Precise relative positioning using real tracking data from COMPASS GEO and IGSO satellites

China completed a basic COMPASS navigation network with three Geostationary and three Inclined Geosynchronous satellites in orbit in April 2011. The network has been able to provide preliminary positioning and navigation functions. We first present a quality analysis using 1-week COMPASS measurements collected in Wuhan. Satellite visibility and validity of measurements, carrier-to-noise density ratio and code noise are analyzed. The analysis of multipath combinations shows that the noise level of COMPASS code measurements is higher than that of GPS collected using the same receiver. Second, the results of positioning are presented and analyzed. For the standalone COMPASS solutions, an accuracy of 20 m can be achieved. An accuracy of 3.0 m for the vertical, 1.5 m for the North and about 0.6–0.8 m for the East component is obtained using dual-frequency code only measurements for a short baseline. More importantly, code and phase measurements of the short baseline are processed together to obtain precise relative positioning. Kinematic solutions are then compared with the ground truth. The precision of COMPASS only solutions is better than 2 cm for the North component and 4 cm for the vertical. The standard deviation of the East component is smaller than 1 cm, which is even better than that of the East component of GPS solutions. The accuracy of GPS/COMPASS combination solutions is at least 20 % better than that of GPS alone. Furthermore, the geometry-based residuals of double differenced phase and code measurements are analyzed. The analysis shows that the noise level of un-differenced phase measurements is about 2–4 mm on both B1 and B2 frequencies. For the code measurements, the noise level is less than 0.45 m for B1 CA and about 0.35 m for B2 P code. Many of the COMPASS results presented are very promising and have been obtained for the first time.     

Multi-technique comparison of tropospheric zenith delays derived during the CONT02 campaign

In October 2002, 15 continuous days of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data were observed in the Continuous VLBI 2002 (CONT02) campaign. All eight radio telescopes involved in CONT02 were co-located with at least one other space-geodetic technique, and three of them also with a Water Vapor Radiometer (WVR). The goal of this paper is to compare the tropospheric zenith delays observed during CONT02 by VLBI, Global Positioning System (GPS), Doppler Orbitography Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) and WVR and to compare them also with operational pressure level data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). We show that the tropospheric zenith delays from VLBI and GPS are in good agreement at the 3–7 mm level. However, while only small biases can be found for most of the stations, at Kokee Park (Hawaii, USA) and Westford (Massachusetts, USA) the zenith delays derived by GPS are larger by more than 5 mm than those from VLBI. At three of the four DORIS stations, there is also a fairly good agreement with GPS and VLBI (about 10 mm), but at Kokee Park the agreement is only at about 30 mm standard deviation, probably due to the much older installation and type of DORIS equipment. This comparison also allows testing of different DORIS analysis strategies with respect to their real impact on the precision of the derived tropospheric parameters. Ground truth information about the zenith delays can also be obtained from the ECMWF numerical weather model and at three sites using WVR measurements, allowing for comparisons with results from the space-geodetic techniques. While there is a good agreement (with some problems mentioned above about DORIS) among the space-geodetic techniques, the comparison with WVR and ECMWF is at a lower accuracy level. The complete CONT02 data set is sufficient to derive a good estimate of the actual precision and accuracy of each geodetic technique for applications in meteorology.     

Galileo status: orbits,clocks, and positioning

The European Global Navigation Satellite System Galileo is close to declaration of initial services. The current constellation comprises a total of 12 active satellites, four of them belonging to the first generation of In-Orbit Validation satellites, while the other eight are Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites. Although the first pair of FOC satellites suffered from a launch anomaly resulting in an elliptical orbit, these satellites can be used for scientific applications without relevant limitations. The quality of broadcast orbits and clocks has significantly improved since the beginning of routine transmissions and has reached a signal-in-space range error of 30 cm. Precise orbit products generated by the scientific community achieve an accuracy of about 5 cm if appropriate models for the solar radiation pressure are applied. The latter is also important for an assessment of the clock stability as orbit errors are mapped to the apparent clock. Dual-frequency single point positioning with broadcast orbits and clocks of nine Galileo satellites that have so far been declared healthy already enables an accuracy at a few meters. Galileo-only precise point positioning approaches a precision of 2 cm in static mode using daily solutions.     

Generation of a consistent absolute phase-center correction model for GPS receiver and satellite antennas

The development and numerical values of the new absolute phase-center correction model for GPS receiver and satellite antennas, as adopted by the International GNSS (global navigation satellite systems) Service, are presented. Fixing absolute receiver antenna phase-center corrections to robot-based calibrations, the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) and the Technische Universität München reprocessed more than 10 years of GPS data in order to generate a consistent set of nadir-dependent phase-center variations (PCVs) and offsets in the z-direction pointing toward the Earth for all GPS satellites in orbit during that period. The agreement between the two solutions estimated by independent software packages is better than 1 mm for the PCVs and about 4 cm for the z-offsets. In addition, the long time-series facilitates the study of correlations of the satellite antenna corrections with several other parameters such as the global terrestrial scale or the orientation of the orbital planes with respect to the Sun. Finally, completely reprocessed GPS solutions using different phase-center correction models demonstrate the benefits from switching from relative to absolute antenna phase-center corrections. For example, tropospheric zenith delay biases between GPS and very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), as well as the drift of the terrestrial scale, are reduced and the GPS orbit consistency is improved.     

Real-time clock offset prediction with an improved model

The GPS orbit precision of the IGS ultra-rapid predicted (IGU-P) products has been remarkably improved since 2007. However, the satellite clock offsets of the IGU-P products have not shown sufficient high-quality prediction to achieve sub-decimeter precision in real-time precise point positioning (RTPPP), being at the level of 1–3 ns (30–90 cm) RMS in recent years. An improved prediction model for satellite clocks is proposed in order to enhance the precision of predicted clock offsets. First, the proposed prediction model adds a few cyclic terms to absorb the periodic effects, and a time adaptive function is used to adjust the weight of the observation in the prediction model. Second, initial deviations of the predictions are reduced by using a recomputed constant term. The simulation results have shown that the proposed prediction model can give a better performance than the IGU-P clock products and can achieve precision better than 0.55 ns (16.5 cm) in real-time predictions. In addition, the RTPPP method was chosen to test the efficiency of the new model for real-time static and kinematic positioning. The numerical examples using the data set of 140 IGS stations show that the static RTPPP precision based on the proposed clock model has been improved about 22.8 and 41.5 % in the east and height components compared to the IGU-P clock products, while the precisions in the north components are the equal. The kinematic example using three IGS stations shows that the kinematic RTPPP precision based on the proposed clock model has improved about 30, 72 and 44 % in the east, north and height components.     

Precise orbit determination of the Sentinel-3A altimetry satellite using ambiguity-fixed GPS carrier phase observations

The Sentinel-3 mission takes routine measurements of sea surface heights and depends crucially on accurate and precise knowledge of the spacecraft. Orbit determination with a targeted uncertainty of less than 2 cm in radial direction is supported through an onboard Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, a Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite instrument, and a complementary laser retroreflector for satellite laser ranging. Within this study, the potential of ambiguity fixing for GPS-only precise orbit determination (POD) of the Sentinel-3 spacecraft is assessed. A refined strategy for carrier phase generation out of low-level measurements is employed to cope with half-cycle ambiguities in the tracking of the Sentinel-3 GPS receiver that have so far inhibited ambiguity-fixed POD solutions. Rather than explicitly fixing double-difference phase ambiguities with respect to a network of terrestrial reference stations, a single-receiver ambiguity resolution concept is employed that builds on dedicated GPS orbit, clock, and wide-lane bias products provided by the CNES/CLS (Centre National d’Études Spatiales/Collecte Localisation Satellites) analysis center of the International GNSS Service. Compared to float ambiguity solutions, a notably improved precision can be inferred from laser ranging residuals. These decrease from roughly 9 mm down to 5 mm standard deviation for high-grade stations on average over low and high elevations. Furthermore, the ambiguity-fixed orbits offer a substantially improved cross-track accuracy and help to identify lateral offsets in the GPS antenna or center-of-mass (CoM) location. With respect to altimetry, the improved orbit precision also benefits the global consistency of sea surface measurements. However, modeling of the absolute height continues to rely on proper dynamical models for the spacecraft motion as well as ground calibrations for the relative position of the altimeter reference point and the CoM.     

Contributions to reference systems from Lunar Laser Ranging using the IfE analysis model

Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) provides various quantities related to reference frames like Earth orientation parameters, coordinates and velocities of ground stations in the Earth-fixed frame and selenocentric coordinates of the lunar retro-reflectors. This paper presents the recent results from LLR data analysis at the Institut für Erdmessung, Leibniz Universität Hannover, based on all LLR data up to the end of 2016. The estimates of long-periodic nutation coefficients with periods between 13.6 days and 18.6 years are obtained with an accuracy in the order of 0.05–0.7 milliarcseconds (mas). Estimations of the Earth rotation phase \(\Delta \)UT are accurate at the level of 0.032 ms if more than 14 normal points per night are included. The tie between the dynamical ephemeris frame to the kinematic celestial frame is estimated from pure LLR observations by two angles and their rates with an accuracy of 0.25 and 0.02 mas per year. The estimated station coordinates and velocities are compared to the ITRF2014 solution and the geometry of the retro-reflector network with the DE430 solution. The given accuracies represent 3 times formal errors of the parameter fit. The accuracy for \(\Delta \)UT is based on the standard deviation of the estimates with respect to the reference C04 solution.     

SBAS orbit and satellite clock corrections for precise point positioning

The quality of real-time GPS positions based on the method of precise point positioning (PPP) heavily depends on the availability and accuracy of GPS satellite orbits and satellite clock corrections. Satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS) provide such corrections but they are actually intended to be used for wide area differential GPS with positioning results on the 1-m accuracy level. Nevertheless, carrier phase-based PPP is able to achieve much more accurate results with the same correction values. We applied SBAS corrections for dual-frequency PPP and compared the results with PPP obtained using other real-time correction data streams, for example, the GPS broadcast message and precise corrections from the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales and the German Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt. Among the three existing SBAS, the best results were achieved for the North American wide area augmentation system (WAAS): horizontal and vertical position accuracies were considerably smaller than 10 cm for static 24-h observation data sets and smaller than 30 cm for epoch-by-epoch solutions with 2 h of continuous observations. The European geostationary navigation overlay service and the Japanese multi-functional satellite augmentation system yield positioning results with biases of several tens of centimeters and variations larger by factors of 2–4 as compared to WAAS.     

Homogeneous reprocessing of GPS,GLONASS and SLR observations

The International GNSS Service (IGS) provides operational products for the GPS and GLONASS constellation. Homogeneously processed time series of parameters from the IGS are only available for GPS. Reprocessed GLONASS series are provided only by individual Analysis Centers (i. e. CODE and ESA), making it difficult to fully include the GLONASS system into a rigorous GNSS analysis. In view of the increasing number of active GLONASS satellites and a steadily growing number of GPS+GLONASS-tracking stations available over the past few years, Technische Universität Dresden, Technische Universität München, Universität Bern and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich performed a combined reprocessing of GPS and GLONASS observations. Also, SLR observations to GPS and GLONASS are included in this reprocessing effort. Here, we show only SLR results from a GNSS orbit validation. In total, 18 years of data (1994–2011) have been processed from altogether 340 GNSS and 70 SLR stations. The use of GLONASS observations in addition to GPS has no impact on the estimated linear terrestrial reference frame parameters. However, daily station positions show an RMS reduction of 0.3 mm on average for the height component when additional GLONASS observations can be used for the time series determination. Analyzing satellite orbit overlaps, the rigorous combination of GPS and GLONASS neither improves nor degrades the GPS orbit precision. For GLONASS, however, the quality of the microwave-derived GLONASS orbits improves due to the combination. These findings are confirmed using independent SLR observations for a GNSS orbit validation. In comparison to previous studies, mean SLR biases for satellites GPS-35 and GPS-36 could be reduced in magnitude from \(-35\) and \(-38\)  mm to \(-12\) and \(-13\)  mm, respectively. Our results show that remaining SLR biases depend on the satellite type and the use of coated or uncoated retro-reflectors. For Earth rotation parameters, the increasing number of GLONASS satellites and tracking stations over the past few years leads to differences between GPS-only and GPS+GLONASS combined solutions which are most pronounced in the pole rate estimates with maximum 0.2 mas/day in magnitude. At the same time, the difference between GLONASS-only and combined solutions decreases. Derived GNSS orbits are used to estimate combined GPS+GLONASS satellite clocks, with first results presented in this paper. Phase observation residuals from a precise point positioning are at the level of 2 mm and particularly reveal poorly modeled yaw maneuver periods.     

Absolute gravity measurements in Switzerland: Definition of a base network for geodynamic investigations and for the Swiss fundamental gravity net

Summary Results of two absolute gravity surveys performed in Switzerland between 1978 and 1979 are presented and discussed in the framework of the uplift history of the Swiss Alps. Five absolute stations have been established as a contribution to the Swiss fundamental gravity net as well as to geodynamic investigations on the Alpine uplift. Two sites (Interlaken—Jungfraujoch) form the end points of a calibration line for field gravimeters. The gravity range of this line amounts to 605×10⁻⁵ ms⁻² (=605 mgal). It can be traversed in a relatively short time interval of less than 3 hours. Two other sites (Brig and Chur) are located in the area of the most negative gravity anomalies and highest uplift rates encountered in Switzerland. They serve as reference stations for a more extended gravity net for studying non—periodic secular gravity variations associated with the Alpine uplift. Institut für Geod?sie und Photogrammetrie, ETH-Zürich, Separata No. 13. Institut für Geophysik, ETH-Zürich, Contribution No. 333.     

Combination of GNSS and SLR observations using satellite co-locations

Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) observations to Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites may be used for several purposes. On one hand, the range measurement may be used as an independent validation for satellite orbits derived solely from GNSS microwave observations. On the other hand, both observation types may be analyzed together to generate a combined orbit. The latter procedure implies that one common set of orbit parameters is estimated from GNSS and SLR data. We performed such a combined processing of GNSS and SLR using the data of the year 2008. During this period, two GPS and four GLONASS satellites could be used as satellite co-locations. We focus on the general procedure for this type of combined processing and the impact on the terrestrial reference frame (including scale and geocenter), the GNSS satellite antenna offsets (SAO) and the SLR range biases. We show that the combination using only satellite co-locations as connection between GNSS and SLR is possible and allows the estimation of SLR station coordinates at the level of 1–2 cm. The SLR observations to GNSS satellites provide the scale allowing the estimation of GNSS SAO without relying on the scale of any a priori terrestrial reference frame. We show that the necessity to estimate SLR range biases does not prohibit the estimation of GNSS SAO. A good distribution of SLR observations allows a common estimation of the two parameter types. The estimated corrections for the GNSS SAO are 119 mm and −13 mm on average for the GPS and GLONASS satellites, respectively. The resulting SLR range biases suggest that it might be sufficient to estimate one parameter per station representing a range bias common to all GNSS satellites. The estimated biases are in the range of a few centimeters up to 5 cm. Scale differences of 0.9 ppb are seen between GNSS and SLR.     

Integrating GPS and BDS to shorten the initialization time for ambiguity-fixed PPP

The main challenge of ambiguity resolution in precise point positioning (PPP) is that it requires 30 min or more to succeed in the first fixing of ambiguities. With the full operation of the BeiDou (BDS) satellite system in East Asia, it is worthwhile to investigate the performance of GPS + BDS PPP ambiguity resolution, especially the improvements of the initial fixing time and ambiguity-fixing rate compared to GPS-only solutions. We estimated the wide- and narrow-lane fractional-cycle biases (FCBs) for BDS with a regional network, and PPP ambiguity resolution was carried out at each station to assess the contribution of BDS. The across-satellite single-difference (ASSD) GPS + BDS combined ambiguity-fixed PPP model was used, in which the ASSD is applied within each system. We used a two-day data set from 48 stations. For kinematic PPP, the percentage of fixing within 10 min for GPS only (Model A) is 17.6 %, when adding IGSO and MEO of BDS (Model B), the percentage improves significantly to 42.8 %, whereas it is only 23.2 % if GEO is added (Model C) due to the low precision of GEO orbits. For static PPP, the fixing percentage is 32.9, 53.3 and 28.0 % for Model A, B and C, respectively. In order to overcome the limitation of the poor precision of GEO satellites, we also used a small network of 10 stations to analyze the contribution of GEO satellites to kinematic PPP. We took advantage of the fact that for stations of a small network the GEO satellites appear at almost the same direction, such that the GEO orbit error can be absorbed by its FCB estimates. The results show that the percentage of fixing improves from 39.5 to 57.7 % by adding GEO satellites.     

Orbit and clock analysis of Compass GEO and IGSO satellites

China is currently focussing on the establishment of its own global navigation satellite system called Compass or BeiDou. At present, the Compass constellation provides four usable satellites in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) and five satellites in inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO). Based on a network of six Compass-capable receivers, orbit and clock parameters of these satellites were determined. The orbit consistency is on the 1–2 dm level for the IGSO satellites and on the several decimeter level for the GEO satellites. These values could be confirmed by an independent validation with satellite laser ranging. All Compass clocks show a similar performance but have a slightly lower stability compared to Galileo and the latest generation of GPS satellites. A Compass-only precise point positioning based on the products derived from the six-receiver network provides an accuracy of several centimeters compared to the GPS-only results.     

Pseudo-Stochastic Orbit Modeling Techniques for Low-Earth Orbiters

The Earth’s non-spherical mass distribution and atmospheric drag cause the strongest perturbations on very low-Earth orbiting satellites (LEOs). Models of gravitational and non-gravitational accelerations are utilized in dynamic precise orbit determination (POD) with GPS data, but it is also possible to derive LEO positions based on GPS precise point positioning without dynamical information. We use the reduced-dynamic technique for LEO POD, which combines the geometric strength of the GPS observations with the force models, and investigate the performance of different pseudo-stochastic orbit parametrizations, such as instantaneous velocity changes (pulses), piecewise constant accelerations, and continuous piecewise linear accelerations. The estimation of such empirical orbit parameters in a standard least-squares adjustment process of GPS observations, together with other relevant parameters, strives for the highest precision in the computation of LEO trajectories. We used the procedures for the CHAMP satellite and found that the orbits may be validated by means of independent SLR measurements at the level of 3.2 cm RMS. Validations with independent accelerometer data revealed correlations at the level of 95% in the along-track direction. As expected, the empirical parameters compensate to a certain extent for deficiencies in the dynamic models. We analyzed the capability of pseudo-stochastic parameters for deriving information about the mismodeled part of the force field and found evidence that the resulting orbits may be used to recover force field parameters, if the number of pseudo-stochastic parameters is large enough. Results based on simulations showed a significantly better performance of acceleration-based orbits for gravity field recovery than for pulse-based orbits, with a quality comparable to a direct estimation if unconstrained accelerations are set up every 30 s.     

基于不同空间尺度测站网的BDS-3 GEO卫星轨道机动实时监测

地球静止轨道(GEO)卫星为保持地球同步特性,需要频繁进行轨道机动,及时准确的对卫星轨道机动的状态进行动态监测,有助于对卫星真实轨道进行修复,使其在机动过程中仍能提供基本可用的轨道参数. 利用基于历元差分测速原理的卫星轨道监测模型,对北斗三号卫星导航系统(BDS-3)的2颗GEO卫星各12次历史机动进行了分析. 结果表明:所选不同空间尺度测站网均可以对C59卫星的机动时间与轨道动态变化进行实时监测,且监测结果基本一致. 另外,本文所选的不同空间尺度测站网均可对C60卫星机动时间进行精准探测,但在对其轨道状态进行实时监测时,空间尺度较大的测站网监测结果更优.      

EOP and scale from continuous VLBI observing: CONT campaigns to future VGOS networks

Continuous (CONT) VLBI campaigns have been carried out about every 3 years since 2002. The basic idea of these campaigns is to acquire state-of-the-art VLBI data over a continuous time period of about 2 weeks to demonstrate the highest accuracy of which the current VLBI system is capable. In addition, these campaigns support scientific studies such as investigations of high-resolution Earth rotation, reference frame stability, and daily to sub-daily site motions. The size of the CONT networks and the observing data rate have increased steadily since 1994. Performance of these networks based on reference frame scale precision and polar motion/LOD comparison with global navigation satellite system (GNSS) earth orientation parameters (EOP) has been substantially better than the weekly operational R1 and R4 series. The precisions of CONT EOP and scale have improved by more than a factor of two since 2002. Polar motion precision based on the WRMS difference between VLBI and GNSS for the most recent CONT campaigns is at the 30 \(\upmu \)as level, which is comparable to that of GNSS. The CONT campaigns are a natural precursor to the planned future VLBI observing networks, which are expected to observe continuously. We compare the performance of the most recent CONT campaigns in 2011 and 2014 with the expected performance of the future VLBI global observing system network using simulations. These simulations indicate that the expected future precision of scale and EOP will be at least 3 times better than the current CONT precision.     

Estimation of antenna phase center offset for BDS IGSO and MEO satellites

The BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) is different from other global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) because of its special constellation, which consists of satellites in geostationary earth orbit, inclined geosynchronous earth orbit (IGSO), and medium earth orbit (MEO). Compared to MEO satellites, the observations of IGSO satellites cover only a small range of nadir angles. Therefore, the estimation of phase center offsets (PCOs) suffers from high correlation with other estimation parameters. We have estimated the phase center offsets for BeiDou IGSO and MEO satellites with a direct PCO parameters model, and constraints are applied to cope with the correlation between the PCOs and other parameters. Validation shows that the estimated PCO parameters could be used to improve the accuracy of orbit and clock offset overlaps. Compared with the Multi-GNSS Experiment antenna phase center correction model, the average improvements of the proposed method for along-track, cross-track, and radial components are 19 mm (31%), 5 mm (14%), and 2 mm (15%) for MEO satellites, and 13 mm (17%), 12 mm (21%), and 5 mm (19%) for IGSO satellites. For clock offset overlaps, average improvements of standard deviation and root mean square (RMS) are 0.03 ns (20%) and 0.03 ns (12%), respectively. The RMS of precise coordinates in the BDS-only positioning was also improved significantly with a level of 24 mm (30%) in the up-direction. Finally, the overall uncertainty of the estimated results is discussed.     

基于精选基准消秩亏的GNSS参考网数据处理方法

全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）参考网多用于估计卫星轨道/钟差、监测地表形变和速度场、确定精密地球自转参数等方面。相关数据处理模式包括：双差基线解（DD）和非差精密单点定位（PPP）等。本文首先从GNSS基本观测方程出发,通过选取两组基准参数,导出了上述两模式下的列满秩观测方程,然后分析了它们的不足,例如：相位偏差在DD模式中吸收了钟差,丧失了时不变特性;模糊度在PPP模式中吸收了相位偏差,失去了整数性。基于上述分析,本文提出了一种新的参考网数据处理方案,以充分融合DD和PPP模式的优势。它的关键策略是精选基准参数,以达到消秩亏的目的,具体优点体现在：相位偏差独立可估,若合理约束为时不变参数,可充分减少参数个数,提高网解精度;待估模糊度具备整周特性,经由模糊度固定,可改善网解可靠性。     

DORIS Contribution to ITRF2005

We examine the contribution of the Doppler Orbit determination and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) technique to the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF2005) by evaluating the quality of the submitted solutions as well as that of the frame parameters, especially the origin and the scale. Unlike the previous versions of the ITRF, ITRF2005 is constructed with input data in the form of time-series of station positions (weekly for satellite techniques and daily for VLBI) and daily Earth orientation parameters (EOPs), including full variance–covariance information. Analysis of the DORIS station positions’ time-series indicates an internal precision reaching 15 mm or better, at a weekly sampling. A cumulative solution using 12 years of weekly time-series was obtained and compared to a similar International GNSS Service (IGS) GPS solution (at 37 co-located sites) yielding a weighted root mean scatter (WRMS) of the order of 8 mm in position (at the epoch of minimum variance) and about 2.5 mm/year in velocity. The quality of this cumulative solution resulting from the combination of two individual DORIS solutions is better than any individual solution. A quality assessment of polar motion embedded in the contributed DORIS solutions is performed by comparison with the results of other space-geodetic techniques and in particular GPS. The inferred WRMS of polar motion varies significantly from one DORIS solution to another and is between 0.5 and 2 mas, depending on the strategy used and in particular estimating or not polar motion rate by the analysis centers. This particular aspect certainly needs more investigation by the DORIS Analysis Centers.