Effect of Large Height Difference on Global Positioning System Solutions from a Commercially Available Software Package
Publication: Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 149, Issue 1
Abstract
Commercially available global navigation satellite system (GNSS) processing software is user-friendly and can be used in a wide variety of positioning applications from establishing geodetic control over large regions to deformation monitoring on a local scale. It is important to study the accuracy of positioning from commercial software for presurvey planning. Previously, this was done in several studies; however, none of them focused on the effect of large height differences in positioning solutions. It is known in the literature that large height differences on a baseline degrade GNSS solutions. In this study, we investigate the effect using TOPCON MAGNET v 4.0.1 through analysis of continuously operating reference stations (CORS) in California, US. Because the effect of height differences on global positioning system (GPS) baseline components has not yet been properly quantified, the positioning accuracy standards given in the surveying guidelines may not be appropriate and are often overoptimistic. When the height difference was less than about 300 m, the root mean square error was about 2–3 mm for the horizontal components and about 20 mm for the vertical component for baseline lengths of 10–20 km. However, for a height difference of 1,500 m, the error became 5–8 mm for the horizontal and 70 mm for the vertical components. In all cases, the vertical error was greater than the horizontal by a factor of 5–9, which is much greater than the expected 2–4 for GNSS. These results are likely only applicable to the version of the MAGNET software used in this study.
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Data Availability Statement
Some data (GPS rinex files, IGS precise ephemeris, and Kp index values) used during the study are free and available online in the repositories of SOPAC, IGS, and German Research Center for Geoscience (GFZ), respectively. Some data (i.e., JPL orbits and clocks) or code (i.e., GIPSY OASIS II v 6.4 and MAGNET 4.0.1) used during the study were provided by a third party; direct requests for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments. Some codes (i.e., OPUS and CSRS-PPP) are available online by the NGS of the US NOAA and National Resources Canada’s Canadian Geodetic Survey (CGS). The code (i.e., the Matlab code for Least Squares Estimation) that supports the findings of this study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for providing GIPSY OASIS II v 6.4 software and for satellite orbit and clock solution files. We would also like to thank the SOPAC researchers for opening their archives worldwide for scientific activities. Thanks to National Resources Canada’s CGS and to the managers and employees of the Canadian Spatial Reference System (CSRS) Precise Point Positioning (CSRS-PPP) web-based service. National Geodetic Survey (NGS) of the US NOAA offers the web-based service OPUS to worldwide users. Thanks to the German Research Center for Geoscience (GFZ) managers and employees for the atmospheric data. Meanwhile, we extend our thanks to officials of Topcon Turkey for allowing us access to the TOPCON MAGNET program. Figs. 1 and 2 were created with the open-source QGIS program and Bing map. Last but not least we thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and contributions to the manuscript. Anonymous reviewer #2 helped with Eq. (4) and Figs. 6 and 7.
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Published In
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 149 • Issue 1 • February 2023
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 22, 2021
Accepted: Jul 28, 2022
Published online: Oct 31, 2022
Published in print: Feb 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Mar 31, 2023
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