Precise point positioning with decimetre accuracy using wide-lane ambiguities and triple-frequency GNSS data

Abstract

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. This paper proposes precise point positioning (PPP) methods that offer an accuracy of a few decimetres (dm) with triple frequency GNSS data. Firstly, an enhanced triple frequency linear combination is presented for rapid fixing of the extra wide-lane (EWL) and wide-lane (WL) ambiguities for GPS, Beidou-2 and Galileo. This has improved performance compared to the Melbourne-Wübbena (MW) linear combination, and has 6.7 % lower measurement noise for the GPS L1/L2 signals, 12.7 % for L1/L5 and 0.7 % for L2/L5. Analysis with tested data showed a 5-6 % reduction in time required to fix the N21 and N51 ambiguities. Once the EWL/WL ambiguities are fixed with the proposed linear combinations, three methods are presented that aim to provide positioning accuracy of a few dm. In the first approach, the three EWL/WL ambiguities in their respective phase equations are used to derive a low-noise ionosphere-free (IF) linear combination. The second method uses a low noise IF combination with two carrier-phase EWL/WL equations and a single pseudorange measurement. The third method uses a low noise IF combination with a single carrier phase EWL equation and two pseudorange measurements. These proposed methods can provide dm level positioning accuracy if carrier phase measurements with mm precision is tracked by the receiver. When comparing these combinations with a combination proposed in [22], it is found that superior performance is achieved with the third method when carrier phase noise is >5-6 mm for GPS and Beidou-2 and >2-3 mm for Galileo. This model only requires the EWL ambiguity to be fixed which typically takes just one epoch of data. Thus, the user achieves instant decimetre level PPP accuracy.