Extending multipath hemispherical model to account for time-varying receiver code biases

Abstract

Multipath effects on code observables account for one of the major error sources in high-accuracy Global Positioning System (GPS)-based positioning, atmosphere sounding and timing applications. The multipath hemispherical model (MHM) represents one of the most widely used methods of mitigating code multipath effects by taking advantage of their spatial repeatability. The use of MHM usually assumes that the receiver code biases (RCBs) are time-invariant; however, this assumption is not always valid, as RCBs and linear combinations thereof (differential code biases, for instance) have long been found to be time-varying over a period of one day. In this contribution, we propose an extended multipath hemispherical model (EMHM) that is capable of mitigating the code multipath effects in the presence of time-varying RCBs. Consequently, the proposed EMHM has two advantages. First, the EMHM gives rise to code multipath corrections with improved reliability because it addresses the intraday variability of RCBs. Second, more interestingly, the EMHM allows easy and effective calibration of short-term temporal variations, if any, in the RCB on each frequency. These advantages are hopeful to benefit GPS code-related applications.