Estimation of absolute GNSS satellite antenna group delay variations based on those of absolute receiver antenna group delays

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Susanne Beer - , TUD Dresden University of Technology (Author)
  • Lambert Wanninger - , TUD Dresden University of Technology (Author)
  • Anja Heßelbarth - , TUD Dresden University of Technology (Author)

Abstract

GNSS satellite and receiving antennas exhibit group delay variations (GDV), which affect code pseudorange measurements. Like antenna phase center variations, which affect phase measurements, they are frequency-dependent and vary with the direction of the transmitted and received signal. GNSS code observations contain the combined contributions of satellite and receiver antennas. If absolute GDV are available for the receiver antennas, absolute satellite GDV can be determined. In 2019, an extensive set of absolute receiver antenna GDV was published and, thus, it became feasible to estimate absolute satellite antenna GDV based on terrestrial observations. We used the absolute GDV of four selected receiver antenna types and observation data of globally distributed reference stations that employ these antenna types to determine absolute GDV for the GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS satellite antennas. Besides BeiDou-2 satellites whose GDV are known to reach up to 1.5 m peak-to-peak, the GPS satellites show the largest GDV at frequencies L1 and L5 with up to 0.3 and 0.4 m peak-to-peak, respectively. They also show the largest satellite-to-satellite variations within a constellation. The GDV of GLONASS-M satellites reach up to 25 cm at frequency G1; Galileo satellites exhibit the largest GDV at frequency E6 with up to 20 cm; BeiDou-3 satellites show the largest GDV of around 15 cm at frequencies B1-2 and B3. Frequencies L2 of GPS IIIA, E1 of Galileo FOC, and B2a/B2b of BeiDou-3 satellites are the least affected. Their variations are below 10 cm.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number110
JournalGPS Solutions
Volume25
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2021
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Absolute group delay variations, BeiDou, Code-minus-carrier combination, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS, QZSS

Library keywords