Characteristics of the IGS receiver clock performance from multi-GNSS PPP solutions

Abstract

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers belonging to the International GNSS Service (IGS) are equipped with different types of clocks, such as internal crystal quartz clocks, rubidium and cesium atomic clocks, as well as hydrogen masers. These clocks are characterized by different phase and frequency accuracies and stabilities, resulting in different systematic clock time series patterns. We analyze the clock offsets between different GNSS systems, provide noise characteristics of the undifferenced and differenced clock parameters, and detect systematic patterns of the clocks. The time series of the receiver clocks are dominated by the diurnal, semidiurnal, and sometimes terdiurnal signals with amplitudes up to several meters. Hydrogen masers provide the highest clock stability, and the lowest is by internal clocks. However, there are also groups of very stable internal clocks that perform similarly to low-performing hydrogen masers and rubidium clocks. The interquartile ranges for epoch-differenced clock parameters fall between 3 and 250 mm for the best hydrogen masers and the worst internal clocks, respectively.