Performance of Selected Ionospheric Models in Multi-Global Navigation Satellite System Single-Frequency Positioning over China

• Published in: Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2019-09, Vol.11 (17), p.2070
• Main Authors: Wang, Ahao, Chen, Junping, Zhang, Yize, Meng, Lingdong, Wang, Jiexian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; BeiDou Navigation Satellite System; Convergence; Delay; Global navigation satellite system; Global positioning systems; GLONASS; GPS; Ionosphere; ionospheric model; Kinematics; Model accuracy; multi-GNSS; Observatories; precise point positioning; Remote sensing; Satellite navigation systems; Science; single frequency; standard point positioning
• ISSN: 2072-4292; 2072-4292
• DOI: 10.3390/rs11172070

Ionospheric delay as the major error source needs to be properly handled in multi-GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) single-frequency positioning and the different ionospheric models exhibit apparent performance difference. In this study, two single-frequency positioning solutions with different ionospheric corrections are utilized to comprehensively analyze the ionospheric delay effects on multi-frequency and multi-constellation positioning performance, including standard point positioning (SPP) and ionosphere-constrained precise point positioning (PPP). The four ionospheric models studied are the GPS broadcast ionospheric model (GPS-Klo), the BDS (BeiDou Navigation Satellite System) broadcast ionospheric model (BDS-Klo), the BDS ionospheric grid model (BDS-Grid) and the Global Ionosphere Maps (GIM) model. Datasets are collected from 10 stations over one month in 2019. The solar remained calm and the ionosphere was stable during the test period. The experimental results show that for single-frequency SPP, the GIM model achieves the best accuracy, and the positioning accuracy of the BDS-Klo and BDS-Grid model is much better than the solution with GPS-Klo model in the N and U components. For the single-frequency PPP performance, the average convergence time of the ionosphere-constrained PPP is much reduced compared with the traditional PPP approach, where the improvements are of 11.2%, 11.9%, 21.3% and 39.6% in the GPS-Klo-, BDS-Klo-, BDS-Grid- and GIM-constrained GPS + GLONASS + BDS single-frequency PPP solutions, respectively. Furthermore, the positioning accuracy of the BDS-Grid- and GIM-constrained PPP is generally the same as the ionosphere-free combined single-frequency PPP. Through the combination of GPS, GLONASS and BDS, the positioning accuracy and convergence performance for all single-system single-frequency SPP/PPP solutions can be effectively improved.