Faculty of Maritime Studies

Rijeka
Nautical Studies and Maritime Transport Technology
On Modeng of Second-Order Ionospherc
Deay for GPS Precse Pont Postonng
Dno Vuke & Ld|a Ma
Year of Study: 1
st
year of study
Pro|ect Supervsor: dr Bozana Knezev & Irena Brdar
Date of submsson:
2011 / 2012
The |ourna of Navgaton Voume 65, Number 1 |anuary 2012 .
Roya nsttute of Navgaton Scence Technoogy Practce
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
ISSN: 0373-4633
On Modeng of Second-Order Ionospherc Deay for GPS Precse Pont
Postonng
Mohamed Esobeey s a Ph.D. canddate n the Department of Cv
Engneerng (Geomatcs
Engneerng Program), Ryerson Unversty. He has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. n Cv
Engneerng
from Zagazg Unversty, Egypt. He s nterested n navgaton and satete
postonng
software deveopment.
Dr. Ahmed E-Rabbany obtaned hs PhD degree n GPS from the
Department of Geodesy and
Geomatcs Engneerng, Unversty of New Brunswck. He s currenty a
professor and the
graduate program drector at Ryerson Unversty n Toronto, Canada. He
aso hods an
Honorary Research Assocate poston at the Department of Geodesy and
Geomatcs
Engneerng, Unversty of New Brunswck. Hs areas of expertse ncude
satete postonng
and navgaton, ntegrated navgaton systems, and hydrographc
surveyng. Dr. E-Rabbany
authored an easy-to-read GPS book, whch receved a 5-star ratng on the
Amazon webste
and was sted as a bestseng GPS book. He aso pubshed numerous
|ourna and conference
papers. Dr. E-Rabbany receved a number of awards n recognton of hs
academc
achevements, ncudng three mert awards from Ryerson Unversty.
Marne charts s one of the most mportant navgatona toos today that
tremendousy mproved the way saors safey navgate the shps toward
ts destnatons. Goba Postonng System gves very mportant data that
are reevant to martme navgaton.
As a resut of the avaabty of numerous navgatona devces and
equpments ke marine chartplotters, more shps today are now abe to reach
ts destnatons safey and wth much esser trave tme; compared to
those who are crusng wthout any Goba Postonng System devces. GPS
equpped devces can gve mportant nformaton; aowng the peope at
the hem of the shp to easy navgate through varous weather condtons.
Moreover, nava offcers and captans can now safey change ther
navgaton based on the data provded by the GPS; as we as sea traffc as
seen from the charts. Hence, t aso sgnfcanty reduce the ncdences of
sea mshap caused by other boats, cebergs, and other obstructons at the
sea. Ths s hghy essenta durng goomy weathers and durng nght tme
when the vsbty s very mted; aowng vesses to st safey navgate
even under poor or zero vsbty.
GPS surveyng has tradtonay been carred out n the dfferenta
(reatve) postonng mode. Ths s many due to the hgher postonng
accuracy obtaned wth dfferenta postonng n comparson wth GPS
pont postonng.
A ma|or dsadvantage of GPS dfferenta postonng, however, s ts
dependency on the measurements or correctons from a reference
recever or network; .e. two or more GPS recevers are requred.
New deveopments n GPS postonng show that a user wth a standaone
GPS recever can obtan postonng accuracy comparabe to that of
dfferenta postonng. Such technque s known as precse pont
postonng (PPP).
A ma|or drawback of PPP, however, s that about 30 mnutes or more s
currenty requred to acheve centmetre- to decmetre-eve accuracy. Ths
reatvey ong convergence tme resuts from remanng un-modeed GPS
resdua errors. A ma|or resdua error component, whch affects the
convergence of PPP souton, s hgher-order onospherc deay. In ths
paper, we rgorousy mode the second-order onospherc deay, whch
represents the buk of hgher-order onospherc deay, for PPP appcatons.
Frsty, raw GPS measurements from a goba custer of nternatona GNSS
servce (IGS) statons are corrected for the effect of second-order
onospherc deay. The corrected data sets are then used as nput to the
Bernese GPS software to estmate the precse orbt and satete cock
correctons. It s shown that the effect of second-order onospherc deay
on GPS satete orbt ranges from 1.5 to 24.7 mm n rada, 2.7 to 18.6 mm
n aong-track, and 3.2 to 15.9 mm n cross-track drectons, respectvey.
GPS satete cock correctons, on the other hand, showed a dfference of
up to 0.067 ns. To examne the effect of the second-order onospherc
deay on the PPP souton, new data sets from severa IGS statons were
processed usng a modfed verson of GPSPace software, whch accepts
second-order onospherc correctons. It s shown that accountng for the
second-order onospherc deay mproved the PPP souton convergence
tme by about 15% and mproved the accuracy estmaton by 3 mm.
Introduction
Precse pont postonng (PPP) s a method that performs precse poston
determnaton usng a snge GPS recever.
Ths postonng approach arose from the advent of wdey avaabe
precse GPS orbt and cock data products wth centmeter accuracy. These
data can be apped to substantay reduce the errors n GPS satete
orbts and cocks, two of the most sgnfcant error sources n GPS
postonng.
Combnng precse satete postons and cocks wth a dua-frequency GPS
recever (to remove the frst order effect of the onosphere), PPP s abe to
provde poston soutons at centmeter to decmeter eve, whch s
appeang to many appcatons such as arborne mappng. PPP s dfferent
from doube-dfference RTK (rea-tme knematc) postonng that requres
access to observatons from one or more base statons wth known
coordnates. The word "precse" s aso used to dstngush t from the
conventona pont postonng technques that use ony code or phase-
smoothed code as the prncpa observabe for poston determnaton.
Rea-tme and near rea-tme GPS precse pont postonng (PPP) requres
shorter convergence tme for the estmated parameters.
Unke n reatve postonng, common mode errors do not cance n PPP.
Staton movements
that resut from geophysca phenomena such as tectonc pate moton,
Earth tdes and ocean
oadng enter the PPP souton n fu, as do observaton errors resutng
from the troposphere
and onosphere. Reevant satete specfc errors are satete cocks,
satete antenna phase
center offset, group deay dfferenta, reatvty and satete antenna
phase wnd-up error.
Recever specfc errors are recever antenna phase center offset and
recever antenna phase
wnd-up.
Ths secton contans a bref descrpton of these error sources and of other
components that are parts of PPP.
Recent research has shown that not a errors and bases are rgorousy
modeed n PPP, whch resuts n correated resdua errors
Such unmodeed errors shoud be accounted for to acheve shorter
convergence of the PPP souton
Computation of STEC
For satete and arcraft navgaton systems or satete orbt and poston
determnaton t s necessary to use rado sgnas transmtted between the
satete and the ground staton.
The onosphere produces severa effects on transonospherc rado waves.
These effects are proportona to the number of free eectrons
encountered by the wave on ts passage through the onosphere (tota
eectron content, TEC).
TEC s a key parameter that descrbes the ma|or mpact of the onzed
atmosphere on the propagaton of rado waves, whch s cruca for
terrestra and Earthspace communcatons.
The onospherc correctons that have to be apped to determne the
poston accuratey are proportona TEC aong the radar-satete path . So,
for onospherc correctons, TEC measurements are requred, or TEC
predctons from onospherc modes can be a usefu too.
Dfferent onospherc modes have been deveoped to predct the eectron
densty (N) dstrbuton n heght, whch s caed N-profe, ncudng the IRI
mode. Wth ths N-profe the vertca tota eectron content can be
obtaned. Nevertheess, most of the sgna paths are sant paths.
In genera to mode the onosphere, the so caed thn ayer approxmaton
s adopted, the STEC s reated wth the vertca tota eectron content
(VTEC) through the percng pont wth the obquty factor. The purpose of
the present work s to cacuate the TEC aong the ground staton-satete
ray path, caed Sant Tota Eectron Content (STEC). A computaton
method and onospherc mode are used. We adopted a Chapman ayer
wth scae heght equa to atomc oxygen scae heght, hereafter referred
to as CHO.
To cacuate the STEC the ength of the sant path s dvded nto segments
of 20 km. The vertcas that pass through the ends of these segments
ntersect the Earths surface n dfferent ponts that we ca auxares
statons. The coordnates of these statons are determned. Wth an
onospherc mode the eectron denstes at the ponts where the sant path
ntersects the vertcas of the auxares statons are cacuated and from
them the sant N-profe s obtaned. Then, a numerca ntegraton method
and ths sant N-profe are used to cacuated STEC up to 2000 km of
attude.
The rapd goba maps are avaabe wth a deay ess than 24 hours and
accuracy n the order of 2-9 TEC unts, whe the fna maps are avaabe
wth a deay about 11 days and accuracy n the order of 2-8 TEC unts.
GIMs provde the vertca tota eectron content (VTEC) that has to be
converted to STEC usng a mappng functon. STEC computed usng the
GIM mode can ntroduce up to 50% error at ow attude and ow
eevatons (Hernndez-Pa|ares et a., 2007). NOAA, on the other hand,
produces a regona onospherc mode known as the Unted States tota
eectron content (US-TEC). US-TEC covers regons across the contnenta
US (CONUS), extendng from attude 10 to 60 North and from ongtude
50 to 150 West. The US-TEC maps have a spata resouton of 11 and
a tempora resouton of 15 mnutes (Rowe, 2005). The maps ncude both
STEC and VTEC for dfferent ocatons and drectons. The accuracy of the
US-TEC maps s n the range of 1 to 3 TEC unts. The dfferenta vertca
TEC has an average root mean square error of 1.7 TEC unts, whch s
equvaent to ess than 30 cm of sgna deay at the GPS L1 frequency.
Dfferenta sant TEC, on the other hand, has an average root mean
square error of 2.4 TEC unts, whch s equvaent to ess than 40 cm of
sgna deay at the GPS L1 frequency.
Aternatvey, STEC can be estmated by formng the geometry-free near
combnaton of GPS pseudorange observabes.
The Magnetic Field Model
Geomagnetc modes form the foundaton of tradtona, compass-based
navgatona systems. These modes provde a pcture of the Earth's
magnetc fed and how t vares from one pont on the Earth's surface to
another.
The prmary word mode s the Internatona Geomagnetc Reference Fed
(IGRF), comped from magnetc measurements coected by natona
observatores n many countres, as we as readngs made from shps,
arpanes, and satetes.
The IGRF mode s a standard spherca harmonc representaton of the
Earth's man fed. The mode s updated every 5 years .The mode,
derved through mathematca anayss of a vast amount of data,
represents the magnetc fed generated n the Earth's core, wth sma-
scae varatons at the surface and soar effects ftered out of the basc
data. Even n an age of Goba Postonng System (GPS) navgaton, when
fndng your poston on the Earth's surface s |ust a cck away, the
geomagnetc mode st pays a vta roe, t s but nto GPS navgaton
systems as a backup.
A more reastc mode for the Earths geomagnetc fed, s the
nternatona geomagnetc reference fed (IGRF). The nternatona
assocaton of geomagnetsm and astronomy (IAGA) has reeased the 11th
generaton of the IGRF n December 2009. The coeffcents of the IGRF11
mode are based on data coected from dfferent sources, ncudng
geomagnetc measurements from observatores, shps, arcrafts, and
satetes (NOAA, 2010). The reatve dfference between the dpoe and
IGRF modes ranges from -20% n the east of Asa up to +60% n the so-
caed south Atantc anomay.
GS Measuring !istances
GPS postonng s based on trateraton, whch s the method of
determnng poston by
measurng dstances to ponts at known coordnates. At a mnmum,
trateraton requres 3
ranges to 3 known ponts. GPS pont postonng, on the other hand,
requres 4
"pseudoranges" to 4 satetes.
Ths rases two questons: (a) "What are pseudoranges?", and (b) "How do
we know the
poston of the satetes?" Wthout gettng nto too much deta at ths
pont, we address the
second queston frst.
How do we know poston of satetes?
A sgna s transmtted from each satete n the drecton of the Earth. Ths
sgna s encoded
wth the "Navgaton Message," whch can be read by the users GPS
recevers.
The Navgaton Message ncudes orbt parameters (often caed the
"broadcast ephemers"), from whch the recever can compute satete
coordnates (X,Y,Z). These are Cartesan coordnates n a geocentrc
system, known as WGS-84, whch has ts orgn at the Earth centre of
mass, Z axs pontng towards the North Poe, X pontng towards the Prme
Merdan (whch crosses Greenwch), and Y at rght anges to X and Z to
form a rght-handed orthogona coordnate system. The agorthm whch
transforms the orbt parameters nto WGS-84 satete
coordnates at any specfed tme s caed the "Ephemers Agorthm,"
whch s defned n
GPS textbooks |e.g., Leck, 1991|. We dscuss the Navgaton Message n
more deta ater
on. For now, we move on to "pseudoranges."
What are pseudoranges?
Tme that the sgna s transmtted from the satete s encoded on the
sgna, usng the tme
accordng to an atomc cock onboard the satete. Tme of sgna
recepton s recorded by
recever usng an atomc cock. A recever measures dfference n these
tmes
Pseudorange = (tme dfference) x (speed of ght)
Note that pseudorange s amost ke range, except that t ncudes cock
errors because the
recever cocks are far from perfect. How do we correct for cock errors?
How do we correct for cock errors?
Satete cock error s gven n Navgaton Message, n the form of a
poynoma. The
unknown recever cock error can be estmated by the user aong wth
unknown staton
coordnates. There are 4 unknowns; hence we need a mnmum of 4
pseudorange
measurements.
There are four GPS segments:
the Space Segment, whch ncudes the consteaton of GPS satetes,
whch
transmt the sgnas to the user;
the Contro Segment, whch s responsbe for the montorng and
operaton of the
Space Segment,
the User Segment, whch ncudes user hardware and processng
software for
postonng, navgaton, and tmng appcatons;
the Ground Segment, whch ncudes cvan trackng networks that
provde the
User Segment wth reference contro, precse ephemerdes, and rea tme
servces
(DGPS) whch mtgate the effects of "seectve avaabty" (a topc to be
dscussed ater).
Effect of Second"order Ionospheric !elay on the determination of
satellite or#it and clock corrections
NRCan GPS PPP software s modfed to accept the second-order
onospherc deay correcton
The estmated satete orbt and cock correctons are used to process the
GPS data of severa GPS statons
Frst-order onosphere-free near combnaton of both code and carrer-
phase are used and the correcton for the second-order onospherc deay
s apped for both observabes
To nvestgate the effect of second-order onospherc deay on the GPS
satete orbt and cock correctons, Bernese GPS software was used. A
goba custer of 284 IGS reference statons (Fgure 2) was formed based
on a pror nformaton about the behavour of each recevers cock and
the tota number of carrer-phase ambgutes n the correspondng
observaton fes. GPS measurements coected at the 284 IGS statons
were downoaded from the IGS webste for May 05, 2010 (DOY125).
The raw data were frst corrected for the effect of second-order
onospherc deay usng Equatons 5 through 7. Equaton 8 was used to
compute the STEC vaues and the IGS pubshed DCBs were apped. The
corrected data aong wth the broadcast ephemers were used as nput to
the Bernese GPS software to estmate the satete orbt and cock
correctons. Our resuts showed that the effect of second-order onospherc
deay on GPS satete orbt ranges from 1.5 to 24.7 mm n rada, 2.7 to
18.6 mm n the aong-track, and 3.2 to 15.9 mm n cross-track drectons,
respectvey (Tabe 1).
Fgure 2. Goba Custer of IGS Statons Used n Estmaton of GPS Satete
Orbt and Cock Correctons
Effect of Second"order Ionospheric !elay on GIM estimates
Effect of second-order onospherc deay on the estmated satete cock
souton dfferences were wthn 0.067 ns (2 cm).
Tabe 2 shows the RMS (n pcoseconds) of the estmated satetes cock
correctons (Est.) compared wth the correspondng vaues of the IGS fna
satetes cock correctons.
Tabe 2: RMS of GPS
Satetes Cock
Correctons Cock
RMS (ps)
Cock RMS (ps)
PRN IGS Est. PRN IGS Est.
G02 20.7
4
3.82 G17 15.88 3.85
G03 16.5
3
3.87 G18 12.03 4.64
G04 19.0
5
3.95 G19 26.42 3.91
G05 15.2
3
3.87 G20 12.64 3.82
G06 15.2
5
4.73 G21 25.17 3.66
G07 17.7
4
3.74 G22 12.83 4.39
G08 18.1
9
4.21 G23 28.45 3.70
G09 41.1
0
4.11 G24 18.99 3.68
G10 13.9
4
3.86 G26 18.31 4.00
G11 15.5
3
4.08 G27 13.51 4.03
G12 23.3
2
3.73 G28 14.65 4.21
G13 16.9
5
3.69 G29 13.15 4.21
G14 13.3
7
4.95 G30 19.24 3.84
G15 16.4
2
3.97 G31 18.18 4.91
G16 16.1
8
3.97 G32 27.83 3.77
Effect of Second"order Ionospheric !elay on Solution
NRCan GPS PPP software s modfed to accept the second-order
onospherc deay correcton.
The estmated satete orbt and cock correctons are used to process the
GPS data of severa GPS statons
Frst-order onosphere-free near combnaton of both code and carrer-
phase are used and the correcton for the
second-order onospherc deay s apped for both observabes
GPS data from 12 IGS statons (Fgure 3) were processed usng the
modfed GPSPace.
The statons were chosen randomy and were not ncuded n the
estmaton of satete orbt and cock correctons. The data used were the
onosphere-free (wth both frst- and second-order correctons ncuded)
near combnaton of pseudorange and carrer-phase measurements. The
estmated precse satete orbt and cock correctons, from the prevous
step, were used n the data processng. The resuts show that
mprovements are attaned n a three components of the staton
coordnates.
Fgures 4 through 9 show the 3D soutons obtaned wth and wthout the
second-order onospherc correctons ncuded, for statons TAH1 and
DRAG, as exampes.
As can be seen, the amptude varaton of the estmated coordnates
durng the frst 15 mnutes s reduced when consderng the second-order
onospherc deay. In addton, the convergence tme for the estmated
parameters s reduced by about 15%. The fna PPP souton shows an
mprovement n the order of 3 mm n staton coordnates. It shoud be
ponted out that the souton mprovement s much hgher at ow attudes
where the second-order onospherc effect s much hgher.
Tabe 3 summarzes the RMS of the fna souton of a statons.
Conclusions and Future $utlook
The mpact of the second-order onospherc deay on GPS satete orbt
and cock correctons s nvestgated
The resuts showed that an error n the GPS satetes orbts ranges from
1.5 to 24.7 mm n rada, 2.7 to 18.6 mm n aong-track, and 3.2 to 15.9
mm n cross-track drectons, respectvey
Second-order onospherc-deay can cause satete cock error up to 0.067
ns (2 cm)
Accountng for the second-order onospherc deay can mprove the PPP
coordnate souton by about 3 mm and the convergence tme by about
15%
Future research w deveop between-satete snge-dfference (BSSD)
agorthm
BSSD PPP wth accountng for the second-order onospherc deay w be
the key for carrer-phase ambguty resouton n PPP
Reference
GS recise oint ositioning% Some Recent !e&elopments
Mohamed Esobeey and Ahmed E-Rabbany
Department of Cv Engneerng (Geomatcs Opton)
Ryerson Unversty, CANADA
'asics of the GS Techni(ue% $#ser&ation E(uations)
Geoffrey Bewtt
Department of Geomatcs, Unversty of Newcaste
Newcaste upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, Unted Kngdom
Con&ergence Time Impro&ement of recise oint ositioning
Mohamed Esobeey and Ahmed E-Rabbany, Canada
Elements of GS recise oint ositioning
By: Boonsap Wtchayangkoon
B.Eng. (Honors) Kng Mongkuts Unversty of Technoogy Thonbur, Bangkok,
1992
M.S. Unversty of Mane, 1997
Second"order ionospheric term in GS% Implementation and impact on
geodetic estimates
|ourna of Geophysca Research
VOL. 112, B08417, do:10.1029/2006|B004707, 2007
$n Modelling of Second"$rder Ionospheric !elay for GS recise oint
ositioning
The |ourna of Navgaton Voume 65, Number 1 |anuary 2012 .
Roya nsttute of Navgaton Scence Technoogy Practce