Regiomontan: A Regional High Precision Ionosphere Delay Model and Its Application in Precise Point Positioning

Abstract

Propagation delays of GNSS signals caused by the ionosphere can range up to several meters in zenith direction and need to be corrected. Geodetic receivers observing at two or more frequencies allow the mitigation of the ionospheric effects by forming linear combinations. However, single frequency users depend on external information. The ionosphere delay model Regiomontan developed at TU Wien is a regional ionospheric delay model providing high accuracy information with a latency of only a few hours. The model is based on dual-frequency phase observations of a regional network operated by EPOSA (Echtzeit Positionierung Austria) and partners. The corrections cover a geographical extent for receiver positions within Austria and are provided in the standardized IONEX format. The performance of Regiomontan as well as its application in Precise Point Positioning (PPP) were tested with our in-house PPP software raPPPid using the so-called uncombined model with ionospheric constraint. Various tests, e.g., analyzing the coordinate convergence behavior or the difference between estimated and modeled ionospheric delay, proving the high level of accuracy provided with Regiomontan. We conclude that Regiomontan performs at a similar level of accuracy as IGS final TEC maps, but with explicitly reduced latency.