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Assessment of PPP integer ambiguity resolution using GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou (IGSO, MEO) constellations

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Abstract

Although integer ambiguity resolution (IAR) can improve positioning accuracy considerably and shorten the convergence time of precise point positioning (PPP), it requires an initialization time of over 30 min. With the full operation of GLONASS globally and BDS in the Asia–Pacific region, it is necessary to assess the PPP–IAR performance by simultaneous fixing of GPS, GLONASS, and BDS ambiguities. This study proposed a GPS + GLONASS + BDS combined PPP–IAR strategy and processed PPP–IAR kinematically and statically using one week of data collected at 20 static stations. The undifferenced wide- and narrow-lane fractional cycle biases for GPS, GLONASS, and BDS were estimated using a regional network, and undifferenced PPP ambiguity resolution was performed to assess the contribution of multi-GNSSs. Generally, over 99% of a posteriori residuals of wide-lane ambiguities were within ±0.25 cycles for both GPS and BDS, while the value was 91.5% for GLONASS. Over 96% of narrow-lane residuals were within ±0.15 cycles for GPS, GLONASS, and BDS. For kinematic PPP with a 10-min observation time, only 16.2% of all cases could be fixed with GPS alone. However, adding GLONASS improved the percentage considerably to 75.9%, and it reached 90.0% when using GPS + GLONASS + BDS. Not all epochs could be fixed with a correct set of ambiguities; therefore, we defined the ratio of the number of epochs with correctly fixed ambiguities to the number of all fixed epochs as the correct fixing rate (CFR). Because partial ambiguity fixing was used, when more than five ambiguities were fixed correctly, we considered the epoch correctly fixed. For the small ratio criteria of 2.0, the CFR improved considerably from 51.7% for GPS alone, to 98.3% when using GPS + GLONASS + BDS combined solutions.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive suggestions. This work is partially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Nos. 2016YFB0501802, 2016YFB0502203), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41074008, 41374034, 41404010, 41301511, 41604028, 41604017, 41401444), National 973 Program of China (No. 2012CB957701), Shenzhen future industry development funding program (No. 201507211219247860), Shenzhen Scientific Research and Development Funding Program (No. JCYJ20140418095735587).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Spatial Smart Sensing and Services, College of Civil Engineering and Key Laboratory for Geo-Environment Monitoring of Coastal Zone of the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and GeoInformation, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Yanyan Liu, Xing Zhang & Qingquan Li

  2. GNSS Research Center, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Yanyan Liu, Yidong Lou, Shirong Ye & Weiwei Song

  3. College of Natural Resource and Environment, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Rui Zhang

  4. State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Qingquan Li

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  1. Yanyan Liu
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  2. Yidong Lou
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  3. Shirong Ye
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  4. Rui Zhang
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  5. Weiwei Song
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  6. Xing Zhang
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  7. Qingquan Li
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Correspondence to Yidong Lou.

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Liu, Y., Lou, Y., Ye, S. et al. Assessment of PPP integer ambiguity resolution using GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou (IGSO, MEO) constellations. GPS Solut 21, 1647–1659 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-017-0641-6

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