A new triple-frequency cycle slip detecting algorithm validated with BDS data

Abstract Triple-frequency global navigation satellite systems allow the introduction of additional linear observation combinations. We define two geometry-free phase combinations and one geometry-free pseudorange minus phase linear combination to detect and correct cycle slip in real time. At first, the optimal BDS (BeiDou System) triple-frequency geometry-free phase combinations are selected for cycle slip detection. Then, a detailed analysis of the cycle slip detection is performed by examining whether some special cycle slip groups cannot be discovered by the selected combinations. Since there still remain some cycle slip groups undetectable by the two geometry-free phase combinations, we add a pseudorange minus phase linear combination which is linearly independent with these two phase combinations, to be sure that all the cycle slips can be detected. After that, an effective decorrelation search based on LAMBDA and least squares minimum principle is applied to calculate and determine the cycle slips. The method has been tested on triple-frequency undifferenced BDS data coming from a benign observation environment. Results show that the proposed method is able to detect and repair all the small cycle slips in the three carriers.