GNSS water vapour tomography – Expected improvements by combining GPS,GLONASS and Galileo observations

The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) operates a GNSS water vapour tomography system using about 350 German GNSS stations. The GNSS data processing at the GFZ works in near real-time and provides zenith total delays, integrated water vapour and slant delay data operationally. This large data set of more than 50,000 slant delays per hour is used to reconstruct spatially resolved humidity fields by means of tomographic techniques. It can be expected that additional observations from the future Galileo system provide more information with improved quality. A simulation study covering 12 h at 14 July 2009 was therefore started to estimate the impact of GPS, Galileo and GLONASS data on the GNSS tomography. It is shown that the spatial coverage of the atmosphere with slant paths is highly improved by combining observations from two or three satellite systems. Equally important for a reliable tomographic reconstruction is the distribution of slant path intersections as they are required to locate the integrated delay information. The number of intersection points can be increased by a factor of 4 or 8 if two or three systems are combined and their distribution will cover larger regions of the atmosphere. The combined data sets can be used to increase the spatiotemporal resolution of the reconstructed humidity fields up to 30 km horizontally, 300 m vertically and 15 min. The reconstruction quality could not be improved considerably using the currently available techniques.     

Tomographic reconstruction of wet and total refractivity fields from GNSS receiver networks

One of the most attractive scientific issues in the use of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals, from a meteorological point of view, is the retrieval of high resolution tropospheric water vapour maps. The real-time (or quasi real-time) knowledge of such distributions could be very useful for several applications, from operative meteorology to atmospheric modelling. Moreover, the exploitation of wet refractivity field reconstruction techniques can be used for atmospheric delay compensation purposes and, as a very promising activity, it could be applied for example to calibrate SAR or Interferometric-SAR (In-SAR) observations for land remote sensing. This is in fact one of the objectives of the European Space Agency project METAWAVE (Mitigation of Electromagnetic Transmission errors induced by Atmospheric Water vapour Effects), in which several techniques are investigated and results were compared to identify a strategy to remove the contribution of water vapour induced propagation delays in In-SAR products. Within this project, the tomographic reconstruction of three dimensional wet refractivity fields from tropospheric delays observed by a local GNSS network (9 dual frequency GPS receivers) deployed over Como area (Italy), during 12–18 October, 2008, was performed. Despite limitations due to the network design, internal consistency tests prove the efficiency of the adopted tomographic approach: the rms of the difference between reconstructed and GNSS observed Zenith Wet Delays (ZWD) are in the order of 4 mm. A good agreement is also observed between our ZWDs and corresponding delays obtained by vertically integrating independent wet refractivity fields, taken by co-located meteorological analysis. Finally, during the observing period, reconstructed vertical wet refractivity profiles evolution reveals water vapour variations induced by simple cloud covering. Even if our main goal was to demonstrate the effectiveness in adopting tomographic reconstruction procedures for the evaluation of propagation delays inside water vapour fields, the actual water vapour vertical variability and its evolution with time is well reproduced, demonstrating also the effectiveness of the inferred 3D wet refractivity fields.     

Tropospheric wet refractivity tomography using multiplicative algebraic reconstruction technique

Algebraic reconstruction techniques (ART) have been successfully used to reconstruct the total electron content (TEC) of the ionosphere and in recent years be tentatively used in tropospheric wet refractivity and water vapor tomography in the ground-based GNSS technology. The previous research on ART used in tropospheric water vapor tomography focused on the convergence and relaxation parameters for various algebraic reconstruction techniques and rarely discussed the impact of Gaussian constraints and initial field on the iteration results. The existing accuracy evaluation parameters calculated from slant wet delay can only evaluate the resultant precision of the voxels penetrated by slant paths and cannot evaluate that of the voxels not penetrated by any slant path. The paper proposes two new statistical parameters Bias and RMS, calculated from wet refractivity of the total voxels, to improve the deficiencies of existing evaluation parameters and then discusses the effect of the Gaussian constraints and initial field on the convergence and tomography results in multiplicative algebraic reconstruction technique (MART) to reconstruct the 4D tropospheric wet refractivity field using simulation method.     

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).     

Total electron content monitoring using triple frequency GNSS: Results with Giove-A/-B data

Triple frequency GNSS will be fully operational within the next decade, opening opportunities for new applications. Dual frequency GNSS already allow to study the ionosphere through the estimation of Total Electron Content (TEC). However, the precision is limited by the ambiguity resolution process. This paper studies a triple frequency TEC monitoring technique in which the use of Geometry-Free and Iono-Free linear combinations improves the ambiguity resolution process and therefore the precision of TEC. We have tested it on a set of triple frequency Giove-A/-B data from January and December 2008. The conclusions achieved are (1) TEC values are affected by an error of about 2–2.5 TECU produced through the ambiguity resolution process; (2) the error caused by the Geometric Free phase combination delays (hardware, multipath, noise, antenna phase center) on TEC is about 0.2 TECU; (3) the total error on TEC approximately reach 2–3 TECU.     

Near real-time estimation of tropospheric water vapour content from ground based GNSS data and its potential contribution to weather now-casting in Austria

The importance of high resolution meteorological analysis of the atmosphere increased over the past years. A detailed analysis of the humidity field is an important precondition for a better monitoring of local and regional extreme precipitation events and for forecasts with improved spatial resolution. For this reason, the Austrian Meteorological Agency (ZAMG) is operating the spatial and temporal high resolution INCA system (Integrated Now-casting through Comprehensive Analysis) since begin of 2005. Errors in this analysis occur mainly in the areas of rapidly changing and hard to predict weather conditions or rugged topography with extreme differences in height such as the alpine area of Austria. The aim of this work is to provide GNSS based measurements of the tropospheric water vapour content with a temporal resolution of 1 h and a temporal delay of less than 1 h to assimilate these estimates into the INCA system. Additional requirement is an accuracy of better than 1 mm of the precipitable water (PW) estimates.     

Real-time zenith tropospheric delays in support of numerical weather prediction applications

The Geodetic Observatory Pecný (GOP) routinely estimates near real-time zenith total delays (ZTD) from GPS permanent stations for assimilation in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models more than 12 years. Besides European regional, global and GPS and GLONASS solutions, we have recently developed real-time estimates aimed at supporting NWP nowcasting or severe weather event monitoring. While all previous solutions are based on data batch processing in a network mode, the real-time solution exploits real-time global orbits and clocks from the International GNSS Service (IGS) and Precise Point Positioning (PPP) processing strategy. New application G-Nut/Tefnut has been developed and real-time ZTDs have been continuously processed in the nine-month demonstration campaign (February–October, 2013) for selected 36 European and global stations. Resulting ZTDs can be characterized by mean standard deviations of 6–10 mm, but still remaining large biases up to 20 mm due to missing precise models in the software. These results fulfilled threshold requirements for the operational NWP nowcasting (i.e. 30 mm in ZTD). Since remaining ZTD biases can be effectively eliminated using the bias-reduction procedure prior to the assimilation, results are approaching the target requirements in terms of relative accuracy (i.e. 6 mm in ZTD). Real-time strategy and software are under the development and we foresee further improvements in reducing biases and in optimizing the accuracy within required timeliness. The real-time products from the International GNSS Service were found accurate and stable for supporting PPP-based tropospheric estimates for the NWP nowcasting.     

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.     

High vertical resolution water vapour profiles in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere retrieved from MAESTRO solar occultation spectra

An algorithm has been developed that retrieves water vapour profiles in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from optical depth spectra obtained by the Measurements of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation (MAESTRO) instrument onboard the SCISAT satellite as part of the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) mission. The retrieval relies on ro-vibrational absorption of solar radiation by water vapour in the 926–970 nm range. During the iterative inversion process, the optical depth spectra are simulated at the spectral resolution and sampling frequency of MAESTRO using the correlated-k approximation. The Chahine inversion updates the water vapour volume mixing ratio (VMR), adjusting all retrieval layers simultaneously, to match the observed differential optical depth due to absorption by water vapour and ozone at each tangent height. This approach accounts for significant line saturation effects. Profiles are typically obtained from ∼22 km down to the cloud tops or to 5 km, with relative precision as small as 3% in the troposphere. In the lower stratosphere, the precision on water vapour VMR is ∼1.3 μmol/mol in an individual retrieval layer (∼1 km thick). The spectral capability of MAESTRO allows for the clear separation of extinction due to water vapour and aerosol, and for the fitting quality to be quantified and used to determine an altitude-dependent convergence criterion for the retrieval. In the middle troposphere, interhemispheric differences in water vapour VMR are driven by oceanic evaporation whereas in the upper troposphere, deep convection dominates and a strong seasonal cycle is observed at high latitudes.     

The impact of microwave absorber and radome geometries on GNSS measurements of station coordinates and atmospheric water vapour

We have used microwave absorbing material in different geometries around ground-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) antennas in order to mitigate multipath effects on the estimates of station coordinates and atmospheric water vapour. The influence of a hemispheric radome – of the same type as in the Swedish GPS network SWEPOS – was also investigated. Two GNSS stations at the Onsala Space Observatory were used forming a 12 m baseline. GPS data from October 2008 to November 2009 were analyzed by the GIPSY/OASIS II software using the Precise Point Positioning (PPP) processing strategy for five different elevation cutoff angles from 5° to 25°. We found that the use of the absorbing material decreases the offset in the estimated vertical component of the baseline from ∼27 mm to ∼4 mm when the elevation cutoff angle varies from 5° to 20°. The horizontal components are much less affected. The corresponding offset in the estimates of the atmospheric Integrated Water Vapour (IWV) decreases from ∼1.6 kg/m² to ∼0.3 kg/m². Changes less than 5 mm in the offsets in the vertical component of the baseline are seen for all five elevation cutoff angle solutions when the antenna was covered by a hemispheric radome. Using the radome affects the IWV estimates less than 0.4 kg/m² for all different solutions. IWV comparisons between a Water Vapour Radiometer (WVR) and the GPS data give consistent results.     

Diagnostics of equatorial and low latitude ionosphere by TEC mapping over Brazil

The total electron content (TEC) in the equatorial and low-latitude ionosphere over Brazil was monitored in two dimensions by using 2011 data from the ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver network operated by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics. It was possible to monitor the spatial and temporal variations in TEC over Brazil continuously during both day and night with a temporal interval of 10 min and a spatial resolution of about 400 km. The daytime equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) and post-sunset plasma enhancement (PS-EIA) were monitored over an area corresponding to a longitudinal extension of 4000 km in South America. Considerable day-to-day variation was observed in EIA and PS-EIA. A large latitudinal and longitudinal gradient of TEC indicated a significant ionospheric range error in application of the GNSS positioning system. Large-scale plasma bubbles after sunset were also mapped over a wide range. Depletions with longitudinally separated by more than 800 km were observed. They were extended by more than 2000 km along the magnetic field lines and drifted eastward. It is expected that 2-dimensional TEC mapping can serve as a useful tool for diagnosing ionospheric weather, such as temporal and spatial variation in the equatorial plasma trough and crest, and particularly for monitoring the dynamics of plasma bubbles.     

Estimation of GPS instrumental biases from small scale network

With 4 GPS receivers located in the equatorial anomaly region in southeast China, this paper proposes a grid-based algorithm to determine the GPS satellites and receivers biases, and at the same time to derive the total electron content (TEC) with time resolution of 15 min and spatial resolution of 1° by 3.5° in latitude and longitude. By assuming that the TEC is identical at any point within a given grid block and the biases do not vary within a day, the algorithm arranges unknown biases and TECs with slant path TEC from the 4 receivers’ observations into a set of equations. Then the instrumental biases and the TECs are determined by using the least squares fitting technique. The performance of the method is examined by applying it to the GPS receiver chain observations selected from 16 geomagnetically quiet days in four seasons of 2006. It is found that the fitting agrees with the data very well, with goodness of fit ranging from 0.452 TECU to 1.914 TECU. Having a mean of 0.9 ns, the standard deviations for most of the GPS satellite biases are less than 1.0 ns for the 16 days. The GPS receiver biases are more stable than that of the GPS satellites. The standard deviation in the 4 receiver bias is from 0.370 ns to 0.855 ns, with a mean of 0.5 ns. Moreover, the instrumental biases are highly correlated with those derived from CODE and JPL with independent methods. The typical precision of the derived TEC is 5 TECU by a conservative estimation. These results indicate that the proposed algorithm is valid and qualified for small scale GPS network.     

A feasibility study for the detection of the diurnal variation of tropospheric NO2 over Tokyo from a geostationary orbit

We have conducted a feasibility study for the geostationary monitoring of the diurnal variation of tropospheric NO₂ over Tokyo. Using NO₂ fields from a chemical transport model, synthetic spectra were created by a radiative transfer model, SCIATRAN, for summer and winter cases. We then performed a Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) analysis to retrieve NO₂ slant column densities (SCDs), and after converting SCDs into vertical column densities (VCDs), we estimated the precision of the retrieved VCDs. The simulation showed that signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ? 500 is needed to detect the diurnal variation and that SNR ? 1000 is needed to observe the local minimum occurring in the early afternoon (LT13–14) in summer. In winter, the detection of the diurnal variation during LT08–15 needs SNR ? 500, and SNR ? 1000 is needed if early morning (LT07) and early evening (LT16) are included. The currently discussed sensor specification for the Japanese geostationary satellite project, GMAP-Asia, which has a horizontal resolution of 10 km and a temporal resolution of 1hr, has demonstrated the performance of a precision of several percent, which is approximately corresponding to SNR = 1000–2000 during daytime and SNR ? 500 in the morning and evening. We also discuss possible biases caused by the temperature dependence of the absorption cross section utilized in the DOAS retrieval, and the effect of uncertainties of surface albedo and clouds on the estimation of precisions.     

Towards PPP-RTK: Ambiguity resolution in real-time precise point positioning

Integer ambiguity resolution at a single station can be achieved by introducing predetermined uncalibrated phase delays (UPDs) into the float ambiguity estimates of precise point positioning (PPP). This integer resolution technique has the potential of leading to a PPP-RTK (real-time kinematic) model where PPP provides rapid convergence to a reliable centimeter-level positioning accuracy based on an RTK reference network. Nonetheless, implementing this model is technically subject to how rapidly we can fix wide-lane ambiguities, stabilize narrow-lane UPD estimates, and achieve the first ambiguity-fixed solution. To investigate these issues, we used 7 days of 1-Hz sampling GPS data at 91 stations across Europe. We find that at least 10 min of observations are required for most receiver types to reliably fix about 90% of wide-lane ambiguities corresponding to high elevations, and over 20 min to fix about 90% of those corresponding to low elevations. Moreover, several tens of minutes are usually required for a regional network before a narrow-lane UPD estimate stabilizes to an accuracy of far better than 0.1 cycles. Finally, for hourly data, ambiguity resolution can significantly improve the accuracy of epoch-wise position estimates from 13.7, 7.1 and 11.4 cm to 0.8, 0.9 and 2.5 cm for the East, North and Up components, respectively, but a few tens of minutes is required to achieve the first ambiguity-fixed solution. Therefore, from the timeliness aspect, our PPP-RTK model currently cannot satisfy the critical requirement of instantaneous precise positioning where ambiguity-fixed solutions have to be achieved within at most a few seconds. However, this model can still be potentially applied to some near-real-time remote sensing applications, such as the GPS meteorology.     

The impact on tsunami detection from space using GNSS-reflectometry when combining GPS with GLONASS and Galileo

The devastating Sumatra tsunami in 2004 demonstrated the need for a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean. Such a system has been installed within the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) project. Tsunamis are a global phenomenon and for global observations satellites are predestined. Within the GITEWS project a feasibility study on a future tsunami detection system from space has therefore been carried out. The Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) is an innovative way of using GNSS signals for remote sensing. It uses ocean reflected GNSS signals for sea surface altimetry. With a dedicated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites equipped with GNSS-R receivers, densely spaced sea surface height measurements could be established to detect tsunamis. Some general considerations on the geometry between LEO and GNSS are made in this simulation study. It exemplary analyzes the detection performance of a GNSS-R constellation at 900 km altitude and 60° inclination angle when applied to the Sumatra tsunami as it occurred in 2004. GPS is assumed as signal source and the combination with GLONASS and Galileo signals is investigated. It can be demonstrated, that the combination of GPS and Galileo is advantageous for constellations with few satellites while the combination with GLONASS is preferable for constellations with many satellites. If all three GNSS are combined, the best detection performance can be expected for all scenarios considered. In this case an 18 satellite constellation will detect the Sumatra tsunami within 17 min with certainty, while it takes 53 min if only GPS is considered.     

Improving the estimation of zenith dry tropospheric delays using regional surface meteorological data

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are emerging as possible tools for remote sensing high-resolution atmospheric water vapour that improves weather forecasting through numerical weather prediction models. Nowadays, the GNSS-derived tropospheric zenith total delay (ZTD), comprising zenith dry delay (ZDD) and zenith wet delay (ZWD), is achievable with sub-centimetre accuracy. However, if no representative near-site meteorological information is available, the quality of the ZDD derived from tropospheric models is degraded, leading to inaccurate estimation of the water vapour component ZWD as difference between ZTD and ZDD. On the basis of freely accessible regional surface meteorological data, this paper proposes a height-dependent linear correction model for a priori ZDD. By applying the ordinary least-squares estimation (OLSE), bootstrapping (BOOT), and leave-one-out cross-validation (CROS) methods, the model parameters are estimated and analysed with respect to outlier detection. The model validation is carried out using GNSS stations with near-site meteorological measurements. The results verify the efficiency of the proposed ZDD correction model, showing a significant reduction in the mean bias from several centimetres to about 5 mm. The OLSE method enables a fast computation, while the CROS procedure allows for outlier detection. All the three methods produce consistent results after outlier elimination, which improves the regression quality by about 20% and the model accuracy by up to 30%.     

Monitoring coastal sea level using reflected GNSS signals

A continuous monitoring of coastal sea level changes is important for human society since it is predicted that up to 332 million people in coastal and low-lying areas will be directly affected by flooding from sea level rise by the end of the 21st century. The traditional way to observe sea level is using tide gauges that give measurements relative to the Earth’s crust. However, in order to improve the understanding of the sea level change processes it is necessary to separate the measurements into land surface height changes and sea surface height changes. These measurements should then be relative to a global reference frame. This can be done with satellite techniques, and thus a GNSS-based tide gauge is proposed. The GNSS-based tide gauge makes use of both GNSS signals that are directly received and GNSS signals that are reflected from the sea surface. An experimental installation at the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) shows that the reflected GNSS signals have only about 3 dB less signal-to-noise-ratio than the directly received GNSS signals. Furthermore, a comparison of local sea level observations from the GNSS-based tide gauge with two stilling well gauges, located approximately 18 and 33 km away from OSO, gives a pairwise root-mean-square agreement on the order of 4 cm. This indicates that the GNSS-based tide gauge gives valuable results for sea level monitoring.     

The GFZ real-time GNSS precise positioning service system and its adaption for COMPASS

Motivated by the IGS real-time Pilot Project, GFZ has been developing its own real-time precise positioning service for various applications. An operational system at GFZ is now broadcasting real-time orbits, clocks, global ionospheric model, uncalibrated phase delays and regional atmospheric corrections for standard PPP, PPP with ambiguity fixing, single-frequency PPP and regional augmented PPP. To avoid developing various algorithms for different applications, we proposed a uniform algorithm and implemented it into our real-time software. In the new processing scheme, we employed un-differenced raw observations with atmospheric delays as parameters, which are properly constrained by real-time derived global ionospheric model or regional atmospheric corrections and by the empirical characteristics of the atmospheric delay variation in time and space. The positioning performance in terms of convergence time and ambiguity fixing depends mainly on the quality of the received atmospheric information and the spatial and temporal constraints. The un-differenced raw observation model can not only integrate PPP and NRTK into a seamless positioning service, but also syncretize these two techniques into a unique model and algorithm. Furthermore, it is suitable for both dual-frequency and sing-frequency receivers. Based on the real-time data streams from IGS, EUREF and SAPOS reference networks, we can provide services of global precise point positioning (PPP) with 5–10 cm accuracy, PPP with ambiguity-fixing of 2–5 cm accuracy, PPP using single-frequency receiver with accuracy of better than 50 cm and PPP with regional augmentation for instantaneous ambiguity resolution of 1–3 cm accuracy. We adapted the system for current COMPASS to provide PPP service. COMPASS observations from a regional network of nine stations are used for precise orbit determination and clock estimation in simulated real-time mode, the orbit and clock products are applied for real-time precise point positioning. The simulated real-time PPP service confirms that real-time positioning services of accuracy at dm-level and even cm-level is achievable with COMPASS only.     

Ionospheric observations made by a time-interleaved Doppler ionosonde

Mid-latitude HF observations of ionospheric Doppler velocity as a function of frequency are reported here as observed over a quiet 24-h period by a KEL IPS71 ionosonde operating at a 5-min sampling rate. The unique time-interleaving technique used in this ionosonde provided a Doppler resolution of 0.04 Hz over a Doppler range of ±2.5 Hz at each sounding frequency via FFT processing and is described here for the first time. The time-interleaving technique can be applied to other types of ionosonde as well as to other applications. The measurements described were made at a middle latitude site (Salisbury, South Australia). Doppler variations (<30 min) were ever present throughout the day and showed short-period TID characteristics. The day-time Doppler shift was found to closely follow the rate-of-change of foF2 as predicted by a simple parabolic layer model. The descending cusp in short-period TIDs is shown to mark an abrupt change with increasing frequency from negative towards positive Doppler shift with the greatest change in Doppler shift being observed below the cusp. The “smilergram” is introduced as observed in both F2 and Sporadic E. The characteristic curve in Doppler versus group height at a single frequency is described and related to changes in reflection symmetry, velocity and depth of moving ionospheric inhomogeneities.     

An inter-comparison of zenith tropospheric delays derived from DORIS and GPS data

Doppler Orbitography Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) techniques are similarly affected by propagation delays in the neutral atmosphere (troposphere) and hence make use of similar data processing strategies for reducing this effect. We compare Zenith Tropospheric Delays (ZTDs) estimated from 52 DORIS and GPS station pairs co-located at 35 sites over the 2005–2008 period. We find an overall systematic negative mean bias of −4 mm and a median bias of −2 mm, with a large site-to-site scatter and especially stronger biases over South America, potentially linked to remaining problems related to the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) in the current DORIS data processing. The standard deviation of ZTD differences is in the range 4–12 mm over the globe (8 mm on average), with larger values located in the southern hemisphere. The spatial variability of differences is consistent with previous work but remains largely unexplained. DORIS is shown to be much less sensitive to instrumental changes than GPS (only the switch from Alcatel to Starec antenna at Toulouse is detected as an offset of −4 mm in the ZTD time series). On the opposite, discontinuities and spurious annual signals are found in the GPS ZTD solutions. A discontinuity of +5 mm is found on 5 November 2006, linked to the switch from relative to absolute GPS antenna models used in the data processing. The use of modified GPS antennas (e.g. at GODE) or improved antenna models is shown to reduce the spurious annual signal (e.g. from 5 mm to 2 mm at METS). Overall, the agreement between both techniques is good, though DORIS shows a significantly larger random scatter. The high stability and good spatial and temporal coverage make DORIS a potential candidate technique for meteorology and climate studies as long as reasonable time averaging can be applied (e.g. differences are reduced from 8.6 to 2.4 mm with 5-day averages) and no real-time application is considered. This technique could be considered as a potential contributor to Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) for climatology.