Evaluating the Effect of Global Positioning System (GPS) Satellite Clock Error via GPS Simulation

Abstract

This study is aimed at evaluating the effect of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite clock error using GPS simulation. Two conditions of tests are used; Case 1: All the GPS satellites have clock errors within the normal range of 0 to 7 ns, corresponding to pseudorange error range of 0 to 2.1 m; Case 2: One GPS satellite suffers from critical failure, resulting in clock error in the pseudorange of up to 1 km. It is found that increase of GPS satellite clock error causes increase of average positional error due to increase of pseudorange error in the GPS satellite signals, which results in increasing error in the coordinates computed by the GPS receiver. Varying average positional error patterns are observed for the each of the readings. This is due to the GPS satellite constellation being dynamic, causing varying GPS satellite geometry over location and time, resulting in GPS accuracy being location / time dependent. For Case 1, in general, the highest average positional error values are observed for readings with the highest PDOP values, while the lowest average positional error values are observed for readings with the lowest PDOP values. For Case 2, no correlation is observed between the average positional error values and PDOP, indicating that the error generated is random.