Abstract
The ionospheric effect plays a crucial role in the radio communications. For ionospheric observing and monitoring, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has been widely utilized. The ionospheric condition can be characterized by the Total Electron Contents (TEC) and TEC Rate (TECR) calculated from the GNSS measurements. Currently, GNSS-based ionospheric observing and monitoring largely depend on a global fiducial network of GNSS receivers such as the International GNSS Service (IGS) network. We propose a new approach to observe the ionosphere by deploying a GNSS receiver on a Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) train. We assessed the TECR derived from the MTR-based GNSS receiver by comparing it with the TECR derived from a static GNSS receiver. The results show that the Root-Mean-Squares (RMS) errors of the TECR derived from the MTR-based GNSS receiver is consistently approximately 23% higher than that derived from the static GNSS receiver. Despite the increased error, the findings suggest that the GNSS observation on a fast-moving platform is a feasible approach to observe the ionosphere over a large region in a rapid and cost-effective way.
Highlights
The ionosphere has a significant impact on satellitebased navigation and positioning
We investigate the feasibility of TEC Rate (TECR) observation using a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver deployed on a fast-moving train, namely the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) train
The results show that TECR values derived from six different satellites are basically stable in TECR of carrier phase in total electron content unit (TECU)/sec
Summary
The ionosphere has a significant impact on satellitebased navigation and positioning. We first describe the data and methodology used to retrieve the ionospheric TECR from an MTR-based GNSS receiver. Bi,R and bi, are the hardware delay of the receiver on the pseudorange and carrier phase measurements, respectively, in meter.
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