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Single-frequency precise point positioning (PPP) for retrieving ionospheric TEC from BDS B1 data

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Abstract

The customary approach to determine ionospheric total electron content (TEC) with BeiDou navigations satellite system (BDS) data normally requires dual-frequency (DF) data provided by geodetic-grade receivers. In this study, we present an analysis of the performance of a new TEC estimation procedure based on single-frequency (SF) BDS data. First, the ionospheric observable is retrieved from the SF BDS code and phase data using precise point positioning (PPP) instead of the carrier-to-code leveling (CCL) technique used in the customary DF method. Then, the absolute ionospheric slant TEC (STEC) values are isolated from the ionospheric observables by modeling the ionospheric observable with the adjusted spherical harmonic (ASH) expansion and constraining the satellite differential code bias (SDCB) to very precise values provided externally. The experimental data were taken from the multi-GNSS experiment (MGEX) network for high and low sunspot periods, covering the 2 months, i.e., December 2014 and September 2017. The TEC data obtained from the combined final global ionospheric map (GIM) provided by the international GNSS service (IGS), the JASON DF altimeter, and the BDS-measured differential STEC (dSTEC) are used as reference data to evaluate the performance of the TEC values estimated by the proposed method. The evaluation results indicate that compared to the reference TEC data, the ionospheric TEC estimated by the proposed method using BDS B1 data and the customary CCL-based DF method based on BDS B1 + B2 data, perform at roughly equal levels.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due to the IGS for providing access to the Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) data, the ionospheric GIM products, and the differential code bias (DCB) products. This work was supported by the National Key Research Program of China “Collaborative Precision Positioning Project” (No. 2016YFB0501900) and China Natural Science Funds (41604031, 41774042 and 41621091). The second author is supported by the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program. The third author is supported by LU JIAXI International team program supported by the K.C. Wong Education Foundation and CAS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth’s Dynamics, Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, Wuhan, China

    Min Li, Baocheng Zhang, Yunbin Yuan & Chuanbao Zhao

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Chuanbao Zhao

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  1. Min Li
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  2. Baocheng Zhang
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  3. Yunbin Yuan
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  4. Chuanbao Zhao
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Correspondence to Baocheng Zhang.

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Li, M., Zhang, B., Yuan, Y. et al. Single-frequency precise point positioning (PPP) for retrieving ionospheric TEC from BDS B1 data. GPS Solut 23, 18 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-018-0810-2

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