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An alternative ionospheric correction model for global navigation satellite systems

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Abstract

The ionosphere is recognized as a major error source for single-frequency operations of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). To enhance single-frequency operations the global positioning system (GPS) uses an ionospheric correction algorithm (ICA) driven by 8 coefficients broadcasted in the navigation message every 24 h. Similarly, the global navigation satellite system Galileo uses the electron density NeQuick model for ionospheric correction. The Galileo satellite vehicles (SVs) transmit 3 ionospheric correction coefficients as driver parameters of the NeQuick model. In the present work, we propose an alternative ionospheric correction algorithm called Neustrelitz TEC broadcast model NTCM-BC that is also applicable for global satellite navigation systems. Like the GPS ICA or Galileo NeQuick, the NTCM-BC can be optimized on a daily basis by utilizing GNSS data obtained at the previous day at monitor stations. To drive the NTCM-BC, 9 ionospheric correction coefficients need to be uploaded to the SVs for broadcasting in the navigation message. Our investigation using GPS data of about 200 worldwide ground stations shows that the 24-h-ahead prediction performance of the NTCM-BC is better than the GPS ICA and comparable to the Galileo NeQuick model. We have found that the 95 percentiles of the prediction error are about 16.1, 16.1 and 13.4 TECU for the GPS ICA, Galileo NeQuick and NTCM-BC, respectively, during a selected quiet ionospheric period, whereas the corresponding numbers are found about 40.5, 28.2 and 26.5 TECU during a selected geomagnetic perturbed period. However, in terms of complexity the NTCM-BC is easier to handle than the Galileo NeQuick and in this respect comparable to the GPS ICA.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the editor and reviewers for their helpful remarks for improving the manuscript. Further, we would like to express our gratitude to the Aeronomy and Radio Propagation Laboratory of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Trieste/Italy providing NeQuick version 2.0.2 for scientific purposes. We would like to give thanks to sponsors and operators of NASA’s Earth Science Data Systems and the CDDIS for archiving and distributing the IGS data. We would like to acknowledge the support of the organizations contributing to the IGS by providing GNSS data to the CDDIS for the international science community. We are grateful to NOAA’S NGS for publishing Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) data. We are also grateful to CODE for making public the global ionospheric TEC maps. We would like to give thanks NOAA’s NGDC for disseminating historical solar and magnetic data via SPIDR. Also thanks to SOPAC service for making available daily GNSS satellite ephemeris data.

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  1. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Communications and Navigation, Kalkhorstweg 53, 17235, Neustrelitz, Germany

    M. M. Hoque & N. Jakowski

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  1. M. M. Hoque
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  2. N. Jakowski
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Correspondence to M. M. Hoque.

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Hoque, M.M., Jakowski, N. An alternative ionospheric correction model for global navigation satellite systems. J Geod 89, 391–406 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-014-0783-z

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