GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386
DOI 10.1007/s10291-013-0337-5
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Reliable single-epoch ambiguity resolution for short baselines
using combined GPS/BeiDou system
Chenlong Deng • Weiming Tang •
Jingnan Liu • Chuang Shi
Received: 27 March 2013 / Accepted: 22 August 2013 / Published online: 28 September 2013
Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Abstract GNSS single-epoch real-time kinematic (RTK)
positioning depends on correct ambiguity resolution. If the
number of observed satellites in a single epoch is insuffi-
cient, which often happens with a standalone GNSS sys-
tem, the ambiguity resolution is difficult to achieve.
China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System has been
providing continuous passive positioning, navigation and
timing services since December 27, 2012, covering China
and the surrounding area. This new system will increase the
number of satellites in view and will have a significant
effect on successful ambiguity resolution. Since the Bei-
Dou system is similar to GPS, the procedure of data pro-
cessing is easier than that for the Russian GLONASS
system. We briefly introduce the time and the coordinate
system of BeiDou and also the BeiDou satellite visibility in
China, followed by the discussion on the combined GPS/
BeiDou single-epoch algorithm. Experiments were con-
ducted and are presented here, in which the GPS/BeiDou
dual-frequency static data were collected in Wuhan with
the baseline distance varying from 5 to 13 km, and pro-
cessed in separate and combined modes. The results indi-
cate that, compared to a standalone GPS or BeiDou system,
the combined GNSS system can increase the successful
C. Deng  W. Tang (&)  J. Liu  C. Shi
GNSS Research Center, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road,
Wuhan 430079, China
e-mail: wmtang@whu.edu.cn
C. Deng
State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth’s Dynamics,
Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, 340 Xudong Street, Wuhan 430077, China
C. Deng  J. Liu
School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University,
129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China
ambiguity fixing rate for single epochs and can also
improve the precision of short baselines determination.
Keywords GPS/BeiDou  Ambiguity resolution 
Single epoch  Short baselines
Introduction
Fast integer ambiguity resolution (AR) is a prerequisite for
precise real-time GNSS positioning. The positioning
accuracy can reach centimeter level if the ambiguities are
correctly resolved. In real-time positioning, the ambiguity
must be fixed with a few epochs of observation, possibly
even instantaneously with a single epoch of observation.
The AR methods can be classified into three categories:
search in the measurement domain (Hatch 1982; Mel-
bourne 1985; Wübbena 1985), search in the coordinate
domain (Remondi 1984, 1990) and search in the ambiguity
domain (Hatch 1990; Frei and Beutler 1990; Teunissen
1993, 1995). All three classes of AR methods can be
combined and modified, to take advantage of their most
positive characteristics, such as searching efficiency or
reliability, and hence make instantaneous AR more certain.
However, since the degrees of freedom in the case of sin-
gle-epoch observations are smaller than those in the case of
on the fly, AR using a single epoch of data is more difficult
than the latter.
Ambiguity resolution (AR) is a two-step procedure. In
the first step, ordinary least-squares estimation is used, all
parameters are estimated to their real values, and the cor-
responding variance–covariance matrices are obtained. The
result is called the ‘‘float solution.’’ In the second step, the
real-value ambiguities and their variance–covariance
matrices are used in integer least-squares adjustment, and
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the float ambiguities are fixed to their integer values. Once
the integer ambiguities are obtained, they are treated as true
values and used to adjust the baseline solution. The result is
called the ‘‘fixed solution.’’
The least-squares ambiguity decorrelation adjustment
(LAMBDA) method (Teunissen 1993) is widely used.
Successful and reliable ambiguity resolution relies on a
precise float solution, which depends on the proper func-
tional model and realistic stochastic model. In the case of
single-epoch solutions and using a standalone GNSS sys-
tem, fewer observation equations can be formed compared
to using multi-GNSS systems, leading to poorer float
solution accuracy and unreliable AR. We will show that
China’s BeiDou system can be combined with GPS to
improve positioning performance.
China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is one of
the four global navigation satellite systems, together with
the US system GPS, the Russian system GLONASS and
the European system Galileo. According to China Satellite
Navigation Office (2012), the BeiDou system starts with a
regional service and then expands to a global service. By
the end of 2012, 16 satellites had been launched and
formed as regional positioning system. The system started
to provide initial operational service on December 27,
2012, and expanded its service areas from China to the
surrounding areas.
The time system and coordinate reference frame of
BeiDou are introduced first, together with the respective
differences between the BeiDou and GPS systems. Visi-
bility of the BeiDou system is analyzed subsequently,
using data collected in Beijing, Wuhan and Guangzhou.
In the following section, the single-epoch AR algorithm
of a combined GPS/BeiDou system is discussed. Experi-
ments were carried out, where GPS/BeiDou dual-fre-
quency data were collected in Wuhan with the baseline
distances varying from 5 to 13 km, and processed in
separate and combined modes. The performance of AR
and positioning precision is evaluated, and conclusions
are drawn.
The BeiDou time system
According to China Satellite Navigation Office (2012) and
the BeiDou ICD (2012), the time reference for the BeiDou
system is BeiDou Time (BDT). BDT adopts International
System of Units (SI) second as the basic unit for continu-
ous accumulation, without leap seconds. The initial epoch
of BDT was 00:00:00 on January 1, 2006, Coordinated
Universal Time (UTC). The BDT is synchronized with
UTC in 100 ns (modulo one second).
In the definition of BDT, three points should be noted:
(1) The BDT is related to the atomic time system, which is
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GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386
the same as GPS Time (GPST); (2) The BDT is a contin-
uous timekeeping system without leap seconds, which is
different than the GLONASS time; (3) In the time span of
the initial epoch between GPST (January 6, 1980,
00:00:00, UTC) and BDT, 14 leap seconds have occurred.
Therefore, there are three main differences between
BDT and GPST. The relationship between both time sys-
tems can be expressed as:
BDT ¼ GPST þ DT1  DT2 + DT3 ð1Þ
The difference includes DT1 (1356 weeks) caused by ini-
tial epoch difference, DT2 (14 s) caused by the leap sec-
onds during this time span and a nonlinear time-varying
drift DT3 between the two time systems.
The time offset DT3 is determined indirectly via UTC
by National Timing Service Center of Chinese Academy of
Science (NTSC). When the time difference between
UTC(NTSC) and BDT is obtained, the time offset between
BDT and UTC calculated through UTC(NTSC) can be
determined and thereby the time offset between BDT and
GPST can be determined. The time differences, which
were discussed in detail by Han et al. (2011), are shown in
Fig. 1. We can see from the figures that the difference
between GPST and BDT is no more than 30 ns, but the
difference is not available for users so far.
The BeiDou coordinate reference system
The coordination reference system is used to describe the
exact position of an object and is an essential part of global
navigation satellite systems. The BeiDou ICD (2012) states
that the coordinate reference system is the China Geodetic
Coordinate System 2000 (CGCS2000), the definition of
which is: The origin is located at the mass center of the
earth, the Z-axis is in the direction of the IERS Reference
Pole (IRP), the X-axis is directed to the intersection of
IERS reference meridian (IRM) and the plane passing
through the origin and normal to the Z-axis. The Y-axis,
together with Z-axis and X-axis, constitutes a right-handed
orthogonal coordinate system.
The origin of the CGCS2000 system is also the geo-
metric center of the CGCS2000 ellipsoid, and the Z-axis
coincides with the semi-minor axis of the CGCS2000
ellipsoid. The parameters of the CGCS2000 ellipsoid are as
follows: semi-major axis a = 6,378,137.0 m, geocentric
gravitational constant (mass of the earth atmosphere
included) GM = 398,600.441 8 9 109 m3/s2, flattening
f = 1/298.257222101 and rate of earth rotation xe = 7.292
115 0 9 10-5 rad/s.
The above description shows that CGCS2000 is an
earth-centered earth-fixed (ECEF) system. It is realized
by coordinates and velocities at epoch 2000.0 of the
GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386
points of the Chinese national GPS geodetic network
2000 and is consistent with International Terrestrial
Reference Frame (ITRF) and compatible with World
Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84) (Wei 2008). Therefore,
for RTK positioning with centimeter-level accuracy, the
coordinate difference between BeiDou and GPS systems
can be neglected.
Fig. 1 The time difference between UTC(NTSC) and BDT (top), the
time offset of BDT with reference to UTC given indirectly through
UTC(NTSC) (middle) and the time difference between GPST and
BDT (bottom)
377
Availability of BeiDou system in China
As of April 2012, 13 BeiDou satellites had been launched,
including 5 geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellites, 5
inclined geostationary earth orbit (IGSO) satellites and 3
medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites. Three additional
satellites were launched later in 2012, expanding the
Fig. 2 Visible satellites in China. Beijing DOY 139–142 (top),
Wuhan DOY 098–101 (middle) and Guangzhou DOY 139–142
(bottom)
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service area to most areas of the Asia–Pacific region and differencing between two receivers, and the combined
improving its service performance. superscript means differencing between two satellites. P
For a preliminary investigation of BeiDou satellite is the pseudorange observable, u is the carrier phase
availability, data were collected in three cities with dif- observable, and k denotes the wavelength of the carrier.
ferent latitudes: Beijing (40° N), Wuhan (30° N) and Gu- The baseline components dX, dY and dZ are to be
angzhou (23° N). Four days of data were collected in solved, and the symbols l, m and n are the unit vectors
Wuhan from April 7 to 10 [day of year (DOY) 098–101], on the line-of-sight (LOS) from receiver to satellite. N
and in Beijing and Guangzhou from May 18 to 21 (DOY is the integer ambiguity of the carrier phase, and Vion
139–142) in 2012. The BeiDou satellite visibility is shown and Vtrop are the ionospheric delay and tropospheric
in Fig. 2. delay, respectively. The double differencing
Figure 2 shows that 11 BeiDou satellites were visible in measurement noise is e, and the constant term
China by the end of May 2012, including 4 GEO satellites
Lpq q p q q p p
ij ¼ Lij  Lij ¼ qj  qi  qj þ qi ð4Þ
(PRN 1, 3, 4, 5), 5 IGSO satellites from PRN 6 to PRN 10
and 2 MEO satellites (PRN 11 and PRN 12). Since the two where q is the geometric distance from the satellite to the
MEO satellites were launched in May, they were invisible receiver.
in April in Wuhan. In addition, one GEO satellite (PRN 2) A simple stochastic model, which considers only the
is in a spare position and one MEO satellite is for testing; correlation between different DD observables, is used.
therefore, the total number of satellites in orbit was 13. Suppose that the standard deviations (STD) of the original
Some characteristics related to the BeiDou satellite pseudorange and carrier phase observables of each satellite
visibility are as follows: are the same, which are rP and rL, respectively, the weight
matrices in the DD observation equation are
1. Four GEO satellites are continuously visible in China 2 3
and the surrounding areas since they are relatively ns  1 1  1
static. However, in other areas, they are invisible. 1 16 6 1 ns  1    1 7 7
Ps ¼ r20 D1 ¼ 6 . . . .. 7
2. The time span that five IGSO satellites are visible is at s
2r2s ns 4 .. .. .. . 5
least 20 h in a single day. The lower the latitude, the 1 1    ns  1
longer the IGSO satellites are visible.
ð5Þ
3. Two MEO satellites are invisible most of the time, so
the performance of MEO satellites has yet to be where subscript s represents observable types, i.e., either P
investigated. or u, ns is the number of visible satellites and the a prior
4. Overall, 9 BeiDou satellites can be tracked in China standard deviation r0 = 1 herein.If satellite elevations are
most of the time. Together with GPS satellites, the considered to determine the STD of different observables,
number of visible satellites is typically \15. the relationship between the variance of the observable at
station i observing satellite p at satellite elevation E can be
described as
( 
Mathematical models p 2 r2 sin2 E E\30
ðri Þ ðEÞ ¼  ð6Þ
r2 sinE E  30
The mathematical models describe the relationships
between the unknown parameters and measurements then the corresponding weight matrices become
and include the functional models and the stochastic 2 Ppq 2 Pp 2 Pp 2 31
models. The linearized double-differenced (DD) ij rs ij rs  r
6 Pp r2 Ppq r2    Pijp s2 7
pseudorange and carrier phase observation equations 6 ij s ij s ij rs 7
Ps ¼ r20 D1 6 . .. 7
are expressed as s ¼ 6 .. .. 7
4 . . 5
Pp 2 Pp. 2 . Ppq. 2
Ppq q p q p q p
ij ¼ ðlj  lj ÞdXj þ ðmj  mj ÞdYj þ ðnj  nj ÞdZj r
ij s ij sr    ij r s
pq pq pq
 ðVion Þij  ðVtrop Þij þ Lij þ e ð2Þ ð7Þ
kupq
ij ¼ ðlqj  lpj ÞdXj þ ðmqj  mpj ÞdYj þ ðnqj  npj ÞdZj where
 kNijpq þ ðVion Þpq pq pq
ij  ðVtrop Þij þ Lij þ e ð3Þ
X
pq  2  2
2 2
r2s ¼ ðrpi Þs þðrqi Þs þ rpj þ rqj ð8Þ
where the subscripts i and j represent the base and user s s
ij
receivers, respectively, and the superscripts p and q
represent the pair of satellites with p being the means the sum of observable variances at stations i and j
Pp 2
reference one. The combined subscript means observing satellites p and q; ij rs means the sum of

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observable variances at stations i and j observing satellite Second, get the coordinate of GEO satellites in user-
p. defined inertial reference system. This step is the same as
With respect to short baselines, the ionosphere and that when calculating the coordinate of the GPS satellites,
troposphere delays in the DD observation Eqs. (2) and (3) which is expressed as
are small enough to be neglected. Thus, the unknown 8
< XG ¼ xk cos L  yk cos i sin L
variables in the observation equations include baseline Y ¼ xk sin L þ yk cos i cos L ð11Þ
components and integer ambiguities only. : G
ZG ¼ yk sin i
In double difference processing using two different
positioning systems, there are two strategies on how these where i is the corrected orbital inclination.
two GNSS systems are combined, which are the ‘‘loose Third, rotate the user-defined inertial system to get the
coupling’’ and the ‘‘tight coupling’’(Zhang et al. 2003). positions of the GEO satellites in CGCS2000. This step can
Tight coupling is used when the frequencies are identical in be expressed as
different GNSS systems and can be interoperable, such as 2 3 2 3
X XG
L1 in GPS system and E1 in Galileo system 4 Y 5 ¼ Rz ðxe tk ÞRX ð5 Þ4 YG 5 ð12Þ
(1,575.42 MHz), as well as L5 in GPS system and E5a in Z ZG
Galileo system (1,176.45 MHz). However, the frequencies
in BeiDou system are, though similar, not identical to those where
in GPS system, and only the ‘‘loose coupling’’ can be 2 3
1 0 0
accomplished, which means the DD pseudorange and car- RX ðhÞ ¼ 4 0 cosðhÞ sinðhÞ 5 ð13Þ
rier phase observation equations of each GNSS system are 0  sinðhÞ cosðhÞ
formed separately. 2 3
On the other hand, the receiver clock biases between cosðhÞ sinðhÞ 0
these two different GNSS systems are different and do not RZ ðhÞ ¼ 4  sinðhÞ cosðhÞ 0 5 ð14Þ
cancel in the combined GPS/BeiDou DD operation. 0 0 1
Therefore, the reference satellite should be chosen sepa- are the regular rotation matrices.
rately for each GNSS system, and the number of the DD
satellite pairs becomes n - 2, where n is the total visible
satellite number. Accordingly, the weight matrices of the Ambiguity resolution algorithm
combined GNSS system are determined by the weight
matrices of each GNSS system, which can be expressed as, Fast and successful AR is the key issue in single-epoch
  RTK positioning. We use a two-step algorithm for ambi-
PGPS 0 guity resolution. The first step is to determine the wide-lane
P¼ ð9Þ
0 PBDS ambiguity, and the second step is to determine the original
The time difference between the two GNSS systems ambiguity using the fixed wide-lane ambiguity.
should be considered as in (1). When using broadcast In the first step, the dual-frequency P code and phase
ephemeris to compute the position of the satellites, the combination (Hatch 1982; Melbourne 1985; Wübbena
algorithm for BeiDou IGSO/MEO satellites is the same as 1985) are used to get the initial wide-lane integer ambi-
that for GPS satellites, but there are some differences for guity. The code and phase combination is expressed as,
 
GEO satellites after the satellite position in the orbital f1  f2 P1 P2
NWL ¼ þ  uWL ð15Þ
plane (xk, yk) is computed. This procedure includes three f1 þ f2 k1 k2
steps (BeiDou ICD 2012), as follows:
First, correct the longitude of the ascending node in the where NWL is the wide-lane ambiguity, f1 and f2 are the
inertial coordinate system. It can be expressed as, carrier frequencies, k1 and k2 are the corresponding
wavelengths, P1 and P2 are the P code pseudorange
_ k  xe toe
L ¼ X0 þ Xt ð10Þ observables, and uWL is the wide-lane carrier phase
where L is the longitude of ascending node at observed observable.
time. X0 is the longitude of ascending node of the orbital To achieve reliable AR, the DD pseudorange observa-
tions (2) and the DD carrier phase observations (3) are
plane computed according to the reference time, and X_ is
combined. In this way, the P1, P2 code and the wide-lane
the rate of right ascension. toe is the ephemeris reference
carrier phase observables are used together to resolve the
time, and tk = t - toe is the computed time from ephem-
float wide-lane ambiguity, and the LAMBDA method is
eris reference time, where t is the observed time.

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used to fix the wide-lane ambiguity. In a subsequent step,
the DD carrier phase observation equations of the two
original signals are formed again, and the LAMBDA
method is employed to fix NL1. The ambiguity NL2 can be
determined as,
NL2 ¼ NL1  NWL ð16Þ
In order to validate the fixed ambiguity, some
hypothesis tests are used. A widely used ambiguity test
statistic is the so-called F-ratio test, which is the ratio of the
second minimum and the minimum quadratic form of the
least-squares residuals. This test is based on the assumption
that both quadratic forms are independent; therefore, the F-
ratio is considered as having a Fisher distribution (Frei and
Beutler 1990). However, this assumption is incorrect, and
the distribution of this test statistic is hard to rigorously
identify. On the other hand, the critical value for the F-test
is usually empirically chosen as a tolerant value of 2.0 or a
typical value of 3.0. But there is no theoretical statistical
basis for using a fixed critical value.
Given the problems on ambiguity validation using the F-
ratio test, some other different types of ambiguity valida-
tion statistical test methods have been proposed. Han and
Rizos (1996) described a new F-distribution statistic based
on the independence characteristic between two v2-distri-
bution statistics with the quadratic form of residuals of the
ambiguity-float solution X (with freedom n-t-m) and the
counterpart of the ambiguity-fixed solution R (with free-
R=m
dom m), which is defined as X=ðntmÞ. Wang et al. (1998)
proposed a discrimination test statistic which is constructed
by the difference between the minimum and second mini-
mum quadratic form of the residuals and its standard
deviation and is theoretically identified as having a Stu-
dent’s t-distribution when estimated variance factor is used.
This discrimination test is called W-ratio test. In recent
years, a modified ratio test with fixed failure rate was
suggested by Verhagen (2005); Teunissen and Verhagen
(2009) since the popular F-ratio test with a fixed critical
value does not test the correctness of the integer least-
squares solution. The ratio test is used with a fixed failure
rate instead of a fixed critical value.
Considering the fact that the conventional ratio test is
easier to implement and it can reflect the AR performance
to a certain extent, the conventional ratio test with a fixed
critical value is used in this research. Instead of being used
to validate the integer ambiguities, the ratio values as an
outcome of LAMBDA method are used to analyze the AR
performance.
On the other hand, how much the threshold should be set
is to be discussed. Based on various empirical studies, the
popular usage of the value 3 (Leick 2003) seems to be
workable. In another work, it is proposed to use the ratio
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GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386
test with a critical value of 2 (Wei and Schwarz 1995),
while Euler and Schaffrin (1990) used test computations,
from which a critical value between 5 and 10 followed. In
this research, the thresholds of the ratio test were chosen as
5 for a strict value, 3 for a typical value and 2 for a tolerant
value in both the separate and the combined modes.
In the following section, the criterion of judging the
correctness of ambiguity fixing according to the position-
ing results is described, and the AR reliability with cor-
rectly fixed ambiguities is discussed.
Experiments and result analysis
The GPS/BeiDou dual-frequency static observation data
were collected in a full day on April 7 (DOY 098), 2012, in
Wuhan using the UB240 receivers manufactured by UNI-
CORE Inc., with the baseline lengths varying from 5 to
13 km. The sampling interval is 1 s.
Three short baselines of different lengths were chosen as
5,591, 9,087 and 12,660 m, respectively, to analyze the
relationship between the AR performance and the baseline
length. The data were processed using the single-epoch
geometry-based RTK technique, with the GPS or BeiDou
system separately, and also with the combined GNSS
systems. The elevation mask varies depending on the DD
satellite number. The initial elevation mask is set to 15°; if
the number of observed DD satellites is \5, the elevation
mask decreases to 12°, to increase the number of observed
satellites; if doing so and the number of observed DD
satellites is still \5, the elevation mask continues to
decrease to 10°; if the number of observed satellites is still
\5, the process advances to the next epoch.
The correctness of fixed integer ambiguities is checked
according to the fixed solutions, since the true values of
integer ambiguities are unknown. If the biases between the
fixed solution and the reference coordinates are higher than
0.1 m in the north or east direction, or 0.2 m in height, the
integer ambiguities are regarded as incorrectly fixed.
Four cases can be defined according to the chosen
threshold. The first case happens when the ratio test is
rejected with the critical value being 2, and last three cases
happen when the ratio test is accepted with the critical
value being 2, 3 and 5, respectively, in both the separate
and the combined GNSS systems. The numbers of ratio
values in different numerical regions are counted, respec-
tively, and the corresponding AR fixing rates in the sepa-
rate and the combined GNSS systems are compared.
Experiment I (Baseline length = 5,591 m)
The base station is a BeiDou continuously operating ref-
erence system (CORS) station in Wuhan, and the rover
GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386 381

station is a temporary station in Wuhan University Science standalone GNSS systems. A further tolerant threshold can
Park. The baseline length is about 5,591 m. The collected be expected to mitigate this ‘‘false-rejected’’ type of error,
data were processed with the single-epoch AR algorithm but how much the threshold could be reduce to is to be
described above, and the AR performance in different determined.
modes is compared. Now pay attention to the three cases when the ratio
The case that the ambiguity is not fixed with a threshold test is accepted, or the ambiguities are fixed to their
of 2 is investigated first. Table 1 shows the number of integer values. The numbers of epochs, at which the
ambiguity-unfixed epochs with a threshold of 2, the num- ratio test is accepted and at which the ambiguities are
ber of epochs when the unfixed ambiguities are correctly correctly fixed with different thresholds, are presented
determined and the corresponding percentages, which are in Table 2. The percentage of the number of epochs
named as reject rate and false-reject rate herein. when the ratio test is accepted to the fixed epoch
It can be seen that there is a high rejected rate ([30 %) number, i.e., the success rate, is also shown in this table.
in all of the three GNSS systems, with a tolerant threshold Both the separate GNSS system and the combined
of 2. There are times when the number of observed satel- GNSS system are considered.
lites is insufficient, or the observation precision is poor, so Table 2 shows that there are some epochs at which the
that the obtained ratio value is smaller than the given integer ambiguities are fixed to incorrect values for the
threshold and the fixed ambiguities in a single epoch can- GPS and BeiDou systems. This is the type-two error that
not be accepted in the test. the alternative is accepted when it is false in the statistical
On the other hand, in some of these unfixed epochs, the hypothesis test. It also shows that the smaller the given
ambiguities are correctly resolved. This is the type-one threshold, the lower the success rate. Taking GPS for
error that the alternative is rejected when it is true in the example, the success rates are 96.557 and 93.040 % when
statistical hypothesis test. Compared to the standalone the thresholds are 3 and 2, respectively. But this is not the
GNSS system, this error is more evident for the combined case for the combined GNSS system because the ambigu-
GNSS system and it has a much higher percentage of ities are almost all fixed to their true values with the dif-
correct solutions. We can see in the table that more than ferent thresholds (2, 3 or 5) set in the experiment. In other
90 % of the unfixed epochs are correctly resolved and words, the combined GPS/BeiDou system has more reli-
false-rejected, which indicates the threshold set for the able single-epoch AR compared with the standalone GPS
combined GNSS system can be more lenient than the or BeiDou system.
Once reliably fixed, the integer ambiguities can be
treated as true values and the carrier phase observables
Table 1 Unfixed epochs with a threshold of 2 (5,591 m) become precise pseudorange. The fixed solution is then
System GPS BD2 GPS/BD2 achieved. The biases between the fixed solutions and the
reference coordinates, in different directions and with dif-
Total epoch 86,007 86,383 86,383 ferent GNSS systems, are plotted in Fig. 3.
Unfixed epoch 27,887 32,346 27,737 Figure 3 shows that there are some epochs at which the
Rejected rate (%) 32.424 37.445 32.109 integer ambiguities are incorrectly accepted. These cases
Unfixed but correct 7,319 21,773 26,390 happen more in the standalone GNSS system than in the
False-rejected rate (%) 26.245 67.313 95.144 combined GNSS system. This is related to the acceptance
criteria described above, i.e., for the same threshold, the
combined GNSS system is more reliable than the stand-
Table 2 AR performance with different thresholds (5,591 m)
alone GNSS system. Therefore, the actual AR success rates
System GPS BD2 GPS/BD2 will be slightly lower than those are shown in Table 2. On
Total epoch 86,007 86,383 86,383 the other hand, the biases in the combined GNSS system
Ratio C5 42,868 44,339 42,509 (green points) are more centralized to 0 and the precision is
Ratio C5 and correct 42,048 44,331 42,508 better with the root-mean-square (RMS) errors being 1.2,
Success rate (%) 98.087 99.982 99.998 0.7 and 3.6 cm in north, east and height, respectively. The
Ratio C3 50,856 46,766 48,501
RMS errors of the three GNSS systems are shown in
Ratio C3 and correct 49,105 46,589 48,500
Table 8.
Success rate (%) 96.557 99.622 99.998
Experiment II (Baseline length = 9,087 m)
Ratio C2 58,120 54,037 58,646
Ratio C2 and correct 54,075 53,093 58,642
The baseline distance of the second experiment is about
Success rate (%) 93.040 98.253 99.993
9,087 m. The base station is located at Wuhan University

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(more than 40 %), especially for the GPS system. The

longer distance causes a larger DD ionosphere residual, and
then, the ambiguities are more difficult to fix, leading to a
higher rejected rate. We can also see that the incorrectly
rejected rates (type-one error) decrease in all three GNSS
systems. This indicates that the given critical values in the
ratio test should be increased with the increase in baseline
distance. But for the combined GNSS system, the threshold
could also be more lenient, as the false-rejected rate is still
more than 80 %.
The numbers of epochs at which the ratio test is
accepted and at which the ambiguities are correctly fixed,
with different thresholds and in different GNSS systems,
are presented in Table 4, together with the corresponding
success rates. It is shown in the table that the combined
GPS/BeiDou single-epoch AR is more reliable compared to
the standalone GPS or BeiDou system. With different
critical values, the success rates of the combined GNSS
system retain more than 99.9 %. On the other hand, the AR
success rates of GPS and BeiDou systems drop from 97 to
91 % and from 95 to 89 %, respectively, with the critical
values being 3 and 2, respectively.
After the float ambiguities are fixed to their integer
values, the baseline components are estimated and the
coordinates of the rover station are obtained. The position
biases in different directions with different GNSS systems
are shown in Fig. 4.

Table 3 Unfixed epochs with a threshold of 2 (9,087 m)

System GPS BD2 GPS/BD2

Total epoch 86,334 86,386 86,386

Unfixed epoch 45,118 34,659 36,712
Rejected rate (%) 52.260 40.121 42.498
Unfixed but correct 9,369 15,189 31,824
False-rejected rate (%) 20.766 43.824 86.686

Table 4 AR performance with different thresholds (9,087 m)

Fig. 3 Positioning biases comparison (5,591 m) for different direc-
tions (top: north; middle: east; bottom: height) and different GNSS System GPS BD2 GPS/BD2
systems (GPS: red; BeiDou: violet; GPS/BeiDou: green)
Total epoch 86,334 86,386 86,386
Ratio C5 23,600 36,335 38,363
Science Park, and the rover station is a test station at the Ratio C5 and correct 23,343 36,284 38,363
GNSS Research Center of Wuhan University. Success rate (%) 98.911 99.860 100.000
The collected data were processed in the same way as in Ratio C3 31,427 42,318 43,621
the first experiment, and the analytical method is also the
Ratio C3 and correct 30,504 40,286 43,621
same. The case of unfixed epochs with a threshold of 2 in
Success rate (%) 97.063 95.198 100.000
different GNSS systems is shown in Table 3.
Ratio C2 41,216 51,727 49,674
Similar to Table 1, there are a large number of epochs
Ratio C2 and correct 37,530 46,184 49,667
when the ambiguities are unfixed. Compared to the first
Success rate (%) 91.057 89.284 99.986
experiment, in this experiment, the rejected rate is higher

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GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386 383

From Fig. 4, it is seen that there are also some epochs at
which the integer ambiguities are incorrect accepted, just
like Fig. 3. The biases in the combined GNSS system are
more centralized than those in the BeiDou system and are
almost the same as those in GPS system. The statistical
RMS errors in the combined GNSS system are 1.6, 1.1 and
4.4 cm in north, east and height, respectively. The RMS
errors of the three GNSS systems are also shown in
Table 8.
Experiment III (Baseline length 5 12,660 m)
The baseline length of the third experiment is about
12,660 m. The base station is at the GNSS Research Center
of Wuhan University, and the rover station is at the Yan-
gtze River Scientific Research Institute of Wuhan.
The same processing and analytical method are
employed as previously, and the case of unfixed epochs
with a threshold of 2 in different GNSS systems is shown in
Table 5.
Similar to experiments I and II, there are still numerous
epochs at which the ambiguities are unfixed. More than
40 % of the epochs cannot be fixed for both the standalone
and the combined GNSS system. The ratio of the correctly
resolved epochs to the unfixed epochs stays high at more
than 75 %. As a consequence, a smaller critical value in the
ratio test of the combined GNSS system is suggested again,
to increase the fixing rate.
The AR performance with different critical values and in
different GNSS systems is presented in Table 6, together
with the corresponding success rates.
It is also indicated in Table 6 that the combined GPS/
BeiDou single-epoch AR is more reliable since the success
rates of the combined GNSS system retain more than 99 %
with different critical values.
Similarly, the fixed solution of the baseline is applied
after the float ambiguities are fixed, and the position of the
rover station is obtained. The biases in different directions

Table 5 Unfixed epochs with a threshold of 2 (12,660 m)

System GPS BD2 GPS/BD2

Total epoch 86,303 86,386 86,386

Unfixed epoch 45,375 37,297 38,071
Rejected rate (%) 52.576 43.175 44.071
Unfixed but correct 14,853 10,480 29,779
False-rejected rate (%) 32.734 28.099 78.220

Table 6 AR performance with different thresholds (12,660 m)

System GPS BD2 GPS/BD2

Total epoch 86,303 86,386 86,386

Ratio C5 23,795 35,148 35,656
Ratio C5 and correct 23,320 34,884 35,656
Success rate (%) 98.004 99.249 100.000
Ratio C3 31,473 40,557 42,498
Ratio Cand correct 30,379 38,126 42,498
Success rate (%) 96.524 94.006 100.000
Ratio C2 40,928 49,089 48,315
Fig. 4 Positioning biases comparison (9,087 m) for different direc- Ratio C2 and correct 37,823 40,759 48,197
tions (top: north; middle: east; bottom: height) and different GNSS Success rate (%) 92.414 83.031 99.756
systems (GPS: red; BeiDou: violet; GPS/BeiDou: green)

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384 GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386

with different GNSS systems are calculated and plotted in Comparison

Fig. 5.
Figure 5 shows that the biases of the combined GNSS
system in different directions are slightly scattered in some
epochs. The RMS errors in the combined GNSS system are
2.0, 1.6 and 4.3 cm in north, east and height, respectively,
compared with those being 2.4, 1.1 and 4.4 cm in BeiDou
system and 1.7, 1.4 and 4.1 cm in GPS system,
respectively.
After analyzing the three experiments separately, a cross-
comparison is made between the three experiments. The
single-epoch AR performance and positioning precision of
the combined GPS/BeiDou system, for short baselines, are
evaluated as well.
Summarized from Tables 2, 4 and 6, the single-epoch
AR performance in each GNSS system and with different
baseline distances is shown in Table 7.
It is shown in Table 7 that the combined GPS/BeiDou
single-epoch AR is more reliable, when compared to the
standalone GPS or BeiDou system. This is due to the
increased number of observed satellites in the combined
GNSS system. More observed satellites mean better satel-
lite geometry and higher degrees of freedom, which can
create more reliable AR. Whether the threshold is set to 2
or 3 and whether the baseline length is short or long
(\15 km), the AR success rates of the combined GNSS
system are always close to 100 %. On the contrary, the AR
success rate of GPS system decreases slightly from 93 to
91 % and then 92 % and that of BeiDou system has a large
drop from 98 to 89 % and then 83 % with the threshold
decreased to 2, along with the baseline distances increasing
from 5.5 to 9 and 12.6 km. This result also shows that the
single-epoch AR performance of the GPS system is more

Table 7 AR performance comparison

Success rate (%) Threshold = 3 Threshold = 2
I II III I II III

GPS 96.56 97.06 96.52 93.04 91.06 92.41

BD2 99.62 95.20 94.01 98.25 89.28 83.03
GPS/BD2 99.99 100.0 100.0 99.99 99.99 99.76

Table 8 Precision Comparison

System RMS (cm)
North East Height

I 5 km
GPS 2.0 1.1 3.8
BD2 2.8 1.3 7.8
GPS/BD2 1.2 0.7 3.6
II 9 km
GPS 1.6 1.1 4.3
BD2 2.8 1.8 6.9
GPS/BD2 1.6 1.1 4.4
III 13 km
GPS 1.7 1.4 4.1
Fig. 5 Positioning biases comparison (12,660 m) for different direc- BD2 2.4 1.1 4.4
tions (top: north; middle: east; bottom: height) and different GNSS
GPS/BD2 2.0 1.6 4.3
systems (GPS: red; BeiDou: violet; GPS/BeiDou: green)

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GPS Solut (2014) 18:375–386
reliable than that of the standalone BeiDou system, though
less than the combined GNSS system.
The positioning precisions of the three baselines in
different directions and different GNSS systems are shown
in Table 8. The table shows a continuous decrease in the
single-epoch positioning precision in each direction for the
combined GPS/BeiDou system, as the baseline length
increases from 5 to 9, and then to 13 km. It also shows that
the combined GNSS system can achieve better positioning
precision than that of the GPS system for shorter baseline
(see experiment I), but the positioning precision becomes
worse as the baseline length increases (see experiment III).
The results imply that the geometry of BeiDou satellites is
not as strong as GPS satellites at present, and the stochastic
model of the combined GNSS system should be further
refined.
Conclusion
We analyzed the BeiDou time system, the coordinate
system and their differences with the GPS system. Then,
we discussed the availability of the BeiDou system in
China. The mathematical models and single-epoch ambi-
guity resolution algorithm of the combined GPS/BeiDou
system were discussed. The dual-frequency pseudorange
and carrier phase observables were used to form the DD
observations for a fast AR, as well as to provide the initial
wide-lane integer ambiguities. The wide-lane integer
ambiguities are fixed first and later the L1 integer
ambiguities.
Three experiments were conducted, and the data were
processed in both the separate positioning systems and the
combined GPS/BeiDou system. The results indicate that
for short baselines, the combined GPS/BeiDou system
shows better performance of single-epoch ambiguity res-
olution with a high ambiguity resolution success rate (near
100 %) using a ratio test with a fixed critical value. It
improves the positioning precision compared to a stand-
alone BeiDou system, but provides a little poorer level of
position precision than GPS system, which implies that the
stochastic model in the combined GPS/BeiDou system
should be further investigated and refined. It also suggests
that the threshold in the ratio test could be set to a slightly
smaller value (smaller than 2) in the combined GPS/Bei-
Dou system, to increase the fixing rate of ambiguity reso-
lution without significant drop in the positioning
performance.
This research emphasizes the impact of different GNSS
systems on the ambiguity resolution performance using the
same ambiguity resolution algorithm. If another ambiguity
resolution technique is applied for all three GNSS systems,
385
we can expect that the ambiguity resolution performance of
combined GPS/BeiDou system still outperform that of the
standalone GPS or BeiDou system.
Acknowledgments This work is partially sponsored by Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41004014 and No.
41304028), partially sponsored by National 863 Project of China
(2012AA12A202), partially supported by ‘‘the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities’’ (No. 2012214020208) and par-
tially supported by ‘‘the Open Foundation of the State Key Laboratory
of Geodesy and Earth’s Dynamics (Grant No. SKLGED2013-4-9-
E).’’ The authors are very grateful to the anonymous reviewers for
their constructive comments and suggestions.
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Author Biographies
satellites and LEOs and real-
time precise point positioning
Chenlong Deng is a PhD can- (PPP).
didate in School of Geodesy and
Geomatics and GNSS Research
Center at Wuhan University,
Wuhan, P. R. China. He
received his bachelor’s degree
in 2010 from School of Geodesy
and Geomatics at Wuhan Uni-
versity. His current research
interests include multi-fre-
quency and multi-system RTK
and approaches and algorithms
of ambiguity resolution.

Weiming Tang is an associate

professor in GNSS Research
Center of Wuhan University.
He received his PhD in 2007
from Wuhan University. His
main research interests include
application development and
system integration of GNSS
real-time kinematic positioning.
He has obtained some research
achievements in GNSS Net-
work RTK, Precise Point
Positioning and kinematic
positioning algorithm research
and software development.

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