna masking and urban multipath channels to
monitor GNSS integrity and issue timely alerts in order to
initiate preventive or corrective measures. The system
operates via separate principles from GNSS, and is therefore
not subject to the same sources of error and interference.
Multipath and masking in urban aerial navigation was
analyzed and modelled to design detection mechanisms and
assign appropriate thresholds for triggering integrity alerts.

Fig. 3. The role of navigation integrity on UTM functionalities(adapted from [2]).

The designed ABIA system was tested in a simulated urban

navigation scenario to corroborate its performance in
proactively detecting GNSS faults and initiating avoidance
measures. The remainder of this paper is arranged as follows:
Section 2 describes the proposed ABIA system, its architecture
and capabilities. Section 3 describes GNSS error sources and
focusses on multipath channel modelling owing to its

dominant effect on positioning in urban environments. The

means by which ABIA detects multipath and raises integrity
alerts is also described. Section 4 briefly describes the
structure of the integrity flag generator and the assigned
thresholds for integrity alerts. Sections 5 and 6 describe the
simulation and its results respectively

Fig. 4.ABIA system architecture for UAS.

II.

ABIA SYSTEM

ABIA makes use of detailed models of aircraft dynamics

and GNSS signal propagation to provide timely visual and/or
aural alerts to the remote operator in the event of GNSS
degradations or losses. A system level overview of the integrity
augmentation system is illustrated in Figure 4.
The Integrity Flag Generator (IFG) module raises the
following alerts in response to a predicted GNSS fault or a fault
that has already occurred (Sabatini et al., 2013a, Sabatini et al.,
2015):
Caution Integrity Flag (CIF): A predictive alert that a GNSS
fault that violates the Required Navigation Performance (RNP)
for the current flight is imminent.
Warning Integrity Flag (WIF): A reactive alert that a fault has
caused GNSS data to fail to meet the RNP.
The alerts are raised to the Mission Management System
(MMS) which then initiates avoidance measures or corrective
action. The upper limit on the maximum allowable time
between a GNSS fault developing and the MMS being made
aware of it is defined as the Time-To-Alert (TTA) [3]. In the
context of the proposed system in this paper, the following
definitions of TTA are applicable [4-6]:
Time-To-Caution (TTC): The minimum time allowed for a
caution flag to be raised to the MMS before the onset of a
GNSS fault resulting in a violation of the RNP.
Time-To-Warning (TTW): The maximum time allowed
between the detection of a GNSS fault and the ABIA system
providing a warning flag to the user.

There are, therefore two functions associated with the

ABIA system, wherein Prediction-Avoidance(PA) is
associated with proactive detection and avoidance of integrity
threats, and Reaction-Correction(RC), which is associated
with corrective measures in response to a GNSS fault that has
already occurred.
The PA time-response is then given by [4]:

T PA = T Predict + T C Report + T Avoid

(1)

and the RC time-response is given by:

T RC = T Detect + T W Report + T Correct

(2)

where :

T Predict : Time required to predict a critical condition.

T CReport : Time required to communicate a predicted

fault to the mission-planner
T Avoid : Time required to perform an avoidance
manoeuvre
T Detect : Time required to detect a GNSS fault
T W Report

: Time required to communicate the fault to

the mission-planner
T Correct : Time required to perform a correction
manoeuvre.
To maintain navigation safety, the condition:

T Detect + T WReport TTW

(3)

must hold true at all times.

The PA and RC time responses are illustrated in Figures 5
and 6.

III.

GNSS ERROR SOURCES

The ABIA system relies on models of signal propagation to

detect faults and raise integrity alerts [4]. From the point of
signal transmission from the satellite, the following GNSS
faults affect the signal: Free-space path loss, atmospheric
errors, antenna obscuration (masking) and multipath.
Additionally, noise is introduced by limitations of the receiver
itself in the form of receiver noise. Excluding multipath for the
moment, the Signal to Noise ratio of the signal at the receiver
is expressed by:

SNR=Pt +Gt +Gr Ls LaN f

where

Pt

Parameter
EIRP(including
)

(4)

is the transmitted power (dBW) or the

Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power(EIRP),

Gr

TABLE 1. SIGNAL TRANSMISSION PARAMETERS AND LOSSES.

Gt

and

are the satellite antenna and receiver antenna gains

respectively (dBic).

Ls

is the atmospheric loss(dB);

is the free-space loss(dB);

Nf

La

is the receiver noise (dB).

In order to simplify the analysis and focus on the effect of

multipath on signal strength, nominal values of the terms in
Equation 4 will be adapted, based on measurements described
in [7] as shown in Table 1.

Nominal value

Gt

26.8 dBW

Ls

182.4 dB

La

2 dB

Nf

-138.5 dBW

SNR is typically converted to the Carrier to Noise ratio (

C /N 0 ) to obtain a ratio independent of bandwidth given

by:
(5)
C /N 0 =10 log 10 (SNR B)
where SNR is expressed in the straight ratio form and B is the
bandwidth. Considering a bandwidth of 2.046 MHz, the
parameters in Table 1 result in C /N 0 54 dBHz. This
link

Fig.5. PA Time response

Figure 1 : RC Time-response

budget complies with the GPS interface control document [8]

which specifies a minimum signal level corresponding to
C /N 0 51dBHz.

The following section describes the modelling of GNSS

masking and multipath in urban environments:
Antenna masking due to objects in the navigation environment
(airside area):
GNSS availability and accuracy is directly dependent on
the number of visible satellites. A minimum of four satellites
are required for positioning, and additional satellites enable
increased accuracy. This is often hindered by the presence of
objects that obscure the line of sight between the receiver
antenna and the satellite(s). Antenna masking is modelled in
this paper by building virtual three-dimensional models of
buildings and simulating UAS navigation in the vicinity of the
building models.

multipath and test the performance of the ABIA system in

section 5. Secondly, the multipath detection scheme
implemented in the ABIA system is presented.
Multipath channel modeling:
Ray tracing and statistical models are used to simulate the
effect of multipath on GNSS signals in this paper. Multipath
for a single reflection from a reflective surface in the vicinity
of the GNSS receiver antenna is modelled using the raytracing and receiver-image method described in [9] and
illustrated in Figure 7.

Signal multipath:
In addition to the signal attenuation due to free-space loss
and atmospheric effects described previously, multipath, or
signal reflection prior to arriving at the receiver antenna,
induces further fading in the signal, which ultimately impacts
signal measurements and tracking. This section is divided into
two parts: First, the multipath channel model used in this
research is described. The model is used to simulate urban
The computed multipath delay is used to initialize a bandlimited discrete multipath channel modelled using a TappedDelay Line (TDL) as shown in Fig. 8 in order to model the
effect on the received signal.

Fig. 7. GNSS signal multipath

.

The fading channel assumes that the power delay profile

and the Doppler spectrum are separable, and is therefore
modelled as a linear finite-impulse response (FIR) filter.

Fig. 8. Tapped-Delay Line for discrete multipath channel.

The output samples of the signal from the multipath

channel y i
are related to the input samples s i by:

gn= ak sinc
k=1

N2

y i=

sin g n

n=N 1

where

gn is the set of tap gains given by:

(6)

where

Ts

the channel.

k
n ,N 1 n N 2
Ts

( )

(7)

is the sampling period of the input signal to

is the path delay of the

ak is the complex path gain for the k

th

k th echo.
echo.

In the absence of a direct line-of-sight component for a

signal, ak is described by a Rayleigh distribution:

pdf Rayl ( ak ) =

ak
a 2k
exp

(
)
2
2 2

(8)

If a direct line-of-sight component exists, the probability

ak is described by a Rice
distribution function of
distribution:

pdf Rice ( a k )=

ak

ak

a k +1

I (
2 0

)exp (
2

)
(9)

The gains of a direct LOS signal and a multipath echo are

shown in Fig. 9, along with the bandlimited channel
response.In addition to weakening the signal, multipath
distorts the correlation function, and thereby the
discriminator output of the receiver.
The shift in the correlation function due to multipath
results in errors in the range-measurement. The ranging error
envelopes are a function of the early-late correlator spacing
(d ) , which is a receiver parameter, and the Multipath to
Direct Ratio (MDR) , which is dependent on the multipath
channel and the environment. The theoretical ranging error
envelope is shown in Figure 10. It is readily apparent that a
smaller correlator spacing
d results in a lowered
multipath ranging error envelope, a feature made use of in
the Narrow Correlator receiver.

where the Rice-factor is c=1/2 2 . The echoes are

frequency-shifted owing to the relative motion between the
satellite and the UAS, resulting in a range of Doppler shifts,
modelled in this paper by the Gaussian Doppler spectrum.

Fig.9. Gains of LOS signal (red) and multipath component (blue), and channel impulse response.

and phases) cannot be directly computed and must be

estimated based on the received multipath-influenced signal.
The delay of the multipath signal distorts the ideal
correlation function of the code-tracking loop in the receiver
as shown in Fig. 11.

Fig. 10. Theoretical ranging error envelope due to multipath.

IV. MULTIPATH DETECTION

The key problem in any multipath detection technique is
that the parameters of the multipath channel (delay, MDR

cov ( dx )=( H H ) H cov ( d ) H (H H )

where H is an n 3 matrix of the unit vectors

from the receiver antenna to the satellites. The resulting
matrix cov ( dx ) is
3 3 , and its diagonal
elements are used to construct accuracy metrics for the
positioning solution. The most commonly used metric is the
distance root mean square (drms) that characterizes the 95 %
horizontal and vertical positioning errors by:

95 horizontal accuracy =2 drms=2 2x + 2y

95 vertical accuracy=2 z

Fig. 11. Distortion of ideal correlation function by multipath echo.

The deviation of the correlation function slopes from that

of the ideal correlation function (perfect triangle) is used to
develop a pseudorange correction factor in a multipath
detection and mitigation technique known as the Early-Late
Slope (ELS) method and/or Multipath Elimination
Technology (MET) [10].The ELS method is used in this
paper as a means of detecting multipath and is embedded in
the ABIA functionalities.

Fig. 12: ELS method ([10]).

Referring to Fig. 12,

y1

and

y2

amplitudes of the early and late correlators.

are the

a1

and

a2 are the slopes of the correlation function on the early

and late sides respectively. The multipath-induced
pseudorange tracking error T in units of chips due to the
presence of multipath is then given by:
T=

[ ( y 1 y 2 ) +d /2(a 1+ a2) ]
(a1 a2 )

The error T
contributes to the bias in pseudorange
measurements d at every epoch. Given n visible
satellites, the covariance in the positioning errors dx can
be shown to be linearly related to the covariance of the
pseudorange errors d by [11]:

x , y , and z are the diagonal elements

cov (dx ) . These estimated accuracy levels are used

where

of
by the ABIA system to raise integrity alerts in low altitude
navigation in this paper.
V.

INTEGRITY FLAG GENERATOR

The modules of the IFG and its outputs are shown in

Figure 13. The assigned integrity thresholds for multipath are
based on multipath channel models, the theoretical ranging
errors they produce, and the probability of multipath
detection using the ELP variable. The multipath channel
model, in turn, relies on models of the navigation
environment and the satellite constellation. Table 2 describes
the thresholds for triggering caution and warning flags for all
error sources that the flag generator is able to detect. The
thresholds for signal attenuation are based on the signal
strength that a given receiver can successfully track. The
thresholds for antenna masking are based on the number of
visible satellites required to compute a position. Thresholds
for aircraft operations in all phases of flight is found in [4, 5].
The key contribution of this research lies in the integrity
thresholds assigned for multipath-induced error.

1.

Steady cruise at 85 m AGL

2.

Steady cruise at 125m AGL

Both trajectories were simulated in an urban canyon

with varying flight parameters to assess the impact of
multipath on the predictive capabilities of ABIA. A
GPS constellation was simulated in MATLAB TM by
using ephemeris data extracted from a YUMA almanac
[12] that can be propagated to give satellite positions in
the Earth-Centred Earth-Fixed (ECEF) coordinate
system. This enables computation and tracking of lineof-sight vectors between satellites and a given vehicle
receiver.

Fig. 23. Integrity Flag Generator modules.

The masking thresholds are based on the minimum

number of satellites required for computing receiver position.
The multipath thresholds are based on the estimated 95%
horizontal and vertical accuracy levels computed at each
epoch. The comparison of these levels against the assigned
HAL and VAL is used to trigger integrity alerts.
V. SIMULATION CASE STUDY
A UAV navigation scenario in an urban
environment as shown in Figure 14 is simulated to
assess the performance of the ABIA system in
generating integrity alerts. The trajectory planning
benefit provided by the multipath module of the ABIA
is assessed for two trajectories.

Fig. 14. Simulated urban navigation scenario.

The measurements of the GNSS receiver mounted

on the vehicle are affected by multipath caused by
reflections from buildings. The multipath introduces
error in the signal measurement and attenuates the
signal(s). The multipath fading phenomena is simulated
using the multipath channel model described in Section
3. The trajectory epochs corresponding to multipath
error envelopes equal to or greater than the assigned
HAL and VAL are determined. The purpose of the
integrity augmentation system is to detect these error
sources and raise alerts to the mission management
system in a timely manner.

TABLE 2 : INTEGRITY ALERT THRESHOLDS

Type of alert
Caution Flag

Error Source
Masking
Multipath
Signal attenuation
Masking
Multipath
Signal attenuation

Thresholds
When number of visible satellites drops to below 5
When 2drms 0.90 min(HAL,VAL)
When C / N 0 drops below 53 dB-Hz
Warning Flag
When number of visible satellites drops to below 4
When 2drms 0.90 min(HAL,VAL)
When C / N 0 drops below 52 dB-Hz
during the trajectory at which ABIA raises masking integrity
alerts(for trajectory 1).
The modelled environment and the UAV geometry is
imported into the MATLABTM environment as shown
in Figure 15.The following integrity augmentation
modules of the system architecture are implemented in
MATLABTM:

Antenna masking module: This module detects

blockage of the line-of-sight vector by objects
in the environment given the object geometry
and locations.
Multipath module: This module provides phase
error, range error and delay due to multipath
using the ray tracing algorithm described in
section 3.

The thresholds for raising alerts are based on the

models of the error sources as described in Section 4.
Fig. 16. Multipath integrity alerts (trajectory 1).
TABLE 3. TIME-STEPS OF MULTIPATH INTEGRITY ALERTS-TRAJECTORY 1.

Multipath Integrity alerts(trajectory-1)

Caution flags

3,8,16~49

Warning Flags

19~30,32~39,41~47

The multipath integrity alerts for trajectory 2 are listed in

Table 4
Fig. 15. Simulation of urban aerial navigation in MATLAB.

The satellite and receiver parameters, and nominal values

of free-space and atmospheric losses are as presented in Table
1.
VI.

RESULTS

The results for integrity alerts in response to GNSS

multipath are presented first. Figure 16 shows the caution and
warning flags raised due to estimated 2 positioning errors
exceeding the HAL and VAL, and Table 3 shows the epochs

TABLE 4. TIME-STEPS OF MULTIPATH INTEGRITY ALERTS-TRAJECTORY 2.

Multipath Integrity alerts(trajectory 2)

Caution flags

1~58

Warning Flags

9~11,23~25,27~42,48~51,55~57
VII.

DISCUSSION

It is readily apparent that trajectory-2 (steady cruise at

125 m AGL) is comparatively favorable in that there are fewer
instances of the 95% accuracy level exceeding the assigned

HAL/VAL thresholds. An instance of a warning flag being

raised without a preceding caution flag occurs in epoch 41 of
trajectory-1. Such an incident is not observed in trajectory 2
with caution flags being annunciated ahead of warning flags.
The Time to Alert for trajectory-2 is 9 seconds (prior to a
warning flag being raised), giving the onboard flight path
module sufficient time to initiate avoidance maneuvers. The
TTA duration was found to be comparable with ABIA system
implemented in [5] for aircraft, where a TTC of at least 2
seconds was achieved. However, it must be noted that
masking and multipath alerts in [5] were restricted to errors
caused by aircraft manoeuvres and multipath from aircraft
fuselage. The dominant multipath contribution in low altitude
urban flights, in contrast, is from reflective surfaces on
buildings, which is what this paper seeks to address.
VIII.

CONCLUSIONS

An Aircraft-Based Integrity Augmentation system for

GNSS-guided UAS in urban environments was presented as a
means of timely detection of GNSS error sources so as to
enable early avoidance or correction. The multipath detection
capabilities of the proposed system are based on detailed
models of GNSS propagation and multipath. The positioning
error due to multipath was analysed and accuracy metrics were
developed to analyse ABIA performance through simulation of
two trajectories in an urban canyon. The capability of ABIA in
predicting lowered GNSS integrity for multiple trajectories was
demonstrated, with a focus on how it can be integrated into
UTM path-planning functionalities. Future research will further
explore the impact of flight parameter variation on positioning
accuracy levels and predictive integrity alerts.
IX.
[1]
[2]

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