Comprehensive assessment of positioning and zenith delay retrieval using GPS+Glonass precise point positioning

Since October 2011, the Russian GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) has been revitalized and is now fully operational with 24 satellites in orbit. It is critical to assess the benefits and problems of using GLONASS observations (i.e. GLONASS-only or combined Global Positioning System (GPS) and GLONASS) for precise positioning and zenith total delay (ZTD) retrieval on a global scale using precise point positioning (PPP) technique. In this contribution, extensive evaluations are conducted with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data sets collected from 251 globally distributed stations of the International GNSS Service (IGS) network in July 2016. The stations are divided into 30 groups by antenna/radome types to investigate whether there are antenna/radome-dependent biases in position and ZTD derived from GLONASS-only PPP. The positioning results do not show obvious antenna/radome-dependent biases except the stations with JAV_RINGANT_G3T/NONE. For these stations, the averaged biases in horizontal component, especially in the north component, can achieve as high as –9.0 mm. The standard deviation (STD) and root mean square (RMS) are used as indicators of positioning repeatability and accuracy, respectively. The averaged horizontal STD and RMS of GLONASS-only PPP are comparable to GPS-only PPP, while in vertical component, those for GLONASS-only PPP are larger. Furthermore, the STD and RMS of GPS+GLONASS combined PPP solutions are the smallest in horizontal and vertical components, indicating that adding GLONASS observations can achieve better positioning performance than GPS-only PPP. With the IGS final ZTD as reference, we find that ZTD biases and accuracy of GLONASS-only are latitudeand antenna/radome-independent. The ZTD accuracy of GLONASS-only PPP is slightly worse than that of GPS-only PPP. Compared with GPS-only PPP, the ZTD accuracy is only improved by 1.3% from 7.8 to 7.7 mm by adding GLONASS observations. ARTICLE INFO

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