Evaluating the impact of higher-order ionospheric corrections on multi-GNSS ultra-rapid orbit determination

Abstract

The correction of higher-order ionospheric (HOI) delays remaining in the dual-frequency ionosphere-free combined observations is suggested after the confirmation of its impact on precise Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data processing. However, in the precise orbit determination (POD) for generating ultra-rapid orbits, the higher-order corrections are not always considered most likely because a RT ionospheric model needed for calculating the higher-order corrections is hardly available or the HOI impact is believed rather small compared to the accuracy of the predicted orbit. With the increasing requirement on the positioning performances from various applications, providing more accurate and reliable ultra-rapid orbits becomes an essential task of the real-time GNSS precise positioning services. In this contribution, the temporal–spatial characteristics of HOI effects on GNSS observables are investigated thoroughly using data collected from International GNSS Service (IGS) global ground stations and fluctuations of the higher-order delays up to several centimeters are detected during periods of high ionospheric activity. Hereafter, we evaluate the HOI effects on the multi-GNSS POD based on a network with globally distributed IGS stations. Results show that owing to the applied HOI corrections, the agreement of overlapping orbits can be improved significantly for all satellites and especially in radial direction. The three-dimensional RMS values of the overlapping differences are reduced from 1.6, 2.0, 4.6 and 1.7 to 1.0, 1.1, 3.4, and 1.5 cm for GPS, GALILEO, BDS, and GLONASS, respectively. Furthermore, the orbit improvement is also confirmed by the satellite laser ranging (SLR) observations over a 2-month time period where the STD of SLR residuals is reduced by HOI corrections from 6.4 to 5.3 cm for the BDS-IGSO satellites.