Design of Laser Ranging Device Using the Improved Photodetector and Its Usage in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit Navigation Satellite Orbit Determination

The geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellites have good coverage performance and are widely used in WAAS, BDS, CAPS and other regional augmentation and regional navigation systems. At the same time, the precise orbit determination and prediction of such satellites play a significant role in high-precision navigation and user real-time positioning. In order to obtain higher accuracy of orbit determination, the laser ranging device is improved by equipping with a silicon-substrate germanium MSM photodetector in this study. In addition, the surface plasmon resonance augmentation effect is further studied to further enhance the photoelectric performance of the silicon-substrate germanium MSM photodetector. The detector is connected to the OPA657. The corresponding pre-amplified circuit is further designed in this study so that the laser ranging device can be used for the orbit determination application of GEO navigation satellites. In the experiment, the designed silicon-substrate germanium MSM photodetector is tested firstly, the finite-different time-domain (FDTD) method is used to analyze the structure of the photodetector. Then, the effects of the structural parameters such as the grating period on the resonance augmentation of the designed photodetector are analyzed. The results reveal that the photodetector has the best performance at 1500 nm with the absorption enhancement factor of higher than 7. The GNSS combined with the laser ranging is used for comparing the orbit determination errors of GEO satellites. 10 laser observation stations are selected, some of which are equipped with the laser ranging device designed in this study and supply to various GEO satellites for information collection. The results show that GEO satellites have to be introduced to the system deviation when adding the laser ranging data, otherwise they will deviate from the orbit. In addition, the laser ranging device designed in this study can significantly reduce the deviation caused by the introduction of laser ranging data from GEO satellites compared with traditional laser ranging devices.

Multi-GNSS PPP instantaneous ambiguity resolution with precise atmospheric corrections augmentation

<p>The performance of precise point positioning (PPP) can be significantly improved with multi-GNSS observations, but it still needs more than ten minutes to obtain positioning results at centimeter-level accuracy. In order to shorten the initialization time and improve the positioning accuracy, we develop a multi-GNSS (GPS + GLONASS + Galileo + BDS) PPP method augmented by precise atmospheric corrections to achieve instantaneous ambiguity resolution (IAR). In the proposed method, regional augmentation corrections including precise atmospheric corrections and satellite uncalibrated phase delays (UPDs) are derived from PPP fixed solutions at reference network and provided to user stations for correcting the dual-frequency raw observations. Then the regional augmentation corrections from nearby reference stations are interpolated on the client through a modified linear combination method (MLCM). With the corrected observations, IAR can be achieved with centimeter-level accuracy. This method is validated experimentally with Hong Kong CORS network, and the results indicate that multi-GNSS fusion can improve the performance in terms of both positioning accuracy and reliability of AR. The percentage of IAR for multi-GNSS solutions is up to 99.7%, while the percentage of GPS-only solutions is 88.7% when the cut-off elevation angle is 10°. The benefit of multi-GNSS fusion is more significant with high cut-off elevation angle. The percentage of IAR can be still above 98.4% for multi-GNSS solutions while the result of GPS-only solutions is below 43.5% when the cut-off elevation angle reaches 30°.  The positioning accuracy of multi-GNSS solutions is improved by 30.0% on the horizontal direction (0.7 cm) and 17.1% on the vertical direction (2.9 cm) compared to GPS-only solutions.</p>

Improving the Accuracy of Regional Ionospheric Mapping with Double-Difference Carrier Phase Measurement

Regional augmentation systems for a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) provide an ionospheric map correction to the user in order to remove the ionospheric delay error. Measurements are collected from multiple reference stations to estimate the ionospheric map. During this process, the pseudorange measurement error of a reference station causes an error in the correction, which is more evident at edge areas and causes a large error for low-elevation satellites. In this study, an ionospheric modeling algorithm was developed that uses the carrier phase with the pseudorange to greatly reduce the error. The integer-resolved double-difference carrier phase can be obtained through ambiguity resolution method, and the measurement is directly utilized in ionospheric modeling. The performance of the developed method was tested in simulations and with real data for validation. The results of users at various locations showed that the method effectively improved the accuracy of the correction.

A dynamic localization network for regional navigation under global navigation satellite system denial environments

Global navigation satellite system signals are easily distorted by the interferences or disturbances, and global navigation satellite system receivers cannot offer continuous effective navigation results in challenging environments. As a representative regional augmentation technology, pseudolite has the potential to provide accurate positioning service to satisfy specific performance requirements in various applications. In this article, we developed a dynamic localization network based on pseudolite technology for regional augmentation navigation purpose. First, the collaborative positioning algorithm is given, and the architecture of localization system is proposed. Then the error sources of localization system are analyzed for performance evaluation. Finally, the proposed system is verified by experiments conducted in both static and kinenatic scenarios. The experiment results demonstrate that the positioning accuracy of the proposed localization system is nearly 10 m, which is close to the global navigation satellite system single-point positioning accuracy. Therefore, it can be used for emergency dynamic positioning of critical areas under the global navigation satellite system denial environments.

Flying EGNOS Approaches in the Swiss Alps

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) system is being developed in Europe to provide Global Positioning System (GPS) and GLONASS regional augmentation services to aviation, maritime and land users. The EGNOS system, as any other Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), relies on the broadcast of differential correction and integrity information in the pseudo-range domain, which are then used to provide a solution in the position domain. EGNOS is a major element of the European Satellite Navigation Program, which is jointly being implemented by the Commission of the European Union, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Eurocontrol (the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation). It is also the first European step to the GALILEO system.As part of the EGNOS validation activities, flight trials have been organised by ESA and the EGNOS Industrial Consortium at various locations in Europe during Spring 2005. To demonstrate the system capability in a challenging mountainous environment, tests have been conducted at Lugano airport in the Swiss Alps. Due to the difficult topography of the airport and its surroundings, the use of conventional ground based navigation aids present some limitations. For the trials, a new Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) procedure has been designed to take advantage of the system flexibility. In particular, a reduction of the approach glide path angle has been achieved, potentially allowing more aircraft types to fly the approach than today. This article presents the operational benefits that could be obtained with the new test procedure. The very impressive EGNOS performance is also described in details, showing that it can support Approach Procedure with Vertical guidance (APV) operations even in a very challenging environment.