Calculation and accuracy evaluation of TGD from IFB for BDS

With the development of new global navigation satellite system applications, the demand of high accurate positioning navigation timing (PNT) service becomes urgent. For precise PNT, the timing group delay (TGD) is regarded as an important parameter in the satellite navigation message. Instead of using the absolute receiver hardware delay, a method based on receiver inter-frequency bias (IFB, i.e., differential receiver hardware delay between different frequencies) calibration is presented to deal with the rank deficiency of a calculation matrix and to reduce jumps in TGD solutions in BDS. The double-differenced pseudorange obtained from a pair of zero baseline receivers is used to evaluate the IFB calibration accuracy. The estimated precision of TGD is evaluated and compared with GPS TGD provided by IGS. In order to ensure the quality of assessment, a method based on the difference of dual-frequency ionospheric delay is proposed to compare the accuracy of the estimated TGD and broadcast TGD. Finally, the effect of TGD on the user equivalent range error is analyzed. The analysis result shows that for BDS IGSO satellites, the precision of TGD1, which is the differential hardware delay between B1 (1561.098 MHz) and B3 (1268.52 MHz) frequencies, is better than 0.5 ns, and for GEO and MEO satellites the TGD1 is better than 1 and 2 ns, respectively. The precision of TGD2 of all satellites, which is the differential hardware delay between B2 (1207.14 MHz) and B3 frequencies, is better than 0.5 ns. The accuracy analysis result reveals that the proposed TGD estimation method can provide better results when compared with the broadcast data.