Ionospheric Effects on Network-RTK

A part of the atmosphere is ionized by the UV radiation from the Sun. This part is often referred to as the ionosphere. The resulting free electrons influence the GNSS signals as they propagate through the ionosphere. We have studied how the spatial variations of electron density in the ionosphere affect measurements with network-RTK. The aim is to predict what we can expect from measurements during the next solar maximum that is expected to occur around 2012. In order to perform a spatial characterization of the ionosphere, we have used archived GPS data from SWEPOS from a five year period, 1999-2004, around the previous solar maximum. We find that the effect of the ionospheric spatial variability on network-RTK measurements is greater during night time than during day time. It is also clear that the effect is larger for northern Sweden than for the southern part. This is especially true during night time. The effect is also largest in the months October and November and smallest in June and July. Also the number of cycle slips is larger in northern Sweden than in southern Sweden. We find that when monitoring the ionosphere and its influence on network-RTK performance it is desirable to have several different geographical regions under observation. The effects in northern Sweden may, for example not be that relevant for a user in southern Sweden. In this report we define the ionospheric delay errors as the standard deviation of the difference between the ionospheric delay at L1 at one location and the estimated value of this based on the three surrounding reference stations with 70 km separation. Using GNSS equipment that is state-of-the art around 2010, we find that when conditions are such that the ionospheric delay error is below 10 mm, which occurs some 70% of the time, a rover is able to fix the ambiguities more than 90% of the time. This ability decreases with increasing ionospheric variability and when the ionospheric delay error is larger than 25 mm, which occurs some 10% of the time, the rover ability to fix is less than 50%. When measuring with network-RTK during the next solar maximum, approximately, 80% of the time, we have conditions such that a rover has at least 75% chance of fixing the solutions. Overall the probability to find a correct fix solution when performing RTK measurements during the next solar maximum is approximately 85% and the mean time to fix is 55 seconds