Assessment of Ionospheric Models for GNSS During a Year of Solar Maximum

A. Rovira-Garcia, J.M. Juan, J. Sanz, G. González-Casado, D. Ibáñez, J. Romero-Sánchez

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	The main objective of this work is to present a methodology to assess the accuracy of any ionospheric model used in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) applications. A number of global and regional models (both in realtime and post-process) will be analyzed during the entire 2014, i.e. near to the last Solar Cycle Maximum, to identify seasonal characteristics. The new method uses as reference values the unambiguous and undifferenced geometry-free combination of carrier-phase measurements from a worldwide distribution of receivers. The differences between the Slant Total Electron Contents (STECs) of the model and the measurements are fit to constant hardware delays: a receiver plus a satellite Differential Code Bias (DCB). Once such DCBs are estimated, the post-fit residual of the adjustment to the reference values is computed. It is shown that this residual is a very suitable metric to represent the error of any ionospheric model tailored for GNSS-based navigation. Any miss-modeling present in the STECs predictions which cannot be represented by a constant parameter per station and a constant per satellite degrades the user positioning. The assessment includes the comparison of the 3D navigation error of some permanent stations, being processed in singlefrequency as kinematic rovers, using different ionospheric corrections and precise satellite orbits and clocks.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 28th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2015) September 14 - 18, 2015 Tampa Convention Center Tampa, Florida
Pages:	3833 - 3840
Cite this article:	Rovira-Garcia, A., Juan, J.M., Sanz, J., González-Casado, G., Ibáñez, D., Romero-Sánchez, J., "Assessment of Ionospheric Models for GNSS During a Year of Solar Maximum," Proceedings of the 28th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2015), Tampa, Florida, September 2015, pp. 3833-3840.
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