Recently, the BeiDou team from the College of Electronic Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), increased the information content in high-precision satellite measurements by introducing antenna jitter, thereby realizing a novel mechanism for eliminating multipath errors. Through theoretical analysis and device architecture design, they achieved, for the first time, multipath error cancellation via minute antenna jitter, making low-cost, high-precision satellite navigation in complex obstructed environments possible. The research findings, entitled "A Multipath Error Cancellation Method Based on Antenna Jitter", were published online on February 7, 2025, in Communications Engineering—the first engineering sub-journal of the internationally renowned journal Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s44172-025-00355-z).
Figure 1. Antenna Jitter Experimental Test Scenario
Research indicates that under a jitter condition of ±6.2 cm at the receiving antenna, multipath errors can be reduced by 73.77%, and single-point positioning accuracy improves from 2.60 m to 0.98 m, effectively suppressing multipath errors. Furthermore, comparative experiments between a stationary high-precision monitoring antenna (costing approximately 50,000 RMB) and a jittering ordinary vehicle-mounted antenna (costing about 7 RMB) reveal that their two-dimensional positioning accuracies are nearly identical (2.03 m vs. 1.77 m), which significantly reduces the cost of high-precision positioning antennas. Moreover, this method is adaptable to various complex obstructed environments and different types of receivers without requiring any modifications to their internal structures, thereby offering new opportunities for high-precision, low-cost positioning in urban areas.
Figure 2. Performance of Antenna Jitter in Suppressing Multipath Errors
Communications Engineering, the first engineering-focused journal under the internationally renowned Nature portfolio, was launched in 2022. Liu Jiyang, a student from National University of Defense Technology, is the first author of this paper, with teacher Wang Feixue, Tang Xiaomei, Wang Sixin, and Yuan Muzi serving as co-authors. National University of Defense Technology is the independent corresponding author affiliation for the paper.
By: Liu Jiyang, Chen Fan