A Smart Realtime Service to Broadcast the Precise Orbits of GPS Satellite and Its Performance on Precise Point Positioning

Abstract

At present, Global Position System (GPS) navigation ephemeris mainly broadcasts satellite orbits with meter-level precision for standard point positioning and precise relative positioning. With the rapid development of real-time precise point positioning (PPP), the receiver or smartphone has begun to demand more and more convenient, continuous, and reliable access to real-time services of precise orbits. Therefore, this study proposes a solution of utilizing the 18-parameter ephemeris to directly broadcast ultra-rapid precise predicted orbits with centimeter-level precision for real-time PPP. For the first time in GPS, the difference in the PPP results between the precise orbits and the calculated orbits broadcasted from the generated ephemeris parameters is supplied as follows: (1) During the validity period of 2 h, root mean square (RMS) of the relative distance offsets between the results of PPP with the precise orbits and the results of PPP the 18-parameter ephemeris is only 0.0098 m. (2) Within 15 min after the validity period of 2 h, RMS of the relative distance offsets between the results of PPP with the precise orbits and the results of PPP with the predicted orbits by 18-parameter ephemeris is only 0.0057 m. Consequently, the 18-parameter ephemeris is feasible and advisable to broadcast precise predicted orbits for real-time PPP applications. Compared with the classic precise orbits broadcast mode with the orbit corrections defined by the radio technical commission for maritime services standards 10403.2 (RTCM), the mode of broadcasting the precise orbits with the 18-parameter ephemeris achieved the following improvements in convenience, continuity, and reliability: (1) The calculation of satellite position is the same as that of the navigation ephemeris excluding the additional correction operations required to the RTCM; (2) the amount of broadcast parameters was reduced by 20 times; (3) the length of the validity period was expanded 120 times, where the longer valid period helped to overcome the orbit corrections loss caused by RTCM stream failures; and (4) within 15 min after the validity period, the predicted orbits with an accuracy of 2 cm could still be provided by the 18-parameter ephemeris, which can ensure the real-time services of precise orbits in the case of a 15 min communication interruption of the RTCM orbit correction data stream.