Comparison of Real-time Troposphere Correction Techniques for High Performance DGPS Application

Yujie Zhang and Chris Bartone

Abstract:	A two-step troposphere correction process was defined and implemented using various troposphere models and systematic approaches, to implement a particular real-time troposphere correction technique. The first step is the troposphere models where the troposphere error is predicted by either a standard (i.e. static meteorology data based) Hopfield model [1], National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) troposphere error forecast model [2, 3], or Real-time Meteorological-based Troposphere (RMT) model [4]. The second step is the systematic approaches, which includes implementing the troposphere model in either a single-site (i.e., standalone), network interpolation (NI) [5–8], or network least square (NLS) approach [9,10]. Within this three-by-three troposphere correction techniques grid, eight different troposphere techniques were compared in terms of accuracy and integrity performance, for GPS space vehicle (SV) signals at different geographical locations (i.e., Ohio and Florida), for different elevation angles (15 to 90 deg) and different weather conditions (winter and summer). In the winter Ohio scenario for a 121km long baseline case, different techniques demonstrate similar accuracy. In the summer Florida scenarios for a 198km long baseline case, the NI-RMT demonstrates the most accurate results, followed by NI-NOAA and standalone RMT. The results from Florida scenario indicates that NI approach based techniques, NI-RMT and NI-NOAA, are good choices for a system with no stringent integrity requirement; standalone RMT technique is a good trade off between integrity performance and accuracy performance, which is well suited for a variety of potential users within a prototype National Differential Global Positioning System - High Performance (NDGPS-HP) architecture where meteorological (MET) data are available, and high accuracy and integrity requirements exist.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2005 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 24 - 26, 2005 The Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	666 - 684
Cite this article:	Zhang, Yujie, Bartone, Chris, "Comparison of Real-time Troposphere Correction Techniques for High Performance DGPS Application," Proceedings of the 2005 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 2005, pp. 666-684.
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