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Initial assessment of BeiDou-3 global navigation satellite system: signal quality, RTK and PPP

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Abstract

China has recently established the primary constellation of BeiDou-3 global navigation satellite system (BDS-3). It is necessary to conduct a comprehensive assessment about its performance. The signal quality, ambiguity resolution efficiency and real-time kinematic (RTK) performance are assessed based on the datasets collected with two Trimble Alloy receivers that can track all open signals of BDS-3. Then, the precise point positioning (PPP) using combined BDS-2 and BDS-3 measurements is compared with the PPP using BDS-2 only, where the precise satellite orbits and clocks are determined using 116 globally distributed monitor stations. The results show that the signal quality of BDS-3 is generally better than that of BDS-2. Also, the ambiguity resolution efficiency of RTK is improved by incorporating the BDS-3 measurements with success rate improving from 88.5 to 91.4%. Regarding PPP, the convergence time is shortened from about an hour to less than half an hour, while the positioning accuracy is also improved significantly.

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Acknowledgements

This study is sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41874030, 41622401 and 41574023 and 41730102), the Scientific and Technological Innovation Plan from Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (18511101801), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFB0501802, 2017YFA0603102) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Surveying and GeoInformatics, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Zhiteng Zhang, Bofeng Li, Liangwei Nie, Chunxiao Wei, Song Jia & Shiqi Jiang

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  1. Zhiteng Zhang
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  2. Bofeng Li
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  3. Liangwei Nie
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  4. Chunxiao Wei
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  5. Song Jia
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Correspondence to Bofeng Li.

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Zhang, Z., Li, B., Nie, L. et al. Initial assessment of BeiDou-3 global navigation satellite system: signal quality, RTK and PPP. GPS Solut 23, 111 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-019-0905-4

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