The question is not merely one of location; it is also a matter of temporality
The accuracy of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) correction services is critical for many modern applications, such as self-driving cars, precision agriculture and robotic lawn mowers. These services improve positioning accuracy by taking into account satellite clock and orbit errors, signal bias and the effects of the ionosphere and troposphere. However, different correction service providers may use different reference frames, which can lead to biases between different positioning results for the same location.
The movement of tectonic plates has a significant impact on accurate geolocation. The Earth's surface is not static and geological plates may move a few centimetres per year, and the accumulation of such small movements over time can lead to significant positional changes. For example, the Eiffel Tower has changed position in response to the movement of the Earth's crust since it was built. This plate movement means that even high-precision mapping markers can move with it, affecting the way positions are measured.
The type of reference frame also has a significant impact on GNSS correction services. There are two types of reference frames: fixed calendar element and current calendar element. The fixed epoch reference frame corresponds to the original epoch, while the current epoch reference frame takes into account the current velocity of the tectonic plate. For example, SmartNet (Hexagon) uses ETRF89, which is a fixed epoch reference frame, whereas PointPerfect (u-blox) uses the ‘current epoch’ method, which takes into account the coordinates in the ITRF2014 frame and the movement of the tectonic plate.
The differences between the calibration service providers are as follows.
The differences between calibration service providers are mainly in the reference frames and systems they use. Some local or regional network RTK providers may use a static frame, whereas services covering a wider area may consider plate movement and provide dynamic current calendar element corrections.
Geolocation is not only dependent on spatial coordinates, but is also influenced by the Earth's plate motion and the reference frame chosen. Therefore, when evaluating different GNSS correction services, it is crucial to know the reference frames they use in order to understand the differences between positioning results.