A system consisting of a base GPS receiver with a clear view of the sky,
one or more remote GPS receivers with restricted views of the sky and a
processing center that batch processes range information provided by the
GPS receivers determines the positions of the remote GPS receivers to
within tight tolerances. The base GPS receiver and the remote GPS
receivers produce range information based on the satellite signals that
the respective receivers can track at a given time, and provide the range
information to the processing center. The range information includes both
code and carrier measurements for each of the signals that are being
tracked by the respective GPS receivers. The center collects the range
information over an extended period of time, for example, hours, days or
weeks, and then batch processes the collected information in multiple
passes through the data, to calculate the precise latitude, longitude and
height of the receiver. The center batch processes the data using a
floating ambiguity filter that, after a first pass through the data, is
initialized with the position calculated in an earlier pass. The center
also calculates the quality of the collected range information by fixing
the position and position covariance of the floating ambiguity filter and
using double differences with the base GPS receiver measurements, to
ensure that the information used in subsequent position calculations is
sufficiently reliable.