Performance Evaluation of Integrated GPS/GIOVE Precise Point Positioning

This paper presents first results for dual-constellation single point positioning (SPP) and precise point positioning (PPP) with GPS and GIOVE. For the first time, a real-time orbit and clock product for GIOVE has been used for positioning, which is based on observations from the recently established CONGO network. An integrated GPS/GIOVE PPP concept is introduced in this paper and numerical results of GPS/GIOVE positioning solutions in both SPP and PPP modes were obtained. Kinematic data has been collected in a field test with a car-mounted antenna. Additionally, static measurements have been collected with a roof-top antenna. For SPP, the inclusion of a single GIOVE satellite does not yield significant improvements in the solution for the static measurements. But inclusion of a GIOVE satellite has the beneficial effect of enabling more position solutions, improving positioning continuity for the kinematic observations. For PPP, the inclusion of the GIOVE observations degrades the PPP performance when real-time GIOVE clocks from the Real-Time Clock Estimation (RETICLE) system are used, while the addition of GIOVE observations indeed improves the positioning results when post-processed GIOVE orbits and clocks are used. For the kinematic observations, there are significant improvements in the availability of PPP solutions when adding GIOVE observations in both tests in difficult kinematic environments.