Data quality assessment and the positioning performance analysis of BeiDou in Hong Kong

Abstract

As the satellite constellation, frequency structure, time and coordinate reference system of the Chinese BeiDou are all different from those of GPS, the quality of observations is also supposed to be different from GPS. At the same time, the positioning performance of the GPS and BeiDou combined system should be much better in view of the availability of more visible satellites. The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of BeiDou pseudorange and carrier phase observation, and to compare the performance of GPS, BeiDou and the combined system in terms of availability, integrity and positioning accuracy with practical data in Hong Kong. The experiment results showed that the noise and multipath of GEOs (geostationary earth orbit satellites) pseudorange measurement fluctuates within 1.5 m, while the variations of IGSOs (geostationary earth orbit inclined geosynchronous orbit satellites) and MEOs (medium earth orbit satellites) are more obvious. The amplitudes of the triple-carrier combination of time series of GEOs, IGSOs and MEOs carrier phase measurements are 4, 6, and 6 mm, respectively. In addition, the absolute and relative positioning precision of BeiDou is very similar to that of GPS, and the performance of the combined systems is best.

Keywords:

• GPS
• BeiDou
• Data quality
• Availability
• Integrity
• Positioning performance

Acknowledgements

The research was substantially funded by Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (PolyU 152023/14E), and the research fund from the Research Institute of Sustainable Urban Development, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.