Mitigating high latitude ionospheric scintillation effects on GNSS Precise Point Positioning exploiting 1-s scintillation indices

Guo, Kai; Vadakke Veettil, Sreeja; Weaver, Brian Jerald; Aquino, Marcio

Abstract

Ionospheric scintillation refers to rapid and random fluctuations in Radio Frequency (RF) signal intensity and phase, which occurs more frequently and severely at high latitudes under strong solar and geomagnetic activity. As one of the most challenging error sources affecting Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), scintillation can significantly degrade the performance of GNSS receivers, thereby leading to increased positioning errors. This study analyzes Global Positioning System (GPS) scintillation data recorded by two Ionospheric Scintillation Monitoring Receivers (ISMRs) operational respectively in the Arctic and northern Canada during a geomagnetic storm in 2019. A novel approach is proposed to calculate 1-second scintillation indices. The 1-second receiver tracking error variances are then estimated, which are further used to mitigate the high latitude scintillation effects on GPS Precise Point Positioning (PPP). Results show that the 1-second scintillation indices can describe the signal fluctuations under scintillation more accurately. With the mitigation approach, the 3D positioning error is greatly reduced under scintillation analyzed in this study. Additionally, the 1-second tracking error variance achieves a better performance in scintillation mitigation compared with the previous approach which exploits 1-min tracking error variance estimated by the commonly used 1-min scintillation indices. This work is relevant for a better understanding of the high latitude scintillation effects on GNSS and is also beneficial for developing scintillation mitigation tools for GNSS positioning.

Citation

Guo, K., Vadakke Veettil, S., Weaver, B. J., & Aquino, M. (2021). Mitigating high latitude ionospheric scintillation effects on GNSS Precise Point Positioning exploiting 1-s scintillation indices. Journal of Geodesy, 95(3), Article 30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-021-01475-y

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 2, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Feb 22, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-03
• Deposit Date: Feb 5, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 22, 2021
• Journal: Journal of Geodesy
• Print ISSN: 0949-7714
• Electronic ISSN: 1432-1394
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 95
• Issue: 3
• Article Number: 30
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-021-01475-y
• Keywords: GNSS; ionospheric scintillation; scintillation index; PPP; scintillation mitigation Declarations
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5293687
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-021-01475-y