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The effect of function-based and voxel-based tropospheric tomography techniques on the GNSS positioning accuracy

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Abstract

Tropospheric wet delay, the main source of which is water vapor, is one of the major factors affecting the accuracy of positioning techniques using microwave. Tropospheric tomography is a powerful method to reconstruct the water vapor content in four-dimensional (4D) space. This paper studies the effect of using function-based and voxel-based tropospheric tomography methods on the positioning accuracy. This examination is performed on the static and kinematic positioning modes using Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) stations under different weather conditions. After validating the results of tomography methods using radiosonde observations, the tomography-based positioning solutions, including function-based and voxel-based approaches, are compared with the positions obtained using tropospheric models. The results of two GPS stations show that the accuracy increases when applying tomography approaches. The function-based tomography is able to increase the accuracy of the up component of the static and kinematic modes by about 0.42 and 0.79 cm, respectively, compared to the voxel-based method. In addition, the use of the function-based tropospheric tomography can decrease the convergence time of the kinematic Precise Point Positioning (PPP) solution.

Highlights

  • The first attempt to evaluate the efficiency of troposphere tomography in different positioning techniques including static and kinematic.

  • Comparison of the accuracy of the voxel-based and function-based tomography techniques.

  • Comparison of the effect of using tomography approaches with conventional and traditional tropospheric correction methods in increasing the accuracy of positioning.

  • Study of the effect of using voxel-based and function-based troposphere tomography and other approaches in increasing the convergence speed of kinematic positioning.

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Data availability statement

All the GPS data used in this paper are publicly available in the UNAVCO data portal (https://www.unavco.org/data/gps-gnss/data-access-methods/dai2/app/dai2.html). The reanalysis data, ERA-Interim product, are released by ECMWF at https://www.ecmwf.int/.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to appreciate the UNAVCO for the GPS observations. We are also grateful to the ECMWF for publishing ERA-Interim data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Saeid Haji-Aghajany & Yazdan Amerian

  2. Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN, Delft, The Netherlands

    Saeid Haji-Aghajany & Sandra Verhagen

  3. Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Grunwaldzka 53, 50-357, Wroclaw, Poland

    Witold Rohm

  4. GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Harald Schuh

  5. Chair of Satellite Geodesy, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623, Berlin, Germany

    Harald Schuh

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  1. Saeid Haji-Aghajany
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  2. Yazdan Amerian
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  3. Sandra Verhagen
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  4. Witold Rohm
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  5. Harald Schuh
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Contributions

S.H-A,Y.A and W.R conceptualized the study. S.H-A and Y.A processed data and prepared the paper draft. S.V, H.S and W.R substantially contributed to the interpretation of results and provided many useful suggestions in the internal review process. All authors were involved in result discussions throughout the development.

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Correspondence to Yazdan Amerian.

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Haji-Aghajany, S., Amerian, Y., Verhagen, S. et al. The effect of function-based and voxel-based tropospheric tomography techniques on the GNSS positioning accuracy. J Geod 95, 78 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-021-01528-2

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