Abstract
GNSS receiver antenna phase center variations (PCVs), which arise from the non-spherical phase response of GNSS signals have to be well corrected for high-precision GNSS applications. Without using a precise antenna phase center correction (PCC) model, the estimated position of a station monument will lead to a bias of up to several centimeters. The Chinese large-scale research project “Crustal Movement Observation Network of China” (CMONOC), which requires high-precision positions in a comprehensive GPS observational network motived establishment of a set of absolute field calibrations of the GPS receiver antenna located at Wuhan University. In this paper the calibration facilities are firstly introduced and then the multipath elimination and PCV estimation strategies currently used are elaborated. The validation of estimated PCV values of test antenna are finally conducted, compared with the International GNSS Service (IGS) type values. Examples of TRM57971.00 NONE antenna calibrations from our calibration facility demonstrate that the derived PCVs and IGS type mean values agree at the 1 mm level.
Highlights
As it is well known, carrier phase observations, which undoubtedly play a dominant role in GNSS high precision applications, are generated between the antenna electrical phase centers of satellite and receiver
The antenna electrical phase center can be defined as the absolute mean phase center offset (PCO) with respect to the antenna reference point (ARP) and the elevation and azimuth dependent phase center variations (PCVs) [3] (Figure 1)
After the absolute antenna phase center calibration algorithms were investigated, an absolute antenna phase center calibration procedure has been implemented and followed by a calibration platform based on a robot
Summary
As it is well known, carrier phase observations, which undoubtedly play a dominant role in GNSS high precision applications, are generated between the antenna electrical phase centers of satellite and receiver. As a rebuttal to this assumption, Wübbena et al [8] found that in some cases, the phase patterns between two antennas of the same type have a large difference amounting to several millimeters, which was further demonstrated by using a precise point positioning (PPP) analysis [16] and precise relative positioning experiments based on a very short baseline [17] This indicates that individual absolute antenna calibrations, rather than using IGS type mean values, are recommended if tasks related to GNSS precise positioning are conducted. As the core observation technique within the CMONOC project, the GPS permanent networks consist of more than 200 tracking stations, which were equipped with different receivers and mixed antenna types, and some of them without precise calibration for GNSS antenna phase center. Based on this calibration platform, a direct absolute calibration in field procedure has been attempted in this paper
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