Dual Band GNSS Antenna Phase Center Characterization for Automotive Applications

High-accuracy Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning is a prospective technology that will be used in future automotive navigation systems. This system will be a composite of the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), the Russian Federation's Global Orbiting Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), China Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and the European Union’s Galileo. The major improvement in accuracy and precision is based on (1) multiband signal transmitting, (2) carrier phase correction, (3) Real Time Kinematic (RTK). Due to the size and high-cost of today’s survey-grade antenna solutions, this kind of technology is difficult to use widely in the automotive sector. In this paper, a low-cost small size dual-band ceramic GNSS patch antenna is presented from design to real sample. A further study of this patch antenna illustrates the absolute phase center variation measured in an indoor range to achieve a received signal phase error correction. In addition, this low-cost antenna solution is investigated when integrated into a standard multi-band automotive antenna product. This product is evaluated both on its own in an indoor range and on a typical vehicle roof at an outdoor range. By using this evaluation file to estimate the receiver position could achieve phase motion error-free result.

Relativistic Effects on Satellite–Ground Two–Way Precise Time Synchronization

An ultrahigh precise clock (space optical clock) will be installed onboard a low-orbit spacecraft (a usual expression for a low-orbit satellite operating on an orbit at an altitude of less than 1000 km) in the future, which will be expected to obtain better time-frequency performance in a microgravity environment, and provide the possible realization of ultrahigh precise long-range time synchronization. The advancement of the microwave two-way time synchronization method can offer an effective solution for developing time-frequency transfer technology. In this study, we focus on a method of precise satellite-ground two-way time synchronization and present their key aspects. For reducing the relativistic effects on two-way precise time synchronization, we propose a high-precision correction method. We show the results of tests using simulated data with fully realistic effects such as atmospheric delays, orbit errors, and earth gravity, and demonstrate the satisfactory performance of the methods. The accuracy of the relativistic error correction method is investigated in terms of the spacecraft attitude error, phase center calibration error (the residual error after calibrating phase center offset), and precise orbit determination (POD) error. The results show that the phase center calibration error and POD error contribute greatly to the residual of relativistic correction, at approximately 0.1~0.3 ps, and time synchronization accuracy better than 0.6 ps can be achieved with our proposed methods. In conclusion, the relativistic error correction method is effective, and the satellite-ground two-way precise time synchronization method yields more accurate results. The results of Beidou two-way time synchronization system can only achieve sub-ns accuracy, while the final accuracy obtained by the methods in this paper can improved to ps-level.