GPS derived ionospheric TEC response to geomagnetic storm on 24 August 2005 at Indian low latitude stations

Results pertaining to the response of the low latitude ionosphere to a major geomagnetic storm that occurred on 24 August 2005 are presented. The dual frequency GPS data have been analyzed to retrieve vertical total electron content at two Indian low latitude stations (IGS stations) Hyderabad (Geographic latitude 17°20′N, Geographic longitude 78°30′E, Geomagnetic latitude 8.65°N) and Bangalore (Geographic latitude 12°58′N, Geographic longitude 77°33′E, Geomagnetic latitude 4.58°N). These results show variation of GPS derived total electron content (TEC) due to geomagnetic storm effect, local low latitude electrodynamics response to penetration of high latitude convection electric field and effect of modified fountain effect on GPS–TEC in low latitude zone.     

GPS-only gravity field recovery with GOCE,CHAMP, and GRACE

Gravity missions such as the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) are equipped with onboard Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers for precise orbit determination (POD), instrument time-tagging, and the extraction of the long wavelength part of the Earth’s gravity field. The very low orbital altitude of the GOCE satellite and the availability of dense 1 s GPS tracking data are ideal characteristics to exploit the contribution of GPS high-low Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking (hl-SST) to gravity field determination. We present gravity field solutions based on about 8 months of GOCE GPS hl-SST data from 2009 and compare the results with those obtained from the CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) and Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) missions. The very low orbital altitude of GOCE significantly improves gravity field recovery from GPS hl-SST data above degree 20, but not for the degrees below 20, where the quality of the spherical harmonic coefficients remains essentially unchanged. Despite the limited time span of GOCE data used, the gravity field of the Earth can be resolved up to about degree 115 using GPS data only. Empirically determined phase center variations (PCVs) of the GOCE onboard GPS helix antenna are, however, mandatory to achieve this performance.     

Impact of covariance information of kinematic positions on orbit reconstruction and gravity field recovery

Gravity missions are equipped with onboard Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers for precise orbit determination (POD) and for the extraction of the long wavelength part of the Earth’s gravity field. As positions of low Earth orbiters (LEOs) may be determined from GPS measurements at each observation epoch by geometric means only, it is attractive to derive such kinematic positions in a first step and to use them in a second step as pseudo-observations for gravity field determination. The drawback of not directly using the original GPS measurements is, however, that kinematic positions are correlated due to the ambiguities in the GPS carrier phase observations, which in principle requires covariance information be taken into account. We use GRACE data to show that dynamic or reduced-dynamic orbit parameters are not optimally reconstructed from kinematic positions when only taking epoch-wise covariance information into account, but that essentially the same orbit quality can be achieved as when directly using the GPS measurements, if correlations in time are taken into account over sufficiently long intervals. For orbit reconstruction covariances have to be considered up to one revolution period to avoid ambiguity-induced variations of kinematic positions being erroneously interpreted as orbital variations. For gravity field recovery the advantage is, however, not very pronounced.     

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.     

THE APPLICATION OF SATELLITE POSITIONING TECHNOLOGY AND ITS INDUSTRIALIZATION IN CHINA

Satellite positioning technology has been widely used in all kinds of military and civil land, marine, space and aeronautical target positioning tasks, naviga tion activities and accurate surveying measurements since 90 s in the last cen tury due to its advantage in providing all-weather, real-time, three dimensional and high precision positioning information, as well as speed and accurate timing information. By now, it has already formed a new hi-tech industry basically.This paper briefly reviews the development of the global satellite positioning and navigation technologies including the basic information of China's "Plough navigation system", introduces the history of satellite positioning technology and its major application fields as well as the status quo of this being industri alized trade in China, gives an account of the writers' vision for the application and prospect of the satellite positioning technologies in China, and approaches the tactics and stresses of the satellite positioning technology's application and its industrialization future in China.     

高职《GPS测量技术》课程标准改革研究

《GPS测量技术》课程作为工程测量技术专业的一门专业技能课,是该专业必须掌握的核心技能之一。在明确国家职业标准的前提下,深入探讨该课程的教学过程,制定切实可行的课程标准。针对学生必须掌握的操作技能,组织开展项目教学,确保学生达到GPS技术的能力标准。     

基于 Matlab的 GPS/SINS紧组合仿真实现

首先,对不同的GPS／SINS组合模式进行了分析;在此基础上针对基于伪距、伪距率的紧组合导航系统进行研究,建立了系统的状态方程和量测方程,并用Matlab进行了仿真实现。在系统的仿真实现中,由于很难获得全面真实的导航飞行轨迹数据,文章采用一种纯数学形式的解析方法来产生飞行轨迹数据,因而系统的仿真包括3部分：轨迹发生器、GPS仿真子系统、SINS仿真子系统。仿真结果表明,GPS／SINS紧组合导航系统能够有效地提高系统的导航精度,用纯数学形式的解析方法来产生飞行轨迹数据是可行的、有效的。     

Using GPS-TEC data to calibrate VTEC computed with the IRI model over Nigeria

This paper presents the development of a Total Electron Content (TEC) map for the Nigerian ionosphere. In this work, TEC measurements obtained from the AFRL-SCINDA GPS (Air Force Research Laboratory-Scintillation Network Decision Aid, Global Positioning System) equipment installed at Nsukka (6.87°N, 7.38°E) are used to adapt the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model for the Nigerian Ionosphere. The map is being developed as a computer program (implemented in the MATLAB programming language) that shows spatial and temporal representations of TEC for the Nigerian ionosphere. The method is aimed at showing how the IRI model can be used to estimate VTEC over wide areas by incorporating GPS measurements. This method is validated by using GPS VTEC data collected from a station in Ilorin (8.50°N, 4.55°E).     

Ionospheric anomalies of local earthquakes detected by GPS TEC measurements using data from Tashkent and Kitab stations

This paper reports the ionospheric anomalies observed during strong local earthquakes (M?5.0) which occurred mostly in and around Uzbekistan in seismically active zones, during years 2006 to 2009 within approximately 1000 km distance from the observing GPS stations located in Tashkent and Kitab, Uzbekistan. The solar and geomagnetic conditions were quiet during occurrence of the selected strong earthquakes. We produce Total Electron Content (TEC) time series over both sites and apply them to detect anomalous TEC signals preceding or accompanying the local earthquakes. The results show anomalous increase or decrease of TEC before or during the earthquakes. In general the anomalies occurred 1–7 days before the earthquakes as ionospheric electromagnetic precursors. To identify the anomalous values of TEC we calculated differential TEC (dTEC). dTEC is obtained by subtracting monthly averaged diurnal vTEC from the values of observed vTEC at each epoch. This procedure removes normal diurnal variations of vTEC. The present results are in good agreement with the previous observations on ionospheric earthquake precursors reported by various researchers.     

精密卫星钟差分形插值算法研究

研究发现精密GPS卫星钟差时序满足三阶平稳假设,由此提出了计算卫星钟差分形维的多阶分形变差法,进而提出了基于分形维确定垂直比例因子的精密卫星钟差分形插值算法。将新方法应用于2010年8个节气日的32颗GPS在轨卫星钟差分形维计算,并选取Block IIA、IIR和IIR\|M各2颗卫星进行钟差插值精度比较。结果表明,分形维可作为定量描述卫星钟差动力学特征的不变量指标;分形插值算法优于三次样条和切比雪夫算法,可以满足快速与高采样率精密卫星钟差应用需求。