Assessment of geodetic products from Multi-GNSS analyses at the Onsala site

Author(s):  
Periklis-Konstantinos Diamantidis ◽  
Grzegorz Kłopotek ◽  
Rüdiger Haas ◽  
Jan Johansson

<p>The dawn of Beidou and Galileo as operational Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) alongside Global Positioning System (GPS) and GLONASS as well as new features that are now present in all GNSS, such as a triple-frequency setup, create new possibilities concerning improved estimation and assessment of various geodetic products. In particular, the multi-GNSS analysis gives an access to a better sky coverage allowing for improved estimation of zenith wet delays (ZWD) and tropospheric gradients (GRD), and can be used to determine integer phase ambiguities. The Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX), as realised by the International GNSS Service (IGS), provides orbit, clock and observation data for all operational GNSS. To take advantage of the new capabilities that these constellations bring, space-geodetic software packages have been retrofitted with Multi-GNSS-compliant modules. Based on this, two software packages, namely GipsyX and c5++, are utilised by way of the static Precise Point Positioning (PPP) approach using six months of data, and an assessment of the derived geodetic products is carried out for several GNSS receivers located at the Onsala core site. More specifically, we perform both single-constellation and multi-GNSS data analysis using Kalman filter and least-squares methods and assess the quality of the derived station positions, ZWD and GRD. A combined solution using all GNSS constellations is carried out and the improvement with respect to station position repeatabilities is assessed for each station. Results from the two software packages are compared with respect to each other and the discrepancies are discussed. Inter-system biases, which homogenise the different time scale that each GNSS operates in, and are necessary for the multi-GNSS combination, are estimated and presented. Finally, the applied inter-system weighting and its impact on the derived geodetic products are discussed.</p>

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Periklis-Konstantinos Diamantidis ◽  
Grzegorz Klopotek ◽  
Rüdiger Haas

<div>The emergence of BeiDou and Galileo as operational Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), in addition to Global Positioning System (GPS) and GLONASS which are already in use, opens up possibilities in delivering geodetic products with higher precision. Apart from ensuring the homogeneity of the derived products, multi-GNSS analysis takes the advantage of new frequencies and an improved sky coverage. This should lead to better phase ambiguity resolution and an improved estimation of target parameters such as zenith wet delays (ZWD), troposphere gradients (GRD) and station positions. The International GNSS Service (IGS) has realised this potential by initiating the Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) which provides orbit, clock and observation data for all operational GNSS. Correspondingly, the multi-technique space geodetic analysis software c5++ has been augmented with a MGEX-compliant GNSS module. Based on this new module and the Precise Point Positioning (PPP) approach using six-month of data, an assessment of the derived geodetic products is carried out for several GNSS receivers located at the Onsala core site. More specifically, we perform both single- and multi-GNSS data analysis using Kalman filter and least-squares methods and assess the quality of the derived station positions, ZWD and GRD. A combined solution using all GNSS together is carried out and the improvement with respect to station position repeatabilities is assessed for each station. Inter-system biases, which homogenise the different time scale that each GNSS operates in and are necessary for the multi-GNSS combination, are estimated and presented. Finally, the applied inter-system weighting is discussed as well as its impact on the derived geodetic products.</div>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Miglio ◽  
Carine Bruyninx ◽  
Andras Fabian ◽  
Juliette Legrand ◽  
Eric Pottiaux ◽  
...  

<p>Nowadays, we measure positions on Earth’s surface thanks to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) e.g. GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo. Activities such as navigation, mapping, and surveying rely on permanent GNSS tracking stations located all over the world.<br>The Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) maintains and operates a repository containing data from hundreds of GNSS stations belonging to the European GNSS networks (e.g. EUREF, Bruyninx et al., 2019). </p><p>ROB’s repository contains GNSS data that are openly available and rigorously curated. The curation data include detailed GNSS station descriptions (e.g. location, pictures, and data author) as well as quality indicators of the GNSS observations.</p><p>However, funders and research policy makers are progressively asking for data to be made <em>Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR)</em> and therefore to increase data transparency, discoverability, interoperability, and accessibility.</p><p>In particular, within the GNSS community, there is no shared agreement yet on the need for making data <em>FAIR</em>. Therefore, turning GNSS data <em>FAIR</em> presents many challenges and, although <em>FAIR</em> data has been included in EUREF’s strategic plan, no practical roadmap has been implemented so far. We will illustrate the specific difficulties and the need for an open discussion including also other communities working on <em>FAIR</em> data.</p><p>For example, making GNSS data easily <em>findable</em> and <em>accessibl</em>e would require to attribute persistent identifiers to the data. It is worth noting that the International GNSS Service (IGS) is only now beginning to consider the attribution of DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to GNSS data, mainly to allow data citation and acknowledgement of data providers. Some individual GNSS data repositories are using DOIs (such as UNAVCO, USA).  Are DOIs the only available option or are there more suitable types of URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) to consider?</p><p>The GNSS community would greatly benefit from <em>FAIR</em> data practices, as at present, (almost) no licenses have been attributed to GNSS data, data duplication is still an issue, historical provenance information is not available because of data manipulations in data centres, citation of the data providers is far from the rule, etc.</p><p>To move further along the path towards <em>FAIR</em> GNSS data, one would need to implement standardised metadata models to ensure data <em>interoperability</em>, but, as several metadata standards are already in use in various scientific disciplines, which one to choose?</p><p>Then, to facilitate the <em>reuse</em> (and long-term preservation) of GNSS data, all metadata should be properly linked to the corresponding data and additional metadata, such as provenance and license information. The latter is a good example up for discussion: despite the fact that ‘CC BY’ license is already assigned to some of the GNSS data, other licenses might need to be enabled.</p><p> </p><p>Bruyninx C., Legrand J., Fabian A., Pottiaux E. (2019) “GNSS Metadata and Data Validation in the EUREF Permanent Network”. GPS Sol., 23(4), https://doi: 10.1007/s10291-019-0880-9           </p>


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1768
Author(s):  
Chris Danezis ◽  
Miltiadis Chatzinikos ◽  
Christopher Kotsakis

Permanent Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) reference stations are well established as a powerful tool for the estimation of deformation induced by man-made or physical processes. GNSS sensors are successfully used to determine positions and velocities over a specified time period, with unprecedented accuracy, promoting research in many safety-critical areas, such as geophysics and geo-tectonics, tackling problems that torment traditional equipment and providing deformation products with absolute accuracy. Cyprus, being located at the Mediterranean fault, exhibits a very interesting geodynamic regime, which has yet to be investigated thoroughly. Accordingly, this research revolves around the estimation of crustal deformation in Cyprus using GNSS receivers. CYPOS (CYprus POsitioning System), a network of seven permanent GNSS stations has been operating since 2008, under the responsibility of the Department of Lands and Surveys. The continuous flow of positioning data collected over this network, offers the required information to investigate the behavior of the crustal deformation field of Cyprus using GNSS sensors for the first time. This paper presents the results of a multi-year analysis (11/2011–01/2017) of daily GNSS data and provides inferences of linear and nonlinear deforming signals into the position time series of the network stations. Specifically, 3D station velocities and seasonal periodic displacements are jointly estimated and presented via a data stacking approach with respect to the IGb08 reference frame.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Li ◽  
Baocheng Zhang ◽  
Xiao Zhang

<p>When sensing the Earth’s ionosphere using pseudorange observations of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), the satellite and receiver Differential Code Biases (DCBs) account for one of the main sources of error. For the sake of convenience, Receiver DCBs (DCBs) are commonly assumed as constants over a period of one day in the traditional carrier-to-code leveling (CCL) method. Thus, remarkable intraday variability in the receiver DCBs have been ignored in the commonly-used assumption and may seriously restrict the accuracy of ionospheric observable retrieval. The Modified CCL (MCCL) method can eliminate the adverse impact of the short-term variations of RDCBs on the retrieval of ionospheric TEC. With the rapid development of the GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou systems, there is a strong demand of precise ionospheric TEC products for multiple constellations and frequencies. Considering the existed MCCL method can only be used for dual-frequency GNSS data, in this study, we extend the two-frequency MCCL method to the multi-frequency and multi-GNSS case and further carry out a series of investigations. In our proposed method, a newly full-rank multi-frequency (more than triple frequency) model with raw observations are established to synchronously estimate both the slant ionospheric delays and the RCB offset with respect to the reference epoch at each individual frequency. Based on the test results, compared to the traditional CCL-method, the accuracy of the ionospheric TEC retrieved using our proposed method can be improved from 5.12 TECu to 0.95 TECu in the case that significant short-term variations existed in receiver DCBs. In addition, the between-epoch fluctuations experienced by receiver code biases at all frequencies tracked by a single receiver can be detected by our the proposed method, and the dependence of multi-GNSS and multi-frequency RDCB offsets upon ambient temperature further are verified in this study. Compared to Galileo system, the RDCB in BDS show higher correlation with temperature. We also found that the RDCB at different frequencies of the same system show various characteristics.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teng Liu ◽  
Baocheng Zhang ◽  
Yunbin Yuan ◽  
Xiao Zhang

<p>The ionospheric delay accounts for one of the major errors that the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) suffer from. Hence, the ionosphere Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) map has been an important atmospheric product within the International GNSS Service (IGS) since its early establishment. In this contribution, an enhanced method has been proposed for the modeling of the ionosphere VTECs. Firstly, to cope with the rapid development of the newly-established Galileo and BeiDou constellations in recent years, we extend the current dual-system (GPS/GLONASS) solution to a quad-system (GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou) solution. More importantly, instead of using dual-frequency observations based on the Carrier-to-Code Leveling (CCL) method, all available triple-frequency signals are utilized with a general raw-observation-based multi-frequency Precise Point Positioning (PPP) model, which can process dual-, triple- or even arbitrary-frequency observations compatibly and flexibly. Benefiting from this, quad-system slant ionospheric delays can be retrieved based on multi-frequency observations in a more flexible, accurate and reliable way. The PPP model has been applied in both post-processing global and real-time regional VTEC modeling. Results indicate that with the improved slant ionospheric delays, the corresponding VTEC models are also improved, comparing with the traditional CCL method.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yannick Béniguel ◽  
Iurii Cherniak ◽  
Alberto Garcia-Rigo ◽  
Pierrick Hamel ◽  
Manuel Hernández-Pajares ◽  
...  

Abstract. The ESA MONITOR network is composed of high-frequency-sampling global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) receivers deployed mainly at low and high latitudes to study ionosphere variability and jointly with global GNSS data and ionospheric processing software in support of the GNSS and its satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS) like the European EGNOS. In a recent phase of the project, the network was merged with the CNES/ASECNA network and new receivers were added to complement the latter in the western African sector. This paper summarizes MONITOR, presenting two case studies on scintillations (using almost 2 years of data measurements). The first case occurred during the major St. Patrick's Day geomagnetic storm in 2015. The second case study was performed in the last phase of the project, which was supported by ESA EGNOS Project Office, when we paid special attention to extreme events that might degrade the system performance of the European EGNOS.


2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-258
Author(s):  
Selma Zengin Kazancı ◽  
Emine Tanır Kayıkçı

Abstract In recent years, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have gained great importance in terms of the benefi ts it provides such as precise geodetic point positioning, determining crustal deformations, navigation, vehicle monitoring systems and meteorological applications etc. As in Turkey, for this purpose, each country has set up its own GNSS station networks like Turkish National Permanent RTK Network analyzed precise station coordinates and velocities together with the International GNSS Service, Turkish National Fundamental GPS Network and Turkish National Permanent GNSS Network (TNPGN) stations not only are utilized as precise positioning but also GNSS meteorology studies so total number of stations are increased. This work is related to the reactivated of the TRAB IGS station which was established in Karadeniz Technical University, Department of Geomatics Engineering. Within the COST ES1206 Action (GNSS4SWEC) KTU analysis center was established and Trop-NET system developed by Geodetic Observatory Pecny (GOP, RIGTC) in order to troposphere monitoring. The project titled “Using Regional GNSS Networks to Strengthen Severe Weather Prediction” was accepted to the scientifi c and technological research council of Turkey (TUBITAK). With this project, we will design 2 new constructed GNSS reference station network. Using observation data of network, we will compare water vapor distribution derived by GNSS Meteorology and GNSS Tomography. At this time, KTU AC was accepted as E-GVAP Analysis Centre in December 2016. KTU reference station is aimed to be a member of the EUREF network with these studies.


Author(s):  
Jasmien Hassanien

Abstract: Recently, tremendous research has been conducted on Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) software receivers to better serve the current challenging environments that suffers from multipath fading. Therefore, the development of GNSS receivers has seen a new rush toward a multi-GNSS as a solution for fading problems. In this paper, a multi-GNSS software receiver is designed, optimized, and its performance is presented. The implemented software receiver covers three different signals from two GNSS constellations, namely GPS L1, GPS L2, and Galileo E1. In this paper. the fundamentals of stages of GNSS signal reception (acquisition, tracking, and navigation) are discussed where each stage is customized and optimized for each considered signal and the stage of mutli-GNSS data combination is optimized afterword. The performance of the optimized multi-GNSS software receiver is examined under different combination scenarios where the Least-Square Estimation (LSE) method using precise positioning (PP) algorithms is adopted. Results showed that using multi-GNSS receiver enhances the accuracy of Position, Velocity, and Timing (PVT) solution. Keywords: GNSS, PVT, GPS, Galileo, and accuracy


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Li ◽  
Xingxing Li ◽  
Fujian Ma ◽  
Yongqiang Yuan ◽  
Keke Zhang ◽  
...  

The fusion of low earth orbit (LEO) constellation and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) can increase the number of visible satellites and optimize spatial geometry, which is expected to improve the performance of precise point positioning (PPP) ambiguity resolution (AR). In addition, the multi-frequency signals of LEO satellites can bring a variety of observation combinations, which is potential to further improve the efficiency of PPP AR. In this contribution, multi-frequency PPP AR was achieved with the augmentation of different LEO constellations. Three types of LEO constellations were designed with 60, 192, and 288 satellites. Moreover, the corresponding observation data were simulated with the GNSS observations over the ground stations. The LEO constellations were designed to transmit navigation signals on three frequencies: L1, L2, and L5 at 1575.42, 1227.6, and 1176.45 MHz, respectively, which are consistent with the GPS signals. For PPP AR, the uncalibrated phase delay (UPD) products of GNSS and LEO were estimated first. Furthermore, the quality of UPD products was also analyzed. The research findings show that the performance of estimated LEO UPD is comparable to that of GNSS UPD. Based on the UPD products, LEO-augmented multi-GNSS PPP AR can be achieved. Numerous results show that the performance of single-system and multi-GNSS PPP AR can be significantly improved by introducing the LEO constellations. The augmentation performance is more remarkable in the case of increasing LEO satellites. The time to first fix (TTFF) of the GREC fixed solution can be shortened from 7.1 to 4.8, 1.1, and 0.7 min, by introducing observations of 60-, 192-, and 288-LEO constellations, respectively. The positioning accuracy of multi-GNSS fixed solutions is also improved by about 60%, 80%, and 90% with the augmentation of 60-, 192-, and 288-LEO constellations, respectively. Compared to the dual-frequency solutions, the triple-frequency LEO-augmented PPP fixed solution presents a better performance. The TTFF of GREC fixed solutions is shortened to 33 s with the augmentation of 288-LEO constellation under the triple-frequency environment. It is worth indicating that the 288-satellite LEO-only PPP AR was conducted in dual-frequency and triple-frequency modes, respectively. The averaged TTFFs of both modes are 71.8 s and 55.2 s, respectively. It indicates that LEO constellation with 288 satellites is capable of achieving high-precision positioning independently and shows an even better performance than GNSS-only solutions.


GEOMATICA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Bond

The Nova Scotia Coordinate Referencing System (NSCRS) is Nova Scotia's current framework for providing location-based information. The NSCRS is the foundation for the province's geographic data, includ ing the land administration system. In 2012, the province began developing a modernization strategy to better execute its coordinate referencing program to address ongoing accuracy and accessibility needs. A net work of active control stations (ACSs) tracking global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) is at the core of the new strategy. In addition to providing better accuracy and accessibility to the NSCRS, the tech nol ogy has created new opportunities to sustain its passive control infrastructure. In 2015, the installation of 40 ACSs across the province was completed, providing industry with access to real-time, centimetre-level positioning. Over the course of the NSCRS modernization project, several tech nical considerations needed to be addressed pertaining to the design of the network, location of the ACSs, flow of the ACS data and the crowd sourcing of GNSS observation data to maintain the passive con trol sys tem. These technical considerations are reviewed and the solutions implemented to address the needs of this initiative are presented.


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