scholarly journals Three Dual-Frequency Precise Point Positioning Models for the Ionospheric Modeling and Satellite Pseudorange Observable-Specific Signal Bias Estimation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5093
Author(s):  
Ke Su ◽  
Shuanggen Jin

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Precise Point Positioning (PPP) enables the estimation the ionospheric vertical total electron content (VTEC) as well as the by-product of the satellite Pseudorange observable-specific signal bias (OSB). The single-frequency PPP models, with the ionosphere-float and ionosphere-free approaches in ionospheric studies, have recently been discussed by the authors. However, the multi-frequency observations can improve the performances of the ionospheric research compared with the single-frequency approaches. This paper presents three dual-frequency PPP approaches using the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) B1I/B3I observations to investigate ionospheric activities. Datasets collected from the globally distributed stations are used to evaluate the performance of the ionospheric modeling with the ionospheric single- and multi-layer mapping functions (MFs), respectively. The characteristics of the estimated ionospheric VTEC and BDS satellite pseudorange OSB are both analyzed. The results indicated that the three dual-frequency PPP models could all be applied to the ionospheric studies, among which the dual-frequency ionosphere-float PPP model exhibits the best performance. The three dual-frequency PPP models all possess the capacity for ionospheric applications in the GNSS community.

GEOMATICA ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 253-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Abd El-Rahman ◽  
Ahmed El-Rabbany

Geodetic-grade dual-frequency GPS receivers are typically used for precise point positioning (PPP). Unfortunately, these receiver systems are expensive and may not provide a cost-effective solution in many instances. The use of low-cost single-frequency GPS receivers, on the other hand, are limited by the effect of ionospheric delay. A number of mitigation techniques have been proposed to account for the effect of ionospheric delay for single-frequency GPS users. Unfortunately, however, those mitigation techniques are not suitable for PPP. More recently, the U.S. Total Electron Content (USTEC) product has been developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which describes the ionospheric total electron content in high resolution over most of North America. This paper investigates the performance of USTEC and studies its effect on single-frequency PPP solution. A performance comparison with two widely-used ionospheric mitigation models is also presented.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Baocheng Zhang ◽  
Chuanbao Zhao ◽  
Robert Odolinski ◽  
Teng Liu

AbstractPrecise Point Positioning (PPP), initially developed for the analysis of the Global Positing System (GPS) data from a large geodetic network, gradually becomes an effective tool for positioning, timing, remote sensing of atmospheric water vapor, and monitoring of Earth’s ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC). The previous studies implicitly assumed that the receiver code biases stay constant over time in formulating the functional model of PPP. In this contribution, it is shown this assumption is not always valid and can lead to the degradation of PPP performance, especially for Slant TEC (STEC) retrieval and timing. For this reason, the PPP functional model is modified by taking into account the time-varying receiver code biases of the two frequencies. It is different from the Modified Carrier-to-Code Leveling (MCCL) method which can only obtain the variations of Receiver Differential Code Biases (RDCBs), i.e., the difference between the two frequencies’ code biases. In the Modified PPP (MPPP) model, the temporal variations of the receiver code biases become estimable and their adverse impacts on PPP parameters, such as ambiguity parameters, receiver clock offsets, and ionospheric delays, are mitigated. This is confirmed by undertaking numerical tests based on the real dual-frequency GPS data from a set of global continuously operating reference stations. The results imply that the variations of receiver code biases exhibit a correlation with the ambient temperature. With the modified functional model, an improvement by 42% to 96% is achieved in the Differences of STEC (DSTEC) compared to the original PPP model with regard to the reference values of those derived from the Geometry-Free (GF) carrier phase observations. The medium and long term (1 × 104 to 1.5 × 104 s) frequency stability of receiver clocks are also significantly improved.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Yibin Yao ◽  
Wenjie Peng ◽  
Lulu Shan ◽  
Yulin He ◽  
...  

The prevalence of real-time, low-cost, single-frequency, decimeter-level positioning has increased with the development of global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). Ionospheric delay accounts for most errors in real-time single-frequency GNSS positioning. To eliminate ionospheric interference in real-time single-frequency precise point positioning (RT-SF-PPP), global ionospheric vertical total electron content (VTEC) product is designed in the next stage of the International GNSS Service (IGS) real-time service (RTS). In this study, real-time generation of a global ionospheric map (GIM) based on IGS RTS is proposed and assessed. There are three crucial steps in the process of generating a real-time global ionospheric map (RTGIM): estimating station differential code bias (DCB) using the precise point positioning (PPP) method, deriving slant total electron content (STEC) from PPP with raw observations, and modeling global vertical total electron content (VTEC). Experiments were carried out to validate the algorithm’s effectiveness. First, one month’s data from 16 globally distributed IGS stations were used to validate the performance of DCB estimation with the PPP method. Second, 30 IGS stations were used to verify the accuracy of static PPP with raw observations. Third, the modeling of residuals was assessed in high and quiet ionospheric activity periods. Afterwards, the quality of RTGIM products was assessed from two aspects: (1) comparison with the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) global ionospheric map (GIM) products and (2) determination of the performance of RT-SF-PPP with the RTGIM. Experimental results show that DCB estimation using the PPP method can realize an average accuracy of 0.2 ns; static PPP with raw observations can achieve an accuracy of 0.7, 1.2, and 2.1 cm in the north, east, and up components, respectively. The average standard deviations (STDs) of the model residuals are 2.07 and 2.17 TEC units (TECU) for moderate and high ionospheric activity periods. Moreover, the average root-mean-square (RMS) error of RTGIM products is 2.4 TECU for the one-month moderate ionospheric period. Nevertheless, for the high ionospheric period, the RMS is greater than the RMS in the moderate period. A sub-meter-level horizontal accuracy and meter-level vertical accuracy can be achieved when the RTGIM is employed in RT-SF-PPP.


2020 ◽  
Vol 196 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Anna Yasyukevich ◽  
Semen Syrovatskii ◽  
Yury Yasyukevich

Based on the data from dual-frequency receivers of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), we analyze the changes in GNSS positioning accuracy during the August 25-26, 2018 strong geomagnetic storm on a global scale. The storm is one of the strongest geomagnetic events of the solar cycle 24. To analyze the positioning quality, we calculated coordinates using the precise point positioning (PPP) method in the kinematic mode. We recorder a significant degradation in the PPP positioning accuracy during the main phase of the storm. The maximum effect is observed in the middle and high latitudes of the US-Atlantic longitude sector. The average PPP error during the storm is shown to exceed ~0.5 m, that is up to 5 times higher than the values typical on quiet days. Areas with increased PPP errors is revealed to correspond to the regions with significant increase in the intensity of total electron content variations of 10–20 min period range. This increase is presumably due to the auroral oval expansion toward middle latitudes.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 2469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Liu ◽  
Honglei Qin ◽  
Li Cong

Multi- system and multi-frequency are two key factors that determine the performance of precise point positioning. Both multi-frequency and multi-system lead to new biases, which are not solved systematically. This paper concentrates on mathematical models of biases, influences of these biases, and positioning performance analysis of different observation models. The biases comprise the inter-frequency clock bias in multi-frequency and the inter-system clock bias in multi-system. The former is the residual differential code biases (DCBs) from receiver clock and satellite clock and usually occurs at the third frequency, the latter is the deviation of the receiver clock errors in different systems. Unified mathematical models of the biases are presented by analyzing the general formula of observation equations. The influences of these biases are validated by experiments with corresponding observation models. Subsequently, the experiments, which are based on the data at five globally distributed stations in Multi-Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Experiment (MGEX) on day of year 100, 2018, assess positioning performance of different observation models with combination of frequencies (dual-frequency or triple- frequency) and systems (BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) or Global Positioning System (GPS)). The results show that the performances of triple-frequency models are almost as the same level as the dual-frequency models. They provide scientific support for the triple-frequency ambiguity-fixed solution which has a better convergence characteristic than dual-frequency ambiguity-fixed solution. Furthermore, the biases are expressed as an unified form that gives an important and valuable reference for future research on multi-frequency and multi-system precise point positioning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omid Memarian Sorkhabi

AbstractOne of the most notable errors in the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is the ionospheric delay due to the total electron content (TEC). TEC is the number of electrons in the ionosphere in the signal path from the satellite to the receiver, which fluctuates with time and location. This error is one of the major problems in single-frequency (SF) GPS receivers. One way to eliminate this error is to use dual-frequency. Users of SF receivers should either use estimation models or local models to reduce this error. In this study, deep learning of artificial neural networks (ANN) was used to estimate TEC for SF users. For this purpose, the ionosphere as a single-layer model (assuming that all free electrons in the ionosphere are in this thin layer) is locally modeled by the code observation method. Linear combination has been used by selecting 24 permanent GNSS stations in the northwest of Iran. TEC was modeled independently of the geometry between the satellite and the receiver, called L4. This modeling was used to train the error ANN with two 5-day periods of high and low solar and geomagnetic activity range with a hyperbolic tangential sigmoid activation function. The results show that the proposed method is capable of eliminating ionosphere error with an average accuracy of 90%. The international reference ionosphere 2016 (IRI2016) is used for the verification, which has a 96% significance correlation with estimated TEC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 3973
Author(s):  
Artem M. Padokhin ◽  
Anna A. Mylnikova ◽  
Yury V. Yasyukevich ◽  
Yury V. Morozov ◽  
Gregory A. Kurbatov ◽  
...  

Global navigation satellite system signals are known to be an efficient tool to monitor the Earth ionosphere. We suggest Galileo E5 AltBOC phase and pseudorange observables— a single-frequency combination—to estimate the ionospheric total electron content (TEC). We performed a one-month campaign in September 2020 to compare the noise level for different TEC estimations based on single-frequency and dual-frequency data. Unlike GPS, GLONASS, or Galileo E5a and E5b single-frequency TEC estimations (involving signals with binary and quadrature phase-shift keying, such as BPSK and QPSK, or binary offset carrier (BOC) modulation), an extra wideband Galileo E5 AltBOC signal provided the smallest noise level, comparable to that of dual-frequency GPS. For elevation higher than 60 degrees, the 100-sec root-mean-square (RMS) of TEC, an estimated TEC noise proxy, was as follows for different signals: ~0.05 TECU for Galileo E5 AltBOC, 0.09 TECU for GPS L5, ~0.1TECU for Galileo E5a/E5b BPSK, and 0.85 TECU for Galileo E1 CBOC. Dual-frequency phase combinations provided RMS values of 0.03 TECU for Galileo E1/E5, 0.03 and 0.07 TECU for GPS L1/L2 and L1/L5. At low elevations, E5 AltBOC provided at least twice less single-frequency TEC noise as compared with data obtained from E5a or E5b. The short dataset of our study could limit the obtained estimates; however, we expect that the AltBOC single-frequency TEC will still surpass the BPSK analogue in noise parameters when the solar cycle evolves and geomagnetic activity increases. Therefore, AltBOC signals could advance geoscience.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 691
Author(s):  
Haris Haralambous ◽  
Theodoros Leontiou ◽  
Vasilis Petrou ◽  
Arun Kumar Singh ◽  
Marios Charalambides ◽  
...  

The objective of this article is to present a concept for single-frequency Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning local ionospheric mitigation over a certain area. This concept is based on input parameters driving the NeQuick-G algorithm (the ionospheric single-frequency GNSS correction algorithm adopted by Galileo GNSS system), estimated on a local as opposed to a global scale, from ionospheric characteristics measured by a digital ionosonde and a collocated dual-frequency Total Electron Content (TEC) monitor. This approach facilitates the local adjustment of Committee Consultative for Ionospheric Radiowave propagation (CCIR) files and the Az ionization level, which control the ionospheric electron density profile in NeQuick-G, therefore enabling better estimation of positioning errors under quiet geomagnetic conditions. This novel concept for local ionospheric positioning error mitigation may be adopted at any location where ionospheric characteristics foF2 and M(3000)F2 can be measured, as a means to enhance the accuracy of single-frequency positioning applications based on the NeQuick-G algorithm.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehsan Forootan ◽  
Mona Kosary ◽  
Saeed Farzaneh ◽  
Maike Schumacher

<p>The development of space-geodetic observation techniques has brought out a wide range of applications such as positioning and navigation, where the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is the main tools to provide surveying measurements in these applications. Though GNSS signals enable the calculation of receiver's position, some errors restrict their accuracy. Among these errors, the ionospheric delay is considered as an important error source in the Standard Point Positioning (SPP) applications. Empirical ionospheric models such as Klobuchar, International Reference Ionosphere (IRI), and NeQuick are often applied for computing the Total Electron Content (TEC) within ionosphere and its equivalent delays. However the simulation and forecasting skills of these models are limited due to the simplified model structures and model sensitivity to the calibration period. In this study, we present a novel sequential Calibration approach based on the Ensemble Kalman Filter (C-EnKF) to improve the performance of TEC estimations for SPP applications. To demonstrate the results, the IRI model is used as our basis and the TEC estimates from 56 IGS stations in Europe are applied as observation. The C-EnKF is applied to calibrate some selected model parameter so that IRI can be tuned over Europe. The numerical assessments are performed against the TEC estimates from dual frequency GNSS measurements and against the final IONEX products (that are available with 11 days delays). Based on the forecasting results (during September 2017), we show that the accuracy of TEC estimates from the C-EnKF is improved in the range of 3.7-64.87% compared to IRI. <strong>Keywords: </strong>Ionosphere, Sequential Calibration, Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF), IRI, Total Electron Content (TEC), Standard Point Positioning (SPP), GNSS</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sampad K. Panda ◽  
Shirish S. Gedam

AbstractThe present paper investigates accuracy of single and dual-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) standard point positioning solutions employing different ionosphere error mitigation techniques. The total electron content (TEC) in the ionosphere is the prominent delay error source in GPS positioning, and its elimination is essential for obtaining a relatively precise positioning solution. The estimated delay error from different ionosphere models and maps, such as Klobuchar model, global ionosphere models, and vertical TEC maps are compared with the locally derived ionosphere error following the ion density and frequency dependence with delay error. Finally, the positional accuracy of the single and dual-frequency GPS point positioning solutions are probed through different ionospheric mitigation methods including exploitation of models, maps, and ionosphere-free linear combinations and removal of higher order ionospheric effects. The results suggest the superiority of global ionosphere maps for single-frequency solution, whereas for the dual-frequency measurement the ionosphere-free linear combination with prior removal of higher-order ionosphere effects from global ionosphere maps and geomagnetic reference fields resulted in improved positioning quality among the chosen mitigation techniques. Conspicuously, the susceptibility of height component to different ionospheric mitigation methods are demonstrated in this study which may assist the users in selecting appropriate technique for precise GPS positioning measurements.


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