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Analysis of BDS satellite clocks in orbit

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Abstract

The products of Wuhan University with 5-min sampling are used to analyze the characteristics of BeiDou satellite clocks. Two nanoseconds root-mean-square (RMS) variations are obtained for 1-day quadratic fits in the sub-daily region. The relativistic effects of BDS clocks are also studied. General relativity predicts that linear variation of the semimajor axes of geostationary and inclined geosynchronous satellites causes a quadratic clock drift with a magnitude at the 10−16/day level. The observed drift is higher than what general relativity theory would produce. Several periodic terms are found in the satellite clock variations through spectrum analysis. In order to identify the origin of the BDS clock harmonics, a correlation analysis between the period or amplitude of the harmonics and properties of the satellite orbits is performed. It is found that the period of the harmonics is not exactly equal to the orbit period, but rather the ratio of the orbit period to clock period is almost the same as that of a sidereal day to solar day. The BDS clocks obey white frequency noise statistics for intervals from 300 s to several thousands seconds. For intervals greater than 10,000 s, all the BDS satellites display more complex, non-power-law behavior due to the effects of periodic clock variations.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Jim Ray for valuable discussions concerning research methods and also revisions of this paper. We would like to thank Mr. Jing Guo and Mr. Maorong Ge for the discussions, the IGS MGEX campaign for providing multi-GNSS data and products, and also the ILRS for providing the satellite laser ranging observations of BDS satellites. Finally, the authors are also grateful for the comments and remarks of the reviewers, which helped to improve the manuscript. This work is supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41231174; 41374034).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Bin Wang

  2. GNSS Research Center, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Bin Wang, Yidong Lou, Jingnan Liu, Qile Zhao & Xing Su

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  1. Bin Wang
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  2. Yidong Lou
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  3. Jingnan Liu
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  4. Qile Zhao
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  5. Xing Su
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Correspondence to Bin Wang.

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Wang, B., Lou, Y., Liu, J. et al. Analysis of BDS satellite clocks in orbit. GPS Solut 20, 783–794 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-015-0488-7

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