Assessing the performance of multi-frequency GPS, Galileo and BeiDou PPP ambiguity resolution

ABSTRACT

The authors investigate the benefits for the precise point positioning (PPP) ambiguity resolution technique of using the GPS L1, L2 and L5; Galileo E1, E5a, E5b and E6; and BeiDou B1, B2 and B3 measurements. Data from 17 reference stations over a period of 31 consecutive days in 2018 were used. It was found that the four-frequency Galileo combination of E1+E5a+E5b+E6 provides the lowest geometric and ambiguity variance. In a kinematic test using triple- and four-frequency GNSS measurements, the solution convergence time can be shortened by an average of 5 minutes as compared to the triple-frequency GPS-only PPP case.

KEYWORDS:

• Galileo E6
• precise point positioning (PPP)
• ambiguity resolution
• convergence time
• multi-frequency and multi-constellation

Acknowledgments

Geoscience Australia and the IGS are acknowledged for providing the GNSS data as well as satellite corrections. Raijin-NCI National Computational Infrastructure Australia is acknowledged for providing high-performance research computing resources for GNSS data processing. The authors thank the Editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which have improved the paper significantly. The first author is supported by the Australia Award Scholarship Scheme to pursue a Ph.D. at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australia Awards Scholarship [AAS1503837].