Satellite clock stability analysis depending on the reference clock type

Abstract

Knowledge of the GNSS satellite clock error is essential for real-time PPP and other high-rate applications in GNSS positioning. This work presents the characterisation of short-term stability of the atomic GNSS clocks depending on the type of reference clock. Calculations are performed by usage of high-rate 1 s GPS observations on the IGS stations located in Europe. The clock parameters are estimated epoch by epoch using back-substitution steps. Furthermore, there is a clock stability analysis of stations selected as reference clocks in a 2-week period. The analysis presents a characterisation of the GPS satellite clocks as the Allan deviation covering averaging intervals from 2 0 to 2 10 s.

High-Rate Monitoring of Satellite Clocks Using Two Methods of Averaging Time

“…Next, for further analysis smoothed code and original phase observations were taken into consideration. Then clock parameters were estimated using the epoch by epoch method described in more detail by [38,54]. During the calculations, 30 s IGS clocks corrections were introduced as the reference for the consecutive solutions in combination with the manually adopted reference clock selected in Section 4.…”

“…Plotting the Allan standard deviation is usually observations/data versus time interval τ in a log-log graph. It is also referred to as a two-sample variance, which describes the analysed clock behaviour as a function of time with τ-size samples [38].…”

“…The stability of the on-board clocks is essential in the GNSS positioning, and the estimation of these clocks requires a large number of tracking ground stations [34]. GNSS on-board clocks have been widely studied to date [35][36][37][38][39], including their influence on the PPP technique [40]. Five minute interval precise clock products are enough for an mm-dm level of PPP precision.…”

Characteristics of Onefold Clocks of GPS, Galileo, BeiDou and GLONASS Systems

“…The quality of GNSS performance depends heavily on satellite clocks [ 3 , 4 ]. In recent years, there have been a number of publications containing clock stability analyses, but the majority of them cover only one or two GNSS systems [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Wang et al [ 9 ] analyzed BDS clocks with the use of Allan deviation, and similar research was conducted by Steigenberger [ 10 ], but using Galileo clocks.…”

Atomic clock modelling augmenting time and frequency transfer using carrier phase observation

“…Recently, the performance of satellite atomic clocks with different modelling techniques has received much attention [11–15]. As many IGS tracking stations have been equipped with atomic clocks, research on atomic clock modelling, with the aims of improving positioning performance, has been of particular interest to some groups [16–22].…”