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High-precision Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) orbits are critical for real-time clock estimation and precise positioning service; however, the prediction error grows gradually with the increasing prediction session. In this study, we present a new efficient precise orbit determination (POD) strategy referred to as the epoch-parallel processing to reduce the orbit update latency, in which a 24-h processing job is split into several sub-sessions that are processed in parallel and then stacked to solve and recover parameters subsequently. With a delicate handling of parameters crossing different sub-sessions, such as ambiguities, the method is rigorously equivalent to the one-session batch solution, but is much more efficient, halving the time-consuming roughly. Together with paralleling other procedures such as orbit integration and using open multi-processing (openMP), the multi-GNSS POD of 120 satellites using 90 stations can be fulfilled within 30 min. The lower update latency enables users to access orbits closer to the estimation part, that is, 30–60-min prediction with a 30-min update latency, which significantly improves the orbit quality. Compared to the hourly updated orbit, the averaged 1D RMS values of predicted orbit in terms of overlap for GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BDS MEO are improved by 39%, 35%, 41%, and 37%, respectively, and that of BDS GEO and IGSO satellites is improved by 47%. We also demonstrate that the boundary discontinuities of half-hourly orbit are within 2 cm for the GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo satellites, and for BDS the values are 2.6, 15.5, and 9.8 cm for MEO, GEO, and IGSO satellites, respectively. This method can also be implemented for any batch-based GNSS processing to improve the efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Real-Time Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Precise Positioning Service (RTPPS) is recognized as the most promising system by providing precise satellite orbit and clock corrections for users to achieve centimeter-level positioning with a stand-alone receiver in real-time. Although the products are available with high accuracy almost all the time, they may occasionally suffer from unexpected significant biases, which consequently degrades the positioning performance. Therefore, quality monitoring at the system-level has become more and more crucial for providing a reliable GNSS service. In this paper, we propose a method for the monitoring of real-time satellite orbit and clock products using a monitoring station network based on the Quality Control (QC) theory. The satellites with possible biases are first detected based on the outliers identified by Precise Point Positioning (PPP) in the monitoring station network. Then, the corresponding orbit and clock parameters with temporal constraints are introduced and estimated through the sequential Least Square (LS) estimator and the corresponding Instantaneous User Range Errors (IUREs) can be determined. A quality indicator is calculated based on the IUREs in the monitoring network and compared with a pre-defined threshold. The quality monitoring method is experimentally evaluated by monitoring the real-time orbit and clock products generated by GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ), Potsdam. The results confirm that the problematic satellites can be detected accurately and effectively with missed detection rate 4 × 10 − 6 and false alarm rate 1.2 × 10 − 5 . Considering the quality alarms, the PPP results in terms of RMS of positioning differences with respect to the International GNSS Service (IGS) weekly solution in the north, east and up directions can be improved by 12%, 10% and 27%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) intensive (INT) sessions are critical for the rapid determination and densification of Universal Time 1‐Coordinate Universal Time (UT1‐UTC), which plays an important role in satellite geodesy and space exploration missions and is not predictable over longer time scales. Due to the limited observation geometry of INT sessions with two to three stations observing about 1 hr, tropospheric gradients cannot be estimated, which degrades the UT1‐UTC precision. We investigate the impact of tropospheric ties at Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) and VLBI co‐located stations in INT sessions from 2001 to 2021. VLBI and GNSS observations are combined on the observation level. The results are evaluated by using both UT1‐UTC and Length of Day (LOD) from consecutive sessions. We demonstrate a better agreement of 10%–30% when comparing the derived LOD to GNSS LOD for INT1, INT2, and VGOS‐2 sessions; whereas, the agreement is not improved when directly comparing UT1‐UTC to the IERS Earth Orientation Parameters (EOPs) product, potentially because INT sessions also contribute to IERS EOP products. The major impact comes from tropospheric gradient ties, whereas applying zenith delay ties does not improve or even deteriorate UT1‐UTC agreement. Gradient ties also introduce systematic biases in UT1‐UTC by around −3 to −5 μs, except for the Russian INT sessions. Regression analysis shows that the east gradient introduces systematic effects in UT1‐UTC for sessions involving Germany and USA (Hawaii), whereas for Germany–Japan and Russian sessions, the north gradient also contributes systematically. Plain Language Summary: Universal Time 1‐Coordinate Universal Time (UT1‐UTC) gives the time difference of UT1, defined by Earth's rotation, and UTC, defined by atomic clocks. UT1‐UTC is essential for real‐time navigation and space exploration. The variation of the first‐order negative time derivative of UT1‐UTC, Length of Day (LOD), is induced by mass redistribution, including tides of the solid Earth and oceans, the liquid core of the Earth and atmospheric variation, and climate events such as El Niño. Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observing active galactic nuclei is the only space geodetic technique that can determine UT1‐UTC unambiguously. The 1‐hr intensive (INT) sessions, designed for the rapid determination and densification of UT1‐UTC, are performed daily with two VLBI radio telescopes. Due to the limited observation geometry, tropospheric gradients cannot be modeled in INT sessions, deteriorating UT1‐UTC estimates. We demonstrate an improvement of 10%–30% in LOD by applying tropospheric ties at VLBI and Global Navigation Satellite Systems co‐locations, especially the tropospheric gradients ties. Tropospheric gradient ties also introduce a systematic effect of −3 to −5 μs on UT1‐UTC, especially the east gradient. Our study shows that tropospheric ties should be adopted in future VLBI analysis for optimal UT1‐UTC products. Key Points: Tropospheric ties are applied in a Global Navigation Satellite System–Very Long Baseline Interferometry (GNSS–VLBI) integrated solution analyzing VLBI intensive (INT) sessions from 2001 to 2021Length of Day (LOD) of IVS INT sessions shows a better agreement by 10%–30% when compared to GNSS LOD product, mainly due to gradient tiesGradient ties, especially the east one, introduce systematic biases of −3 to −5 μs in Universal Time 1‐Coordinate Universal Time of IVS INT sessions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a preliminary step for assessing the impact of global positioning system (GPS) refractive delay data in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, the GPS zenith tropospheric delays (ZTDs) are analyzed from 51 permanent GPS sites in the western Mediterranean. The objectives are to estimate the error statistics necessary for future assimilation of GPS ZTD data in numerical models and to investigate the variability of the data in this area. The time series, which were derived continuously from November 1998 to June 2001, are compared with independent equivalent values derived from radiosonde profiles and the High-Resolution Limited-Area Model (HIRLAM) NWP model. Based on over two years of data, the difference between radiosonde and GPS ZTD has a standard deviation of 12 mm of delay and a bias of 7 mm of delay. Some sites have biases as high as 14 mm of delay. The bimodal distribution of residuals, with a higher bias for daytime launches, indicates these biases may be due to radiosonde day-night measurement biases. The biases between the GPS ZTD and HIRLAM estimates are smaller, but the 18-mm ZTD standard deviation is significantly greater. The standard deviation of the residuals depends strongly on the amount of humidity, which produces annual signal because of the much higher variability of water vapor in the summer months. The better agreement with radiosonde data than HIRLAM estimates indicates that the NWP models will benefit from the additional information provided by GPS. The long-term differences between the observational data sources require further study before GPS-derived data become useful for climate studies.

Accurate tropospheric delays from Numerical Weather Models (NWM) are an important input to space geodetic techniques, especially for precise real‐time Global Navigation Satellite Systems, which are indispensable to earthquake and tsunami early warning systems as well as weather forecasting. The NWM‐based tropospheric delays are currently provided either site‐specific with a limited spatial coverage, or on two‐dimensional grids close to the Earth surface, which cannot be used for high altitudes. We introduce a new method of representing NWM‐derived tropospheric zenith hydrostatic and wet delays. A large volume of NWM‐derived data is parameterized with surface values and additional two or three coefficients for their vertical scaling to heights up to 14 km. A precision of 1–2 mm is achieved for reconstructing delays to the NWM‐determined delays at any altitudes. The method can efficiently deliver NWM‐derived tropospheric delays to a broader community of space geodetic techniques. Plain Language Summary: Precise positioning with microwave‐based space geodetic techniques, such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), requires accurate modeling of the atmospheric refraction. Numerical Weather Models (NWM) can provide tropospheric delays with an accuracy of 1–2 cm in zenith direction and are therefore useful for improving the data analysis. However, due to the large data volume to handle, NWM‐based products are typically provided only for selected sites, or on a global grid referring to a specific height. We provide an efficient method to represent the vertical profile of tropospheric delay from the Earth surface up to 14 km altitude with a precision of 1–2 mm. The method is used to preserve the precision of NWM‐derived tropospheric delays at the altitudes using three to four coefficients per geographic location (longitude, latitude) at the ground. This paves the way of applying the NWM‐based accurate tropospheric delays in space geodetic data analysis, especially for global augmentations of real‐time GNSS, which play a critical role in the rapid characterization and early warning of geohazards such as earthquake and tsunami, as well as kinematic platforms of high altitudes. Key Points: New method for precise modeling of the zenith hydrostatic and wet delays from the Earth surface up to an altitude of 14 kmTropospheric delay vertical modeling precision of better than 3 mm is achieved on a global scaleThe method provides numerical weather model‐derived precise tropospheric augmentation correction for real‐time space geodetic techniques [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the completion of Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), the world has begun to enjoy the Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) services of four Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). In order to improve the GNSS performance and expand its applications, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Enhanced Global Navigation Satellite System (LeGNSS) is being vigorously advocated. Combined with high-, medium-, and low- earth orbit satellites, it can improve GNSS performance in terms of orbit determination, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) convergence time, etc. This paper comprehensively reviews the current status of LeGNSS, focusing on analyzing its advantages and challenges for precise orbit and clock determination, PPP convergence, earth rotation parameter estimation, and global ionosphere modeling. Thanks to the fast geometric change brought by LEO satellites, LeGNSS is expected to fundamentally solve the problem of the long convergence time of PPP without any augmentation. The convergence time can be shortened within 1 minute if appropriate LEO constellations are deployed. However, there are still some issues to overcome, such as the optimization of LEO constellation as well as the real time LEO precise orbit and clock determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wet tropospheric correction (WTC) retrieved from the onboard calibration microwave radiometer (CMR) of Haiyang-2A (HY-2A) is critical in monitoring the global sea level. However, the CMR WTC became significantly biased from June 2017 due to the failure of the 18.7-GHz band, which caused massive errors in the sea surface height (SSH) measurements. We investigate the accuracy of the CMR WTC derived from the two remaining bands to address this problem. A comprehensive evaluation using multisource data demonstrates that the dual-band + backscattering coefficient (BC) algorithm achieves comparable accuracy to the three-band algorithm, and it does not suffer from any large errors when the equipment works well. Hence, we calibrated the HY-2A CMR data with the dual-band + BC algorithm when the 18.7-GHz band failed, and the accuracy of the CMR WTC is improved from 2.34 to 1.39 cm compared with European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5 data. In addition, the SSH measurements are improved significantly by a maximum of 2 cm in mean value using the dual-band + BC WTC during the failure period of HY-2A CMR. Compared with Jason-3 SSH measurements, the HY-2A with dual-band + BC shows a slightly larger difference than HY-2A with three-band by 0.1 cm in rms. This method prolongs the operational lifetime of the HY-2A CMR and could be used in the reprocessing of HY-2A observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The calibration microwave radiometer (CMR) on board the Haiyang-2A (HY-2A) satellite provides wet tropospheric delay correction for altimetry data, which can also contribute to the understanding of climate system and weather processes. The ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) provides precise precipitable water vapor (PWV) with high temporal resolution and could be used for calibration and monitoring of the CMR data, and shipborne GNSS provides accurate PWV over open oceans, which can be directly compared with uncontaminated CMR data. In this study, the HY-2A CMR water vapor product is validated using ground-based GNSS observations of 100 International GNSS Service (IGS) stations along the global coastline and 56 d shipborne GNSS observations over the Indian Ocean. The processing strategy for GNSS data and CMR data is discussed in detail. Special efforts were made in the quality control and reconstruction of contaminated CMR data. The validation result shows that HY-2A CMR PWV agrees well with ground-based GNSS PWV with 2.67 mm as the root mean square (rms) within 100 km. Geographically, the rms is 1.12 mm in the polar region and 2.78 mm elsewhere. The PWV agreement between HY-2A and shipborne GNSS shows a significant correlation with the distance between the ship and the satellite footprint, with an rms of 1.57 mm for the distance threshold of 100 km. Ground-based GNSS and shipborne GNSS agree with HY-2A CMR well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Estimating code hardware biases on BDS B1, B2, and B3 frequencies. • Integrating INS with BDS triple-frequency PPP. • Odometer, heading data, and motion information aiding PPP/INS. • Improving stability and precision of position and attitude of PPP. • Providing sub-millimeter-level relative measuring accuracy. The BeiDou global navigation satellite system (BDS), which is the first satellite navigation system that provides triple-frequency signals on B1, B2, and B3 for civil applications, has been applied widely around the Asian-Pacifica region. The current BDS precise point positioning (PPP) approaches are mainly based on the B1&B2 dual-frequency observations. To make full use of BDS' triple-frequency observations, the motion sensors measurements, and the platform motion information, this paper proposes an inertial sensor, odometer, and heading measurement tightly aided BDS triple-frequency PPP model. In this model, inertial sensor biases, odometer scale factor, residuals of slant ionospheric delays, and inter-frequency code biases are estimated simultaneously in a unique extended Kalman filter. The Rauch-Tung-Striebel (RTS) smoother is further adopted to reduce the solution's noises and enhance the stability and relative measuring accuracy. To evaluate the capability of this method, a set of triple-frequency BDS raw observations, inertial measurements, odometer data, and heading measurements collected by a customized hardware system on Lanzhou-Urumqi high speed railway track in China, are processed and analyzed. Results illustrated that both positioning accuracy and cycle slip detection capability are upgraded significantly by applying B3 frequency observations in BDS PPP. About 13–55% position accuracy enhancements from B3 observations, inertial sensors, and RTS smoother, and over 70% heading improvements from the aids of heading measurements can be obtained. Moreover, such multi-sensor tight integration system can directly provide millimeter-level positioning accuracy in term of repeatability and provide sub-millimeter-level accuracy indirectly by transforming attitude solutions into distance solutions. Such accuracy is much higher than the state-of-art GNSS and such method presents potential capability in 3D geometry measuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correction of higher-order ionospheric (HOI) delays remaining in the dual-frequency ionosphere-free combined observations is suggested after the confirmation of its impact on precise Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data processing. However, in the precise orbit determination (POD) for generating ultra-rapid orbits, the higher-order corrections are not always considered most likely because a RT ionospheric model needed for calculating the higher-order corrections is hardly available or the HOI impact is believed rather small compared to the accuracy of the predicted orbit. With the increasing requirement on the positioning performances from various applications, providing more accurate and reliable ultra-rapid orbits becomes an essential task of the real-time GNSS precise positioning services. In this contribution, the temporal–spatial characteristics of HOI effects on GNSS observables are investigated thoroughly using data collected from International GNSS Service (IGS) global ground stations and fluctuations of the higher-order delays up to several centimeters are detected during periods of high ionospheric activity. Hereafter, we evaluate the HOI effects on the multi-GNSS POD based on a network with globally distributed IGS stations. Results show that owing to the applied HOI corrections, the agreement of overlapping orbits can be improved significantly for all satellites and especially in radial direction. The three-dimensional RMS values of the overlapping differences are reduced from 1.6, 2.0, 4.6 and 1.7 to 1.0, 1.1, 3.4, and 1.5 cm for GPS, GALILEO, BDS, and GLONASS, respectively. Furthermore, the orbit improvement is also confirmed by the satellite laser ranging (SLR) observations over a 2-month time period where the STD of SLR residuals is reduced by HOI corrections from 6.4 to 5.3 cm for the BDS-IGSO satellites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time satellite orbit and clock product is a key prerequisite for real-time precise positioning service based on precise point positioning (PPP). With the rapid development of the multiple global navigation satellite systems (Multi-GNSS), about 120 satellites will be processed for Multi-GNSS real-time clock estimation. Unfortunately, the computation is very time-consuming, especially for quality control since problematic observations are inevitable. Taking advantage of computer technology, sequential least square adjustment with an adapted online quality control procedure is developed to rapidly estimate Multi-GNSS real-time clocks, although various filtering estimators are commonly used now. A globally distributed network including 70 stations tracking mostly satellites of GPS, GLONASS, BDS, and Galileo is employed for experimental validation. The results show that the computation time per epoch is less than 3 s in average and can meet the 5 s update rate of the IGS real-time clock product. Compared to the GeoForschungsZentrum MGEX (GBM) final clock product, the averaged STD values of the estimated clocks of the four GNSS systems are 0.089 ns and 0.153 ns, respectively, for the clock solutions with and without the online quality control, which also confirms the importance of the quality control procedure. The Multi-GNSS kinematic PPP experiment using the estimated clocks with quality control shows that the positioning RMS is about 4 cm and generally 2 cm in vertical and horizontal components, respectively, and the corresponding convergence time is about 15 min. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precipitable water vapor (PWV) is an important parameter for climate research and a crucial factor to achieve high accuracy in satellite geodesy and satellite altimetry. Currently Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) PWV retrieval using static Precise Point Positioning is limited to ground stations. We demonstrated the PWV retrieval using kinematic Precise Point Positioning method with shipborne GNSS observations during a 20‐day experiment in 2016 in Fram Strait, the region of the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Svalbard. The shipborne GNSS PWV shows an agreement of ~1.1 mm with numerical weather model data and radiosonde observations, and a root‐mean‐square of ~1.7 mm compared to Satellite with ARgos and ALtiKa PWV. An improvement of 10% is demonstrated with the multi‐GNSS compared to the Global Positioning System solution. The PWV retrieval was conducted under different sea state from calm water up to gale. Such shipborne GNSS PWV has the promising potential to improve numerical weather forecasts and satellite altimetry. Plain Language Summary: Atmospheric water vapor retrieval using GNSS kinematic Precise Point Positing technique is demonstrated with shipborne GNSS data collected during a 20‐day cruise in Fram Strait (~80°N), the area in the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Svalbard. An accuracy of ~1 mm is achieved compared to ERA‐Interim precipitable water vapor (PWV) and radiosonde data, and an agreement of ~2 mm is demonstrated between shipborne GNSS PWV and satellite altimetry PWV observation. The contribution of multi‐GNSS is addressed, and efforts are also made to investigate the PWV spatial resolution in order to include more data for comparison. Static Precise Point Positioning method is widely used at ground‐based GNSS stations in climate research and weather forecasting. However, it is still limited to land. Shipborne GNSS PWV retrieval could fill in the vast ocean with high temporal/spatial resolutions. Shipborne GNSS PWV could cover open sea, coastal, and polar regions (e.g., in this study) where regular meteorological observations are rare. Shipborne GNSS PWV retrieval in real time is feasible and could provide additional information for weather predictions. Moreover, shipborne GNSS PWV retrieval provides a potential method for satellite altimetry calibration, the major technique measuring sea surface height for sea level monitoring. Key Points: Shipborne GNSS PWV retrieval is demonstrated with an accuracy of 1 mm, and an agreement of 1.7 mm with satellite altimetry PWVThe multi‐GNSS solution shows an RMS improvement of ~10% compared to the GPS solution in oceanwide PWV retrieval using kinematic PPP methodShipborne GNSS PWV retrieval could expand GNSS meteorology to ocean and improve NWM, satellite altimetry, and weather forecasting [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, with the rapid development of multi-constellation Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), the real-time positioning and navigation are undergoing dramatic changes with potential for a better performance. To provide more precise and reliable ultra-rapid orbits is critical for multi-GNSS real-time positioning, especially for the three merging constellations Beidou, Galileo and QZSS which are still under construction. In this contribution, we present a five-system precise orbit determination (POD) strategy to fully exploit the GPS + GLONASS + BDS + Galileo + QZSS observations from CDDIS + IGN + BKG archives for the realization of hourly five-constellation ultra-rapid orbit update. After adopting the optimized 2-day POD solution (updated every hour), the predicted orbit accuracy can be obviously improved for all the five satellite systems in comparison to the conventional 1-day POD solution (updated every 3 h). The orbit accuracy for the BDS IGSO satellites can be improved by about 80, 45 and 50% in the radial, cross and along directions, respectively, while the corresponding accuracy improvement for the BDS MEO satellites reaches about 50, 20 and 50% in the three directions, respectively. Furthermore, the multi-GNSS real-time precise point positioning (PPP) ambiguity resolution has been performed by using the improved precise satellite orbits. Numerous results indicate that combined GPS + BDS + GLONASS + Galileo (GCRE) kinematic PPP ambiguity resolution (AR) solutions can achieve the shortest time to first fix (TTFF) and highest positioning accuracy in all coordinate components. With the addition of the BDS, GLONASS and Galileo observations to the GPS-only processing, the GCRE PPP AR solution achieves the shortest average TTFF of 11 min with 7∘ cutoff elevation, while the TTFF of GPS-only, GR, GE and GC PPP AR solution is 28, 15, 20 and 17 min, respectively. As the cutoff elevation increases, the reliability and accuracy of GPS-only PPP AR solutions decrease dramatically, but there is no evident decrease for the accuracy of GCRE fixed solutions which can still achieve an accuracy of a few centimeters in the east and north components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS) satellites are transmitting signals on three frequencies, which brings new opportunity and challenges for high-accuracy precise point positioning (PPP) with ambiguity resolution (AR). This paper proposes an effective uncalibrated phase delay (UPD) estimation and AR strategy which is based on a raw PPP model. First, triple-frequency raw PPP models are developed. The observation model and stochastic model are designed and extended to accommodate the third frequency. Then, the UPD is parameterized in raw frequency form while estimating with the high-precision and low-noise integer linear combination of float ambiguity which are derived by ambiguity decorrelation. Third, with UPD corrected, the LAMBDA method is used for resolving full or partial ambiguities which can be fixed. This method can be easily and flexibly extended for dual-, triple- or even more frequency. To verify the effectiveness and performance of triple-frequency PPP AR, tests with real BDS data from 90 stations lasting for 21 days were performed in static mode. Data were processed with three strategies: BDS triple-frequency ambiguity-float PPP, BDS triple-frequency PPP with dual-frequency (B1/B2) and three-frequency AR, respectively. Numerous experiment results showed that compared with the ambiguity-float solution, the performance in terms of convergence time and positioning biases can be significantly improved by AR. Among three groups of solutions, the triple-frequency PPP AR achieved the best performance. Compared with dual-frequency AR, additional the third frequency could apparently improve the position estimations during the initialization phase and under constraint environments when the dual-frequency PPP AR is limited by few satellite numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Accuracy of dynamic precise point positioning (PPP) degrades significantly under users' challenging environments because of the limited or unavailable GPS observations. To overcome such weakness, a tight-integration system of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial measurement unit (IMU), odometer, and GPS ionospheric delay constrained PPP is investigated to provide users positions and attitudes with higher accuracy, reliability, and continuity under the weak GPS observability environments. In this approach, the data from different sensors are integrated in two joint extend Kalman filters (EKF). One is for PPP/INS tight-integration and the other one is for odometer aiding the solutions from INS or PPP/INS tight-integration modes. Here, the advantages of slow time-varying ionospheric delay, high-accuracy in short time of inertial navigation system (INS), and hardly-disturbed odometer are utilized effectively to enhance PPP solutions. The corresponding mathematical models are provided and are evaluated by a set of one-hour real land-borne test data collected from a MEMS IMU, an odometer, and a dual-frequency GPS receiver in suburbs of Wuhan city, China, and also a set of simulated weak satellites availability data which is to imitate the GPS availability under unban canyons. Results indicate that the fusion system can improve navigation accuracy of GPS or GPS/INS significantly. That are, more than fifty percentages position enhancements in north-east-down components, and about forty percentages attitude enhancements in roll-pitch-yaw direction under the weak GPS availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this research was to examine the feasibility of Multi-GNSS precise point positioning (PPP) in precision agriculture (PA) through a series of experiments with different working modes (i.e. stationary and moving) under different observation conditions (e.g. open sky, with buildings or with canopy). For the stationary test carried out in open space in the UK, the positioning accuracy achieved was 13.9 mm in one dimension by a PPP approach, and the repeatability of positioning results was improved from 19.0 to 6.0 mm by using Multi-GNSS with respect to GPS only. For the moving test carried out in similar location in the UK, almost the same performance was achieved by GPS-only and by Multi-GNSS PPP. However, for a moving experiment carried out in China with obstruction conditions, Multi-GNSS improved the accuracy of baseline length from 126.0 to 35.0 mm and the repeatability from 110.0 mm to 49.0 mm, The results suggested that the addition of the BeiDou, Galileo and GLONASS systems to the standard GPS-only processing improved the positioning repeatability, while a positioning accuracy was achieved at about 20 mm level in the horizontal direction with an improvement against the GPS-only PPP results. In space-constrained and harsh environments (e.g. farms surrounded with dense trees), the availability and reliability of precise positioning decreased dramatically for the GPS-only PPP results, but limited impacts were observed for Multi-GNSS PPP. In addition, compared to real time kinematic (RTK) GNSS, which is currently most commonly used for high precision PA applications, similar accuracy has been achieved by PPP. In contrast to RTK GNSS, PPP can provide high accuracy positioning with higher flexibility and potentially lower capital and running costs. Hence, PPP might be a great opportunity for agriculture to meet the high accuracy requirements of PA in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relative positioning using multi-GNSS (global navigation satellite systems) can improve accuracy, reliability, and availability compared to the use of a single constellation system. Intra-system double-difference (DD) ambiguities (ISDDAs) refer to the DD ambiguities between satellites of a single constellation system and can be fixed to an integer to derive the precise fixed solution. Inter-system ambiguities, which denote the DD ambiguities between different constellation systems, can also be fixed to integers on overlapping frequencies, once the inter-system bias (ISB) is removed. Compared with fixing ISDDAs, fixing both integer intra- and inter-system DD ambiguities (IIDDAs) means an increase of positioning precision through an integration of multiple GNSS constellations. Previously, researchers have studied IIDDA fixing with systems of the same frequencies, but not with systems of different frequencies. Integer IIDDAs can be determined from single-difference (SD) ambiguities, even if the frequencies of multi-GNSS signals used in the positioning are different. In this study, we investigated IIDDA fixing for multi-GNSS signals of narrowly spaced frequencies. First, the inter-system DD models of multi-GNSS signals of different frequencies are introduced, and the strategy for compensating for ISB is presented. The ISB is decomposed into three parts: 1) a float approximate ISB number that can be considered equal to the ISB of code pseudorange observations and thus can be estimated through single point positioning (SPP); 2) a number that is a multiple of the GNSS signal wavelength; and 3) a fractional ISB part, with a magnitude smaller than a single wavelength. Then, the relationship between intra- and inter-system DD ambiguity RATIO values and ISB was investigated by integrating GPS L1 and GLONASS L1 signals. In our numerical analyses with short baselines, the ISB parameter and IIDDA were successfully fixed, even if the number of observed satellites in each system was small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are acting as an indispensable tool for geodetic research and global monitoring of the Earth, and they have been rapidly developed over the past few years with abundant GNSS networks, modern constellations, and significant improvement in mathematic models of data processing. However, due to the increasing number of satellites and stations, the computational efficiency becomes a key issue and it could hamper the further development of GNSS applications. In this contribution, this problem is overcome from the aspects of both dense linear algebra algorithms and GNSS processing strategy. First, in order to fully explore the power of modern microprocessors, the square root information filter solution based on the blocked QR factorization employing as many matrix-matrix operations as possible is introduced. In addition, the algorithm complexity of GNSS data processing is further decreased by centralizing the carrier-phase observations and ambiguity parameters, as well as performing the real-time ambiguity resolution and elimination. Based on the QR factorization of the simulated matrix, we can conclude that compared to unblocked QR factorization, the blocked QR factorization can greatly improve processing efficiency with a magnitude of nearly two orders on a personal computer with four 3.30 GHz cores. Then, with 82 globally distributed stations, the processing efficiency is further validated in multi-GNSS (GPS/BDS/Galileo) satellite clock estimation. The results suggest that it will take about 31.38 s per epoch for the unblocked method. While, without any loss of accuracy, it only takes 0.50 and 0.31 s for our new algorithm per epoch for float and fixed clock solutions, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiple global navigation satellite systems (multi-GNSS) bring great opportunity for the real-time retrieval of high-quality zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD), which is a critical quality for atmospheric science and geodetic applications. In this contribution, a multi-GNSS precise point positioning (PPP) ambiguity resolution (AR) analysis approach is developed for real-time tropospheric delay retrieval. To validate the proposed multi-GNSS ZTD estimates, we collected and processed data from 30 Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) stations; the resulting real-time tropospheric products are evaluated by using standard post-processed troposphere products and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts analysis (ECMWF) data. An accuracy of 4.5 mm and 7.1 mm relative to the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) and U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) products is achievable for real-time tropospheric delays from multi-GNSS PPP ambiguity resolution after an initialization process of approximately 5 min. Compared to Global Positioning System (GPS) results, the accuracy of retrieved zenith tropospheric delay from multi-GNSS PPP-AR is improved by 16.7% and 31.7% with respect to USNO and CODE final products. The GNSS-derived ZTD time-series exhibits a great agreement with the ECMWF data for a long period of 30 days. The average root mean square (RMS) of the real-time zenith tropospheric delay retrieved from multi-GNSS PPP-AR is 12.5 mm with respect to ECMWF data while the accuracy of GPS-only results is 13.3 mm. Significant improvement is also achieved in terms of the initialization time of the multi-GNSS tropospheric delays, with an improvement of 50.7% compared to GPS-only fixed solutions. All these improvements demonstrate the promising prospects of the multi-GNSS PPP-AR method for time-critical meteorological applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a popular technology for precise applications based on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Multi-GNSS combined PPP has become a hot topic in recent years with the development of multiple GNSSs. Meanwhile, with the operation of the real-time service (RTS) of the International GNSS Service (IGS) agency that provides satellite orbit and clock corrections to broadcast ephemeris, it is possible to obtain the real-time precise products of satellite orbits and clocks and to conduct real-time PPP. In this contribution, the real-time multi-GNSS orbit and clock corrections of the CLK93 product are applied for real-time multi-GNSS PPP processing, and its orbit and clock qualities are investigated, first with a seven-day experiment by comparing them with the final multi-GNSS precise product 'GBM' from GFZ. Then, an experiment involving real-time PPP processing for three stations in the Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) network with a testing period of two weeks is conducted in order to evaluate the convergence performance of real-time PPP in a simulated kinematic mode. The experimental result shows that real-time PPP can achieve a convergence performance of less than 15 min for an accuracy level of 20 cm. Finally, the real-time data streams from 12 globally distributed IGS/MGEX stations for one month are used to assess and validate the positioning accuracy of real-time multi-GNSS PPP. The results show that the simulated kinematic positioning accuracy achieved by real-time PPP on different stations is about 3.0 to 4.0 cm for the horizontal direction and 5.0 to 7.0 cm for the three-dimensional (3D) direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the precise orbit determination (POD) of the regional Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has been a hot spot because of its special constellation consisting of five geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellites and five inclined geosynchronous satellite orbit (IGSO) satellites besides four medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites since the end of 2012. GEO and IGSO satellites play an important role in regional BDS applications. However, this brings a great challenge to the POD, especially for the GEO satellites due to their geostationary orbiting. Though a number of studies have been carried out to improve the POD performance of GEO satellites, the result is still much worse than that of IGSO and MEO, particularly in the along-track direction. The major reason is that the geostationary characteristic of a GEO satellite results in a bad geometry with respect to the ground tracking network. In order to improve the tracking geometry of the GEO satellites, a possible strategy is to mount global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers on MEO satellites to collect the signals from GEO/IGSO GNSS satellites so as that these observations can be used to improve GEO/IGSO POD. We extended our POD software package to simulate all the related observations and to assimilate the MEO-onboard GNSS observations in orbit determination. Based on GPS and BDS constellations, simulated studies are undertaken for various tracking scenarios. The impact of the onboard GNSS observations is investigated carefully and presented in detail. The results show that MEO-onboard observations can significantly improve the orbit precision of GEO satellites from metres to decimetres, especially in the along-track direction. The POD results of IGSO satellites also benefit from the MEO-onboard data and the precision can be improved by more than 50% in 3D direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-frequency precise point positioning (SF-PPP) is a potential precise positioning technique due to the advantages of the high accuracy in positioning after convergence and the low cost in operation. However, there are still challenges limiting its applications at present, such as the long convergence time, the low reliability, and the poor satellite availability and continuity in kinematic applications. In recent years, the achievements in the dual-frequency PPP have confirmed that its performance can be significantly enhanced by employing the slant ionospheric delay and receiver differential code bias (DCB) constraint model, and the multi-constellation Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) data. Accordingly, we introduce the slant ionospheric delay and receiver DCB constraint model, and the multi-GNSS data in SF-PPP modular together. In order to further overcome the drawbacks of SF-PPP in terms of reliability, continuity, and accuracy in the signal easily blocking environments, the inertial measurements are also adopted in this paper. Finally, we form a new approach to tightly integrate the multi-GNSS single-frequency observations and inertial measurements together to ameliorate the performance of the ionospheric delay and receiver DCB-constrained SF-PPP. In such model, the inter-system bias between each two GNSS systems, the inter-frequency bias between each two GLONASS frequencies, the hardware errors of the inertial sensors, the slant ionospheric delays of each user-satellite pair, and the receiver DCB are estimated together with other parameters in a unique Kalman filter. To demonstrate its performance, the multi-GNSS and low-cost inertial data from a land-borne experiment are analyzed. The results indicate that visible positioning improvements in terms of accuracy, continuity, and reliability can be achieved in both open-sky and complex conditions while using the proposed model in this study compared to the conventional GPS SF-PPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise positioning with the current Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is proven to be of comparable accuracy to the Global Positioning System, which is at centimeter level for the horizontal components and sub-decimeter level for the vertical component. But the BeiDou precise point positioning (PPP) shows its limitation in requiring a relatively long convergence time. In this study, we develop a numerical weather model (NWM) augmented PPP processing algorithm to improve BeiDou precise positioning. Tropospheric delay parameters, i.e., zenith delays, mapping functions, and horizontal delay gradients, derived from short-range forecasts from the Global Forecast System of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) are applied into BeiDou real-time PPP. Observational data from stations that are capable of tracking the BeiDou constellation from the International GNSS Service (IGS) Multi-GNSS Experiments network are processed, with the introduced NWM-augmented PPP and the standard PPP processing. The accuracy of tropospheric delays derived from NCEP is assessed against with the IGS final tropospheric delay products. The positioning results show that an improvement in convergence time up to 60.0 and 66.7% for the east and vertical components, respectively, can be achieved with the NWM-augmented PPP solution compared to the standard PPP solutions, while only slight improvement in the solution convergence can be found for the north component. A positioning accuracy of 5.7 and 5.9 cm for the east component is achieved with the standard PPP that estimates gradients and the one that estimates no gradients, respectively, in comparison to 3.5 cm of the NWM-augmented PPP, showing an improvement of 38.6 and 40.1%. Compared to the accuracy of 3.7 and 4.1 cm for the north component derived from the two standard PPP solutions, the one of the NWM-augmented PPP solution is improved to 2.0 cm, by about 45.9 and 51.2%. The positioning accuracy for the up component improves from 11.4 and 13.2 cm with the two standard PPP solutions to 8.0 cm with the NWM-augmented PPP solution, an improvement of 29.8 and 39.4%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent dramatic development of multi-GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) constellations brings great opportunities and potential for more enhanced precise positioning, navigation, timing, and other applications. Significant improvement on positioning accuracy, reliability, as well as convergence time with the multi-GNSS fusion can be observed in comparison with the single-system processing like GPS (Global Positioning System). In this study, we develop a numerical weather model (NWM)-constrained precise point positioning (PPP) processing system to improve the multi-GNSS precise positioning. Tropospheric delay parameters which are derived from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) analysis are applied to the multi-GNSS PPP, a combination of four systems: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou. Observations from stations of the IGS (International GNSS Service) Multi-GNSS Experiments (MGEX) network are processed, with both the standard multi-GNSS PPP and the developed NWM-constrained multi-GNSS PPP processing. The high quality and accuracy of the tropospheric delay parameters derived from ECMWF are demonstrated through comparison and validation with the IGS final tropospheric delay products. Compared to the standard PPP solution, the convergence time is shortened by 20.0, 32.0, and 25.0 % for the north, east, and vertical components, respectively, with the NWM-constrained PPP solution. The positioning accuracy also benefits from the NWM-constrained PPP solution, which was improved by 2.5, 12.1, and 18.7 % for the north, east, and vertical components, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency division multiple access adopted in present GLONASS introduces inter-frequency bias (IFB) at the receiver-end both in code and phase observables, which makes GLONASS ambiguity resolution rather difficult or even not available, especially for long baselines up to several thousand kilometers. This is one of the major reasons that GLONASS could hardly reach the orbit precision of GPS, both in terms of consistency among individual International GNSS Service (IGS) analysis centers and discontinuity at the overlapping day boundaries. Based on the fact that the GLONASS phase IFB is similar on L1 and L2 bands in unit of length and is a linear function of the frequency number, several approaches have been developed to estimate and calibrate the IFB for integer ambiguity resolution. However, they are only for short and medium baselines. In this study, a new ambiguity resolution approach is developed for GLONASS global networks. In the approach, the phase ambiguities in the ionosphere-free linear combination are directly transformed with a wavelength of about 5.3 cm, according to the special frequency relationship of GLONASS L1 and L2 signals. After such transformation, the phase IFB rate can be estimated and corrected precisely and then the corresponding double-differenced ambiguities can be directly fixed to integers even for baselines up to several thousand kilometers. To evaluate this approach, experimental validations using one-month data of a global network with 140 IGS stations was carried out for GLONASS precise orbit determination. The results show that the GLONASS double-difference ambiguity resolution for long baselines could be achieved with an average fixing-rate of 91.4 %. Applying the fixed ambiguities as constraints, the GLONASS orbit overlapping RMS at the day boundaries could be reduced by 37.2 % in ideal cases and with an averaged reduction of about 21.4 %, which is comparable with that by the GPS ambiguity resolution. The orbit improvement is also confirmed by the better agreement with the independent satellite laser ranging observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of multi-Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs, e.g., BeiDou, Galileo, GLONASS, and GPS) and the International GNSS Service (IGS) Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) brings great opportunities and challenges for real-time determination of tropospheric zenith total delays (ZTDs) and integrated water vapor (IWV) to improve numerical weather prediction, particularly for nowcasting or severe weather event monitoring. In this paper, we develop a multi-GNSS model to fully exploit the potential of observations from all currently available GNSSs for enhancing real-time ZTD/IWV processing. A prototype multi-GNSS real-time ZTD/IWV monitoring system is also designed and realized at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) based on the precise point positioning technique. The ZTD and IWV derived from multi-GNSS stations are carefully analyzed and compared with those from collocated Very Long Baseline Interferometry and radiosonde stations. The performance of individual GNSS is assessed, and the significant benefit of multi-GNSS for real-time water vapor retrieval is also evaluated. The statistical results show that accuracy of several millimeters with high reliability is achievable for the multi-GNSS-based real-time ZTD estimates, which corresponds to about 1- to 1.5-mm accuracy for the IWV. The ZTD/IWV with improved accuracy and reliability would be beneficial for atmospheric sounding systems, particularly for time-critical geodetic and meteorological applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Global Positioning System (GPS) has been proved to be a powerful tool for measuring co-seismic ground displacements with an application to seismic source inversion. Whereas most of the tsunamis are triggered by large earthquakes, GPS can contribute to the tsunami early warning system (TEWS) by helping to obtain tsunami source parameters in near real-time. Toward the end of 2012, the second phase of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) constellation was accomplished, and BDS has been providing regional positioning service since then. Numerical results indicate that precision of BDS nowadays is equivalent to that of the GPS. Compared with a single Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS), combined BDS/GPS real-time processing can improve accuracy and especially reliability of retrieved co-seismic displacements. In the present study, we investigate the potential of BDS to serve for the early warning system of tsunamis in the South China Sea region. To facilitate early warnings of tsunamis and forecasting capabilities in this region, we propose to distribute an array of BDS-stations along the Luzon Island (Philippines). By simulating an earthquake with Mw = 8 at the Manila trench as an example, we demonstrate that such an array will be able to detect earthquake parameters in real time with a high degree of accuracy and, hence, contribute to the fast and reliable tsunami early warning system in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GLONASS could hardly reach the positioning performance of GPS, especially for fast and real-time precise positioning. One of the reasons is the phase inter-frequency bias (IFB) at the receiver end prevents its integer ambiguity resolution. A number of studies were carried out to achieve the integer ambiguity resolution for GLONASS. Based on some of the revealed IFB characteristics, for instance IFB is a linear function of the received carrier frequency and L1 and L2 have the same IFB in unit of length, most of recent methods recommend estimating the IFB rate together with ambiguities. However, since the two sets of parameters are highly correlated, as demonstrated in previous studies, observations over several hours up to 1 day are needed even with simultaneous GPS observations to obtain a reasonable solution. Obviously, these approaches cannot be applied for real-time positioning. Actually, it can be demonstrated that GLONASS ambiguity resolution should also be available even for a single epoch if the IFB rate is precisely known. In addition, the closer the IFB rate value is to its true value, the larger the fixing RATIO will be. Based on this fact, in this paper, a new approach is developed to estimate the IFB rate by means of particle filtering with the likelihood function derived from RATIO. This approach is evaluated with several sets of experimental data. For both static and kinematic cases, the results show that IFB rates could be estimated precisely just with GLONASS data of a few epochs depending on the baseline length. The time cost with a normal PC can be controlled around 1 s and can be further reduced. With the estimated IFB rate, integer ambiguity resolution is available immediately and as a consequence, the positioning accuracy is improved significantly to the level of GPS fixed solution. Thus the new approach enables real-time precise applications of GLONASS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise knowledge and consistent modeling of the yaw-attitude of GNSS satellites are essential for high-precision data processing and applications. As the exact attitude control mechanism for the satellites of the BeiDou Satellite Navigation System (BDS) is not yet released, the reverse kinematic precise point positioning (PPP) method was applied in our study. However, we confirm that the recent precise orbit determination (POD) processing for GPS satellites could not provide suitable products for estimating BDS attitude using the reverse PPP because of the special attitude control switching between the nominal and the orbit-normal mode. In our study, we propose a modified processing schema for studying the attitude behavior of the BDS satellites. In this approach, the observations of the satellites during and after attitude switch are excluded in the POD processing, so that the estimates, which are needed in the reverse PPP, are not contaminated by the inaccurate initial attitude mode. The modified process is validated by experimental data sets and the attitude yaw-angles of the BDS IGSO and MEO satellites are estimated with an accuracy of better than $$9^{\circ }$$ . Furthermore, the results confirm that the switch is executed when the Sun elevation is about $$4^{\circ }$$ and the actual orientation is very close to its target one. Based on the estimated yaw-angles, a preliminary attitude switch model was established and reintroduced into the POD, yielding to a substantial improvement in the orbit overlap RMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of the Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) brings a promising prospect for the real-time retrieval of zenith tropospheric delays (ZTD) and precipitable water vapor (PWV), which is of great benefit for supporting the time-critical meteorological applications such as nowcasting or severe weather event monitoring. In this study, we develop a real-time ZTD/PWV processing method based on Global Positioning System (GPS) and BDS observations. The performance of ZTD and PWV derived from BDS observations using real-time precise point positioning (PPP) technique is carefully investigated. The contribution of combining BDS and GPS for ZTD/PWV retrieving is evaluated as well. GPS and BDS observations of a half-year period for 40 globally distributed stations from the International GNSS Service Multi-GNSS Experiment and BeiDou Experiment Tracking Network are processed. The results show that the real-time BDS-only ZTD series agree well with the GPS-only ZTD series in general: the RMS values are about 11-16 mm (about 2-3 mm in PWV). Furthermore, the real-time ZTD derived from GPS-only, BDS-only, and GPS/BDS combined solutions are compared with those derived from the Very Long Baseline Interferometry. The comparisons show that the BDS can contribute to real-time meteorological applications, slightly less accurately than GPS. More accurate and reliable water vapor estimates, about 1.3-1.8 mm in PWV, can be obtained if the BDS observations are combined with the GPS observations in the real-time PPP data processing. The PWV comparisons with radiosondes further confirm the performance of BDS-derived real-time PWV and the benefit of adding BDS to standard GPS processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, Global Positioning System (GPS) plays an increasingly important role in retrieving real-time precise co-seismic displacements for geo-hazard monitoring and early warning. Several real-time positioning approaches have been demonstrated for such purpose, such as real-time kinematic relative positioning, precise point positioning, etc., where dual-frequency geodetic receivers are applied for the removal of ionosphere delays by inter-frequency combination. At the same time, it would be also useful to develop efficient algorithms for estimating precise displacements with low-cost GPS receivers since they can make a denser network or multi-sensors combination without putting too much financial burden. In this contribution, we present a new method to retrieve precise co-seismic displacements in real-time using a standalone single-frequency receiver. In the new method, observations prior to an earthquake are utilized to establish a precise ionospheric delay prediction model, so that precise co-seismic displacements can be obtained without any convergence process. Our method was validated with an outdoor experiment as well as by re-processing of 1-Hz GPS data collected by the GEONET network during the 2011 Tohoku Mw 9.0 earthquake. For the latter, RMS against dual-frequency receivers constituted 2 cm for horizontal components and 3 cm for the vertical component. We specially address the observation biases and their impact on the accuracy of single frequency positioning. Our approach makes real-time GPS displacement monitoring with dense network much more affordable in terms of financial costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, we present a GPS+GLONASS+BeiDou+Galileo four-system model to fully exploit the observations of all these four navigation satellite systems for real-time precise orbit determination, clock estimation and positioning. A rigorous multi-GNSS analysis is performed to achieve the best possible consistency by processing the observations from different GNSS together in one common parameter estimation procedure. Meanwhile, an efficient multi-GNSS real-time precise positioning service system is designed and demonstrated by using the multi-GNSS Experiment, BeiDou Experimental Tracking Network, and International GNSS Service networks including stations all over the world. The statistical analysis of the 6-h predicted orbits show that the radial and cross root mean square (RMS) values are smaller than 10 cm for BeiDou and Galileo, and smaller than 5 cm for both GLONASS and GPS satellites, respectively. The RMS values of the clock differences between real-time and batch-processed solutions for GPS satellites are about 0.10 ns, while the RMS values for BeiDou, Galileo and GLONASS are 0.13, 0.13 and 0.14 ns, respectively. The addition of the BeiDou, Galileo and GLONASS systems to the standard GPS-only processing, reduces the convergence time almost by 70 %, while the positioning accuracy is improved by about 25 %. Some outliers in the GPS-only solutions vanish when multi-GNSS observations are processed simultaneous. The availability and reliability of GPS precise positioning decrease dramatically as the elevation cutoff increases. However, the accuracy of multi-GNSS precise point positioning (PPP) is hardly decreased and few centimeter are still achievable in the horizontal components even with 40 $$^{\circ }$$ elevation cutoff. At 30 $$^{\circ }$$ and 40 $$^{\circ }$$ elevation cutoffs, the availability rates of GPS-only solution drop significantly to only around 70 and 40 %, respectively. However, multi-GNSS PPP can provide precise position estimates continuously (availability rate is more than 99.5 %) even up to 40 $$^{\circ }$$ elevation cutoff (e.g., in urban canyons). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the computational burden of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) data processing is nowadays already a big challenge, especially for huge networks, integrated processing of denser networks with data of multi-GNSS and multi-frequency is desired in the expectation of more accurate and reliable products. Based on the concept of carrier range, in this study, the precise point positioning with integer ambiguity resolution is engaged to obtain the integer ambiguities for converting carrier phases to carrier ranges. With such carrier ranges and pseudo-ranges, rigorous integrated processing is realized computational efficiently for the orbit and clock estimation using massive networks. The strategy is validated in terms of computational efficiency and product quality using data of the IGS network with about 460 stations. The experimental validation shows that the computation time of the new strategy increases gradually with the number of stations. It takes about 14 min for precise orbit and clock determination with 460 stations, while the current strategy needs about 82 min. The overlapping orbit RMS is reduced from 27.6 mm with 100 stations to 24.8 mm using the proposed strategy, and the RMS could be further reduced to 23.2 mm by including all 460 stations. Therefore, the new strategy could be applied to massive networks of multi-GNSS and multi-frequency receivers and possibly to achieve GNSS data products of higher quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-rate GNSS has attracted increasing attention and numerous applications in geohazard monitoring and early warning. In this paper, we investigate three current existing single-receiver approaches for real-time GNSS seismology, comparing their observation models for equivalence and assessing the impact of main error components. We propose some refinements to the variometric approach and especially consider compensating the geometry error component by using the accurate initial coordinates before the earthquake to eliminate the drift trend in the integrated coseismic displacements. After careful corrections of satellite ephemeris, ionospheric delay, tropospheric delay and geometry errors, the refined variometric approach and the temporal point positioning (TPP) method have equivalent mathematical model with the converged precise point positioning (PPP). We evaluated the precision of the variometric and TPP approaches with various error correction schemes and duration time using numerous data sets and demonstrated that few centimetres accuracy of coseismic displacements is achievable even for 20 min interval. We applied these single-receiver approaches to process 1 Hz GPS data collected from the Tohoku-Oki earthquake (Mw 9.0, 2011 March 11) in Japan to capture coseismic displacement, and further, inverted the obtained displacement fields for fault slip distribution and moment magnitude. Comparisons of the results obtained using the refined variometric approach and TPP, as well as the converged PPP, displayed very good consistence both in coseismic displacements within few centimetres and in the slip distribution patterns and moment magnitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The complementary advantages of GPS and seismic measurements are well recognized in seismotectonic monitoring studies. Therefore, integrated processing of the two data streams has been proposed recently in an attempt to obtain accurate and reliable information of surface displacements associated with earthquakes. A hitherto still critical issue in the integrated processing is real-time detection and precise estimation of the transient baseline error in the seismic records. Here, we report on a new approach by introducing the seismic acceleration corrected by baseline errors into the state equation system. The correction is performed and regularly updated in short epochs (with increments which may be as short as seconds), so that station position, velocity, and acceleration can be constrained very tightly and baseline error can be estimated as a random-walk process. With the adapted state equation system, our study highlights the use of a new approach developed for integrated processing of GPS and seismic data by means of sequential least-squares adjustment. The efficiency of our approach is demonstrated and validated using simulated, experimental, and real datasets. The latter were collected at collocated GPS and seismic stations around the 4 April 2010, E1 Mayor-Cucapah earthquake (Mw, 7.2). The results have shown that baseline errors of the strong-motion sensors are corrected precisely and high-precision seismic displacements are real-timely obtained by the new approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-rate GPS and seismic sensors are mutually contributing to seismological applications for capturing earthquake-induced coseismic displacements. In this study, we propose an approach for tightly integrating GPS and strong motion data on raw observation level to increase the quality of the derived displacements. The performance of the proposed approach is demonstrated using 5 Hz high-rate GPS and 200 Hz strong motion data collected during the El Mayor–Cucapah earthquake (Mw 7.2, 2010 April 4) in Baja California, Mexico. The new approach not only takes advantages of both GPS and strong motion sensors, but also improves the reliability of the displacement by enhancing GPS integer-cycle phase ambiguity resolution, which is very critical for deriving displacements with highest quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Motivated by the IGS real-time Pilot Project, GFZ has been developing its own real-time precise positioning service for various applications. An operational system at GFZ is now broadcasting real-time orbits, clocks, global ionospheric model, uncalibrated phase delays and regional atmospheric corrections for standard PPP, PPP with ambiguity fixing, single-frequency PPP and regional augmented PPP. To avoid developing various algorithms for different applications, we proposed a uniform algorithm and implemented it into our real-time software. In the new processing scheme, we employed un-differenced raw observations with atmospheric delays as parameters, which are properly constrained by real-time derived global ionospheric model or regional atmospheric corrections and by the empirical characteristics of the atmospheric delay variation in time and space. The positioning performance in terms of convergence time and ambiguity fixing depends mainly on the quality of the received atmospheric information and the spatial and temporal constraints. The un-differenced raw observation model can not only integrate PPP and NRTK into a seamless positioning service, but also syncretize these two techniques into a unique model and algorithm. Furthermore, it is suitable for both dual-frequency and sing-frequency receivers. Based on the real-time data streams from IGS, EUREF and SAPOS reference networks, we can provide services of global precise point positioning (PPP) with 5–10cm accuracy, PPP with ambiguity-fixing of 2–5cm accuracy, PPP using single-frequency receiver with accuracy of better than 50cm and PPP with regional augmentation for instantaneous ambiguity resolution of 1–3cm accuracy. We adapted the system for current COMPASS to provide PPP service. COMPASS observations from a regional network of nine stations are used for precise orbit determination and clock estimation in simulated real-time mode, the orbit and clock products are applied for real-time precise point positioning. The simulated real-time PPP service confirms that real-time positioning services of accuracy at dm-level and even cm-level is achievable with COMPASS only. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Ambiguity resolution dedicated to a single global positioning system (GPS) station can improve the accuracy of precise point positioning. In this process, the estimation accuracy of the narrow-lane fractional-cycle biases (FCBs), which destroy the integer nature of undifferenced ambiguities, is crucial to the ambiguity-fixed positioning accuracy. In this study, we hence propose the improved narrow-lane FCBs derived from an ambiguity-fixed GPS network solution, rather than the original (i.e. previously proposed) FCBs derived from an ambiguity-float network solution. The improved FCBs outperform the original FCBs by ensuring that the resulting ambiguity-fixed daily positions coincide in nature with the state-of-the-art positions generated by the International GNSS Service (IGS). To verify this improvement, 1 year of GPS measurements from about 350 globally distributed stations were processed. We find that the original FCBs differ more from the improved FCBs when fewer stations are involved in the FCB estimation, especially when the number of stations is less than 20. Moreover, when comparing the ambiguity-fixed daily positions with the IGS weekly positions for 248 stations through a Helmert transformation, for the East component, we find that on 359 days of the year the daily RMS of the transformed residuals based on the improved FCBs is smaller by up to 0.8 mm than those based on the original FCBs, and the mean RMS over the year falls evidently from 2.6 to 2.2 mm. Meanwhile, when using the improved rather than the original FCBs, the RMS of the transformed residuals for the East component of 239 stations (i.e. 96.4% of all 248 stations) is clearly reduced by up to 1.6 mm, especially for stations located within a sparse GPS network. Therefore, we suggest that narrow-lane FCBs should be determined with ambiguity-fixed, rather than ambiguity-float, GPS network solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integer ambiguity resolution at a single receiver can be achieved if the fractional-cycle biases are separated from the ambiguity estimates in precise point positioning (PPP). Despite the improved positioning accuracy by such integer resolution, the convergence to an ambiguity-fixed solution normally requires a few tens of minutes. Even worse, these convergences can repeatedly occur on the occasion of loss of tracking locks for many satellites if an open sky-view is not constantly available, consequently totally destroying the practicability of real-time PPP. In this study, in case of such re-convergences, we develop a method in which ionospheric delays are precisely predicted to significantly accelerate the integer ambiguity resolution. The effectiveness of this method consists in two aspects: first, wide-lane ambiguities can be rapidly resolved using the ionosphere-corrected wide-lane measurements, instead of the noisy Melbourne-Wübbena combination measurements; second, narrow-lane ambiguity resolution can be accelerated under the tight constraints derived from the ionosphere-corrected unambiguous wide-lane measurements. In the test at 90 static stations suffering from simulated total loss of tracking locks, 93.3 and 95.0% of re-convergences to wide-lane and narrow-lane ambiguity resolutions can be achieved within five epochs of 1-Hz measurements, respectively, even though the time latency for the predicted ionospheric delays is up to 180 s. In the test at a mobile van moving in a GPS-adverse environment where satellite number significantly decreases and cycle slips frequently occur, only when the predicted ionospheric delays are applied can the rate of ambiguity-fixed epochs be dramatically improved from 7.7 to 93.6% of all epochs. Therefore, this method can potentially relieve the unrealistic requirement of a continuous open sky-view by most PPP applications and improve the practicability of real-time PPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Global Positioning System (GPS) precise orbit determination (POD), the solar radiation pressure (SRP) is the dominant nongravitational perturbation force. Among the current SRP models, the ECOM and box-wing models are widely used in the International GNSS Service (IGS) community. However, the performance of different models varies over different GPS satellites. In this study, we investigate the performances of different SRP models, including the box-wing and adjustable box-wing as a priori models, and ECOM1 and ECOM2 as parameterization models, in the GPS POD solution from 2017 to 2019. Moreover, we pay special attention to the handling of the shadow factor in the SRP modeling for eclipsing satellites, which is critical to achieve high-precision POD solutions but has not yet been fully investigated. We demonstrate that, as an a priori SRP model, the adjustable box-wing has better performance than the box-wing model by up to 5 mm in the orbit day boundary discontinuity (DBD) statistics, with the largest improvement observed on the BLOCK IIR satellites using the ECOM1 as a parameterization SRP model. The box-wing model shows an insignificant orbit improvement serving as the a priori SRP model. For the eclipsing satellites, the three-dimensional (3D) root mean square (RMS) values of orbit DBD are improved when the shadow factor is applied only in the D direction (pointing toward to Sun) than that in the three directions (D, Y, and B) in the satellite frame. Different SRP models have comparable performance in terms of the Earth rotation parameter (ERP) agreement with the IERS EOP 14C04 product, whereas the magnitude of the length of day (LoD) annual signal is reduced when the shadow factor is applied in the D direction than in the three directions. This study clarifies how the shadow factor should be applied in the GPS POD solution and demonstrates that the a priori adjustable box-wing model combined with ECOM1 is more suitable for high-precision GPS POD solutions, which is useful for the further GNSS data analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a conventional Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) navigational system Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) sensor is often a main source of data for trajectory generation. Even video tracking based systems need some GNSS data for proper work. The goal of this study is to develop an optics-based system to estimate the ground speed of the UAV in the case of the GNSS failure, jamming, or unavailability. The proposed approach uses a camera mounted on the fuselage belly of the UAV. We can obtain the ground speed of the airplane by using the digital cropping, the stabilization of the real time image, and template matching algorithms. By combining the ground speed vector components with measurements of airspeed and altitude, the wind velocity and drift are computed. The obtained data were used to improve efficiency of the video-tracking based on a navigational system. An algorithm allows this computation to be performed in real time on board of a UAV. The algorithm was tested in Software-in-the-loop and implemented on the UAV hardware. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated through the experimental test results. The presented work could be useful for upgrading the existing MUAV products (with embedded cameras) already delivered to the customers only by updating their software. It is especially significant in the case when any necessary hardware upgrades would be economically unjustified or even impossible to be carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are an important tool for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. The fast and high-precision GNSS data processing relies on reliable integer ambiguity fixing, whose performance depends on phase bias estimation. However, the mathematic model of GNSS phase bias estimation encounters the rank-deficiency problem, making bias estimation a difficult task. Combining the Monte-Carlo-based methods and GNSS data processing procedure can overcome the problem and provide fast-converging bias estimates. The variance reduction of the estimation algorithm has the potential to improve the accuracy of the estimates and is meaningful for precise and efficient PNT services. In this paper, firstly, we present the difficulty in phase bias estimation and introduce the sequential quasi-Monte Carlo (SQMC) method, then develop the SQMC-based GNSS phase bias estimation algorithm, and investigate the effects of the low-discrepancy sequence on variance reduction. Experiments with practical data show that the low-discrepancy sequence in the algorithm can significantly reduce the standard deviation of the estimates and shorten the convergence time of the filtering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-rate multi-constellation global navigation satellite system (GNSS) precise point positioning (PPP) has been recognized as an efficient and reliable technique for large earthquake monitoring. However, the displacements derived from PPP are often overwhelmed by the centimeter-level noise, therefore they are usually unable to detect slight deformations which could provide new findings for geophysics. In this paper, Global Positioning System (GPS), GLObalnaya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (GLONASS), and BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS) data collected during the 2017 Mw 6.5 Jiuzhaigou earthquake were used to further exploit the capability of BDS-only and multi-GNSS PPP in deformation monitoring by applying sidereal filtering (SF) in the observation domain. The equation that unifies the residuals for the uncombined and undifferenced (UCUD) PPP solution on different frequencies was derived, which could greatly reduce the complexity of data processing. An unanticipated long-term periodic error term of up to ± 3 cm was found in the phase residuals associated with BDS satellites in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), which is not due to multipath originated from the ground but is in fact satellite dependent. The period of this error is mainly longer than 2000 s and cannot be alleviated by using multi-GNSS. Compared with solutions without sidereal filtering, the application of the SF approach dramatically improves the positioning precision with respect to the weekly averaged positioning solution, by 75.2%, 42.8%, and 56.7% to 2.00, 2.23, and 5.58 cm in the case of BDS-only PPP in the east, north, and up components, respectively, and 71.2%, 27.7%, and 37.9% to 1.25, 0.81, and 3.79 cm in the case of GPS/GLONASS/BDS combined PPP, respectively. The GPS/GLONASS/BDS combined solutions augmented by the SF successfully suppress the GNSS noise, which contributes to the detection of the true seismic signal and is beneficial to the pre- and post-seismic signal analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of multiple global navigation satellite systems (multi-GNSS), including global positioning system (GPS), global navigation satellite system (GLONASS), Beidou navigation satellite system (BDS), and Galileo, brings not only great opportunities for real-time precise point positioning (PPP), but also challenges in quality control because of inevitable data anomalies. This research aims at achieving the real-time quality control of the multi-GNSS combined PPP using additional observations with opposite weight. A robust multiple-system combined PPP estimation is developed to simultaneously process observations from all the four GNSS systems as well as single, dual, or triple systems. The experiment indicates that the proposed quality control can effectively eliminate the influence of outliers on the single GPS and the multiple-system combined PPP. The analysis on the positioning accuracy and the convergence time of the proposed robust PPP is conducted based on one week's data from 32 globally distributed stations. The positioning root mean square (RMS) error of the quad-system combined PPP is 1.2 cm, 1.0 cm, and 3.0 cm in the east, north, and upward components, respectively, with the improvements of 62.5%, 63.0%, and 55.2% compared to those of single GPS. The average convergence time of the quad-system combined PPP in the horizontal and vertical components is 12.8 min and 12.2 min, respectively, while it is 26.5 min and 23.7 min when only using single-GPS PPP. The positioning performance of the GPS, GLONASS, and BDS (GRC) combination and the GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo (GRE) combination is comparable to the GPS, GLONASS, BDS and Galileo (GRCE) combination and it is better than that of the GPS, BDS, and Galileo (GCE) combination. Compared to GPS, the improvements of the positioning accuracy of the GPS and GLONASS (GR) combination, the GPS and Galileo (GE) combination, the GPS and BDS (GC) combination in the east component are 53.1%, 43.8%, and 40.6%, respectively, while they are 55.6%, 48.1%, and 40.7% in the north component, and 47.8%, 40.3%, and 34.3% in the upward component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including multi-global navigation satellite systems, artificial satellites, and remote sensing.

The main challenge of precise point positioning (PPP) applications is the long convergence time of typically a half hour, or even more, to achieve centimeter accuracy. Even when the multi-constellation is involved and ambiguity resolution is implemented, it still requires about ten minutes. It is becoming a hot spot to incorporate the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation for enhancing the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), named here as LEO-enhanced GNSS (LeGNSS). In this system, the LEO satellites cannot only receive GNSS signals, but also serve as GNSS satellites by transmitting similar navigation signals to the ground users, but with higher signal strength and much faster geometric change due to their low altitude. As a result, the convergence time of PPP is expected to be shortened to a few minutes, or even seconds. Simulation software is developed to simulate GNSS and LEO observations for ground stations taking into account tropospheric delay, satellite clock errors, observation noises, as well as other error sources. Then the number of visible satellites, the geometry dilution of precision (GDOP), and the convergence time of the kinematic mode of PPP are evaluated on a global scale compared to those of GNSS systems. The simulation results show that LeGNSS can decrease the PPP convergence to 5 min. If there are more LEO satellites included in the LeGNSS, it is expected that the initialization of PPP can be further shortened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]