Simulation Analysis of LEO Constellation Augmented GNSS (LeGNSS) Zenith Troposphere Delay and Gradients Estimation

Compared with current global navigation satellite system (GNSS), which consists of medium- and high-altitude orbit satellites, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites move faster and can greatly improve the observing geometry. In this contribution, LEO constellation augmented GNSS (LeGNSS) troposphere estimation is investigated, and the impacts of relevant factors are analyzed in detail. When the temporal resolutions of zenith troposphere delay (ZTD) and horizontal gradients are 1 and 2 h, while standard deviations (STDs) of phase and pseudorange observations at the zenith direction are 0.005 and 0.5 m, the accuracies of ZTD, north gradient, and east gradient augmented by LEO constellation improve by 15.7%, 29.6%, and 16.4%, respectively, compared with GNSS solution. The results of troposphere estimation under obstructed environment and using low-cost dual frequency receivers also become more robust after adding LEO observations. Most importantly, analysis results during periods with rapid varying troposphere parameters suggest that the contribution of LEO constellation becomes even bigger with increasing temporal resolutions of ZTD and horizontal gradients, indicating that LeGNSS can be used to extract tropospheric parameters with improved accuracies at high temporal resolution. Thus, the capability in rapidly capturing severe weather events can be improved by LeGNSS observations, and the performance can become even better with an increasing number of LEO satellites. All these results suggest that LeGNSS might be an important tool in improving the performance of troposphere estimation, and would promote GNSS application in water vapor monitoring.