Performance analysis of the tight combination of GPS, BDS, GALILEO, and QZSS mixed frequencies signals

Abstract

With the gradual development and modernization of satellite navigation systems, using observation information from multi-GNSS has become one of the hot-spot issues in recent years. Multi-system loose combinations form double-difference observation equations within their respective systems, and the positioning effect is improved. However, the interchangeability and compatible interoperability between global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) cannot be truly realized. At the same time, when the number of visible satellites decreases abruptly, the positioning performance deteriorates sharply. This paper focuses on the GNSS multi-system tight combination relative positioning technique, gives a mathematical model of multi-system tight combination relative positioning considering differential inter-system bias (DISB), and analyzes the time-varying characteristics of DISB at overlapping and non-overlapping frequencies among GPS/Galileo, GPS/BDS, and GPS/QZSS in terms of receiver brand, temperature, and receiver restart. The GNSS tight combination relative positioning performance is verified by static data from Curtin University and dynamic data measured at Taiyuan University of Technology. The results show that compared with loose combination, the ambiguity-fixed rate increases from 62.18% to 97.60% for static data and from 74.97% to 99.53% for dynamic data when the elevation mask angle is 50°, resulting in a significant improvement in positioning performance.