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The phase and code biases of Galileo and BDS-3 BOC signals: effect on ambiguity resolution and precise positioning

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Abstract

The modernization of GPS and GLONASS and the development of BDS and Galileo make a variety of new navigation signals available to the users. The wide range of GNSS signals will result in various biases that need to be considered in data processing. In particular, Galileo and BDS-3 binary offset carrier (BOC) signals employ a new approach called dual-frequency constant envelope multiplexing. In this contribution, the phase and code biases of Galileo and BDS-3 BOC signals were estimated and investigated with the observation of iGMAS and MEGX networks during the period of 2015–2018. Initial analyses of BDS-3 BOC signals indicate that satellite-specific pilot-minus-data code biases are close to zero for BDS-3 B2a and B2b signals, while the ones for B1C signal are not. In addition, the satellite differential code biases (DCBs) between Galileo E5a, E5b and E5ab signals, as well as between BDS-3 B2a and B2b signals, are also close to zero. The estimated phase biases for Galileo E5a, E5b and E5ab signals or BDS-3 B2a and B2b signals are the same values, and the resultant phase biases of the extra-wide-lane (EWL) combination are very close to the zero. Besides, no obvious time-varying inter-frequency clock bias could be observed for both Galileo and BDS-3 satellites. Such characteristics of phase/code biases of the new GNSS signals are valuable for ambiguity resolution and precise positioning. Only one set of code or phase bias product is required for Galileo E5a/b/ab (BDS-3 B2a/b) signals. The satellite DCBs between Galileo E5a, E5b and E5ab signals, as well as between BDS-3 B2a and B2b signals, can be ignored in the data processing. And the EWL ambiguities derived from the Galileo E5a/b/ab or BDS-3 B2a/b observations keep their integer feature and can be fixed to integers without phase bias corrections.

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Data availability

The GNSS observations are available in the IGS repository, ftp://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/gps/data. The Galileo DCB products are publicly available in the DLR repository.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment and Geodesy, Ministry of Education, Wuhan University: 18-02-09, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 41774030, Grant 41974027 and Grant 41974029, in part by the Hubei Province Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 2018CFA081.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430079, Hubei, China

    Xingxing Li, Xin Li, Gege Liu, Weiliang Xie, Fei Guo, Yongqiang Yuan, Keke Zhang & Guolong Feng

  2. Key Laboratory of Geophysical Geodesy, National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Xingxing Li & Fei Guo

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center for Geospatial Technology, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Xingxing Li & Fei Guo

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  1. Xingxing Li
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  2. Xin Li
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  3. Gege Liu
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  4. Weiliang Xie
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  5. Fei Guo
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  6. Yongqiang Yuan
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  7. Keke Zhang
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  8. Guolong Feng
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Contributions

XXL and XL provided the initial idea and designed the experiments for this study; XXL, XL and GL analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; WX, FG and YY helped with the writing. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xingxing Li.

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Li, X., Li, X., Liu, G. et al. The phase and code biases of Galileo and BDS-3 BOC signals: effect on ambiguity resolution and precise positioning. J Geod 94, 9 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-019-01336-9

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