Satellite navigation

GPS, BeiDou, Galileo and the methods that turn their signals into precise positions.

China leads satellite navigation research, with 56.1% of the 10% most cited papers published 2021–2025; the United States is second with 5.5%.

Added 14 October 2026. Its top papers were checked for relevance by AI, but its keywords and topic list have not yet been reviewed by hand.

FirstChina56.1%

SecondUnited States5.5%

10.1×lead, by share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025

Highlight a country

Standings

1CNChina56.1%2USUnited States5.5%3DEGermany3.9%4HKHong Kong3.4%5–6AUAustralia2.2%5–6ITItaly2.2%7CACanada2.0%8–9FIFinland1.8%8–9PLPoland1.7%10FRFrance1.5%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 703 papers. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Year by year

China

Everyone else, on a larger scale

Share of the 10% most cited papers published in each year. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Inside the field

Always the top 10%Pilot

Each paper sorted into one sub-area by an AI model reading its title and abstract, then credited as usual. On 200 hand-labelled papers it chose the same sub-area, or a defensible second, 92% of the time.

Sub-area	Papers	First	Second	Third
GNSS/INS and multi-sensor integrated navigation	128	CNChina71.6%	IRIran3.1%	AUAustralia2.5%
GNSS remote sensing: atmosphere, reflectometry and geodesy	108	CNChina66.0%	USUnited States7.6%	DEGermany3.7%
Urban, smartphone and low-cost GNSS positioning	91	CNChina33.1%	HKHong Kong17.7%	SISlovenia5.5%
Precise point positioning and PPP-RTK services	86	CNChina62.9%	DEGermany5.3%	CACanada5.0%
Jamming, spoofing, integrity and authentication	73	CNChina51.1%	USUnited States8.8%	ITItaly6.2%
Precise orbits, clocks, biases and reference frames	61	CNChina52.6%	DEGermany14.3%	FRFrance6.5%
LEO-satellite navigation and signals of opportunity	44	CNChina43.0%	USUnited States24.8%	FIFinland11.4%
Indoor and terrestrial-signal positioning (UWB, 5G, Wi-Fi)	7	CNChina49.5%	USUnited States17.1%	NLNetherlands14.3%

Share of each sub-area's papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Earlier and recent

The same top 10%, split into 2021–2023 and 2024–2025.

FallingRising2021–20232024–2025Change

CNChina 53.1%59.8%+6.6 pts

USUnited States 6.3%4.7%−1.6 pts

DEGermany 5.0%2.5%−2.5 pts

HKHong Kong 3.2%3.6%+0.4 pts

AUAustralia 2.8%1.6%−1.2 pts

ITItaly 2.5%1.7%−0.9 pts

CACanada 2.4%1.5%−0.9 pts

FIFinland 2.1%1.5%−0.5 pts

Greyed rows rest on fewer than five papers of credit in one period.

Share of the 10% most cited papers: 390 papers in 2021–2023, 313 in 2024–2025. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

2026 so far: a different count

Not the most cited papers: every 2026 paper matched so far (1,431), and a paper counts in full for each country on it. This year's papers are too new to rank by citations, so these shares cannot be compared with the ones above.

CNChina65.7%of 2026 papers have an author here
HKHong Kong4.3%of 2026 papers have an author here
DEGermany4.2%of 2026 papers have an author here
USUnited States3.6%of 2026 papers have an author here
ESSpain2.7%of 2026 papers have an author here

Who cites the top papers

How much more often a country's top papers are cited from home than its size predicts. Expected is the country's share of all papers in the field; the bar is the excess, in percentage points. Home citers include authors citing their own earlier work.

HomeExpectedExcess

CNChina 75.3%59.9%+15.4

USUnited States 21.9%5.4%+16.5

DEGermany 14.0%5.6%+8.4

Based on up to 100 of each country's most cited single-country papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Behind the share

Institutions with the most credit

1CNWuhan University13.8%
2HKHong Kong Polytechnic University3.3%
3CNBeihang University2.3%
4CNNational University of Defense Technology2.1%
5CNChinese Academy of SciencesGovernment lab2.0%
6CNPLA Information Engineering University2.0%
7CNTongji University1.6%
8CNGuilin University of Technology1.5%
9CNHohai University1.4%
10DEDeutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)Research facility1.3%

Share of the top 10%. Institutions across all 45 technologies

Who does the work

Sector	All	CN	US	DE
Universities	82.6%	86.5%	86.2%	40.4%
Research facilities	9.8%	6.8%	4.7%	58.1%
Government labs	5.1%	5.4%	1.6%	0.9%
Companies	1.4%	1.2%	2.7%	0.2%

Share of credit by type of institution, overall and for the three leading countries.

Across borders

26.6% of the top 10% have authors in more than one country.

CNHKChina with Hong Kong26
AUCNAustralia with China23
CNDEChina with Germany18
CNGBChina with United Kingdom16
CNUSChina with United States10

Most frequent pairings, by number of shared papers.

The papers behind the numbers

The five most cited papers this definition catches. If one looks out of place, the definition needs work.

ITRF2020: an augmented reference frame refining the modeling of nonlinear station motions
Journal of Geodesy, 2023FR
298citations
Multi-sensor integrated navigation/positioning systems using data fusion: From analytics-based to learning-based approaches
Information Fusion, 2023CACNEGGB
264citations
Factor graph optimization for GNSS/INS integration: A comparison with the extended Kalman filter
NAVIGATION Journal of the Institute of Navigation, 2021DEHK
261citations
GNSS smartphones positioning: advances, challenges, opportunities, and future perspectives
Satellite Navigation, 2021CA
240citations
Autonomous Vehicle Kinematics and Dynamics Synthesis for Sideslip Angle Estimation Based on Consensus Kalman Filter
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 2022CACN
200citations

How this technology is defined

A paper counts if its title or abstract matches the search below. Articles in core journals and proceedings only; retracted papers are excluded.

"global navigation satellite system" OR GNSS OR BeiDou OR "precise point positioning" OR "satellite navigation" OR "GPS receiver"

and its main topic in OpenAlex is one of: GNSS positioning and interference; Indoor and Outdoor Localization Technologies; Inertial Sensor and Navigation; Antenna Design and Analysis. The topic check removes papers that only mention the technology.

Papers matched, 2021–2025: 7,013
In the top 10%: 703
In the top 1%: 73
Countries with credit: 45
Credit with no known country: 4.6%

Every one of the 900 most cited papers was checked for relevance; 83 were left out as not about satellite navigation

The most cited of those left out:

Indoor navigation: state of the art and future trends272 citations
Exploiting Radio Frequency Characteristics With a Support Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to Improve Wireless Sensor Location Estimation Accuracy127 citations
Cooperative Relative Localization for UAV Swarm in GNSS-Denied Environment: A Coalition Formation Game Approach107 citations
A Survey of 3D Indoor Localization Systems and Technologies106 citations
Indoor Drone Positioning: Accuracy and Cost Trade-Off for Sensor Fusion92 citations
Real-Time Outdoor Localization Using Radio Maps: A Deep Learning Approach88 citations
A Method of Indoor Positioning by Signal Fitting and PDDA Algorithm Using BLE AOA Device85 citations
Inertial Measurement Unit Error Modeling Tutorial: Inertial Navigation System State Estimation with Real-Time Sensor Calibration78 citations
Strapdown Inertial Navigation System Initial Alignment Based on Group of Double Direct Spatial Isometries69 citations
Indoor Positioning System: A Review65 citations
Paving the way with machine learning for seamless indoor–outdoor positioning: A survey63 citations
Improving the Navigation Performance of the MEMS IMU Array by Precise Calibration60 citations

Definition version 0.5, pilot. It is a plain text file: copy it, change it, rerun it.

Read the method