Local troposphere augmentation for real-time precise point positioning

The IGS real-time service (RTS) enables real-time precise point positioning (PPP) at a global scale. A long convergence time however is still a challenging factor. In order to reduce the convergence time, external troposphere corrections could be introduced to remove the troposphere effects on the coordinate solution. This paper proposes the use of a local troposphere model to augment real-time PPP. First, undifferenced observations from a network of multiple stations are processed to estimate the station-based troposphere zenith wet delay (ZWD). A set of local troposphere fitting coefficients are then derived using a proposed optimal fitting model. Finally, the determined troposphere fitting coefficients are broadcast to users to reduce the convergence time in the user solution. A continuous operating reference station (CORS) network is utilized to assess the performance of the proposed approach under quiet and active troposphere conditions. The numerical results show that the overall fitting precisions of the local troposphere model can reach 1.42 and 1.05 cm under the two troposphere conditions. The convergence time of the positioning solutions, especially the height solution, can be greatly reduced using the local troposphere model. The horizontal accuracy of 9.2 cm and the vertical accuracy of 10.1 cm are obtainable under the quiet troposphere condition after 20 min of initialization time, compared to the 14.7 cm horizontal and 21.5 cm vertical accuracies in the conventional troposphere estimation approach. Moreover, the horizontal accuracies of 13.0 cm and the vertical accuracies of 12.4 cm have also been obtained after 20 min under the active troposphere condition.