J Geod (2009) 83:953–966
DOI 10.1007/s00190-009-0313-6
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Improving the GNSS positioning stochastic model in the presence
of ionospheric scintillation
M. Aquino · J. F. G. Monico · A. H. Dodson ·
H. Marques · G. De Franceschi · L. Alfonsi ·
V. Romano · M. Andreotti
Received: 2 October 2008 / Accepted: 9 March 2009 / Published online: 24 March 2009
© Springer-Verlag 2009
Abstract Ionospheric scintillations are caused by time-
varying electron density irregularities in the ionosphere,
occurring more often at equatorial and high latitudes. This
paper focuses exclusively on experiments undertaken in
Europe, at geographic latitudes between ∼50◦ N and ∼80◦ N,
where a network of GPS receivers capable of monitoring
Total Electron Content and ionospheric scintillation param-
eters was deployed. The widely used ionospheric scintil-
lation indices S4 and σϕ represent a practical measure of
the intensity of amplitude and phase scintillation affecting
GNSS receivers. However, they do not provide sufficient
information regarding the actual tracking errors that degrade
GNSS receiver performance. Suitable receiver tracking mod-
els, sensitive to ionospheric scintillation, allow the compu-
tation of the variance of the output error of the receiver PLL
(Phase Locked Loop) and DLL (Delay Locked Loop), which
expresses the quality of the range measurements used by the
receiver to calculate user position. The ability of such models
of incorporating phase and amplitude scintillation effects into
the variance of these tracking errors underpins our proposed
method of applying relative weights to measurements from
different satellites. That gives the least squares stochastic
M. Aquino (B) · A. H. Dodson
Institute of Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG),
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
e-mail: marcio.aquino@nottingham.ac.uk
J. F. G. Monico · H. Marques
Department of Cartography, Sao Paulo State University,
Pres. Prudente, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
G. De Franceschi · L. Alfonsi · V. Romano
Instituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV),
Rome, Italy
M. Andreotti
Geospatial Research Center Ltd., Christchurch, New Zealand
model used for position computation a more realistic rep-
resentation, vis-a-vis the otherwise ‘equal weights’ model.
For pseudorange processing, relative weights were com-
puted, so that a ‘scintillation-mitigated’ solution could be
performed and compared to the (non-mitigated) ‘equal
weights’ solution. An improvement between 17 and 38% in
height accuracy was achieved when an epoch by epoch dif-
ferential solution was computed over baselines ranging from
1 to 750 km. The method was then compared with alterna-
tive approaches that can be used to improve the least squares
stochastic model such as weighting according to satellite ele-
vation angle and by the inverse of the square of the standard
deviation of the code/carrier divergence (sigma CCDiv). The
influence of multipath effects on the proposed mitigation
approach is also discussed. With the use of high rate scin-
tillation data in addition to the scintillation indices a carrier
phase based mitigated solution was also implemented and
compared with the conventional solution. During a period of
occurrence of high phase scintillation it was observed that
problems related to ambiguity resolution can be reduced by
the use of the proposed mitigated solution.
Keywords Global navigation satellites system · Global
positioning system · Ionospheric scintillation · Receiver
tracking models · Mitigation · Stochastic model
1 Introduction
At high latitudes, the effects of ionospheric scintillations on
GNSS are exacerbated during solar maximum, when geo-
magnetic storms may occur in connection with enhanced
solar activity. The polar ionosphere may become highly tur-
bulent leading to scintillation scenarios, as for instance in the
northern hemisphere during the severe storms of October and
November 2003 (e.g De Franceschi et al. 2008). The adverse
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effects of events of this type on GNSS positioning and on
the performance of augmentation services (such as WAAS,
the US Wide Area Augmentation System and EGNOS, the
European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System) have
been reported in the literature by several authors (e.g. Moore
et al. 2002; Skone et al. 2004; Grejner-Brzezinska et al. 2006;
Aquino et al. 2005a,b, 2007a; Alfonsi et al. 2006).
Ionospheric irregularities causing scintillations tend to
form mostly within the irregularity oval, defined as a mod-
ification of the auroral oval, which expands and contracts
under varied geomagnetic conditions (Aarons 1997). The
irregularity oval is approximately the auroral oval and dur-
ing periods of low solar and magnetic activity is also less
intense and contracts to higher latitudes, whereas during a
geomagnetic storm it moves equatorward. Scintillation is
expected to occur during instances when a signal from a
GNSS satellite traverses the ionosphere inside the region of
the irregularity oval. The impact of scintillations on GPS
positioning may be severe, including loss of signal track-
ing and positioning accuracy degradation (e.g. Aquino et al.
2005a,b). The latter occurs mostly due to some of the satel-
lites being affected by scintillation as their links traverse the
irregularities. User position computation is accomplished by
the receiver through a least squares process where the mea-
surements from all satellites in view are usually considered
of the same quality. Ideally the satellite-receiver links most
affected should be isolated and left out of the solution; how-
ever this would be detrimental to the quality of the resulting
geometry.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to enter into the
physical aspects of the ionospheric irregularities causing
scintillations. Its aim is rather to present an original math-
ematical approach possibly useful for future application to
GNSS receivers. We present a strategy to calculate and apply
weights to measurements from different satellite links, which
could be advantageous to use under scintillation conditions.
The widely used scintillation indices (S4 and σϕ —see Van
Dierendonck et al. 1993 and Van Dierendonck 2001 for
details on these indices and their measurement) and high
rate data were collected by specially modified GPS receivers
able to record the phase and amplitude of the L1 signals (Van
Dierendonck et al. 1993). Such data, acquired during peri-
ods of high geomagnetic activity, were used to calculate the
code and carrier phase tracking error variance according to
the models described by Conker et al. (2003). The capability
of translating phase and amplitude scintillation effects into
the variance of the tracking errors underpins our proposed
method of applying relative weights to measurements from
different satellites, giving a more realistic representation to
the least squares stochastic model used in position compu-
tation. Under the experimental circumstances described in
this paper, results show that the proposed method leads to
correctly assigning relative weights to the observations, an
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M. Aquino et al.
indication also that the models of Conker et al. (2003) can
successfully predict the receiver tracking errors. For a gen-
eral use of these tracking models and restrictions on their
validity the reader is referred to Conker et al. (2003).
In Sect. 2, we discuss our approach, first introducing the
receiver tracking models of Conker et al. (2003) and then
presenting our strategy to improve the least squares stochas-
tic model. In Sect. 3, we give a brief description of the
experimental setup. In Sect. 4, we show the results of our
experiments for pseudorange processing, while discussing
the influence of multipath against actual scintillation occur-
rence. Section 5 refers to initial findings when the carrier
phase is introduced. Section 6 contains our conclusions.
2 Method
2.1 Receiver tracking models
We consider that, during the occurrence of scintillation, range
measurements (of both pseudorange and carrier phase) made
by a GPS receiver to different satellites are degraded differ-
ently, depending on how each link is affected by the irregu-
larities in the ionosphere. We suggest that the variances of the
output error of the receiver’s DLL (Delay Locked Loop) and
PLL (Phase Locked Loop), can be used to express, respec-
tively, the degree of degradation of the pseudorange and the
carrier phase measurements. The DLL maintains the exact
alignment between the received and the locally generated
codes, its output being directly related to the accuracy of the
signal travel time and therefore to the pseudorange measure-
ments. The PLL minimizes the error between the input phase
and its estimated phase output, which feeds the receiver pro-
cessor. The loop will remain in lock or not depending on the
magnitude of this error. For the pseudoranges, the models
of Conker et al. (2003) calculate the variance of the output
code tracking errors from a first order DLL for L1 GPS code
and from a first order DLL for L2 semicodeless aided by L1.
For the variance of the output phase tracking error, Conker
et al. (2003) presents models for two common types of PLL:
a third-order L1 carrier PLL and a second-order L1-aided L2
carrier PLL, the latter also referred to as L2 semicodeless. We
used these models to compute the variance of the code and
phase tracking errors (or tracking jitters), which are functions
of the receiver hardware parameters and, respectively of the
S4 amplitude scintillation index and of the spectral parame-
ters (the slope p, and the strength at 1 Hz, T ) of the Power
Spectral Density (PSD) of phase scintillation (obtained from
high rate data, see below). Our proposed technique is based
on the establishment of weights given by the inverse of the
variance of these tracking errors. These weights form the
basis of a modified least squares stochastic model that is
then used for position computation.
Improving the GNSS positioning stochastic model 955

For details of these receiver tracking models the reader To use the above PLL model in practice it was necessary
is referred to Conker et al. (2003). Here we provide only a to retrieve the spectral parameters T and p (Eq. 5) from the
brief description. The model of the L1 C/A code (C1) DLL PSD of fluctuations in the carrier phase output after detr-
tracking jitter variance is given by (in code chips): ending (i.e. correction for all other effects such as integrated

 Doppler due to satellite motion, satellite clocks, user clocks
Bn d 1 + η(c/n ) 1  and tropospheric delay). The PSD was obtained from high
0 L1−C/A 1−2S4 (L1)
2
στ2C1 = (1) rate (50 Hz) phase data, available for all stations from the IS-
2(c/n 0 )L1−C/A (1 − S42 (L1)) ACCO (Ionospheric Scintillations Arctic Coordinated Cam-
where Bn is the one-sided noise bandwidth; d is the paign Observations) project (De Franceschi et al. 2006). This
correlator spacing; (c/n 0 )L1−C/A is the fractional form of 50 Hz raw scintillation data allowed the direct computation
signal-to-noise density ratio, equal to 100.1C/N 0 ; η is the of the spectral parameters T and p through FFT (Fast Fou-
predetection integration time, equal to 0.02 s; model valid rier Transform) spectral lines (Van Dierendonck 2001). For
only for S4 (L1) < 0.707; loss of lock is assumed for greater practical future use of our method it is envisaged that the strat-
values of S4. egy proposed in Aquino et al. (2007b) and further developed
Similarly the model of the L2 semicodeless P code (P2) in Strangeways (2008) can be applied and the σϕ scintillation
DLL tracking jitter variance is represented by: index can be used (without the direct need of high rate phase

 data) to compute the tracking error variance.
Bn 1 + 2η(c/n ) (1−S 2 (L1))
1
0 L1P
στ2P2 =
4
(2) 2.2 Modified stochastic model
2(c/n 0 )L2P (1 − S42 (L2))
Mitigation of GNSS systematic errors may be achieved by
where in this case η = 1.96 × 10−6 s.
augmenting the least squares functional model with the intro-
The model for the L1 carrier PLL accounts for the effects
duction of additional parameters to account for unmodeled
of scintillation on the input phase and computes the tracking
errors. Alves and Monico (2007) successfully experimented
error variance at the output of the PLL (σφ2 ) as:
with a semi-parametric model and a penalized least squares
σφ2 = σφ2s + σφ2T + σφ2osc (3) technique to mitigate multipath effects, while Souza and
Monico (2007) used the wavelet method to reduce iono-
where σφ2s , σφ2T and σφ2osc are, respectively, the error vari- spheric effects. Another approach to mitigate systematic
ance components relating to the phase scintillation, the ther- errors is to directly modify the least squares stochastic model
mal noise (amplitude scintillation) and the oscillator noise (i.e. the observations weight matrix) in order to ensure that
(assumed as 0.01 radians in the receiver used in our experi- it more accurately represents the statistical properties of the
ments). data. Alves and Monico (2007) describe the equivalence of
In Eq. 3 above, amplitude scintillation is modeled as an both approaches. We chose the latter approach, as it can be
increase in the thermal noise, related to the decrease in the implemented through a much simpler algorithm.
received signal power: We take as an example the typical GPS pseudorange point

 positioning case, for which the least squares model, for a
Bn 1 + 2η(c/n ) 1 receiver at station A observing satellites i, j, k and l, nor-
0 L1−C/A (1−2S4 (L1))
2
σφ2T = (4) mally considers a weight matrix of the observations W, of
(c/n 0 )L1−C/A (1 − S42 (L1)) the form:
⎡ 2 ⎤
where, again Bn is the L1 third-order PLL one-sided band- 1/σ Ai 0 0 0
width, equal to 10 Hz; (c/n 0 )L1−C/A is the fractional form ⎢ j2 ⎥
⎢0 1/σ A 0 0 ⎥
of signal-to-noise density ratio, equal to 100.1C/N 0 ; η is the W =⎢ ⎥ (6)
⎣0 0 k 2
1/σ A 0 ⎦
predetection integration time, equal to 0.02 s; model valid 2
only for S4 (L1) < 0.707; loss of lock is assumed for greater 0 0 0 1/σ Al
values of S4. where it is assumed that there is no correlation between obser-
The phase scintillation component is modeled by vations and that their precisions are the same, i.e.
πT j
σ Ai = σ A = σ Ak = σ Al = σ
σφ2s =   (5) (7)
p−1 [2k+1− p]π
k f n sin 2k This ultimately simplifies the weight matrix to
where T is the spectral strength of the phase noise at 1 Hz;
W = 1/σ 2 (I ) (8)
p is the spectral slope of the phase PSD; k is the order of the
PLL; f n is the loop natural frequency. where I is the identity matrix.

123
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Clearly, this weight matrix will become more complex
when different observables, combining different satellites
and stations, are considered. For instance, in a double differ-
ence pseudorange solution, as the observable involves two
satellites and two stations, correlation between observations
must be accounted for. However the assumption that all mea-
surements are of the same precision is still usual practice,
which simplifies the stochastic model. For instance, when
four satellites are observed, the double difference weight
matrix Wdd assumes the form:
⎡ ⎤−1
422
Wdd = 1/σ 2 ⎣ 2 4 2 ⎦ (9)
224
3 Experimental setup
We tested our method initially on a relative solution. The
experiments were undertaken during periods ionospherically
disturbed, so that it was not expected that errors related to
the ionosphere, in particular scintillation, would cancel out
by differentiation. We used UNESP (São Paulo State Uni-
versity)’s in-house GPS double difference software GPSeq
to compare the accuracy on baseline computation based on
a conventional, ‘non-mitigated’, or ‘equal weights’ solution
against a ‘mitigated’ solution using the approach described
in Sect. 2. This software uses double differences of C1 (L1
C/A code) and P2 (L2 P code) pseudoranges, but also allows
the inclusion of L1 and L2 carrier phase data, on an epoch
by epoch solution. The user can choose between a pseudor-
ange-only solution or a pseudorange/carrier phase combined
solution. It is important to note that all the available observ-
ables at each epoch, in our case the C/A and P2 pseudoranges
(and the L1 and L2 carrier phase ranges, if these are to be
included), are used and that the algorithm does not perform
any linear combination of them (i.e. for instance no iono-
free linear combination is attempted). In its original version,
the software assigns relative weights between the different
observables, which however are the same for all satellites
at all epochs. The proposed mitigated solution is obtained
by modifying the stochastic model with the introduction of
satellite and epoch specific weights based on the inverse of
the variances of the output error of the GPS receiver DLL
and PLL (of L1 and L2), calculated by the models of Conker
et al. (2003). GPSeq was modified to include this option.
The receivers used in the experiments were the GISTMs
(GPS Ionospheric Scintillations and TEC Monitor)
(Van Dierendonck et al. 1993), so the S4 and σφ indices
required for the computations were readily available.
Although these receivers have not been designed for use in
geodetic applications, previous experiments involving
pseudorange and carrier phase processing with GISTM data
123
M. Aquino et al.
resulted in accuracies compatible with geodetic grade
receivers (e.g. Aquino et al. 2005a,b, 2007a). As explained
in 2.1, the spectral parameters T and p could be retrieved
from 50 Hz data also recorded by the GISTMs. As in a real
world situation one would not expect all these data to be
readily available, this paper is primarily intended as a proof
of concept.
The GISTM is a dual-frequency OEM4 NovAtel card
modified by AJ Systems to measure and log phase and ampli-
tude scintillation data based on L1 GPS frequency data sam-
pled at 50 Hz (see Van Dierendonck 2001). The INGV has
permanently deployed GISTMs at Svalbard (Norway), in the
frame of the ISACCO project (De Franceschi et al. 2006)
and has stored the corresponding data in a publicly accessi-
ble database (http://www.eswua.ingv.it, Romano et al. 2007).
The IESSG had deployed 4 GISTMs in UK and Norway dur-
ing part of the latest solar maximum (June 2001 to December
2003). Recently another GISTM was installed by the IESSG
in Dourbes, Belgium, in collaboration with the Royal Meteo-
rological Institute. The analyses presented in this paper refer
to data collected by these receivers over a region ranging
from ∼50◦ N to ∼80◦ N in geographic latitude, as shown in
Fig. 1.
After a selection of days of disturbed geomagnetic con-
ditions, when the planetary geomagnetic index Kp is ≥ 4
and ionospheric scintillations are more likely to occur in
the region being studied (see statistical analyses in Rodri-
gues et al. 2004), different baselines were processed. Table 1
describes these baselines and corresponding geomagnetic
conditions.
4 Pseudorange processing
4.1 Overall assessment
At initial experiments we applied the technique on a C1
and P2 pseudorange-only solution, as previously reported in
Aquino et al. (2006). For an overall assessment of the method,
each baseline (Table 1) was processed on a 1 min epoch by
epoch solution using the GPSeq software, for a period of 24 h
during which elevated values of the scintillation indices were
observed. No modeling of error sources such as the tropo-
sphere and the background ionosphere was attempted, nei-
ther for the mitigated nor the non-mitigated solution, so that
they could be compared. Each baseline solution is analysed
individually. Results were compared with accurately deter-
mined ground truth coordinates of the stations. Table 2 gives
a summary of the results for a non-mitigated solution against
the proposed mitigated solution, showing the improvement
on the horizontal and vertical components when the pro-
posed approach is applied. In the last column of Table 2, we
show the percentage improvement on the error in height, the
Improving the GNSS positioning stochastic model 957

Fig. 1 Network of receivers

used in the experiments

Table 1 Description of baselines processed with the exception of very few epochs when the mitigated
Baseline Length Date Maximum solution worsens the results (epoch 562 the most notable
(km) Kp one). A possible reason is that the S4 index of a satellite pre-
sented sudden jumps at these epochs, which may relate to
Nya0/Nya1 1 30/10/2004 6
receiver firmware miscomputations that occasionally occur.
Lyb0/Nya1 125 10/12/2006 4
These jumps lead to assigning a poor precision to the range
Lyb0/Nya1 125 11/12/2006 5 of that satellite, and to the wrong stochastic representation
Nott/Dour 511 28/07/2006 6 of the data.
Bron/Hamm 752 10/06/2002 5

4.2 Multipath considerations

component usually most affected by the ionosphere. It is
evident from Table 2 that the proposed method leads to an
improved least squares solution by correctly assigning rela-
tive weights to the observations.
These results indicate that the improved stochastic model
can successfully mitigate both horizontal and vertical errors.
However, for the remainder of this paper we concentrate on
the errors in height, assuming these to represent, in most
instances, the worst case scenario. More detailed analyses on
horizontal effects will be the subject of follow-on research.
Results for baseline Lyb0/Nya1 on 10/12/2006 were fur-
ther analysed. Figure 2 shows the state of the ionosphere
by the 15 s TEC rate for all satellites observed at station
Nya1. The 15 s TEC rate is the change in TEC for a par-
ticular satellite/receiver link during a 15-s period, calculated
based on the carrier phase measurements at L1 and L2 to that
satellite.
Figures 3 and 4 are the time series of the height errors
respectively for the non-mitigated solution and the solution
based on our approach. The improvement is quite significant,
In order to investigate the influence of multipath and to dis-
criminate between potential multipath fades and actual occur-
rence of amplitude scintillation (measured by S4) we used the
approach suggested by Van Dierendonck (2001). The basis
of this approach is the fact that in the presence of multi-
path the divergence of code/carrier phase is faster than the
divergence due to the ionosphere. The GISTM receiver cal-
culates the code/carrier divergence every second, estimat-
ing their average and standard deviation every minute on
the minute. The standard deviation of the code/carrier diver-
gence can then be used to distinguish between S4 due to
multipath and S4 due to scintillation, as there is no diver-
gence due to scintillation (GPS Silicon Valley 2004). If the
values of the standard deviation of code/carrier divergence
are plotted against S4 values, true amplitude scintillation
will be associated with low standard deviations, while multi-
path will be associated with high standard deviations. Based
on this plot, the method uses a dividing line to distinguish
between multipath and amplitude scintillation. This line
is only an approximation to filter out multipath and

123
958 M. Aquino et al.

Table 2 Results of
pseudorange-only solution Baseline RMS error (non-mitigated) RMS error (mitigated) % improvement
on the error in height
Horizontal Vertical Horizontal Vertical
(m) (m) (m) (m)

Nya0/Nya1 (30/10/2004) 0.26 0.54 0.18 0.43 21

Lyb0/Nya1 (10/12/06) 0.81 1.44 0.61 0.90 38
Lyb0/Nya1 (11/12/06) 0.78 1.28 0.55 0.85 34
Nott/Dour (28/07/2006) 1.71 1.52 1.31 1.26 17
Bron/Hamm (10/6/2002) 4.81 6.43 4.20 5.32 17

Fig. 2 TEC rate for all 4

15 s TEC Rate at Nya1, 10 dec 2006
satellites observed at station
Nya1
3

2
dTEC (TEC units)

-1

-2

-3

3:00 06:00 09:00 12:00 15:00 18:00 21:00

-4 I I I I I I I
Time (UT)

Fig. 3 Height error from 15

pseudorange-only solution Lyb0/Nya1 baseline, 10 Dec 2006, C1 and P2 only
without mitigation non-mitigated solution
10

5
height error (m)

-5

-10
rms = 1.44 m
Minutes on the Day (24 hours - 10Dec06)
-15
1 181 361 541 721 901 1081 1261

its choice is a compromise between the knowledge of the which was estimated from experience for the case of a chal-
environmental multipath at the station and the probability lenging multipath environment (Van Dierendonck, personal
of scintillation occurrence. For illustration, in this paper we communication, 2009). It is important to note that the def-
adopted a conservative approach and used a dividing line inition of this dividing line does not play any direct role in

123
Improving the GNSS positioning stochastic model
Fig. 4 Height error from 15
pseudorange-only solution with
mitigation
10
height error (m)
0
-5
-10
rms = 0.90 m
-15
1 181
our proposed mitigation strategy. The aim here is solely to
illustrate a possible method to identify the influence of mul-
tipath on the S4 index.
Following this approach, in Fig. 5a and b, the standard
deviation of the L1 code/carrier divergence (Sigma CCDiv),
measured by the GISTM, respectively, at stations Lyb0 and
Nya1, is plotted against S4, which was corrected for ambi-
ent noise (Corrected S4). In the plots, the multipath filter-
ing dividing line (dotted line), chosen as explained above,
discriminates between S4 predominantly due to multipath
fading (points above the line) and possible amplitude scintil-
lation (points below the line). While for station Lyb0 the plot
shows a few possible occurrences of significant amplitude
scintillation (S4 > 0.5), for station Nya1 almost all occur-
rences of S4 below the line are <0.5 characterising weak to
moderate amplitude scintillation. Indeed long term statistics
by Rodrigues et al. (2004) confirm that phase scintillation is
dominant and amplitude scintillation is small at GPS frequen-
cies in this region. Furthermore in Fig. 6 it can be seen that the
higher values of (corrected) S4 occur mostly at low elevation
angles, in particular for station Nya1, where nearly all values
> 0.3 refer to angles below 15◦ (data was processed with a
5◦ elevation cut-off). Although station Lyb0 presents higher
levels of S4, the overall picture suggests that these higher val-
ues in reality predominantly relate to multipath, rather than
to actual amplitude fades due to the ionosphere (scintilla-
tion). What is interesting however is that, with the input of
the corrected S4 in the DLL tracking model, our approach
provides an effective way to improve the solution, clearly
also mitigating any multipath effects that may be degrading
the DLL tracking performance. Despite this finding, further
analyses were carried out aiming to assess how much of non-
multipath related error the method is able to mitigate. This is
shown in Figs. 7 and 8, where we compare the errors on two
consecutive days, 10 and 11 December 2006.
959
Lyb0/Nya1 baseline, 10 Dec 2006, C1 and P2 only
mitigated solution (Conker models)
Minutes on the Day (24 hours - 10Dec06)
361 541 721 901 1081 1261
Figure 7 shows the difference in the height error between
the two days when the solutions are not mitigated. Results of
the second day were shifted by 4 min so that the geometry
of the arriving signals is approximately the same, and mul-
tipath is mostly removed. In Fig. 8, the same was done with
the mitigated solutions. Clearly, on an epoch by epoch basis,
the proposed mitigation approach leads to the (non-multi-
path related) errors overall being reduced, with the RMS of
these differences decreasing from 1.17 to 0.84 m, between
the non-mitigated and the mitigate solutions, as in Figs. 7
and 8, respectively.
4.3 Amplitude scintillation
To ascertain how the method handles actual occurrence of
scintillation, despite the low values of S4 observed in our
data set, we selected a 1-h session (22:00 to 23:00 UT on
10/12/2006), when above average values of S4 occurred for
satellites observed at high elevation from station Lyb0. The
baseline is Lyb0/Nya1. Figure 9 shows the corrected S4 for
station Lyb0, exclusively for satellite elevations >30◦ .
Although high S4 values are not observed, an enhancement
against the overall background is seen early in the session,
which could in all likelihood relate to (albeit weak) ampli-
tude scintillation (and not multipath). At station Nya1 lev-
els of S4 are negligible (<0.07). Figure 10 shows the height
errors when data is processed without applying our technique
(non-mitigated solution). Slightly larger errors roughly cor-
respond with the period when higher S4 values occurred.
Figure 11 then shows the results when the mitigation tech-
nique is applied. Improvement at the start of the session is
apparent, with the session’s RMS height error dropping from
1.38 to 0.89 m. Despite the encouraging results, it is clear
however that further tests must be carried out on data sets
with stronger levels of amplitude scintillation.
123
960 M. Aquino et al.

Fig. 5 Multipath and possible 1

(a)
amplitude scintillation for
0.9
stations Lyb0 (a) and Nya1 (b) Lyb0 station, 10 Dec 2006
0.8

0.7

Sigma CCDiv (meters)

Potential multipath (Sigma CCDiv > 0.625 S4corr - 0.125)
0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

Possible
0.2
amplitude scintillation
0.1 (weak for S4 < 0.4)

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Corrected S4

1
(b)
0.9
Nya1 station, 10 Dec 2006
0.8
Sigma CCDiv (meters)

0.7
Potential multipath (Sigma CCDiv > 0.625 S4corr - 0.125)
0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2 Possible
amplitude scintillation
0.1
(weak for S4 < 0.4)
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Corrected S4

4.4 Alternative approaches
Finally, Figs. 12 and 13 show another two potential approa-
ches to mitigate positional errors. Baseline and date are the
same as in Figs. 3 and 4. Figure 12 shows the height errors
for a DGPS solution (differential GPS, based only on the
C1 pseudoranges) where observations are weighted by the
sine squared of the elevation angle of individual satellites.
Figure 13 shows a mitigated solution where we used the
inverse of the square of the standard deviation of the L1
code/carrier divergence to define individual satellites and
epochwise weights for the C1 measurements, and the inverse
of the DLL variance (from Conker et al. 2003) to similarly
define weights for the P2 observables. In the absence of a
cycle slip, the error in the code/carrier divergence combines
multipath and ionospheric errors of both the pseudorange
and the carrier (plus noise of both). As these are small for
the carrier phase when compared with the pseudorange, this
parameter (the CCDiv error, or Sigma CCDiv) is essentially
the pseudorange tracking error, suitable to improve the sto-
chastic model. Results presented in Figs. 12 and 13 are com-
patible with the results of our approach and imply that, at least
under weak amplitude scintillation, all three may perform
equally well. We expect, however, that under stronger ampli-
tude scintillation our approach will be more robust. This must
be tested in future, possibly using data from equatorial lati-
tudes, where higher values of S4 are observed.
5 Carrier phase processing
Kim and Tinin (2007) used perturbation theory to investi-
gate the residual errors in dual-frequency GPS measurements
and concluded that random irregularities in the ionosphere
can significantly contribute to the phase range error. Aquino
et al. (2005a,b, 2007a) carried out real data experiments
where errors in carrier phase based GPS positioning were
found to be correlated with scintillation events caused, in all

123
Improving the GNSS positioning stochastic model 961

Fig. 6 Corrected S4 against 90

elevation angle for stations Lyb0 (a)
(a) and Nya1 (b) 80 Lyb0 station, 10 Dec 2006
70

60

Elevation angle
50

40

30
S4 > 0.3 mostly for low elevation angles
20

10

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Corrected S4

90
(b)
80 Nya1 station, 10 Dec 2006
70

60
Elevation angle

50

40

30
S4 > 0.3 mostly for low elevation angles
20

10

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Corrected S4

Fig. 7 Height error difference 15

between 2 days without 11 Dec - 10 Dec, non-mitigated solutions
mitigation
10
height error difference (m)

-5

-10

rms = 1.17 m
Time - minutes on 24 hours
-15
1 181 361 541 721 901 1081 1261

123
962 M. Aquino et al.

Fig. 8 Height error difference 15

between 2 days with mitigation 11 Dec - 10 Dec, mitigated solutions

10

height error difference (m)

5

-5

-10
rms = 0.84m
Time - minutes on 24 hours
-15
1 181 361 541 721 901 1081 1261

Fig. 9 Corrected S4 for S4 corrected for ambient noise at station LYB0

satellites observed at station
all satellites above 30o, 22-23UT 10 Dec 2006
Lyb0 with elevation >30◦ 0.5

0.45

0.4

0.35

0.3

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
22:15 22:30 22:45

Fig. 10 Height error from 15

pseudorange-only solution LYB0-NYA1 baseline, 22-23UT, 10 Dec 2006, C1 and P2 only
without mitigation non-mitigated solution
10

5
height error (m)

-5

-10

rms = 1.38 m 22-23UT, 10Dec06

-15
22:15 22:30 22:45

123
Improving the GNSS positioning stochastic model 963

Fig. 11 Height error from 15

pseudorange-only solution with LYB0-NYA1 baseline, 22-23UT, 10 Dec 2006, C1 and P2 only
mitigation mitigated solution
10

height error (m)

0

-5

-10

rms = 0.89 m 22-23UT, 10Dec06

-15
22:15 22:30 22:45

Fig. 12 Height errors from 15

DGPS Solution and weighting Lyb0-Nya1, 10 Dec 2006, DGPS solution (C1 only)
by sin (elevation angle) sin(elev) weighting
10

5
height error (m)

-5

-10
rms = 0.88 m
Minutes on the day (24 hours - 10Dec06)
-15
1 181 361 541 721 901 1081 1261

Fig. 13 Height errors from 15

mitigated solution based on Lyb0-Nya1 baseline, 10 Dec 2006, C1 and P2 only
weighting C1 measurements by sigma CCdiv weighting (on C1)
the standard deviation of the 10
code/carrier divergence

5
height error (m)

-5

-10

rms = 0.96 m
Minutes on the Hour (24 hours - 10Dec06)
-15
1 181 361 541 721 901 1081 1261

123
964 M. Aquino et al.

Fig. 14 Values of Phi60 Phi60 measured at station Nya1, 10 Dec 2006, 22-23UT
between 22:00 and 23:00 UT at 1.4
station Nya1 on 10 December
2006
1.2

Phi60 (radians)
0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
Time - 22-23UT of 10 December 2006

Fig. 15 Height errors from Lyb0-Nya1 baseline, 22-23UT, 10 Dec 2006

pseudoranges and carrier phase phase and code solution
solution without mitigation 20
no weighting
15

10
height error (m)

-5

-10

-15
rms = 1.87 m
-20
22-23UT, 10Dec06

Fig. 16 Height errors from Lyb0-Nya1 baseline, 22-23UT, 10 Dec 2006

pseudoranges and carrier phase phase and code solution
solution with mitigation 20
mitigated solution
15

10
height error (m)

-5

-10

-15
rms = 0.88 m
-20
22-23UT, 10Dec06

123
Improving the GNSS positioning stochastic model
likelihood, by small scale ionospheric irregularities. In this
paper, initial experiments aiming to test the proposed mitiga-
tion approach were carried out involving carrier phase data.
GPSeq was used in a 1 min epoch by epoch solution based on
both pseudoranges and phase measurements on the L1 and
L2 GPS frequencies. We analysed the 1-h session from base-
line Lyb0/Nya1, between 22:00 and 23:00 UT on 10/12/2006.
During that session strong GPS ionospheric phase scintilla-
tion was observed by the GISTMs in the region. Figure 14
shows the values of Phi60 (the 60 s version of σφ ) observed at
station Nya1. For each epoch the 1 min 50 Hz data was used
to calculate the spectral parameters T and p from the corre-
sponding PSD, as explained in Sect. 2.1. The height errors,
again calculated from comparison against ground truth coor-
dinates, for the non-mitigated and mitigated solutions are
shown in Figs. 15 and 16, respectively. Figures 14 and 15
show the correlation of larger height errors with high val-
ues of Phi60. GPSeq uses the LAMBDA method (Teunissen
1996) to resolve the carrier phase ambiguities. By analysing
the results of the method’s ratio test it was possible to ver-
ify that GPSeq fixed the ambiguities only at certain epochs,
exactly in coincidence with the periods of high phase scintil-
lation occurrence, and that they were however fixed wrongly.
Clearly, given the length of the baseline, fixing the ambigu-
ities to their correct values would be very unlikely, however
the occurrence of scintillation somehow led to this outcome
and consequently to unreliable epochwise solutions (Fig. 15).
Interestingly, when applying our mitigation approach, the
float ambiguities solution prevails at all epochs, providing
more accurate solutions (Fig. 16).
For practical future use of the method in carrier phase posi-
tioning it is envisaged that the strategy proposed in Aquino
et al. (2007b) and further developed in Strangeways (2008)
can be applied, where the scintillation indices can be used
(without the direct need of high rate phase data) to compute
the PLL tracking error variance.
6 Conclusions
Ionospheric scintillations are caused by time-varying den-
sity irregularities in the ionosphere, occurring more often at
equatorial and high latitudes under external disturbed condi-
tions. They can degrade navigation and positioning accuracy
and may cause loss of signal tracking, disrupting safety-criti-
cal applications, such as marine navigation and civil aviation.
Degradation of accuracy due to the occurrence of scintillation
can also affect carrier phase based applications and in partic-
ular disrupt the resolution of the ambiguities inherent to the
carrier phase observable. This paper describes a technique
that was successfully used to counter the effects of scintilla-
tions on GNSS positioning. The proposed approach is based
on data obtained from GPS scintillation monitor receivers
965
and on suitable receiver tracking models. Results indicate
potential for the development and implementation of algo-
rithms that could be embedded in a scintillation monitoring
network with the aim to mitigate these effects. The exper-
iments presented in this paper and corresponding results,
although encouraging, are considered of a preliminary nature
and further research is necessary for future usability of our
method. This paper is intended as a proof of concept, as
clearly, normal receivers do not and will not in principle
measure scintillation parameters. However, as scintillation
prediction models are improved it is legitimate to imagine
that the method can be used in conjunction with one such
model, e.g. an improved WBMOD (Wide Band MODel)
Ionospheric Scintillation Model (http://www.nwra-az.com/
ionoscint/wbmod.html) or the GISM (Global Ionosphere
Scintillation Model—Béniguel 2002). Furthermore the
method may also be used in post-processing, in particular
in applications involving the carrier phase observable, as
results in Sect. 5 suggest. Plans are in place to undertake
further investigations in this area which will take advantage
of a common database that is being developed. Also, data
from equatorial regions will be taken into account.
Acknowledgments Data used in this research was obtained through
funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC) in the UK and from the ISACCO Project, supported by the
Italian Program of Antarctic Researches (PNRA). Thanks are due to
the Royal Society for two International Joint Project grants involving
IESSG, INGV and UNESP. This collaboration has also been motivated
by the work carried out within the COST296 MIERS (Mitigation of
Ionospheric Effects on Radio Systems). Thanks are also due to CAPES
(Brazilian Research Council) for providing funds to UNESP based co-
authors.
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