Ionospheric VTEC and satellite DCB estimated from single-frequency BDS observations with multi-layer mapping function

Abstract

The ionospheric delays and satellite differential code biases (DCBs) act as the significant error sources in the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services, and are still challenging to estimate correctly. In this study, the ionospheric vertical total electron content (VTEC) and satellite DCBs are estimated by a refining single-frequency precise point positioning (SFPPP) method based on the multi-layer ionosphere mapping function (MF), as well as the dual-frequency methods, including the carrier-to-code leveling (CCL) and dual-frequency PPP (DFPPP). The solutions isolate the ionospheric VTEC values from the slant ionospheric delay with the generalized trigonometric series function (GTSF) and precisely estimate the satellite DCB with a zero-mean condition. The SFPPP-derived VTEC estimates are validated and evaluated by comparing with the International GNSS Service (IGS) products and using ionosphere-corrected (IC) SFPPP in both static and kinematic scenarios. Using the 74 experimental stations collected from the multi-GNSS experiment (MGEX) network from January to March 2020, the results show that the VTEC estimation precision by applying the multi-layer MF is improved for the SFPPP approach. The positioning performances of the static and kinematic BDS IC SFPPP with the ionospheric correction derived from the multi-layer MF SFPPP are better when compared to the single-layer MF. The estimated BDS DCB with the SFPPP is stable and of high accuracy. The SFPPP approach with multi-layer MF is demonstrated as a promising and reliable method to retrieve the VTEC and satellite DCB with the low-cost property for the GNSS users.