Local Tropospheric Anomaly Effects on GPS RTK Performance

Y.W. Ahn, D. Kim, P. Dare

Abstract:	In high-accuracy geodetic applications of GPS, timevariable tropospheric propagation delay limits the performance of GPS real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning. Previous research on the troposphere focused mainly on the mitigation of tropospheric delay under longbaseline situations. However, local tropospheric anomaly can also severely degrade the performance of RTK positioning even under short-baseline situations. In this paper, we demonstrate the decorrelation of troposphere under a short-baseline of about 2.7 km length when a severe weather event occurred. Also, potential improvements in positioning accuracy during the weather event are evaluated by estimating the residual tropospheric delays and gradients. Test results show that the slant tropospheric delays derived by the residual tropospheric delays and gradients can improve the performance of RTK positioning, especially when the effects of a local tropospheric anomaly are significant. The improvement of RTK positioning is mainly in the height component. Improvement in horizontal component is, if any, insignificant in our preliminary study.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2006) September 26 - 29, 2006 Fort Worth Convention Center Fort Worth, TX
Pages:	1925 - 1935
Cite this article:	Ahn, Y.W., Kim, D., Dare, P., "Local Tropospheric Anomaly Effects on GPS RTK Performance," Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2006), Fort Worth, TX, September 2006, pp. 1925-1935.
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