Instantaneous and Controllable GNSS Integer Aperture Ambiguity Resolution with Difference Test

Abstract

In the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), integer ambiguity resolution (IAR) is critical to highly precise, fast positioning and attitude determination. The combination of ambiguity resolution and validation is usually named as integer aperture (IA) ambiguity resolution, which provides the foundation for the ambiguity validation. Based on the IA ambiguity resolution theory, fixed failure-rate (FFR) approach is proposed to realize the controlling of failure rate. Though fixed failure-rate approach can be applied for many acceptance tests, it is time-consuming and cannot be precisely realized in instantaneous scenario. In order to overcome these problems, this contribution will introduce an instantaneous and controllable (iCON) IA ambiguity resolution approach based on difference test for the first time. It has the following advantages: (1) It can independently compute the critical value by the required failure rate and GNSS model Q without external information such as look-up table; (2) It is instantaneous, and the stronger GNSS model, the better performance IA estimator will behave; (3) It can balance the instantaneous and precise quality control by adjusting the number of pull-in regions. The simulation experiment based on single and multi-frequencies, multi-GNSS systems verify the advantages of this approach. It completely solves the time consumption in precise quality control and has the same performance as the FFR approach based on Monte Carlo integral. It is available for instantaneous and precise GNSS applications, such as carrier phase based positioning, PPP-RTK, attitude determination, and will be a better choice the multi-frequency, multi-GNSS ambiguity resolution.