Simultaneous single epoch satellite clock modelling in global navigation satellite systems

In order to obtain high quality positions from navigation satellites, range errors have to be identified and either modelled or estimated. This thesis focuses on satellite clock errors, which are needed to be known because satellite clocks are not perfectly synchronised with navigation system time. A new approach, invented at UCL, for the simultaneous estimation, in a single epoch, of all satellite clock offsets within a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) from range data collected at a large number of globally distributed ground stations is presented. The method was originally tested using only data from a limited number of GPS satellites and ground stations. In this work a total of 50 globally distributed stations and the whole GPS constellation are used in order to investigate more fully the capabilities of the method, in terms of both accuracy and reliability. A number of different estimation models have been tested. These include those with different weighting schemes, those with and without tropospheric bias parameters and those that include assumptions regarding prior knowledge of satellite orbits. In all cases conclusions have been drawn based on formal error propagation theory. Accuracy has been assessed largely through the sizes of the predicted satellite clock standard deviations and, in case of simultaneously estimating satellite positions, their error ellipsoids. Both internal and external reliability have been assessed as there are important contributions to integrity, something that is essential for many practical applications. It has been found that the accuracy and reliability of satellite clock offsets are functions of the number of known ground station clocks and distance from them, quality of orbits and quality of range measurement. Also the introduction of tropospheric zenith delay parameters into the model reduced both accuracy and reliability by amounts depending on satellite elevation angles