GNSS receiver clock modeling when using high-precision oscillators and its impact on PPP

Processing data from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) always requires time synchronization between transmitter and receiver clocks. Due to the limited stability of the receiver’s internal oscillator, the offset of the receiver clock with respect to the system time has to be estimated for every observation epoch or eliminated by processing differences between simultaneous observations. If, in contrast, the internal oscillator of the receiver is replaced by a stable atomic clock one can try to model the receiver clock offset, instead of estimating it on an epoch-by-epoch basis. In view of the progress made in the field of high-precision frequency standards we will investigate the technical requirements for GNSS receiver clock modeling at the carrier phase level and analyze its impact on the precision of the position estimates.     

Carrier phase prediction method for GNSS precise positioning in challenging environment

Since the signals of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) are blocked frequently in challenging environments, the discontinuous carrier phases seriously affect the application of GNSS precise positioning. To improve the carrier phase continuity, this paper proposes a carrier phase prediction method based on carrier open-loop tracking. In the open-loop tracking mode, the carrier numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) is controlled by the predicted Doppler, but not by the loop filter output. To improve the phase prediction effective time, accurate receiver clock drift estimation is studied in the prediction method. The phase prediction performance is tested on GNSS software receiver. In the phase prediction effective time tests, open-loop processes were set for the tested channel. The test results show that, when some satellite signals are blocked in 15?s, the probability of carrier phase error less than quarter cycles is more than 94%. In the real time kinematic (RTK) positioning tests, some satellite signals are blocked in 10–15?s repeatedly. The test results show that, the carrier phase continuity is basically not affected by the signal interruption, and the RTK can almost keep continuous centimeter-level positioning accuracy without re-fixing the integer ambiguity.     

一种地基GNSS接收机差分码偏差估算方法

GNSS不同频点间的码伪距作差会引入信号的差分码偏差(DCB),包括GNSS卫星及地面接收机的DCB.本文提出一种地基GNSS接收机差分码偏差参数估算方法,首先由电离层文件参数作线性插值,计算出电离层延迟误差.之后对IGS站观测文件进行加权最小二乘法估计,得到GPS卫星和地面GNSS接收机的L1C频点和L2P频点间码偏...     

Estimation of QZSS differential code biases using QZSS/GPS combined observations from MGEX

As an important error source in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning and ionospheric modeling, the differential code biases (DCB) need to be estimated accurately, e.g., the regional Quasi-Zenith satellite system (QZSS). In this paper, the DCB of QZSS is estimated by adopting the global ionospheric modeling method based on QZSS/GPS combined observations from Multi-GNSS experiment (MGEX). The performance of QZSS satellite and receiver DCB is analyzed with observations from day of year (DOY) 275–364, 2018. Good agreement between our estimated QZSS satellite DCB and the products from DLR and CAS is obtained. The bias and root mean square (RMS) of DCB are mostly within ±0.3 ns. The day-to-day fluctuation of the DCB time series is less than 0.5 ns with about 96% of the cases for all satellites. However, the receiver DCB is a little less stable than satellite DCB, and their standard deviations (STDs) are within 1.9 ns. The result shows that the stability of the receiver DCBs is not significantly related to the types of receiver or antenna.     

基于北斗卫星系统的频率标准源的设计与实现CSCD

在对北斗二代导航定位接收机输出的1PPS信号进行测试、分析、研究的基础上,采用数字滤波器滤波和电压的积分控制相结合的方法,滤除信号传输过程中的干扰,使其输出相对平稳的1PPS信号来驯服铷原子频标。研究北斗接收机驯服铷钟原子频标的模型,采用精密时间间隔测量、高精度数字比相、计算机自动控制等多种先进技术,完成对铷原子频标的跟踪控制,实现与星载铷钟同等精度的时频信号输出。研制了一套北斗接收机驯服铷原子频率标准源,该频率标准携带方便,性价比高,既可以为时统、通讯系统提供现场计量技术保障,又可以实现对原子频率标准的远程校准、核查。     

星载GNSS确定GEO卫星轨道的积分滤波方法

采用星载全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）确定地球静止轨道（GEO）,以解决目前应用星载全球定位系统(GPS)时导航卫星可见性差的问题。以风云卫星为例,分析了未来的GNSS相对于GEO卫星的可见性,针对GEO轨道上导航接收机采样间隔较长的问题,综合轨道积分和卡尔曼滤波方法的优点,提出了确定GEO卫星轨道的积分滤波方法。并利用STK软件仿真产生所需数据,用MATLAB对提出的算法编程并进行仿真验证,结果表明,提出的方法性能优越,定轨精度较高。     

Minimum of PDOP and its applications in inter-satellite links (ISL) establishment of Walker-δ constellation

Within the next decade, there will be a number of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) available, i.e. modernized GPS, Galileo, restored GLONASS, BeiDou and many other regional GNSS augmentation systems. Thus, measurement redundancies and geometry of the satellites can be improved. GDOP (Geometric Dilution of Precision) and PDOP (Position Dilution of Precision) are associated with the constellation geometry of satellites, and they are the geometrically determined factors that describe the effect of geometry on the relationship between measurement error and position error. GDOP and PDOP are often used as standards for selecting good satellites to meet the desired positioning precision. In this paper, the related conclusions of minimum of GDOP which was discussed are given, and it is used to study the minimum of PDOP for two cases that the receiver is on the earth’s surface and the receiver is on satellite. The corresponding theorem and constructive solutions of minimum of PDOP are given. Then, the rationality of the ISL (inter-satellite link) establishment criteria in Walker-δ constellation is discussed by using the theory of minimum of PDOP. Finally, the minimum of PDOP is calculated when the number of satellites is 4–10, and these results are verified by using Monte Carlo method.     

北斗/GNSS高精度时频终端测试方法探讨

基于虚拟仪器技术、网络技术和批量化测量技术,探讨北斗/GNSS高精度时频应用终端的测试手段;提出应用测试模块化和VXI/PXI/LXI总线技术的测试设计方案,该方案具有多路标准时间频率参考信号一致性设计和网络远程测试校准设计;同时,提出北斗/GNSS高精度时频终端测试校准系统的结构设计及其应用模式。这将能有效提高北斗/GNSS时频终端测试的集成化和智能化水平。     

Demonstration of a high sensitivity GNSS software receiver for indoor positioning

Advances in signal processing techniques contributed to the significant improvements of GNSS receiver performance in dense multipath environments and created the opportunities for a new category of high-sensitivity GNSS (HS-GNSS) receivers that can provide GNSS location services in indoor environments. The difficulties in improving the availability, reliability, and accuracy of these indoor capable GNSS receivers exceed those of the receivers designed for the most hostile urban canyon environments. The authors of this paper identified the vector tracking schemes, signal propagation statistics, and parallel processing techniques that are critical to a robust HS-GNSS receiver for indoor environments and successfully incorporated them into a fully functional high-sensitivity software receiver. A flexible vector-based receiver architecture is introduced to combine these key indoor signal processing technologies into GSNRx-hs™ – the high sensitivity software navigation receiver developed at the University of Calgary. The resulting receiver can perform multi-mode vector tracking in indoor environment at various levels of location and timing uncertainties. In addition to the obvious improvements in time-to-first-fix (TTFF) and signal sensitivity, the field test results in indoor environments surrounded by wood, glass, and concrete showed that the new techniques effectively improved the performance of indoor GNSS positioning. With fine GNSS timing, the proposed receiver can consistently deliver indoor navigation solution with the horizontal accuracy of 2–15 m depending on the satellite geometry and the indoor environments. If only the coarse GNSS timing is available, the horizontal accuracy of the indoor navigation solution from the proposed receiver is around 30 m depending on the coarse timing accuracy, the satellite geometry, and the indoor environments. From the preliminary field test results, it has been observed that the signal processing sensitivity is the dominant factor on the availability of the indoor navigation solution, while the GNSS timing accuracy is the dominant factor on the accuracy of the indoor navigation solution.     

微波幅相接收机的低中频正交优化结构

为解决微波毫米波幅相接收机的频率偏移超过中频带宽的问题,提出了一种低中频正交接收机结合双边带抑载的优化结构.利用频率误差对消的方法,获得了稳定的低中频信号,不包含微波本振源的频率偏移且保持了2路输入信号之间的相位关系.它的2路中频通道不对称,其中一路用一个晶体振荡器产生的正弦波预调制,对消过程用模拟乘法器和正交解调器在第1中频实现.与频率误差跟踪不同,它避免了锁相环引入的寄生调制和复杂性.分析了其性能,包括I/Q幅相不平衡的误差和校正.概述了一个实际的基于此结构的微波接收机,该接收机的特点是电路结构简单、成本低和小型化,性能测试结果和实际应用表明其具有较高的灵敏度和精度.     

Mitigation of receiver biases in ionospheric observables from PPP with ambiguity resolution

PPP (Precise Point Positioning) is a GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) positioning method that requires SSR (State Space Representation) corrections in order to provide solutions with an accuracy of centimetric level. The so-called RT-PPP (Real-time PPP) is possible thanks to real-time precise SSR products, for orbits and clocks, provided by IGS (International GNSS Service) and its associate analysis centers such as CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales). CNES SSR products also enable RT-PPP with integer ambiguity resolution. In GNSS related literature, PPP with ambiguity resolution (PPP-AR) in real-time is often referred as PPP-RTK (PPP – Real Time Kinematic). PPP-WIZARD (PPP - With Integer and Zero-difference Ambiguity Resolution Demonstrator) is a software that is made available by CNES. This software is capable of performing PPP-RTK. It estimates slant ionospheric delays and other GNSS positioning parameters. Since ionospheric effects are spatially correlated by GNSS data from active networks, it is possible to model and provide ionospheric delays for any position in the network coverage area. The prior knowledge ionospheric delays can reduce positioning convergence for PPP-RTK users. Real-time ionospheric models could benefit from highly precise ionospheric delays estimated in PPP-AR. In this study, we demonstrate that ionospheric delays obtained throughout PPP-AR estimation are actu ally ionospheric observables. Ionospheric observables are biased by an order of few meters caused by the receiver hardware biases. These biases prohibit the use of PPP-WIZARD ionospheric delays to produce ionospheric models. Receiver biases correction is essential to provide ionospheric delays while using PPP-AR based ionospheric observables. In this contribution, a method was implemented to estimate and mitigate receiver hardware biases influence on slant ionospheric observables from PPP-AR. In order to assess the proposed approach, PPP-AR data from 12 GNSS stations were processed over a two-month period (March and April 2018). A comparison between IGS ionospheric products and PPP-AR based ionospheric observables corrected for receiver biases, resulted in a mean of differences of −39 cm and 51 cm standard deviation. The results are consistent with the accuracy of the IGS ionospheric products, 2–8 TECU, considering that 1 TECU is ~16 cm in L1. In another analysis, a comparison of ionospheric delays from 5 pairs of short baselines GNSS stations found an agreement of 0.001 m in mean differences with 22 cm standard deviation after receiver biases were corrected. Therefore, the proposed solution is promising and could produce high quality (1–2 TECU) slant ionospheric delays. This product can be used in a large variety of modeling approaches, since ionospheric delays after correction are unbiased. These results indicate that the proposed strategy is promising, and could benefit applications that require accuracy of 1–2 TECU (~16–32 cm in L1).     

基于星间链路的导航卫星时间自主恢复策略

基于北斗导航卫星星间链路的测距与数传功能，针对自主导航时卫星时频子系统异常导致载荷系统断电重启的情况，提出了一种基于星载计算机自主计时及星间链路误差校正的策略.在载荷系统重启时间内，利用星载计算机守时，并通过十秒稳定度预报晶振频率漂移量的方法，维持星钟在重启时间内的稳定.载荷系统重启后，星载计算机授时给导航任务处理机，通过误差分析计算出总误差.该误差在星间链路建链误差允许范围内，然后通过星间链路对星钟误差进行校正恢复，重新实现星地时间同步.      

Kalman filter based estimation of differential hardware biases with triangular interpolation technique for IRNSS

Ionosphere delay correction is the main error correction to the computation of single frequency user position using satellite navigation. However ionosphere delay consists of not only delay but also frequency dependent differential hardware biases from satellite and receiver ends. For ionosphere point of view, Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) service area comes in equatorial anomaly region. It is a unique satellite navigation system which operates at L5 and S frequencies and consists of Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and Geo Synchronous Orbit (GSO) satellite constellation. With IRNSS measurements availability, there is a good opportunity to estimate and analyse differential hardware biases with GEO/GSO combination and with equatorial ionosphere variation. In this paper, Kalman filter based estimation with triangular interpolation technique is used to estimate differential hardware biases for all IRNSS satellites and reference receivers at L5 frequency. The standard deviation of the 15?days of daily estimation of satellite differential hardware biases is in the range of 0.32 to 1.17 TECU for all IRNSS satellites. Similarly, the standard deviation of the 15?days of daily estimation varies up to 2.85 and 6.0 TECU for receiver differential hardware biases during calm and stormy period respectively. The ionosphere delay computed using estimated differential hardware biases is compared with Global Ionosphere Map (GIM) data. A rigorous analysis is carried out to study the error in the estimation in terms of input data noise level, satellite constellation and effect of latitude. Our result reveals that over IRNSS service area, there is an exponential increase in the error in the estimation of receiver differential hardware biases with respect to latitude.     

工作频率选择对GNSS接收机通道跟踪环路的影响CSCD

GNSS接收机因须并行接收处理大量卫星信号,使用通道数量较多,功耗大是其主要难题,降低功耗的解决方法之一是让通道工作时钟采用较低的频率。通过分析工作时钟与所需处理的伪码频率的关系,本文给出了通道时钟频率对伪码相位分辨率和相位抖动幅度的影响。选取两种频率的工作时钟进行仿真实验,结果表明在相同仿真条件下,选用21MHz工作时钟与选用63MHz工作时钟相比,接收机的伪码测量精度、载波测量精度均下降1倍左右,但其引入的测量误差仍小于理论估算结果,选取较低的工作时钟频率是兼顾功耗与精度的折中方法,适合作为工程设计方案。     

An unbiased carrier-phase anti-interference filter based on mirror frequency amplitude compensation

Anti-interference and high-precision measurement are two important indicators of the performance of a satellite navigation receiver. However, current receiver designs do not simultaneously satisfy these two criteria. While the carrier-phase ranging technique is necessary for high-precision receivers, frequency domain interference suppression (FDIS) results in tracking error biases for nonideal analog receiver channels. Importantly, as the FDIS filter is adaptive, the bias will vary with the jamming pattern, particularly when the frequency of interference varies. For precision navigation applications, this bias must be mitigated. Therefore, a new FDIS filter based on the mirror frequency amplitude compensation (MFAC) method is proposed in this paper. The amplitude at the symmetry position of the notch frequency is doubled in the MFAC method to mitigate this carrier-phase bias. The simulation results showed that the MFAC method can reduce the range of the carrier-phase bias by more than 60% for different interference bandwidths, which substantially exceeds that achieved using the conventional FDIS and calibration filter methods of 20 orders.     

GNSS-R open-loop difference phase altimetry: Results from a bridge experiment

The paper explores a method to obtain accurate lake surface heights using measurements of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) carrier phase reflected from the lake surface. The method is referred to as Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflection (GNSS-R) open-loop difference phase altimetry method. It consists of two key technologies: one is the open-loop tracking method to track the GNSS-R signals, where the direct GNSS signal’s frequency is used as a reference frequency to obtain the carrier phases of the GNSS-R signals; the other key technology is time difference phase altimetry method to invert the lake surface heights using two or more carrier phases of GNSS-R signals received simultaneously. A validation experiment is carried out on the SANYING bridge over GUANTING lake using a GNSS-R receiver developed by the Center for Space Science and Applied Research (CSSAR), processing the data with GNSS-R open-loop difference phase altimetry method. The lake surface height results are consistent with the height results of GPS dual-frequency differential positioning altimetry. The results show that we can achieve centimeter level height in one minute average, by using 11 minutes carrier phase data of three GNSS-R signals received simultaneously.     

NeQuick2 validation using multi-satellite and ground data

Global Navigation Satellite System’s (GNSS) positioning calculation is prone to ionospheric errors. Single frequency GNSS users receive ionospheric corrections through broadcast ionospheric models. Therefore, the accuracy of ionospheric models must be validated based on various geographic and geomagnetic conditions. In this work, an attempt is made to validate NeQuick2 electron density (Ne) using multiple sources of space-based and ground-based data at the Arabian Peninsula and for low solar activity conditions. These sources include space-based data from Swarm, DMSP and COSMIC-2 satellite constellations and ground-based data from GNSS receiver and the ionosonde. The period of this study is 1 year from October 2019 to September 2020. Analysis shows that the agreement between NeQuick2 and experimental Ne close to the peak density height depends on seasons and time of the day with the largest errors found in Autumn and during the daytime. NeQuick2 generally overestimates Ne during the daytime. During the early morning and evening hours, Ne estimates seem to be fairly accurate with slight underestimation in Winter and Spring. Estimation of slab thickness by NeQuick2 is found to be close to the values calculated using collocated ionosonde and GNSS receiver.     

基于多参考源的铷原子钟校频方案的设计与实现

研究了铷钟校频系统的原理,并对校频误差进行了分析,提出了一种基于多参考源的铷原子钟校频方案,可用GNSS/北斗接收机的1PPS,IRIG-B(DC)码以及一级频标的10MHz频率三种方式校频,提供100s,1 000s,10 000s三种不同的校频时间,以满足用户对不同校频时间和校频准确度的综合需求。     

粒子群优化粒子滤波的接收机自主完好性监测

接收机自主完好性监测（RAIM）是航空卫星导航接收机必不可少的功能,为保持全球卫星导航系统（GNSS）在卫星发生故障时系统性能不降级,需要对卫星故障进行检测和隔离。针对接收机观测噪声非高斯分布的特点,提出一种基于粒子群优化粒子滤波（PSO-PF）的故障检测和隔离算法。通过粒子群优化粒子滤波对状态估计进行一致性检验实现故障检测。采集实测数据验证算法的检测性能,并与基于基本粒子滤波的完好性监测算法进行比较,结果表明:本文所提算法在非高斯测量噪声下可检测并隔离全球定位系统（GPS）故障卫星,其性能优于基于基本粒子滤波的完好性监测算法性能,对研究北斗卫星导航系统（BDS）接收机自主完好性监测具有一定的意义。      

用铷原子钟对PC进行时间校准及其误差分析

个人计算机（以下简称PC）的系统时间由其自带的RTC晶振提供,其时间频率准确度并不高。为此,综合考虑各种方案,采用外部校准时间的方法提高PC时间的准确度。通过时间间隔测量的方法获得了作为校准时间结果的钟差值,并对实验结果做了详细分析。测试结果表明,PC与铷钟同步标准偏差小于1ms。经过时间校准后的PC可以作为网络时间服务器。