A study of multi-GNSS ionospheric scintillation and cycle-slip over Hong Kong region for moderate solar flux conditions

Xiaomin Luo, Zhizhao Liu, Yidong Lou, Shengfeng Gu, Biyan Chen

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This period of time was under a moderate solar activity condition with average sunspot number and F10.7 as 44 and 92, respectively. Considering the frequent occurrence of loss of lock in satellites measurements in the presence of ionospheric scintillation, a rate of geometry-free (ROGF) combination is proposed to take the time gap size between two data arcs into account in the cycle-slip detection. The results show that most ionospheric scintillation events and cycle-slips are observed from 20:00 LT to 0:00 LT. Under the strong scintillation (S4 > 0.6) conditions, it is found that the time series of wide-land (WL) ambiguity NWLand ROGF vary significantly and their range can reach more than 50 cycles and 0.1 m/s, respectively. However, the variations of the NWLand ROGF are generally small under weak scintillation (0.2 < S4 ≤ 0.6) or non-scintillation (S4 ≤ 0.2) conditions. A strong correlation of scintillation and cycle-slip occurrence is also verified by the daily and spatial statistics results. In addition, it is found that on average every 1000 strong scintillation events can result in 200, 124, and 171 cycle-slip occurrences in GPS, GLONASS, and BDS, respectively, whereas these values are 7, 12, and 12 per 1000 under weak scintillation conditions. This study suggests that cautions be taken when GNSS measurements are contaminated by the strong ionospheric scintillation in GNSS applications such as real-time kinematic (RTK) and precise point positioning (PPP).
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1039-1053
Number of pages15
JournalAdvances in Space Research
Volume60
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2017

Keywords

  • Cycle-slip
  • Ionospheric scintillation
  • Low-latitude
  • Multiple global navigation satellite system

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Space and Planetary Science

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