Study of the effects on GPS coordinate time series caused by higher-order ionospheric corrections calculated using the DIPOLE model

As one of the main error sources in high-precision Global Positioning System （GPS） data processing, higher-order ionospheric （HOI） delays cause significant effects on coordinate time series that cannot be ignored in analyses of long time series. Typically two geomagnetic models, DIPOLE model and Inter- national Geomagnetic Reference Field （IGRF） model, are used for calculating HOI corrections. This paper investigates the effects of HOI correction caused by the DIPOLE model on coordinate time series. GPS data from 104 globally distributed International GNSS Service （IGS） stations spanning from January, 1999 to December, 2003 were reprocessed following up-to-date processing strategies utilizing GAMIT and GLOBK software. Two coordinate time series solutions before and after applying HOI corrections using the DIPOLE model were derived for studying the effects in terms of seasonal variations and noise amplitudes. The results show that after applying the HOI corrections calculated with DIPOLE, the noise amplitudes of the coordinate time series increased, especially in the north and east directions, and the increased amplitudes of the flicker noise were larger than those of the white noise. Furthermore, spurious periodic signals that were probably introduced by the HOI corrections from the DIPOLE model were also found. Moreover, an apparent increase was confirmed for the power spectra of most of the stations, especially in the north direction, and the amplitudes of both the annual and semi-annual signals also increased in the north and east directions. It can be inferred that the quality of the external data sources such as the geomagnetic model might be the key factors that lead to the above results. The results also suggest that we should be very careful when the DIPOLE model is used for HOI corrections.

Determination of nighttime VTEC average in the Klobuchar ionospheric delay model

The Klobuchar model has been widely used to correct the ionospheric delay in applications. However, the NVTEC(Nighttime Vertical Total Electron Content) of the Klobuchar model employs an empirical constant of 9 TECU(Total Electron Content Unit) at L1 frequency. In this paper, the rationality and reliability of the nighttime constant setting are investigated using the GIM(Global Ionosphere Map) product of the IGS(International GNSS Service) from 1998 to 2015. Our study indicates that the suitable time span of NVTEC average in nighttime should be between 20:00 and 06:00 LT(local time). The NVTEC is highly correlated with seasons, having positive extremes in spring and autumn and negative extremes in summer through the mean values in all latitudes. In addition to seasonal dependence, solar activity in the solar cycle 23 strongly influences NVTEC as well and leads to its variation within a range between 25 and30 TECU in spring and autumn at solar maximum, which is about 1.5 times greater than that in summer and winter. The NVTEC also has a dependence on the latitude at solar maximum, with the mean value from 30 TECU in low latitudinal regions to 15 TECU in high latitudinal regions. Therefore, these results demonstrate that the nighttime VTEC has much greater deviations from the imperial constant in the Klobuchar model, and the newly estimated constant is expected to bring improvement to the predictability of the Klobuchar ionospheric delay model in nighttime.

Entering a New Era of InSAR:Advanced Techniques and Emerging Applications

Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar(InSAR)provides unique capabilities to map regional/global topography and deformation of the Earth’s surface and has led to a broad spectrum of deformation monitoring applications.In order to adapt to various challenging monitoring environments,researchers have made tremendous innovations to deal with issues such as atmospheric and ionospheric effects,loss of coherence due to large displacements,geometric distortions and unwrapping errors.Owing to recent technical and methodological advances,the Earth’s surface deformation,ranging from earthquake ruptures,volcanic eruptions,landslides,glaciers,to groundwater storage variations,mining subsidence and infrastructure instability can now be mapped anywhere in the world at high spatial and temporal resolutions.This special issue received a set of contributions highlighting recent advances in methodologies and applications of InSAR to ground deformation monitoring.We aim to present overviews of both the state of the art of SAR/InSAR techniques and the next generation of applications across the broad range of deformation monitoring applications.

Analyses and Solutions of Errors on GPS/GLONASS Positioning

This paper focuses mainly on the major errors and their reduction approaches pertaining to combined GPS/GLONASS positioning.To determine the difference in the time reference systems,different receiver clock offsets are introduced with respect to GPS and GLONASS system time.A more desirable method for introducing a independent unknown parameter of fifth receiver,which can be canceled out when forming difference measurements,is discussed.The error of orbit integration and the error of transformation parameters are addressed in detail.Results of numerical integration are given.To deal with the influence of ionospheric delay,a method for forming dual_frequency ionospheric free carrier phase measurements is detailed.

Global modeling 2^(nd)-order ionospheric delay and its effects on GNSS precise positioning

Ionospheric delay is one of the major error sources in GNSS navigation and positioning.Nowadays,the dual-frequency technique is the most widely used in ionospheric refraction correction.However,dual-frequency measurements can only eliminate the first-order term of ionospheric delay,while the effect of the second-order term on GNSS observations may be several centimeters.In this paper,two models,the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) 2007 and International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) 11 are used to estimate the second-order term through the integral calculation method.Besides,the simplified single layer ionosphere model in a dipole moment approximation for the earth magnetic field is used.Since the traditional integral calculation method requires large calculation load and takes much time,it is not convenient for practical use.Additionally,although the simplified single layer ionosphere model is simple to implement,it results in larger errors.In this study,second-order term ionospheric correction formula proposed by Hoque (2007) is improved for estimating the second-order term at a global scale.Thus,it is more practicable to estimate the second-order term.More importantly,its results have a higher precision of the sub-millimeter level for a global scale in normal conditions.Compared with Hoque's original regional correction model,which calculates coefficients through polynomial fitting of elevation and latitudes,this study proposes a piece-wise look-up table and interpolation technique to modify Hoque model.Through utilizing a table file,the modified Hoque model can be conveniently implemented in an engineering software package,like as PANDA in this study.Through applying the proposed scheme for the second-order ionospheric correction into GNSS precise positioning in both PPP daily and epoch solutions,the results have shown south-shift characteristics in daily solution at a global scale and periodic change with VTEC daily variation in epoch positioning solution.

A Fault-tolerance Estimating Method for Ionosphere Corrections in Satellite Navigation System

Aiming to the reliable estimates of the ionosphere differential corrections for the satellite navigation system in the presence of the ionosphere anomaly, a fault-tolerance estimating method, which is based on the distributed Kalman filtering, is proposed. The method utilizes the parallel sub-filters for estimating the ionosphere differential corrections. Meanwhile, an infinite norm （IN） method is proposed for the detection of the ionosphere irregularity in the filter processing. Once the anomaly is detected, the sub-filter contaminated by the anomaly measurements will be excluded to ensure the reliability of the estimates. The simulation is conducted to validate the method and the results indicate that the anomaly can be found timely due to the novel fault detection method based on the infinite norm. Because of the parallel sub-filter architecture, the measurements are classified by the spatial distribution so that the ionosphere anomaly can be positioned and excluded more easily. Thus, the method can provide the robust and accurate ionosphere differential corrections.