scholarly journals Evaluation of Ionospheric Delay Effects on Multi-GNSS Positioning Performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ke Su ◽  
Shuanggen Jin ◽  
M. Hoque

Ionospheric delay is a significant error source in multi-GNSS positioning. We present different processing strategies to fully exploit the ionospheric delay effects on multi-frequency and multi-GNSS positioning performance, including standard point positioning (SPP) and precise point positioning (PPP) scenarios. Datasets collected from 10 stations over thirty consecutive days provided by multi-GNSS experiment (MGEX) stations were used for single-frequency SPP/PPP and dual-frequency PPP tests with quad-constellation signals. The experimental results show that for single-frequency SPP, the Global Ionosphere Maps (GIMs) correction achieves the best accuracy, and the accuracy of the Neustrelitz TEC model (NTCM) solution is better than that of the broadcast ionospheric model (BIM) in the E and U components. Eliminating ionospheric parameters by observation combination is equivalent to estimating the parameters in PPP. Compared with the single-frequency uncombined (UC) approach, the average convergence time of PPP with the external ionospheric models is reduced. The improvement in BIM-, NTCM- and GIM-constrained quad-constellation L2 single-frequency PPP was 15.2%, 24.8% and 28.6%, respectively. The improvement in convergence time of dual-frequency PPP with ionospheric models was different for different constellations and the GLONASS-only solution showed the least improvement. The improvement in the convergence time of BIM-, NTCM- and GIM-constrained quad-constellation L1/L2 dual-frequency PPP was 5.2%, 6.2% and 8.5%, respectively, compared with the UC solution. The positioning accuracy of PPP is slightly better with the ionosphere constraint and the performance of the GIM-constrained PPP is the best. The combination of multi-GNSS can effectively improve the positioning performance.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiping Liu ◽  
Bo Jiao ◽  
Jinming Hao ◽  
Zhiwei Lv ◽  
Jiantao Xie ◽  
...  

Abstract Being the first mixed-constellation global navigation system, the global BeiDou navigation system (BDS-3) designs new signals, the service performance of which has attracted extensive attention. In the present study, the Signal-in-space range error (SISRE) computation method for different types of navigation satellites was presented. And the differential code bias (DCB) correction method for BDS-3 new signals was deduced. Based on these, analysis and evaluation were done by adopting the actual measured data after the official launching of BDS-3. The results showed that BDS-3 performed better than the regional navigation satellite system (BDS-2) in terms of SISRE. Specifically, the SISRE of the BDS-3 medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites reached 0.52 m, slightly inferior compared to 0.4 m from Galileo, marginally better than 0.57 m from GPS, and significantly better than 2.33 m from GLONASS. And the BDS-3 inclined geostationary orbit (IGSO) satellites achieved the SISRE of 0.90 m, on par with that of the QZSS IGSO satellites. However, the average SISRE of BDS-3 geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellites was 1.15 m, which was marginally inferior to that of the QZSS GEO satellite (0.91m). In terms of positioning accuracy, the overall three-dimensional single-frequency standard point positioning (SPP) accuracy of BDS-3 B1C, B2a, B1I, and B3I gained an accuracy level better than 5 m. Moreover, the B1I signal exhibited the best positioning accuracy in the Asian-Pacific region, while the B1C signal set forth the best positioning accuracy in the other regions. Owing to the advantage in signal frequency, the dual-frequency SPP accuracy of B1C+B2a surpassed that of the transitional signal of B1I+B3I. Since there are more visible satellites in Asia-Pacific, the positioning accuracy of BDS-3 was moderately superior to that of GPS. The precise point positioning (PPP) accuracy of BDS-3 B1C+B2a or B1I+B3I converged to the order of centimeters, marginally inferior to that of the GPS L1+L2. However, these three combinations had a similar convergence time of approximately 30 minutes.


GPS Solutions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrià Rovira-Garcia ◽  
Deimos Ibáñez-Segura ◽  
Raul Orús-Perez ◽  
José Miguel Juan ◽  
Jaume Sanz ◽  
...  

Abstract Single-frequency users of the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) must correct for the ionospheric delay. These corrections are available from global ionospheric models (GIMs). Therefore, the accuracy of the GIM is important because the unmodeled or incorrectly part of ionospheric delay contributes to the positioning error of GNSS-based positioning. However, the positioning error of receivers located at known coordinates can be used to infer the accuracy of GIMs in a simple manner. This is why assessment of GIMs by means of the position domain is often used as an alternative to assessments in the ionospheric delay domain. The latter method requires accurate reference ionospheric values obtained from a network solution and complex geodetic modeling. However, evaluations using the positioning error method present several difficulties, as evidenced in recent works, that can lead to inconsistent results compared to the tests using the ionospheric delay domain. We analyze the reasons why such inconsistencies occur, applying both methodologies. We have computed the position of 34 permanent stations for the entire year of 2014 within the last Solar Maximum. The positioning tests have been done using code pseudoranges and carrier-phase leveled (CCL) measurements. We identify the error sources that make it difficult to distinguish the part of the positioning error that is attributable to the ionospheric correction: the measurement noise, pseudorange multipath, evaluation metric, and outliers. Once these error sources are considered, we obtain equivalent results to those found in the ionospheric delay domain assessments. Accurate GIMs can provide single-frequency navigation positioning at the decimeter level using CCL measurements and better positions than those obtained using the dual-frequency ionospheric-free combination of pseudoranges. Finally, some recommendations are provided for further studies of ionospheric models using the position domain method.


GEOMATICA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Abd Rabbou ◽  
Ahmed El-Rabbany

Single-frequency precise point positioning (PPP) presents a cost-effective positioning technique for a large number of users. However, it possesses low positioning accuracy and convergence time compared with the dual-frequency PPP. Single-frequency PPP commonly employs GPS satellite systems that suffer from poor satellite geometry, especially in dense urban areas. We develop a new single-frequency PPP model that combines the observations of current GNSS constellations, including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou. The MGEX IGS final precise products are utilized to account for the orbital and clock errors, while the IGS final global ionospheric maps (GIM) model is used to correct for the ionospheric delay. The GNSS inter-system biases are treated as additional unknowns in the estimation process. The con tri bution of the additional GNSS observations to single-frequency PPP is assessed through solution comparison with its traditional GPS-only counterpart. Various GNSS combinations are considered in the assessment, including GPS/GLONASS, GPS/Galileo, GPS/BeiDou and all-constellation GNSS. It is shown that the additional GNSS observations enhance the PPP solution accuracy and convergence time in comparison with the tra di tional GPS-only solution. Except for stations with a sufficient number of tracked BeiDou satellites, both Galileo and BeiDou have marginal effects on the positioning accuracy due to their limited number of satel lites. However, for stations with a sufficient number of visible BeiDou satellites, an average of 40% PPP accuracy improvement is obtained. The major contribution to the PPP accuracy enhancement is obtained from GLONASS satellite observations.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2845
Author(s):  
Janina Boisits ◽  
Marcus Glaner ◽  
Robert Weber

Propagation delays of GNSS signals caused by the ionosphere can range up to several meters in zenith direction and need to be corrected. Geodetic receivers observing at two or more frequencies allow the mitigation of the ionospheric effects by forming linear combinations. However, single frequency users depend on external information. The ionosphere delay model Regiomontan developed at TU Wien is a regional ionospheric delay model providing high accuracy information with a latency of only a few hours. The model is based on dual-frequency phase observations of a regional network operated by EPOSA (Echtzeit Positionierung Austria) and partners. The corrections cover a geographical extent for receiver positions within Austria and are provided in the standardized IONEX format. The performance of Regiomontan as well as its application in Precise Point Positioning (PPP) were tested with our in-house PPP software raPPPid using the so-called uncombined model with ionospheric constraint. Various tests, e.g., analyzing the coordinate convergence behavior or the difference between estimated and modeled ionospheric delay, proving the high level of accuracy provided with Regiomontan. We conclude that Regiomontan performs at a similar level of accuracy as IGS final TEC maps, but with explicitly reduced latency.


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.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (20) ◽  
pp. 5917
Author(s):  
Guangxing Wang ◽  
Yadong Bo ◽  
Qiang Yu ◽  
Min Li ◽  
Zhihao Yin ◽  
...  

With the development of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and the opening of Application Programming Interface (API) of Android terminals, the positioning research of Android terminals has attracted the attention of GNSS community. In this paper, three static experiments were conducted to analyze the raw GNSS observations quality and positioning performances of the smartphones. For the two experimental smartphones, the numbers of visible satellites with dual-frequency signals are unstable and not enough for dual-frequency Precise Point Positioning (PPP) processing all through the day. Therefore, the ionosphere-constrained single-frequency PPP model was employed to improve the positioning with the smartphones, and its performance was evaluated and compared with those of the Single Point Positioning (SPP) and the traditional PPP models. The results show that horizontal positioning accuracies of the smartphones with the improved PPP model are better than 1 m, while those with the SPP and the traditional PPP models are about 2 m.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 2856
Author(s):  
Junping Zou ◽  
Ahao Wang ◽  
Jiexian Wang

High-precision and low-cost single-frequency precise point positioning (SF-PPP) has been attracting more and more attention in numerous global navigation satellite system (GNSS) applications. To provide the precise ionosphere delay and improve the positioning accuracy of the SF-PPP, the dual-frequency receiver, which receives dual-frequency observations, is used. Based on the serviced precise ionosphere delay, which is generated from the dual-frequency observations, the high-precision SF-PPP is realized. To further improve the accuracy of the SF-PPP and shorten its convergence time, the double-differenced (DD) ambiguity resolutions, which are generated from the DD algorithm, are introduced. This method avoids the estimation of fractional cycle bias (FCB) for the SF-PPP ambiguity. Here, we collected data from six stations of Shanghai China which was processed, and the corresponding results were analyzed. The results of the dual-frequency observations enhanced SF-PPP realize centimeter-level positioning. The difference between the results of two stations estimated with dual-frequency observations enhanced SF-PPP were compared with the relative positioning results computed with the DD algorithm. Experimental results showed that the relative positioning accuracy of the DD algorithm is slightly better than that of the dual-frequency observations enhanced SF-PPP. This could be explained by the effect of the float ambiguity resolutions on the positioning accuracy. The data was processed with the proposed method for the introduction of the DD ambiguity into SF-PPP and the results indicated that this method could improve the positioning accuracy and shorten the convergence time of the SF-PPP. The results could further improve the deformation monitoring ability of SF-PPP.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 4894
Author(s):  
Min Li ◽  
Zhuo Lei ◽  
Wenwen Li ◽  
Kecai Jiang ◽  
Tengda Huang ◽  
...  

The opening access of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) raw data in Android smart devices has led to numerous studies on precise point positioning on mobile phones, among which single-frequency precise point positioning (SF-PPP) has become popular because smartphone-based dual-frequency data still suffer from poor observational quality. As the ionospheric delay is a dominant factor in SF-PPP, we first evaluated two SF-PPP approaches with the MGEX (Multi-GNSS Experiment) stations, the Group and Phase Ionospheric Correction (GRAPHIC) approach and the uncombined approach, and then applied them to a Huawei P40 smartphone. For MGEX stations, both approaches achieved less than 0.1 m and 0.2 m accuracy in horizontal and vertical components, respectively. Uncombined SF-PPP manifested a significant decrease in the convergence time by 40.7%, 20.0%, and 13.8% in the east, north, and up components, respectively. For P40 data, the SF-PPP performance was analyzed using data collected with both a built-in antenna and an external geodetic antenna. The P40 data collected with the built-in antenna showed lower carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N0) values, and the pseudorange noise reached 0.67 m, which is about 67% larger than that with a geodetic antenna. Because the P40 pseudorange noise presented a strong correlation with C/N0, a C/N0-dependent weight model was constructed and used for the P40 data with the built-in antenna. The convergence of uncombined SF-PPP approach was faster than the GRAPHIC model for both the internal and external antenna datasets. The root mean square (RMS) errors for the uncombined SF-PPP solutions of P40 with an external antenna were 0.14 m, 0.15 m, and 0.33 m in the east, north, and up directions, respectively. In contrast, the P40 with an embedded antenna could only reach 0.72 m, 0.51 m, and 0.66 m, respectively, indicating severe positioning degradation due to antenna issues. The results indicate that the two SF-PPP models both can achieve sub-meter level positioning accuracy utilizing multi-GNSS single-frequency observations from mobile smartphones.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Peipei Dai ◽  
Jianping Xing ◽  
Yulong Ge ◽  
Xuhai Yang ◽  
Weijin Qin ◽  
...  

The timing group delay parameter (TGD) or differential code bias parameter (DCB) is an important factor that affects the performance of GNSS basic services; therefore, TGD and DCB must be taken seriously. Moreover, the TGD parameter is modulated in the navigation message, taking into account the impact of TGD on the performance of the basic service. International GNSS Monitoring and Assessment System (iGMAS) provides the broadcast ephemeris with TGD parameter and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) provides DCB products. In this paper, the current available BDS-3 TGD and DCB parameters are firstly described in detail, and the relationship of TGD and DCB for BDS-3 is figured out. Then, correction models of BDS-3 TGD and DCB in standard point positioning (SPP) or precise point positioning (PPP) are given, which can be applied in various situations. For the effects of TGD and DCB in the SPP and PPP solution processes, all the signals from BDS-3 were researched, and the validity of TGD and DCB has been further verified. The experimental results show that the accuracy of B1I, B1C and B2a single-frequency SPP with TGD or DCB correction was improved by approximately 12–60%. TGD will not be considered for B3I single-frequency, because the broadcast satellite clock offset is based on the B3I as the reference signal. The positioning accuracy of B1I/B3I and B1C/B2a dual-frequency SPP showed that the improvement range for horizontal components is 60.2% to 74.4%, and the vertical components improved by about 50% after the modification of TGD and DCB. In addition, most of the uncorrected code biases are mostly absorbed into the receiver clock bias and other parameters for PPP, resulting in longer convergence time. The convergence time can be max increased by up to 50% when the DCB parameters are corrected. Consequently, the positioning accuracy can reach the centimeter level after convergence, but it is critical for PPP convergence time and receiver clock bias that the TGD and DCB correction be considered seriously.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 2189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiong Wu ◽  
Mengfei Sun ◽  
Changjie Zhou ◽  
Peng Zhang

The update of the Android system and the emergence of the dual-frequency GNSS chips enable smartphones to acquire dual-frequency GNSS observations. In this paper, the GPS L1/L5 and Galileo E1/E5a dual-frequency PPP (precise point positioning) algorithm based on RTKLIB and GAMP was applied to analyze the positioning performance of the Xiaomi Mi 8 dual-frequency smartphone in static and kinematic modes. The results showed that in the static mode, the RMS position errors of the dual-frequency smartphone PPP solutions in the E, N, and U directions were 21.8 cm, 4.1 cm, and 11.0 cm, respectively, after convergence to 1 m within 102 min. The PPP of dual-frequency smartphone showed similar accuracy with geodetic receiver in single-frequency mode, while geodetic receiver in dual-frequency mode has higher accuracy. In the kinematic mode, the positioning track of the smartphone dual-frequency data had severe fluctuations, the positioning tracks derived from the smartphone and the geodetic receiver showed approximately difference of 3–5 m.


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