Study on reliable GNSS positioning with intense TEC fluctuations at high latitudes

Abstract

The study presents the influence of strong total electron content (TEC) fluctuations occurring at high latitudes on rapid static positioning. The authors propose an algorithm mitigating the impact of dynamic temporal changes in electron content using the rate of TEC corrections. It consists of modifying the observations using the measured rate of TEC variations and hence allows reducing the number of parameters to one ionospheric delay of a reference epoch per satellite and per session. An analysis was carried out for a typical quiet day in solar minimum on September 6, 2009 and a disturbed day during high solar activity on March 17, 2013. For a standard geometry-based relative model with weighted ionosphere and troposphere, the results confirmed the dramatic drop of ambiguity resolution efficiency during a violent space weather event. The results obtained for the new algorithm, however, demonstrate its wide applicability and a 10-fold improvement in ambiguity success rate during the disturbed day.