An analysis of the wide area differential method of geostationary orbit satellites

Abstract

This work aims to obtain a wide area differential method for geostationary orbit (GEO) constellation. A comparison between the dilution of precision (DOP) of four-dimensional (4D) calculation including satellite clock errors and ephemeris errors and that of three-dimensional (3D) calculation only including ephemeris errors with the inverse positioning theory of GPS shows the conclusion that all the 3D PDOPs are greatly reduced. Based on this, a basic idea of correcting satellite clock errors and ephemeris errors apart is put forward, and moreover, a specific method of separation is proposed. Satellite clock errors are separated in a master station with time synchronization, and all the remaining pseudo-range errors after the satellite clock errors have been deducted are used to work out ephemeris corrections of all GEO satellites. By a comparative analysis of user positioning accuracy before and after differential, the wide area differential method is verified to be quite valid for GEO constellation.