Analysis of Galileo/BDS/GPS signals and RTK performance

Abstract

New satellites and signals become available with the modernization of GNSS, especially for Galileo and BDS. The current Galileo constellation comprises 4 IOV (in-orbit validation) and 14 FOC (full operational capability) satellites which transmit signals on five frequencies. In addition to BDS-II regional navigation system, five BDS-III experimental (BDS-IIIs) and eight BDS-III satellites have been launched. It is worthwhile to evaluate the performance of these new satellites and signals. First, these signals are assessed in regard to carrier-to-noise density ratio (C/N0), code multipath (MP) combination, and triple-frequency carrier phase ionospheric-free and geometry-free (DIF) combination. The C/N0 of Galileo IOV satellites is several dB-HZ lower than that of the FOC satellites, while that of the IOV satellite E19 is always the lowest, regardless of receiver type. As for BDS, the C/N0 of the BDS-IIIs are higher than that of BDS-II but lower than that of BDS-III. The difference of C/N0 among GPS satellites is not obvious. Among all the signals, the performance of E5 is the best which may be related to its advanced modulation scheme, while the L2 is the worst. The code multipath on E5 is independent of the satellite elevation due to its good MP suppression performance, which may be related to its wide signal bandwidth. The RMSs of MP for Galileo signals are even smaller than that of GPS. Being free of the systematic code errors of BDS-II, the RMS of BDS-IIIs MP errors is comparable with that of GPS and Galileo. In addition, the multipath errors show an obvious periodic behavior, which differs with the types of satellites. Similarly, the DIF combinations also possess elevation-dependent and periodic characteristics. Note that the inter-frequency bias variations present in BDS-II and GPS IIF satellites are absent for Galileo satellites. The accuracy of Galileo SPP is comparable to that of GPS, but better than that of BDS. Although there are no significant differences for the RTK results of the three systems, the double-differenced carrier phase and code residuals of E5 is the smallest among all the signals.