A new large-area hierarchical PPP-RTK service strategy

Abstract

Introducing precise atmosphere information into precise point positioning enables rapid ambiguity resolution and introduces a significant accuracy improvement. However, it can only be implemented in regions with dense networks and stable communication links. For larger areas, e.g., an intercontinental level, there is a conflict between the accuracy of corrections and the amount of atmosphere information to be disseminated. We develop a hierarchical augmentation mode to combine the advantages of the fitting model and region interpolation model to relieve the communication burden. Relying on the fitting model with fewer coefficients applied over large areas as the essential information, the unmodeled errors are calculated at each reference station, and further correction information is optional compensation depending on the magnitude of the unmodeled residuals. We perform the proposed models on 103 EUREF Permanent Network stations with 200-km station spacing and 84 stations as the external validation. The ionosphere and troposphere fitting models have an average accuracy of about 4.2 and 1.3 cm, respectively, under meteorologically calm conditions. The unmodeled error transmission determined by the magnitude of residuals can be reduced by 61% and 96% for the ionospheric and tropospheric delays, respectively, with respect to the legacy interpolation mode. Further compensation implemented, i.e., unmodeled residuals, can achieve instantaneous convergence for 83.6% of all solutions, and the overall initialization time is within 1.0 min. Thus, the proposed hierarchical positioning mode satisfies real-time positioning convergence requirements and significantly reduces massive corrections in communication.