scholarly journals Height Variation Depending on the Source of Antenna Phase Centre Corrections: LEIAR25.R3 Case Study

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (18) ◽  
pp. 4010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Araszkiewicz ◽  
Damian Kiliszek ◽  
Anna Podkowa

In this study, we compared two sets of antenna phase center corrections for groups of the same type of antenna mounted at the continuously operating global navigation satellite system (GNSS) reference stations. The first set involved type mean models provided by the International GNSS Service (release igs08), while the second set involved individual models developed by Geo++. Our goal was to check which set gave better results in the case of height estimation. The paper presents the differences between models and their impact on resulting height. Analyses showed that, in terms of the stability of the determined height, as well as its variability caused by increasing the facade mask, both models gave very similar results. Finally, we present a method for how to estimate the impact of differences in phase center corrections on height changes.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (19) ◽  
pp. 5536
Author(s):  
Andrzej Araszkiewicz ◽  
Damian Kiliszek

Knowledge of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) antenna phase center variations plays a key role in precise positioning. Proper modeling is achieved by accessing antenna phase center corrections, which are determined in the calibration process. For most receiver antenna types, the International GNSS Service provides such corrections for two GPS and GLONASS carrier signals. In the case of Galileo, access to phase center corrections is difficult; only antennas calibrated in the anechoic chambers have available corrections for Galileo frequencies. Hence, in many of the studies, GPS-dedicated corrections are used for these Galileo frequencies. Differential analysis was conducted in this study to evaluate the impact of such change. In total, 25 stations belonging to the EUREF Permanent Network and equipped with individual calibrated antennas were the subject of this research. The results for both the absolute and relative positioning methods are clear: using GPS L2 corrections for Galileo E5a frequency causes a bias in the estimated height of almost 8 mm. For the horizontal component, a significant difference can be noticed for only one type of antenna.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (24) ◽  
pp. 5578
Author(s):  
Fangzhao Zhang ◽  
Jean-Pierre Barriot ◽  
Guochang Xu ◽  
Marania Hopuare

Since Bevis first proposed Global Positioning System (GPS) meteorology in 1992, the precipitable water (PW) estimates retrieved from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) networks with high accuracy have been widely used in many meteorological applications. The proper estimation of GNSS PW can be affected by the GNSS processing strategy as well as the local geographical properties of GNSS sites. To better understand the impact of these factors, we compare PW estimates from two nearby permanent GPS stations (THTI and FAA1) in the tropical Tahiti Island, a basalt shield volcano located in the South Pacific, with a mean slope of 8% and a diameter of 30 km. The altitude difference between the two stations is 86.14 m, and their horizontal distance difference is 2.56 km. In this paper, Bernese GNSS Software Version 5.2 with precise point positioning (PPP) and Vienna mapping function 1 (VMF1) was applied to estimate the zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD), which was compared with the International GNSS Service (IGS) Final products. The meteorological parameters sourced from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the local weighted mean temperature ( T m ) model were used to estimate the GPS PW for three years (May 2016 to April 2019). The results show that the differences of PW between two nearby GPS stations is nearly a constant with value 1.73 mm. In our case, this difference is mainly driven by insolation differences, the difference in altitude and the wind being only second factors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1315
Author(s):  
Shaoming Xin ◽  
Jianghui Geng ◽  
Jiang Guo ◽  
Xiaolin Meng

Rapid precise point positioning ambiguity resolution (PPP-AR) is of great importance to improving precise positioning efficiency. There is an expectation that Galileo multi-frequency (three or more frequencies) data processing will offer a promising way to accelerate PPP-AR. However, the performance of different combination observables out of raw Galileo multi-frequency data is still unclear, and the adverse impacts of missing receiver antenna phase center corrections have not been quantified in detail. We therefore studied uncombined Galileo PPP-AR by contrasting three typical triple-frequency combinations, which are E1/E5a/E5b, E1/E5a/E6, and E1/E5/E6 signals, using 30 days of data from 15 stations across Australia. We carried out triple-frequency PPP-AR by separately applying the official GPS receiver antenna phase centers, as currently employed in most relevant literatures, as well as the pilot Galileo receiver antenna phase centers preliminarily measured by the International GNSS Service. We found that, compared to dual-frequency (E1/E5a) PPP-AR, triple-frequency PPP-AR based on E1/E5a/E5b signals shortened the convergence time by only 7.6%, while those based on E1/E5a/E6 and E1/E5/E6 increased unexpectedly the convergence time by 17.6% and 12.7%, respectively, if the GPS receiver antenna corrections were presumed for Galileo signals. However, after using the pilot Galileo phase center corrections, triple-frequency PPP-AR based on E1/E5a/E5b, E1/E5a/E6, and E1/E5/E6 signals could speed up the convergence on average by about 16.2%, 30.3%, and 17.7%, respectively. Therefore, we demonstrate the critical impact of correct Galileo receiver antenna phase centers on multi-frequency PPP-AR convergences. Moreover, the triple-frequency signal combination E1/E5a/E6 is advantageous over others in achieving rapid triple-frequency Galileo PPP-AR.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril Kobel ◽  
Daniel Arnold ◽  
Adrian Jäggi

<p>Global Navigation Satellite Systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) are a unique tool for deriving very precise orbits of Low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites equipped with onboard GPS receivers. LEO precise orbit determination (POD) requires the proper modeling of antenna phase center variations (PCVs) for both the GPS transmitter and the LEO receiver antennas. While for the GPS antennas the nadir-dependent values from the official absolute antenna phase center model igs14.atx of the International GNSS Service (IGS), consistent with the underlying GPS orbit and clock products, are used, official PCV maps are usually not available for the LEO receiver antennas. If these variations are not considered, however, this may result in systematic errors in the derived LEO orbits. LEO PCV maps can be determined and exploited in different ways. One possibility is to use the PCV maps from ground calibrations provided by the manufacturer, which usually do not reflect, however, the influence of error sources which are additionally encountered in the actual spacecraft environment, e.g., near-field multipath. Alternatively, one can make use of GPS measurements and POD results to estimate the PCV map empirically, as it is done in this study.</p><p>In this study, the influence of different attitude modes on Jason-3 POD using GPS observations and PCV map estimation is investigated. As Jason-3 in an altimetry satellite, its main objective is to measure global sea-level rise. Therefore, it is of particular importance to precisely determine the radial component of the orbit and proper PCV modeling is of high importance. As Jason-3 is experiencing different attitude modes, yaw-steering and fixed-yaw attitude with either the positive or negative x-axis pointing in the direction of flight, PCV maps are expected to be better disentangled from other error sources. In this study, we are analyzing PCV maps determined from residual stacking using GPS data from the different attitude modes and from different orbit parametrizations. First results indicate that PCV maps estimated from time spans of different attitude modes differ and systematic orbit differences are occurring in a reduced-dynamic POD.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rebischung

<p>The International GNSS Service (IGS) recently finalized its third reprocessing campaign (repro3). Ten Analysis Centers (ACs) reanalyzed the history of GPS, GLONASS and Galileo data collected by a global tracking network over the period 1994-2020. Combinations of the daily repro3 AC terrestrial frame solutions constitute the IGS contribution to the next release of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, ITRF2020.</p><p>Compared to the previous IGS reprocessing campaign (repro2), a number of new models and strategies have been implemented in repro3, including the new IERS linear pole model, the new IERS-recommended sub-daily EOP tide model, and rotations of phase center corrections for tracking antennas not oriented North. Besides, a new set of satellite antenna phase center offsets was adopted in repro3, based on the published pre-flight calibrations of the Galileo satellite antennas. As a consequence, the IGS contribution to ITRF2020 provides for the first time an independent Galileo-based realization of the terrestrial scale, instead of being conventionally aligned in scale to the previous ITRF.</p><p>In this presentation, quality metrics from the daily repro3 terrestrial frame combinations are first introduced and compared to those from repro2. The impacts of the newly adopted models are then assessed and discussed. The terrestrial scale realized by the IGS repro3 solutions is in particular confronted to independent estimates from SLR and VLBI. The precision of the IGS repro3 station position time series is finally compared to that of the IGS repro2 series as well as of station position time series from independent groups.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 745
Author(s):  
Ziyang Qu ◽  
Jing Guo ◽  
Qile Zhao

As pre-launch antenna calibrations are not available for GPS and GLONASS satellites, the high correlation between the terrestrial scale and phase center offset (PCO) prevents a reliable estimation of the terrestrial scale with GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) technology. Fortunately, the ground calibrated PCO values for Galileo, BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS), and QZSS have been released, making a reliable estimation of the terrestrial scale with GNSS possible. In the third reprocess (repro3) of International GNSS Service (IGS), the terrestrial scale derived with Galileo, has been used. To evaluate the consistency of the terrestrial scale derived from the BDS-released PCOs as well as Galileo-released ones, and to incorporate BDS into IGS repro3 as well as operational legacy analysis, the phase center variations (PCV) and PCO for BDS medium earth orbit (MEO) and inclined geostationary orbit (IGSO) satellites are estimated to be consistent with GPS/GLONASS antenna offsets in two frames, i.e., IGb14 and IGS R3, considering robot calibrations of the ground receiver antenna models for BDS released by Geo++. We observe that the average offset of Z-PCOs achieves +98.8 mm between BDS official released and the estimated PCOs in IGb14 frame for BDS-3 MEO satellites, whereas the average offset for Z-PCO is about +174.1 mm (about −1.27 ppb at the height of BDS MEO satellites) between the solutions in IGSR3 and IGb14 frame. The phase center solutions are evaluated with orbit boundary disclosures (OBD) as well as the global station coordinates. The orbit consistency benefits from the PCO/PCV estimates, particularly for BDS-2 MEO satellites, of which the 3D RMS (root mean square) OBD is reduced by 50%, whereas 3D OBD achieves about 90.0 mm for BDS-3 MEO satellites. Moreover, the scale bias between BDS-derived station coordinates and IGS legacy solutions in IGb14 frame is reduced from +0.446 ± 0.153 ppb to +0.012 ± 0.112 ppb using PCO/PCV estimates in IGb14, instead of the BDS official released values. Additionally, the residuals of the BDS-derived station heights (after the Helmert transformation) are slightly reduced from 9.65 to 8.62 mm. On the other hand, about +0.226 ± 0.175 ppb is observed between BDS-only coordinate solutions derived from PCO/PCV estimates in IGSR3 frame and the IGS repro3 initial combination. These results demonstrate that the scale inconsistency derived from BDS and Galileo released PCOs is about +1.854 ± 0.191 ppb, and a good consistency of PCO/PCC estimates for BDS in IGb14 and IGSR3 frame with other systems of GPS/ GLONASS antenna offsets is achieved.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Wang ◽  
Qin Zhang ◽  
Guanwen Huang

AbstractThe Fractional Cycle Bias (FCB) product is crucial for the Ambiguity Resolution (AR) in Precise Point Positioning (PPP). Different from the traditional method using the ionospheric-free ambiguity which is formed by the Wide Lane (WL) and Narrow Lane (NL) combinations, the uncombined PPP model is flexible and effective to generate the FCB products. This study presents the FCB estimation method based on the multi-Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) precise satellite orbit and clock corrections from the international GNSS Monitoring and Assessment System (iGMAS) observations using the uncombined PPP model. The dual-frequency raw ambiguities are combined by the integer coefficients (4,− 3) and (1,− 1) to directly estimate the FCBs. The details of FCB estimation are described with the Global Positioning System (GPS), BeiDou-2 Navigation Satellite System (BDS-2) and Galileo Navigation Satellite System (Galileo). For the estimated FCBs, the Root Mean Squares (RMSs) of the posterior residuals are smaller than 0.1 cycles, which indicates a high consistency for the float ambiguities. The stability of the WL FCBs series is better than 0.02 cycles for the three GNSS systems, while the STandard Deviation (STD) of the NL FCBs for BDS-2 is larger than 0.139 cycles. The combined FCBs have better stability than the raw series. With the multi-GNSS FCB products, the PPP AR for GPS/BDS-2/Galileo is demonstrated using the raw observations. For hourly static positioning results, the performance of the PPP AR with the three-system observations is improved by 42.6%, but only 13.1% for kinematic positioning results. The results indicate that precise and reliable positioning can be achieved with the PPP AR of GPS/BDS-2/Galileo, supported by multi-GNSS satellite orbit, clock, and FCB products based on iGMAS.


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