Measurement 172 (2021) 108871

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Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

An analysis of BDS-3 real-time PPP: Time transfer, positioning, and

tropospheric delay retrieval
Yulong Ge a, b, 1, Shaoxin Chen c, 1, Tao Wu d, Caoming Fan e, Weijin Qin b, Feng Zhou f, *,
Xuhai Yang b, g
a
School of Marine Science and Engineering, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
b
National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710600, China
c
School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Anhui University of Science and Technology, 168 Taifeng Street, Huainan 232001, China
d
JiangSu Frontier Electric Technology Co., Ltd, Nanjing 211102, China
e
School of Microelectronics, Shandong University, Jinan 250101, China
f
College of Geodesy and Geomatics, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China
g
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: With the development of China’s BDS-3, more studies focused on its performance in precise point positioning
Real-time PPP (PPP), mainly in post-processing mode. This study conducts a comprehensive investigation of BDS-3 real-time
BDS-3 PPP with Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) real-time products (SSRA00CNE0) from the perspective of
Precise positioning
time transfer, positioning, and tropospheric delay retrieval. First, the availability and accuracy of BDS-3 real-time
Tropospheric delay
Time transfer
products were evaluated over 41 days. The product availability was about 80%. The accuracy of BDS-3 satellite
orbit were 0.060, 0.115 and 0.065 m in the radial, along-track, and cross-track component. In addition, the
standard deviation (STD) of satellite clock difference was 0.455 ns. Afterwards, precise time transfer, positioning,
and Zenith troposphere delay (ZTD) estimation derived from BDS-3 real-time PPP were assessed with 7-day
processing. The root mean square (RMS) of smoothed residuals is 0.020 ns, while it is 0.001 ns for BDS-3 PPP
with WUM final products for time transfer. Furthermore, the RMS values of positioning errors derived from real-
time static BDS-3 PPP positioning were 0.021, 0.010, and 0.03 m in the east (E), north (N), and up (U)
component, respectively. Moreover, the RMS of ZTD estimation is 9.9 mm, which is comparable to GPS real-time
PPP solutions.

1. Introduction
A technique, called PPP [1], is now widely applied in PNT [2,3].
With precise product released by IGS, GNSS pseudorange and carrier
phase observations, the accuracy of time transfer, positioning and
tropospheric delay retrieval in sub-nanosecond [4,5], centimeter- to
millimeter [6], and millimeter-level [7], respectively, can be achieved
by PPP technique anywhere on the earth. Nowadays, the third phase of
China’s BDS, called BDS-3, has been constructed by supporting global
services for users on December 27, 2018 [8,9]. As of June 7, 2020, 29
BDS-3 satellites and 5 BDS-3S satellites are already in normal operation.
The ground tracks of BDS-3 satellites are displayed in Fig. 1. With the
support of IGS MGEX [10], two precise products WUM and GBM prod­
ucts, released by WHU and GFZ, have included BDS-3 satellites.
Therefore, BDS-3 PPP has attracted more and more research interest.
Similar to other satellite systems, BDS-3 needs a comprehensive

Abbreviations: BDS, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System; BDS-3, Global BeiDou navigation system; BDS-3S, BeiDou-3 experimental satellites; CNES, Centre Na­
tional d’Etudes Spatiales; GNSS, Global navigation satellite system; IF, Ionosphere-free; IGS, International GNSS service; MGEX, Multi-GNSS experiment; GFZ,
GeoForschungsZentrum; OMC, Observed minus computed; PNT, Positioning, navigation, and timing; STD, Standard deviation; RTCM, Radio Technical Commission
for Maritime Services; PCOs, Phase center offsets; PCVs, Phase center variations; PPP, Precise point positioning; RTK, Real-time Kinematic; RAC, Radial, Along and
Cross; RTS, Real-time service; RTPP, Real-time pilot project; TAI, International Atomic Time; 3D, Three-dimensional; MDEV, Modified Allan deviation; ZTD, Zenith
total delays; UPD, Uncalibrated phase delay; UCD, Uncalibrated Code delay; WHU, Wuhan University; ZWD, Zenith wet delay; SSR, State-space representation.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhouforme@163.com (F. Zhou).
1
Yulong Ge and Shaoxin Chen are the first authors.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2020.108871
Received 20 September 2020; Received in revised form 29 November 2020; Accepted 9 December 2020
Available online 28 December 2020
0263-2241/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Ge et al. Measurement 172 (2021) 108871

at epoch t can be conducted by Eqs. (1) and (2) [23,35],

{
ΔXt = (ΔXr , ΔXa , ΔXc )t0 + (ΔẊ r , ΔẊ a , ΔẊ c )⋅(t − t0 )
(1)
Xt,pre = Xt,brd − (er , ea , ec )⋅ΔXt

{
ΔT = A0 + A1 ⋅(t − t0 ) + A2 ⋅(t − t0 )2
(2)
Tpre = Tbrd + ΔT/c

where ΔXt denotes the orbit corrections for RAC components at epoch t;
(ΔXr , ΔXa , ΔXc ) is the orbit corrections for RAC components at the
reference epoch t0; (ΔẊr , ΔẊa , ΔẊc ) denotes the correction rates for RAC
components. Xt,pre and Tpre are the precise orbit and clock product; Xt,brd
and Tbrd represent the broadcast orbit and clock; (er , ea , ec )is the trans­
Fig. 1. BDS-3 ground tracks on DOY 105, 2020. formation matrix; (A0 , A1 , A2 )indicate the polynomial coefficient for
satellite clock correction; ΔTdenotes the clock correction at epoch t.
evaluation before it is applied. The precise orbit determination, atomic
clock performance, and open service signal were investigated and 2.2. IF PPP model
assessed by Xu et al. [11]. They illustrated that BDS-3 outperforms that
of GPS BLOCK IIF satellites in frequency stability scheme. The signal In BDS-3 application, B1I/B3I and B1C/B2a combination are offi­
quality, RTK, and PPP were analyzed by Zhang et al. [12] using BDS-3. cially recommended and used in IF model [25]. Since the real-time BDS-
The performance of PPP-RTK using BDS-3+BDS-2+GPS was analyzed by 3 precise clock products refer to B1I/B3I IF dual-frequency observable,
Li et al. [13]. Also, precise time transfer with BDS-3 quad-frequency for B1I/B3I IF combination, the linearization of the IF PPP pseudorange
observations was assessed and analyzed by Ge et al. [14]. and phase observations will be described as [20]
PPP was generally investigated in post-processing because of the psr,IF13 = μsr ⋅Δx + cdtr,IF13 + msr,w (e)⋅Zw + msr,g (e)⋅cos(a)⋅gns
latency of products, as the above study. To meet real-time applications, (3)
+ msr,g (e)⋅sin(a)⋅gew + ξsr,IF13
IGS started RTPP in 2007 [15] and formally provided real-time products
to users via RTCM in 2013 for RTS [16]. The detailed information of lsr,IF13 = μsr ⋅Δx + cdtr,IF13 + msr,w (e)⋅Zw + msr,g (e)⋅cos(a)⋅gns
IGS’s real-time service can visit the web pages (http://igs.org/rts;
+ msr,g (e)⋅sin(a)⋅gew + Nr,IF13
s
+ ψ sr,IF13
https://igs.bkg.bund.de/ntrip/orbits). By using IGS’s RTS, real-time
PPP has been widely researched and applied, such as precise time (4)
transfer, positioning, and tropospheric delay retrieval. GPS-only real- ⎧ cdtr,IF13 = cdtr + cdr,IF13
time PPP time transfer with 0.3 ns level was presented by Ge et al. [17] ⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
and Li et al. [18]. Multi-GNSS real-time PPP in the kinematic model was ⎪
⎪
⎪ dr,IF13 = α13 dr,1 + β13 dr,3
⎪
⎨
validated and assessed by Wang et al. [16]. Their results indicated that s s
the positioning accuracy would reach 7.0 cm for the 3D direction in the ⎪ Nr,IF13 =α 13 λ1 (Nr,1 + br,1 + bs1 ) + β13 λ3 (Nr,3
s
+ br,3 + bs3 ) − c(dr,IF13 + dIF13
s
)
⎪
⎪
simulated kinematic model. In addition, tropospheric delays retrieval ⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ fm2 f2
⎪
with multi-GNSS real-time PPP was presented by Lu et al. [19]. How­ ⎩ αm,n = ; βm,n = − 2 n 2 ; m ∕
=n
fm2 − fn2
fm − fn
ever, the above published researches were mainly based on GPS-only,
(5)
BDS-2-only, or multi-constellation combination. Since few studies
focus on real-time PPP with BDS-3-only, the performance of BDS-3 real- Note that troposhere hydrostatic delay was corrected by corre­
time PPP time transfer, positioning, and tropospheric delay retrieval spending Saastamoinen model. r and s indicate receiver and satellite;
remain unclear. Luckily, the real-time products of BDS-3 are officially IF13 refers to B1I/B3I IF combination; lsr,IF13 and psr,IF13 are the OMC
released by CNES from DOY 79, 2020. With this background, the focus values for IF carrier phase and pseudorange observations, respectively;
of this study is not to establish new BDS-3 real-time PPP models, but to μsr denotes the linearized coefficient vector; Δx is the coordinate incre­
study the performance of BDS-3-only real-time PPP time transfer, posi­ ment; c is the speed of light. dtr,IF13 is the receiver clock offset which has
tioning, and tropospheric delay retrieval. absorbed the hardware delay dr,IF13 ;msr,w (e) indicates the wet mapping
After the introduction, we present the BDS-3 PPP observation model function (Global Mapping Function) at the satellite elevation e [21]; Zw
for time transfer, positioning, and tropospheric delay retrieval. denotes the tropospheric ZWD; msr,g (e) refers to the tropospheric gradient
Following that the availability and accuracy of real-time BDS-3 orbit and
mapping function at the satellite elevation e; a is the satellite azimuth
clock are assessed and analyzed. Afterwards, data processing strategy
angle. gew and gns are the east–west and north–south tropospheric
and dataset are introduced. Furthermore, the performance of BDS-3 real-
gradient, respectively; Nr,IF13
s
is the float IF ambiguity, which consists of
time PPP time transfer, positioning and ZTD estimated is illustrated.
inter ambiguities Nr,1 and Nr,3
s s
, receiver UPD (br,1 and br,3 ), satellite UPD
Finally, the conclusions of our study are given.
(bs1 and bs3 ), receiver UCD (dr,IF13 ) and satellite UCD (dsIF13 ); ξsr,IF13 and
2. Methodology ψ sr,IF13 are the measurement noise. Then, the vector of unknow parame­
ters will be expressed as
We outlined the recovery of precise orbit and clock products firstly. X = [Δx, cdtr,IF13 , Zw , gns , gew , Nsr,IF13 ] (6)
Then, the undifferenced IF PPP model was used in BDS-3-only real-time
PPP. The performance of time transfer, positioning, and ZTD estimation In addition, the stochastic model is also a factor that affects BDS-3
will be examined by utilizing a static model. real-time PPP performance. The elevation-dependent weighting was
employed for our work. The weighting of IF model can be given as
following:
2.1. Recovery of orbit and clock

Real-time precise orbit and clock can be recovered by broadcast

ephemerides and SSR corrections. Hence, the real-time precise products

2
Y. Ge et al. Measurement 172 (2021) 108871

⎧ {
⎨ δ2 (i = j)
C(i, j) =
0 = j)
(i ∕ (7)
⎩
δ2 = w⋅(a2 + b2 cos2 (e))

where C(i, j) is the covariance; δ2 is the variance; w refers to the weight

fact for different type of BDS-3 satellite; a and b are the constant, which
are set to 0.003 m and 0.6 m in phase and pseudorange observations,
respectively [32]. w is an empirical weighting factor. The wis set to 1.0
for IGSO and MEO satellites and 10.0 for GEO satellites. In addition, the
dynamic model can be expressed as:
X k = Φk,k− 1 Xk− 1 + W k (8)

where Xk and Xk− 1 are the estimated parameters at epoch k and k-1;
Φk,k− 1 is coefficient matrix; W k is the covariance of the noise.
For precision positioning, the unknow parameters are expressed as
Eq. (6). In addition, the coordinates of stations are fixed for ZTD
estimation.

2.3. Precise time transfer

Fig. 2. Satellite-specifc daily percentage of the available BDS-3 real-time
For time transfer, the receiver clock offset cdtr,IF13 is more attractive products from DOY 80 to 120, 2020 for each BDS-3 satellite.
than other parameters. When the hardware delay, which contains the
delay of antenna, receiver and cables, is calibrated [22], the receiver
clock offset Di is the difference between local time Tlocal,i and the refer­
ence time refpre of real-time products, which can be described as

Di = Tlocal,i − refpre (9)

For station 1 and station 2, the time differentdTof two stations can be
obtained by Eq. (7), the reference time will be eliminated directly.
dT = D1 - D2
= Tlocal,1 − refpre − (Tlocal,2 − refpre ) (10)
= Tlocal,1 − Tlocal,2

3. Assessment of BDS-3 real-time product

As we know, the performance of PPP is determined by the quality of

real-time products. With this background, the accuracy and availability
Fig. 3. Mean values of the available BDS-3 real-time products from DOY 80 to
of BDS-3 real-time products were evaluated in this section. BDS-3 real-
120, 2020 for each BDS-3 satellite.
time stream was received from BKG with a period of 41-day from DOY
80 to 120, 2020.
3.2. Accuracy of BDS-3 real-time product

3.1. Availability of BDS-3 real-time product
Currently, the sample interval of BDS-3 real-time products
(SSRA00CNE0) is 5 s in CNES. Hence, 17280 epochs of the corrections
will be received for each satellite every day in theory. The percentage of
available real-time corrections for BDS-3 satellite with respect to the
theoretical number of epochs is calculated as the indicator to assess the
availability of BDS-3 real-time products. Fig. 2 exhibits the daily per­
centage of BDS-3 real-time products from DOY 80 to 120, 2020. In
addition, the mean availability values from DOY 80 to 120, 2020 for
each BDS-3 satellite are computed and presented in Fig. 3. Three find­
ings can be concluded. First, the availability of BDS-3 real-time products
is not very stable. The missing corrections presented a different level for
each BDS-3 satellite. There may be two main reasons for this phenom­
enon: (1) the real-time observations from reference stations for real-time
orbit and clock estimation are unstable at the server end; (2) the unex­
pected problem of the network may occur when receiving a stream from
NTRIP Caster at user end. Second, the mean availability values for each
BDS-3 satellite are basically equal, which reaches about 80%. Of course,
the availability of BDS-3 real-time products is not very well, but this can
be explained. Because the BDS-3 real-time products are still in the initial
stage, its stability needs to be further improved. We also look forward to
further improvement in the quality of real-time products.
BDS-3 real-time PPP performance is determined by the accuracy of
BDS-3 real-time products directly. Here, final precise products WUM
released by Wuhan University were selected and regarded as a reference
to assess BDS-3 real-time products. The mean RMS of the orbit errors
between real-time products and WUM products for each BDS-3 satellite
is displayed in Fig. 4 at RAC direction. Note that CNES does not contain
all BDS-3 satellites at the current stage, only the satellites presented in
the figure, such as IGSO and GEO. Interestingly, the RMS of C19-C24 is
smaller than other BDS-3 satellites. Mean RMS of BDS-2 are 0.060, 0.115
and 0.065 m at RAC direction. Additionally, the STD values of satellite
clock offset the difference between SSRA00CNE0 and WUM for BDS-3
are exhibited in Fig. 5. The STD of BDS-3 clock is basically less than
0.7 ns, with mean values being 0.455 ns. Furthermore, time transfer is
also affected by the frequency stability of the satellite clock. MDEV and
Hadamard deviation of BDS-3 satellite clock offset in SSRA00CNE0 and
WUM products is presented in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. Obviously, the MDEV of
BDS-3 real-time satellite clock is worse than that in final precise prod­
ucts, regardless of short-term or long-term stability. Note that the gross
error or abnormal of real-time products were eliminated and removed
before evaluation for real-time products.

3
Y. Ge et al.
Fig. 4. RMS of orbit error (SSRA00CNE0-WUM) in RAC directions for BDS-
3 satellites.
Fig. 5. STD values of BDS-3 satellites clock offset (SSRA00CNE0-WUM).
Fig. 6. MDEV of BDS-3 satellites clock offset in SSRA00CNE0 and WUM
products. Red color represents SSRA00CNE0 product; blue color indicates WUM
products. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
4. Experimental setup
MGEX tracking stations are described for the experiment first in this
section. Then, processing strategy is introduced for our work.
4.1. Dataset
To study the performance of BDS-3-only real-time PPP, 93 MGEX
tracking stations were selected and tested, which covered 7-day from
DOY 105 to 111, 2020. The sample interval was set to 30 s. The selected
4
Measurement 172 (2021) 108871
Fig. 7. Hadamard deviation of BDS-3 satellites clock offset in SSRA00CNE0 and
WUM products. Red color represents SSRA00CNE0 product; blue color indicates
WUM products. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
stations are listed in Fig. 8. Note that the stations marked as a blue color
will be used for precise positioning and ZTD estimation. The stations
marked as red color is utilized for precise time transfer because not all
stations are connected to high-precise atomic clocks. The information of
the selected station is listed in Table 1. BNC software was employed and
developed for receiving real-time stream, which was released from
CNES. Here, the real-time stream was received and stored in a file, the
observations file was downloaded from MGEX. Then, the performance of
BDS-3 PPP was presented as if it was calculated in a real-time model
using developed GAMP software [24]. In addition, BDS-3 PPP time
transfer with final precise product “WUM” released from Wuhan Uni­
versity was also investigated as a comparison to real-time BDS-3 PPP
time transfer. Since BDS-3 PPP positioning and ZTD estimation in post-
processing have been investigated by many researchers [12,25], hence,
the results will not be presented in our work.
4.2. Processing strategy
In the BDS-3 real-time PPP, the relativistic effects, tidal loadings,
Sagnac effect, and phase windup were corrected by the corresponding
models [26]. The receiver and satellite antenna PCOs and PCVs are
corrected by the IGS antenna file. The ZHD will be corrected as by the
models [27,28]. The receiver clock offset will be estimated as white
noise. The ambiguities are estimated as constant for each arc. Addi­
tionally, positioning accuracy and convergence time were utilized to
evaluate precise positioning. For precise time transfer and ZTD estima­
tion, the coordinates of stations will be fixed. The detailed information
of processing strategy is listed in Table 2.
Fig. 8. Distribution of 93 MGEX stations. The stations marked as red color were
employed for precise time transfer. The stations marked as blue color were used
for precise positioning and tropospheric delay retrieval. (For interpretation of
the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)
Y. Ge et al. Measurement 172 (2021) 108871

Table 1
The information of selected stations for BDS-3 time transfer.
Station Receiver Antenna

PTBB ASHTECH Z-XII3T ASH700936E

ROAG SEPT POLARX5TR LEIAR25.R4
USN7 ASHTECH Z-XII3T TPSCR.G5
HOB2 SEPT POLARX5 AOAD/M_T
HARB TRIMBLE NETR9 TRM59800.00
CEBR SEPT POLARX4 SEPCHOKE_MC
KOUR SEPT POLARX4 SEPCHOKE_MC
MGUE SEPT POLARX4 LEIAR25.R4
YEL2 SEPT POLARX4TR LEIAR25.R4

Table 2
Summary of processing strategies.
Items Processing strategies

Estimator Kalman filter

Cutoff angle 10◦
Observations Ionospheric-free observables
Signal selection BDS-3: B1I+B3I
Sampling rate 30 s
Phase wind-up Corrected [36]
Tropospheric delay ZHD: corrected [31] Fig. 9. Clock offset of PTBB and ROAG stations calculated from BDS-3 PPP with
ZWD: estimated using rand-walk model, GMF [32] mapping WUM products from DOY 105 to 111, 2020.
function
Tidal displacement IERS Conventions 2010
Relativistic effect Corrected [37]
Sagnac effect Corrected [37]
PCO and PCV Corrected by “atx” file
Receiver clock Estimated as white noise
offset
Station coordinates Estimated as constant
Phase ambiguities Estimate as constant for each continuous arc

5. Results and analysis

In this part, the performance of precise time transfer, positioning,

and ZTD estimation with BDS-3 real-time PPP were investigated and
analyzed. For time transfer, the RMS of the smoothed residuals, which is
the difference between the raw clock difference and smoothed clock
difference, was utilized to reflect the noise of the time-link [29]. Further,
the MDEV was also employed to evaluate frequency stability [30]. For
positioning, the positioning accuracy and the convergence time are
applied to assess BDS-3 real-time PPP performance. Here, we define
“convergence” as that 3D positioning error less than 0.2 m at the current
epoch and the following twenty epochs [31,32]. Additionally, the RMS
values of the difference ZTD values from BDS-3 PPP and IGS ZTD
products were used to assess ZTD performance.
Fig. 10. Clock offset of PTBB and ROAG stations calculated from BDS-3 PPP
with CNES real-time products from DOY 105 to 111, 2020.
5.1. BDS-3 real-time PPP time transfer
day, but the reference in real-time satellite clock may be changed
Figs. 9 and 10 exhibit the clock offset of PTBB and ROAG obtained
frequently [33]. Fortunately, the reference of satellite clock products
from BDS-3 PPP with WUM products, respectively. Three findings can be will not affect the performance of precise time transfer, see Eq. (10),
drawn here. First, we find that the clock offset calculated from BDS-3
which will be demonstrated below.
PPP with WUM product shows a significant system bias between the Figs. 11 and 12 display the time difference of ROAG-PTBB, USN7-
adjacent days, and it behaves similarly at different stations. However,
PTBB, CEBR-PTBB, and HARB-PTBB time-links derived from BDS-3 PPP
the time series of clock offset calculated from BDS-3 PPP with with WUM products. From the figures, we find that the time difference
SSRA00CNE0 product is continuing. This may be explained by two facts:
series of ROAG-PTBB and USN7-PTBB is stable, while that of CEBR-PTBB
(1) the final precise satellite clock product is estimated in one day as an and HARB-PTBB shows a linear trend. It can be explained by the fact that
arc. Furthermore, the reference time of clock products is not unified to
ROAG, PTBB, and USN7 are all located in the timing lab, which is
the same system time in WUM; hence, the reference time may be equipped with higher performance atomic clock than CEBR and HARB.
changed each day. (2) the satellite clock in SSRA00CNE0 product is
Figs. 13 and 14 present the clock difference of ROAG-PTBB, USN7-PTBB,
estimated with the Kalman filter method in real-time (http://www.
CEBR-PTBB, and HARB-PTBB time-links obtained from BDS-3 PPP with
ppp-wizard.net/ssr.html). Therefore, there is no obvious system bias at
SSRA00CNE0 product. The clock differences have re-converged in the
each day. Second, the time series in Fig. 9 is very stable each day, while
red box. That is caused by unstable of real-time products (see Figs. 11
in Fig. 10 present fluctuations and significant periodic characteristics.
and 13). Note that the absolute values of hardware delay at the receiver
The reasons for those are that the reference time in WUM is fixed at each

5
Y. Ge et al. Measurement 172 (2021) 108871

Fig. 11. Clock difference of ROAG-PTBB and USN7-PTBB time-links derived Fig. 13. Clock difference of ROAG-PTBB and USN7-PTBB time-links calculated
from BDS-3 PPP with WUM products from DOY 105 to 111, 2020. from BDS-3 PPP with SSRA00CNE0 product from DOY 105 to 111, 2020.

Fig. 14. Clock difference of CEBR-PTBB and HARB-PTBB time-links derived

Fig. 12. Clock difference of CEBR-PTBB and HARB-PTBB time-links obtained from BDS-3 PPP with SSRA00CNE0 product from DOY 105 to 111, 2020.
from BDS-3 PPP with WUM products from DOY 105 to 111, 2020.

end are not calibrated, which is not the focus of this work. Hence, the Table 3
values of HARB-PTBB time-link is very large because HARB is not cali­ RMS of smoothed residuals for the time difference calculated by BDS-3 PPP with
brated. Compared with the clock difference in Fig. 11, BDS-3 real-time SSRA00CNE0 and WUM products from DOY 105 to 111, 2020 at eight time-links
PPP solutions are relatively poor in Fig. 13. We can explain that the (unit: ns).
accuracy of BDS-3 real-time products still needs to be further improved. Time-links SSRA00CNE0 WUM
To reflect the noise level of BDS-3 PPP time transfer using WUM and ROAG-PTBB 0.012 0.007
SSRA00CNE0 product, the RMS of smoothed residuals between the raw USN7-PTBB 0.021 0.010
clock difference and smoothed clock difference using a Vondrak HOB2-PTBB 0.034 0.022
smoothing [29] is listed in Table 3 for eight time-links. We can find that HARB-PTBB 0.020 0.009
CEBR-PTBB 0.012 0.009
the RMS of PPP time transfer solutions (WUM) is better than 0.001 ns in KOUR-PTBB 0.020 0.007
post-processing mode, which outperforms the results of Galileo PPP in MGUE-PTBB 0.023 0.007
Zhang et al. [34]. Additionally, mean RMS values are 0.020 ns for BDS-3 YEL2-PTBB 0.020 0.008
real-time PPP time transfer, which is larger than that of BDS-3 PPP with
WUM products. It proved our previous conclusion.
that the frequency stability of time-links located in the timing lab out­
Figs. 15 and 16 display the MDEVs of eight time-links from BDS-3
performs other time-links. It can be concluded that the frequency sta­
PPP with WUM and SSRA00CNE0 products. The first conclusion is
bility of time-links is reflected by the atomic clock. The second

6
Y. Ge et al. Measurement 172 (2021) 108871

Fig. 15. MDEV of ROAG-PTBB, USN7-PTBB, CEBR-PTBB and HARB-PTBB time-links obtained from BDS-3 PPP using WUM (red) and CNES (black) SSRA00CNE0
product. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 16. MDEV of ROAG-PTBB, USN7-PTBB, CEBR-PTBB and HARB-PTBB time-links obtained from BDS-3 PPP using WUM (red) and CNES (black) SSRA00CNE0
product. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

conclusion is that the MDEVs for BDS-3 real-time PPP were similar to
post-processing PPP time transfer in the short-term, while it performs
worse in the long-term. It further supports our above findings. The fre­
quency stability at 120 s is 9.8 × 10-14 and 1.5 × 10-14 derived from real-
time PPP and is 7.4 × 10-14 and 9.6 × 10-14 derived from post-processing
PPP for ROAG-PTBB and USN7-PTBB time-links. At 122880 s, the fre­
quency stability is 2.3 × 10-15 and 4.4 × 10-15 derived from real-time
PPP and is 1.3 × 10-15 and 8.3 × 10-16 derived from post-processing
PPP for ROAG-PTBB and USN7-PTBB time-links.
5.2. Positioning performance
errors for BDS-3 real-time PPP in the east (E), north (N) and up (U) di­
rection. Additionally, the RMS of positioning and the convergence time
are displayed in Fig. 19 with box plot. Note that the RMS values are
computed after convergence. Post-processing BDS-3 PPP positioning has
been studied. Therefore, we don’t present it in this work. In the figure,
IQR represents the interquartile range. As shown in Fig. 19, the RMS
values are all less than 0.1 m. Hence, positioning accuracy can reach
centimeter level using BDS-3 real-time PPP. The mean and median RMS
values are (0.021, 0.010, 0.03) m and (0.15, 0.008, 0.023) m for E, N and
U components, respectively. Therefore, the performance of real-time
BDS-3 is slightly better than that of BDS-2 in the current state [3]. In
addition, the mean convergence time is about 48.2 min.

To evaluate the positioning performance of BDS-3 real-time PPP,

Kalman filter was reinitialized each day. Therefore, there are approxi­ 5.3. ZTD estimation
mately 651 tests for precise positioning. Taking the solutions of PTBB,
HARB, ABMF, ABPO, CEBR, HOB2, KAT1, and TLSE on DOY 105, 2020, BDS-3 real-time ZTD estimations were investigated and compared
as an example, Figs. 17 and 18 exhibits the time series of positioning with IGS final ZTD products.

7
Y. Ge et al. Measurement 172 (2021) 108871

Fig. 17. Positioning error of real-time BDS-3 PPP on PTBB, HARB, ABMF and ABPO stations at DOY 105, 2020.

Fig. 18. Positioning error of real-time BDS-3 PPP on CEBR, HOB2, KAT1 and TLSE stations at DOY 105, 2020.

Mean RMS values for the selected stations derived from BDS-3 real-
time PPP results are displayed in Fig. 20. As shown in Fig. 20, we can
find that the variations of ZTD accuracy in different stations reach a few
millimeters, which may be affected by the number of visible satellites.
Furthermore, the daily RMS values of all tests and the box plot are
illustrated in Fig. 21. Overall, the maximum and minimum values are
15.1 and 6.8 mm. Mean RMS values are 9.9 mm, which is similar to the
ZTD estimation from GPS-only real-time PPP in Lu et al. [19]. With the
continuous improvement of the quality of precise products, we expect
that BDS-3 real-time PPP can achieve higher performance.

6. Summary

Construction of China’s BDS-3 has been completed. As IGS MGEX

Fig. 19. The boxplot of RMS values of positioning errors and convergence time
for real-time BDS-3 PPP in static model.
gradually supports the tracking of BDS-3 satellites, research on BDS-3
becomes a hotspot. Importantly, since CNES provides BDS-3 real-time
products starting from DOY 79, 2020, it becomes possible to implement
BDS-3-only PPP in real-time. In our work, the availability and accuracy

8
Y. Ge et al.
Fig. 20. Mean RMS values of the difference between real-time PPP ZTD solutions and IGS ZTD products at 93 stations.
Fig. 21. Daily RMS values and boxplot of the difference between real-time
BDS-3 PPP ZTD solutions and IGS ZTD products.
of BDS-3 real-time products are assessed. Then, precise time transfer,
positioning, and ZTD estimation derived from BDS-3 real-time PPP are
investigated and analyzed with MGEX stations. Three main conclusions
are drawn.
First, the accuracy and availability of BDS-3 real-time products in
CNES are evaluated for 41-day. The availability of real-time products is
derived by calculating the percentages of the received products with
respect to the theoretical values. In addition, the accuracy of real-time
products is assessed by counting the RMS and STD values with respect
to WUM products for BDS-3 satellites. The experimental results indicate
that the mean availability values for each BDS-3 satellite are basically
equal, which reaches about 80%. Furthermore, mean RMS of orbit error
for 0.060, 0.115, and 0.065 m in RAC direction. Additionally, the mean
STD values of the BDS-3 clock are approximately 0.455 ns.
Second, precise time transfer is studied using SSRA00CNE0 /WUM
and 8 time-links. The results show that BDS-3 real-time PPP can be
utilized to time transfer. RMS values of smoothed residuals are applied
to assess the noise level of time transfer. Mean RMS values are 0.020 ns
for BDS-3 real-time PPP time transfer, which is larger than that of BDS-3
PPP with WUM products. Furthermore, the MDEVs for BDS-3 real-time
PPP were similar to post-processing PPP time transfer in the short-term,
while it performs worse in the long-term. At 122880 s, the frequency
stability is 2.3 × 10-15 and 4.4 × 10-15 derived from real-time PPP and is
1.3 × 10-15 and 8.3 × 10-16 derived from post-processing PPP for ROAG-
PTBB and USN7-PTBB time-links.
Third, positioning performance of BDS-3 real-time PPP is assessed by
utilizing 93 MGEX stations in a static model for 7-day. The numerical
results suggest that mean RMS values of positioning errors are 0.021,
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Measurement 172 (2021) 108871
0.010 and 0.03 m for E, N, and U components. In addition, the mean
convergence time is about 48.2 min. ZTD estimation is derived from
BDS-3 PPP with coordinate fixed. The mean RMS value is 9.9 mm, which
is similar to the ZTD estimation from GPS-only real-time PPP.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yulong Ge: Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing - original
draft. Shaoxin Chen: Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing -
original draft. Tao Wu: . Caoming Fan: Validation. Weijin Qin: Vali­
dation. Feng Zhou: Writing - review & editing. Xuhai Yang: Validation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
Our work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (11703033; 12073034), CAS “Light of West China” Program
(XAB2018YDYL01) and fund (OFW-19788-WX). We acknowledge the
CNES for supporting the real-time products and IGS MGEX.
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