Triple-frequency PPP ambiguity resolution with multi-constellation GNSS: BDS and Galileo

Multi-constellation GNSS (multi-GNSS) and multi-frequency signals open new prospects for fast ambiguity resolution (AR) of precise point positioning (PPP). Currently, all the BDS and Galileo satellites are capable of transmitting signals on three or more frequencies. In this contribution, we investigate the triple-frequency PPP ambiguity resolution with B1, B2 and B3 observations from BDS satellites and E1, E5a and E5b observations from Galileo satellites and evaluate the contribution of BDS + Galileo combination to triple-frequency PPP AR. The uncalibrated phase delay (UPD) products are estimated based on triple-frequency observations, and the temporal characteristic as well as the residual distributions are analyzed. Our results show that the extra-wide-lane (EWL) and wide-lane (WL) UPDs for BDS and Galileo satellites are both stable during the 30 days and the daily narrow-lane (NL) UPD series are also steady with no obvious fluctuation. The Galileo UPDs exhibit better performance than BDS UPDs due to the high-quality observations. It is also interesting to find that the EWL UPD corrections for all Galileo satellites are very close to the zero. With the precise UPD products, the triple-frequency PPP AR with BDS and Galileo observations was implemented in both static and kinematic modes. Compared to the ambiguity-float solution, the performance can be significantly improved by triple-frequency PPP AR with the positioning accuracy improved by 30–70% in both static and kinematic modes. Moreover, the triple-frequency PPP fixed solutions also present better performance than the dual-frequency PPP fixed solutions in terms of time to the first fix and positioning accuracy, especially for the Galileo-only and BDS + Galileo solutions. And the fusion of multi-GNSS (BDS and Galileo) can further improve the position estimations compared to the single system with more satellites and better spatial geometry.