Yaw attitude of eclipsing GPS satellites and its impact on solutions from precise point positioning

During the period when a GPS satellite, the Earth and the Sun are approximately collinear, the phenomenon of eclipsing the satellite occurs, when the satellite yaw attitude deviates from its nominal case, i.e. the body X-axis cannot point towards the Sun for Block II&IIA or away from it for Block IIR satellites. The yaw attitude of the eclipsing satellites has a significant influence on both the satellite clock estimation at each International GNSS Service (IGS) Analysis Center (AC) and for users of the precise point positioning (PPP) implementations. It is known that, during the eclipsing periods, inconsistent yaw attitude models among the ACs will contribute to the errors of the IGS combined clock products. As for the PPP user, the influence of the eclipsing satellite is two-fold. First, as the satellite clocks are always kept fixed during PPP implementation, the above-mentioned problematic IGS clocks will inevitably be passed on to the PPP estimates. Second, the improper yaw attitude modeling of the eclipsing satellite will cause a correction bias exceeding 1 dm for the two kinds of attitude-related systematic errors, namely the phase wind-up and satellite antenna phase center offset, which will further deteriorate the accuracy of the PPP solutions. A yaw attitude model is introduced in this paper with the aim of improving the reliability of PPP solutions during the satellite eclipsing period.     

相位实时差分技术应用于飞行器交会对接研究

空间飞行器交会对接需要实时高精度地确定两飞行器的相对位置.应用GNSS引导两飞行器交会对接,是GNSS差分原理的一种特殊应用.星载接收机提供的载波相位观测值是高精度定位的基础,但是如何实时可靠地固定相位模糊度仍然是关键技术,提出了一种有效的模糊度实时解算算法,即在宽巷组合的基础上附加选权约束来固定两种不同波长的宽巷模糊度,然后依据组合法直接求解L1和L2相位模糊度整数解.实验结果显示,应用该算法进行模糊度单历元实时解算时,15km以内的短基线,解算成功率大于99%,能满足实时交会对接定位精度的要求.为了验证该算法在空间飞行器对接中的应用,采用仿真的方法模拟了两飞行器逼近和离开的过程,模拟并实时输出星载GNSS观测量.进而应用新算法实时估计两飞行器间相对位置,精度达到厘米级水平.我们的研究不但能进一步完善GNSS相位模糊度解算理论与方法,也可促进GNSS在航空飞行器编队飞行和交会对接等相关领域的应用.     

A new global zenith tropospheric delay model IGGtrop for GNSS applications

Tropospheric delay is one of the main sources of measurement error in global navigation satellite systems.It is usually compensated by using an empirical correction model.In this paper,temporal and spatial variations of the global zenith tropospheric delay(ZTD) are further analyzed by ZTD time series from global International GNSS Service stations and annual ZTDs derived from global National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis data,respectively.A new ZTD correction model,named IGGtrop,is developed based on the characteristics of ZTD.Experimental results show that this new 3D-grid-based model that accommodates longitudinal as well as latitudinal variations of ZTD performs better than latitude-only based models(such as UNB3,EGNOS,and UNB3m).The global average bias and RMS for IGGtrop are about-0.8 cm and 4.0 cm,respectively.Bias values for UNB3,EGNOS,and UNB3m are 2.0,2.0,and 0.7 cm,respectively,and respective RMS values 5.4,5.4,and 5.0 cm.IGGtrop shows much more consistent prediction errors for different areas than EGNOS and UNB3m,In China,the performance of IGGtrop(bias values from-2.0 to 0.4 cm and RMS from 2.1 to 6.4 cm) is clearly superior to those of EGNOS and UNB3m.It is also demonstrated that IGGtrop biases vary little with height,and its RMS values tend to decrease with increasing height.In addition,IGGtrop generally estimates ZTD with greater accuracy than EGNOS and UNB3m in the Southern Hemisphere.     

Investigation of the thermal conductivities across metal-insulator transition in polycrystalline VO2

Previous reports about the thermal conductivities of VO2 showed various temperature dependences across metal-insulator transition (MIT) temperature. In this work, polycrystalline VO2 samples were fabricated by spark plasma sintering of VO2 powder. Temperature dependences of their thermal conductivities were investigated using laser flash technique, and the thermal conductivity showed a significant decrease trend from metal-phase to insulator phase. Electrical transport properties were investigated to confirm both carrier and lattice contribution to the thermal conductivity. It is found that the lattice thermal conductivity decreased significantly across MIT point, which may be caused by soft phonon mode in metal phase of VO2 .