Identification

Title

Propagation delays induced in GPS signals by dry air, water vapor, hydrometeors, and other particulates

Abstract

Dry air, water vapor, hydrometeors, and other particulates (sand, dust, aerosols, and volcanic ash) in the atmosphere introduce microwave propagation delays. These delays must be properly characterized to achieve the highest accuracy in surveying and atmospheric sensing using Global Positioning System (GPS) signals. In this paper we review the theory of microwave propagation delays induced by the above atmospheric constituents and estimate their maximum delays. Because the structure of atmospheric refractivity can be highly complex and difficult to model, and because measurement tools are unavailable for characterizing most of the refractive components, we use simplified examples to illustrate its effects. Our results show that propagation delays due to water vapor, cloud liquid, rain, and sandstorms can be significant in high‐accuracy GPS applications. For instance, propagation through 1 km of heavy rain can induce 15-mm delays in L1₁ and because delays due to scattering are dispersive and alias as ionospheric delays in L₃ processing, L₃ range errors are magnified to 20 mm. Depending upon the distribution of precipitation relative to the configuration of GPS satellites, such unmodeled delays can induce horizontal and vertical errors of several centimeters.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7891757

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

1999-04-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact