Precise orbit determination of BeiDou constellation based on BETS and MGEX network

Yidong Lou; Yang Liu; Chuang Shi; Xiuguang Yao; Fu Zheng

doi:10.1038/srep04692

Precise orbit determination of BeiDou constellation based on BETS and MGEX network

Sci Rep. 2014 Apr 15:4:4692. doi: 10.1038/srep04692.

Authors

Yidong Lou¹, Yang Liu¹, Chuang Shi², Xiuguang Yao¹, Fu Zheng¹

Affiliations

¹ GNSS Research Centre, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China.
² 1] GNSS Research Centre, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China [2] State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China.

Abstract

Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is officially operational as a regional constellation with five Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites, five Inclined Geosynchronous Satellite Orbit (IGSO) satellites and four Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites. Observations from the BeiDou Experimental Tracking Stations (BETS) and the IGS Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) network from 1 January to 31 March 2013 are processed for orbit determination of the BeiDou constellation. Various arc lengths and solar radiation pressure parameters are investigated. The reduced set of ECOM five-parameter model produces better performance than the full set of ECOM nine-parameter model for BeiDou IGSO and MEO. The orbit overlap for the middle days of 3-day arc solutions is better than 20 cm and 14 cm for IGSO and MEO in RMS, respectively. Satellite laser ranging residuals are better than 10 cm for both IGSO and MEO. For BeiDou GEO, the orbit overlap of several meters and satellite laser ranging residuals of several decimetres can be achieved.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't