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Decentralized GNSS PPP-RTK

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Abstract

PPP-RTK, known as integer ambiguity resolution-enabled precise point positioning, requires precise satellite-related products and atmospheric corrections estimated in a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) network. In generating these products, one commonly sends all network data to a computation center and conducts a centralized processing scheme. However, this centralized PPP-RTK faces considerable challenges in computational efficiency and model formulation with the increasing number of receivers. This work proposes a decentralized PPP-RTK processing strategy that generates products in three steps: subnetwork processing, satellite-related product integration, and atmospheric correction update. The first step divides the whole network into several subnetworks where we can impose ionosphere-weighted constraints to improve the precision of estimates. The second step integrates subnetwork-dependent satellite clocks and biases and aligns the underlying datum. The final step updates the atmospheric delays by considering the covariances between satellite-related products and atmospheric estimates. This three-step decentralized PPP-RTK processing strategy can improve computational efficiency and ensure the high precision of all products. For numerical evaluation, we collected one-week dual-frequency global positioning system (GPS) data from 82 stations, in which 44 stations were divided into four groups for product generation and 38 stations were considered users for positioning experiments. The results show, on the network side, that the decentralized PPP-RTK generates products with the same precision as that of centralized PPP-RTK and reduces the computation time by about 50%. On the user side, the decentralized PPP-RTK products perform as well as their centralized counterparts, and the time-to-first-fix (TTFF) and three-dimensional root-mean-square (RMS) are less than 3 epochs and 1.59 cm on average, respectively. Moreover, the results verify that the decentralized PPP-RTK ensures continuous positioning when users move across subnetworks.

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Data availability

The observation data used in this study are available from the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) network (https://geodesy.noaa.gov/CORS/). The precise orbit products used in this study are available from Wuhan University (ftp://igs.gnsswhu.cn).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. Peter Teunissen, Dr. Amir Khodabandeh, Dr. Robert Odolinski, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments. This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42022025). The corresponding author is supported by the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth’s Dynamics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China

    Pengyu Hou & Baocheng Zhang

  2. College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Pengyu Hou

  3. (German) International Science and Technology Cooperative Offshore Center for Geodesy Frontier Technology, Wuhan, China

    Baocheng Zhang

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  1. Pengyu Hou
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PH processed the data, analyzed the results, and wrote the manuscript. BZ proposed the method, designed the research, and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Baocheng Zhang.

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Hou, P., Zhang, B. Decentralized GNSS PPP-RTK. J Geod 97, 72 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-023-01761-x

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