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Precise ionosphere-free single-frequency GNSS positioning

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Abstract

Ionospheric delays can be efficiently eliminated from single-frequency data using a combination of carrier phases and code ranges. Unfortunately, GPS and GLONASS ranges are relatively noisy which can limit the use of the positioning method. Nevertheless, position standard deviations are in the range of 6–8 cm (horizontal) and 7–9 cm (3d) obtained from diurnal data batches from selected IGS reference stations can be further reduced to 2–3 cm (3d) for weekly smoothed averages. GPS data sets collected in Ghana (Africa) reveal a typical level of 10 cm of deviation that must be anticipated under average conditions. Looking at the future of GNSS, the European Galileo system will, in contrast to GPS, provide the broadband signal E5 that is by far less affected by multipath thus providing rather precise range measurements. Simulated processing runs featuring both high ionospheric and tropospheric delay variations show a 3d position precision of 4 cm even for a data batch as short as just 1 h, whereas GPS L1/Galileo E1 performance is close to 13 cm for the same data set.

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Acknowledgments

IGS LEO network data were used in this study, and the authors would like to thank the maintainers of this network for free access to these data sets. The help of S. Rosenkranz for analysis of the Hawaiian test data sets that were documented in his diploma thesis “Ionosphärenfreie GPS-Positionierung mit Einfrequenz-Empfängern” (March 2009) is gratefully acknowledged. Finally, we would like to thank the reviewers and the editor in chief for their valuable comments and improvements to this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geodesy and Navigation, University FAF Munich, Munich, Germany

    Torben Schüler & Herman Diessongo

  2. Forces Armées Nationales (FAN), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

    Herman Diessongo

  3. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Accra, Ghana

    Yaw Poku-Gyamfi

Authors
  1. Torben Schüler
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  2. Herman Diessongo
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  3. Yaw Poku-Gyamfi
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Correspondence to Torben Schüler.

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Schüler, T., Diessongo, H. & Poku-Gyamfi, Y. Precise ionosphere-free single-frequency GNSS positioning. GPS Solut 15, 139–147 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-010-0177-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-010-0177-5

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