Inventory of Error Sources Limiting GNSS-based Frequency Transfer

authored by

Ahmed Elmaghraby, Thomas Krawinkel, Steffen Schön

Abstract

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) frequency transfer technique requires two GNSS receivers, each connected to an external frequency signal of the clocks or oscillator to be compared. Hence, the estimated receiver clock difference is the parameter of interest. The task is to eliminate the errors influencing the estimation process, because they degrade the stability and the uncertainty level of the transferred frequency. In this contribution, we review the most dominant error sources mentioned in literature and categorize them into hardware errors and signal propagation errors. The focus is directed further on sub-daily errors such as multipath and tropospheric delays, for which we carry out simulations of their effect on the frequency instability and the response in the frequency domain by computing the power spectrum density. Additionally, we analyze real data of two baselines with lengths of about 2m and 295m where all the receivers are connected to the same UTC frequency signal. The frequency instability is estimated to be in order of 10-17 for the first baseline and 10-16 for the second, where we characterize the reasons for this degradation through estimating the power spectrum of the clock difference time series.

Organisation(s)

CRC 1464: Relativistic and Quantum-Based Geodesy (TerraQ)
Institute of Geodesy

Type

Conference contribution

Publication date

2022

Publication status

Published

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Networks and Communications, Signal Processing, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Control and Optimization, Instrumentation

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1109/EFTF/IFCS54560.2022.9850608 (Access: Closed)