Tightly combined GPS and GLONASS for RTK positioning with consideration of differential inter-system phase bias

Abstract

A tightly combined inter-system model between two global navigation satellite systems can improve the performance of real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning, if the associated differential inter-system biases (DISBs) are processed well, especially for the severely obstructed environment. In recent years, tightly combined models among code division multiple access (CDMA) systems (e.g. Global Positioning System (GPS), BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS)) have been extensively studied. However, when there is tightly combined use of CDMA systems and Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), which adopts frequency-division multiple access (FDMA), we need to process not only the DISBs between systems, but the problem caused by the different wavelengths of the GLONASS satellites. In this paper, we propose a new model for the tight combination of GPS and GLONASS. First, we adopt the model with two reference satellites to maintain the integer ambiguity resolution of GLONASS. Then, an inter-system model between GPS and GLONASS is proposed with a total of three ‘reference satellites’ involved. Using several zero and ultra-short baselines, the stability of GPS and GLONASS differential inter-system phase biases (DISPBs) will be evaluated. The results indicated that the DISPBs between GPS and GLONASS are generally stable, although low-frequency variations may appear in the baselines with different receiver types. Using the stability of DISPBs, the combined GPS and GLONASS single-frequency RTK positioning performance is evaluated with simulated obstructed environments with no more than four GPS and four GLONASS satellites visible. It will be shown that compared with the intra-system model, the proposed inter-system model can improve the positioning accuracies by 13.5%, 15.0% and 46.2%, respectively, in three directions.