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Inertial measurement units (IMUs) are key components of various applications including navigation, robotics, aerospace, and automotive systems. IMU sensor characteristics have a significant impact on the accuracy and reliability of these applications. In particular, noise characteristics and bias stability are critical for proper filter settings to perform a combined GNSS/IMU solution. This paper presents an analysis based on the Allan deviation of different IMU sensors that correspond to different grades of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)-type IMUs in order to evaluate their accuracy and stability over time. The study covers three IMU sensors of different grades (ascending order): Rokubun Argonaut navigator sensor (InvenSense TDK MPU9250), Samsung Galaxy Note10 phone sensor (STMicroelectronics LSM6DSR), and NovAtel PwrPak7 sensor (Epson EG320N). The noise components of the sensors are computed using overlapped Allan deviation analysis on data collected over the course of a week in a static position. The focus of the analysis is to characterize the random walk noise and bias stability, which are the most critical for combined GNSS/IMU navigation and may differ or may not be listed in manufacturers’ specifications. Noise characteristics are calculated for the studied sensors and examples of their use in loosely coupled GNSS/IMU processing are assessed. This work proposes a structured and reproducible approach for working with sensors for their use in navigation tasks in combination with GNSS, and can be used for sensors of different levels to supplement missing or incorrect sensor manufacturers’ data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionospheric disturbances induced by seismic activity have been studied in recent years by many authors, showing an impact both before and after the occurrence of earthquakes. In this study, the ionospheric scintillation produced by the 2021 La Palma volcano eruption is analyzed. The Cumbre Vieja volcano was active from 19 September to 13 December 2021, and many earthquakes of magnitude 3–4 were recorded, with some of them reaching magnitude 5. Three methods, GNSS reference monitoring, GNSS reflectometry (GNSS-R) from NASA CYGNSS, and GNSS radio occultation (GNSS-RO) from COSMIC and Spire constellations, are used to compare and evaluate their sensitivity as proxies of earthquakes associated with the volcanic eruption. To compare the seismic activity with ionospheric scintillation, seismic energy release, and 95th percentile of the intensity scintillation parameter (S4), measurements have been computed at 6 h intervals for the whole duration of the volcanic eruption. GNSS-RO has shown the best correlation between earthquake energy and S4 , with values up to 0.09 when the perturbations occur around 18 h after the seismic activity. GNSS reference monitoring station data also show some correlation 18 h and 7–8 d after. As expected, GNSS-R is the one that shows the smallest correlation, as the ionospheric signatures get masked by the signature of the surface where the reflection is taking place. Additionally, the three methods show a smaller correlation during the week before earthquakes. Given the small magnitude of the seismic activity, the correlation is barely detectable in this situation, and thus would be difficult to use in any application to find earthquake proxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large ionospheric gradients acting between a Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS) reference station and an aircraft on approach could lead to hazardous position errors if undetected. Current GBAS stations provide solutions against this threat that rely on the use of "worst‐case" conservative threat models, which could limit the availability of the system. This paper presents a methodology capable of detecting ionospheric gradients in real time and estimating the actual threat model parameters based on a network of dual‐frequency and multi‐constellation GNSS monitoring stations. First, we evaluate the performance of our algorithm with synthetic gradients that are simulated over the nominal measurements recorded by a reference network in Alaska. Afterwards, we also assess it with one real ionospheric gradient measured by the same network. Results with both simulated gradients and a real gradient show the potential to support GBAS by detecting and estimating these gradients instead of always using "worst‐case" models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionospheric scintillation causes rapid fluctuations of measurements from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs), thus threatening space-based communication and geolocation services. The phenomenon is most intense in equatorial regions, around the equinoxes and in maximum solar cycle conditions. Currently, ionospheric scintillation monitoring receivers (ISMRs) measure scintillation with high-pass filter algorithms involving high sampling rates, e.g. 50 Hz, and highly stable clocks, e.g. an ultra-low-noise Oven-Controlled Crystal Oscillator. The present paper evolves phase scintillation indices implemented in conventional geodetic receivers with sampling rates of 1 Hz and rapidly fluctuating clocks. The method is capable to mitigate ISMR artefacts that contaminate the readings of the state-of-the-art phase scintillation index. Our results agree in more than 99.9% within ± 0.05 rad (2 mm) of the ISMRs, with a data set of 8 days which include periods of moderate and strong scintillation. The discrepancies are clearly identified, being associated with data gaps and to cycle-slips in the carrier-phase tracking of ISMR that occur simultaneously with ionospheric scintillation. The technique opens the door to use huge databases available from the International GNSS Service and other centres for scintillation studies. This involves GNSS measurements from hundreds of worldwide-distributed geodetic receivers over more than one Solar Cycle. This overcomes the current limitations of scintillation studies using ISMRs, as only a few tens of ISMRs are available and their data are provided just for short periods of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-accuracy Global Ionosphere Model (GIM) is significant for precise positioning and navigating with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), as well as space weather applications. To obtain a precise GIM, it is critical to take both the ionospheric observable and mathematical model into consideration. In this contribution, the undifferenced ambiguity-fixed carrier-phase ionospheric observable is first determined from a global distribution of permanent receivers. Accuracy assessment with a co-located station experiment shows that the observational errors affecting the ambiguity-fixed carrier-phase ionospheric observables range from 0.10 to 0.35 Total Electron Content Units (TECUs, where 1 TECU = 1016e-/m² and corresponds to 0.162 m on the Global Positioning System, GPS L1 frequency), indicating that the ambiguity-fixed carrier-phase ionospheric observable is over one order of magnitude more accurate than the carrier-phase leveled-code one (from 1.21 to 3.77 TECUs). Second, to better model the structure of the ionosphere, a two-layer GIM has been built based on the above carrier-phase observable. Preliminary global accuracy evaluation demonstrates that the accuracy of the two-layer GIM is below 1 TECU and about 2 TECUs during low and high solar activity periods. Third, the single-frequency point positioning experiment is adopted to test the ionosphere mitigation effects of the GIMs. Positioning results demonstrate that the single-frequency positioning accuracy can be improved by more than 30% using the undifferenced ambiguity-fixed ionospheric observable-derived two-layer GIM, compared with that using the carrier-phase leveled-code ionospheric observable-based single-layer GIM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We address two main problems related to the receiver and satellite differential code biases (DCBs) determination. The first issue concerns the drifts and jumps experienced by the DCB determinations of the International GNSS Service (IGS) due to satellite constellation changes. A new alignment algorithm is introduced to remove these nonphysical effects, which is applicable in real time. The full-time series of 18 years of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite DCBs, computed by IGS, are realigned using the proposed algorithm. The second problem concerns the assessment of the DCBs accuracy. The short- and long-term receiver and satellite DCB performances for the different Ionospheric Associate Analysis Centers (IAACs) are discussed. The results are compared with the determinations computed with the two-layer Fast Precise Point Positioning (Fast-PPP) ionospheric model, to assess how the geometric description of the ionosphere affects the DCB determination and to illustrate how the errors in the ionospheric model are transferred to the DCB estimates. Two different determinations of DCBs are considered: the values provided by the different IAACs and the values estimated using their pre-computed Global Ionospheric Maps (GIMs). The second determination provides a better characterization of DCBs accuracy, as it is confirmed when analyzing the DCB variations associated with the GPS Block-IIA satellites under eclipse conditions, observed mainly in the Fast-PPP DCB determinations. This study concludes that the accuracy of the IGS IAACs receiver DCBs is approximately 0.3-0.5 and 0.2 ns for the Fast-PPP. In the case of the satellite DCBs, these values are about 0.12-0.20 ns for IAACs and 0.07 ns for Fast-PPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In a recent paper, Salvador-Solé et al. have derived the typical inner structure of dark matter haloes from that of peaks in the initial random Gaussian density field, determined by the power spectrum of density perturbations characterizing the hierarchical cosmology under consideration. In this paper, we extend this formalism to the typical kinematics and triaxial shape of haloes. Specifically, we establish the link between such halo properties and the power spectrum of density perturbations through the typical shape of peaks. The trends of the predicted typical halo shape, pseudo-phase-space density and anisotropy profiles are in good agreement with the results of numerical simulations. Our model sheds light on the origin of the power-law-like pseudo-phase-space density profile for virialized haloes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, midlatitude summer nighttime anomalies (MSNAs) are analyzed via observations and tidal/planetary wave features using measurements from the Formosat-3/Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (F3C) for 2007, a year with low solar activity, and 2014, a year with high solar activity. The total ionospheric electron content, E C i o n , an integrated quantity derived from F3C measurements, was used to compare the observational data. The E C i o n values were derived from accurate radio-occultation-retrieved electron density profiles without assuming spherical symmetry and from a model that separated the ground total electron content into the plasmaspheric and the ionospheric electron content contributions. An analysis of the E C i o n data set confirmed that MSNAs were present in three different regions of the world for the months surrounding the local summer solstice during both 2007 and 2014. In the southern hemisphere, the so-called Weddell Sea Anomaly showed a maximum increase in E C i o n , measured as the difference between nighttime and midday values, that was more than three times that in the northern MSNAs. For each individual MSNA, the corresponding maximum increases in electron content were similar between the two years analyzed, so they were not significantly affected by solar activity. Then, linear least-square fit to the frequency–wave number basis functions was used to derive the tidal and planetary wave components contributing to MSNAs. The main component that appears to produce the Weddell Sea Anomaly is D0, followed by SPW1, DW2, and DE1, in this order, which make secondary but still relevant contributions. The presence of MSNAs in the northern hemisphere was clearly supported by the migrating tide SW2 in combination with DE1. SW2 also supported an early morning MSNA being observed in the northern hemisphere. The main tidal and planetary wave signatures producing the MSNAs did not significantly differ between 2007 and 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparative study of the evolution of the Sun–Jupiter–Asteroid system near the 4:1 and 7:2 resonances is performed by means of two techniques that proceed differently from the Hamiltonian corresponding to the planar restricted elliptic three-body problem. One technique is based on the classical Schubart averaging while the other is based on a mapping method in which the perturbing part of the Hamiltonian is expanded and the resulting terms are ordered according to a weight function that depends on the powers of eccentricities and the coefficients of the terms. For the mapping method the effect of Saturn on the asteroidal evolution is introduced and the degree of chaos is estimated by means of the Lyapunov time. Both methods are shown to lead to similar results and can be considered a suitable tool for describing the evolution of asteroids in the Kirkwood gap and the group corresponding to the 4:1 and 7:2 Jovian resonances, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present contribution evaluates how the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) meets the International Maritime Organization (IMO) requirements established in its Resolution A.1046 for navigation in harbor entrances, harbor approaches, and coastal waters: 99.8% of signal availability, 99.8% of service availability, 99.97% of service continuity and 10 m of horizontal accuracy. The data campaign comprises two years of data, from 1 May 2016 to 30 April 2018 (i.e., 730 days), involving 108 permanent stations located within 20 km of the coast or in islands across the EGNOS coverage area, EGNOS corrections, and cleansed GPS broadcast navigation data files. We used the GNSS Laboratory Tool Suite (gLAB) to compute the reference coordinates of the stations, the EGNOS solution, as well as the EGNOS service maps. Our results show a signal availability of 99.999%, a horizontal accuracy of 0.91 m at the 95th percentile, and the regions where the IMO requirements on service availability and service continuity are met. In light of the results presented in the paper, the authors suggest the revision of the assumptions made in the EGNOS Maritime Service against those made in EGNOS for civil aviation; in particular, the use of the EGNOS Message Type 10. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]