Comparing Long Baseline Results from GPS and GPS/GLONASS

Abstract: The availability of GLONASS would bring significant benefits to geodetic applications of global positioning systems. GPS and GLONASS observations could be combined directly in the data processing; as a result, the geometry of observed satellites could be enhanced by increasing the number of available satellites. Up to now, with the recent revitalization of GLONASS, more high precision geodetic GLONASS receivers are brought to market, and GPS/GLONASS receivers have been equipped in some International GNSS Service (IGS) tracking stations all over the world. The short latency precise IGS orbits for GLONASS, consistent GPS/GLONASS CODE orbits as well as combined GPS/GLONASS observations are available. So it becomes worthwhile to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of combined GPS/GLONASS solutions for geodetic applications. In this paper, the GPS and GPS/GLONASS baselines of two networks have been analysed, aiming to assess the influence of GLONASS data to the GPS-only long baseline solution. The IGS final GPS precise orbits and fully consistent GPS/GLONASS orbits from CODE are used in all baseline solutions. Stations of the networks are equipped with GPS/GLONASS receivers, and all of them are IGS tracking stations, which are located in Australia and Europe. GPS-only and GPS/GLONASS observations are processed, respectively, using the same processing strategy. The results of the GPS-only baselines and GPS/GLONASS baselines have been compared.