TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hadas, Tomasz
A1  - Hobiger, Thomas
A1  - Hordyniec, Pawel
T1  - Considering different recent advancements in GNSS on real-time zenith troposphere estimates
Y1  - 2020-07-30
VL  - 24
IS  - 4
JF  - GPS Solutions
DO  - 10.1007/s10291-020-01014-w
PB  - Springer Berlin Heidelberg
N2  - Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) remote sensing of the troposphere, called GNSS meteorology, is already a well-established tool in post-processing applications. Real-time GNSS meteorology has been possible since 2013, when the International GNSS Service (IGS) established its real-time service. The reported accuracy of the real-time zenith total delay (ZTD) has not improved significantly over time and usually remains at the level of 5–18 mm, depending on the station and test period studied. Millimeter-level improvements are noticed due to GPS ambiguity resolution, gradient estimation, or multi-GNSS processing. However, neither are these achievements combined in a single processing strategy, nor is the impact of other processing parameters on ZTD accuracy analyzed. Therefore, we discuss these shortcomings in detail and present a comprehensive analysis of the sensitivity of real-time ZTD on processing parameters. First, we identify a so-called common strategy, which combines processing parameters that are identified to be the most popular among published papers on the topic. We question the popular elevation-dependent weighting function and introduce an alternative one. We investigate the impact of selected processing parameters, i.e., PPP functional model, GNSS selection and combination, inter-system weighting, elevation-dependent weighting function, and gradient estimation. We define an advanced strategy dedicated to real-time GNSS meteorology, which is superior to the common one. The a posteriori error of estimated ZTD is reduced by 41%. The accuracy of ZTD estimates with the proposed strategy is improved by 17% with respect to the IGS final products and varies over stations from 5.4 to 10.1 mm. Finally, we confirm the latitude dependency of ZTD accuracy, but also detect its seasonality.
UR  - http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gldocs-11858/10686
ER  -