PRECISE TIME TRANSFER USING GPS CARRIER PHASE-BASED TECHNIQUES

Jan Johansson and Kenneth Jaldehag SP Swedish National Testing and Research Institute, Box 857, S-501 15, Bors, Sweden ABSTRACT We have used the carrier phase signal from the satellites in the Global Positioning System (GPS) in an attempt to perform precise time and frequency transfer. The method is commonly used in the geodetic community to obtain mm-level precision over global distances. When estimating the station position other parameters must be solved for. Such parameters include, e.g., the atmospheric propagation delay as well as determination of clocks in the GPS-receivers. In this study we have focused on the evaluation of these clock solutions for two Swedish GPS stations with particular interest for the timing community. One station is collocated with the Swedish national laboratory for time and frequency and equipped with several cesium frequency standards. The other station is located at the Onsala Space Observatory where all receivers are connected to a hydrogen maser. 1. INTRODUCTION The GPS carrier phase data have been in extensive use in the geodetic and geophysical community for more than a decade. It is possible to reach mm-level precision even over global distances using GPS carrier phasebased relative positioning. Simultaneously, several byproducts have come available because of the modeling and the estimation technique used. For example, it is necessary to calculate or estimate the signal propagation path delay in the atmosphere in order to obtain accurate coordinates of a station. Products such as the amount of water vapor in the troposphere and the total electron content in the ionosphere are standard deliverables from several GPS data analysis centers. Another parameter, which has to be solved for in the estimation process, is the receiver clock. If the clock of the GPS receiver is based on the signal from an atomic frequency standard the parameter may be precisely determined. We might actually be able to study the relative performance of an external frequency standard connected to a high-quality GPS receiver. Recent developments in atomic frequency standards such as the cesium fountain and frequency standards based on linear ion traps calls for new methods in time and frequency transfer techniques. GPS carrier phasebased time transfer is considered to have the potential required [1]. In order to take full advantage of this technique, the delays of various parts of the receiving equipment must be stabilized and measured (includes e.g., cables, receiver, and antennas). Especially, serious hardware delay instabilities may result from temperature variations in the vicinity of the receiver system. For time laboratories it is essential to minimize this effect. 2. GPS NETWORKS AND PRODUCTS 2.1 The Swedish permanent GPS network. The Swedish permanent GPS network SWEPOS has been in continuos operation since August 1993. The network consists of 21 stations (see figure 1). The average station separation is 200 km covering a region from latitude 55 to 69 north [2]. The communication between the SWEPOS station and the network control center, hosted at the National Land Survey of Sweden, is managed via 64 kbit/s TCP/IP lines. With this real time data flow, SWEPOS is a multipurpose network with applications stretching from navigation to geophysics.

Figure 1: The Swedish network of continuously operational GPS stations, SWEPOS. Data from the permanent GPS stations are analyzed daily within several different projects such as studies of present-day glacial isostatic adjustment and sea-level rise, monitoring of water vapor in Earth troposphere, and for addressing reference frame issues (IGS/EUREF). In order accomplish this, the design of each site and the choice of hardware are important issues [2].

2.2 The International GPS Service (IGS). The IGS was founded to improve geodetic applications of GPS by providing an infrastructure for a global network of high quality and continuously operational GPS stations, data collection and archiving, and by making available products based on postprocessing of GPS data. The basic products include precise determination of satellite orbit parameters and clocks. In high-precision carrier phase-based relative positioning we need to obtain accurate information about the satellite orbital parameters and the satellite clocks. This can be obtained from the IGS with a lagtime of 24 hours up to 11 days depending on the level of accuracy needed. One may also determine these parameters simultaneously with other parameters but this requires a fairly big network of GPS tracking stations. 3. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP The two SWEPOS stations, Bors and Onsala, are of special interest to the time keeping community since they contribute to the realization of the atomic time scale and to the global reference frame. Data from several receivers hosted at these two stations have been used in order to investigate different aspects of precise frequency transfer. In this section we will briefly describe the hardware at each site and the strategy used for GPS data processing. 3.1 The GPS station at SP in Bors The station in Bors, located at the SP Swedish National Testing and Research Institute, is a member of SWEPOS and collocated with the national laboratory for time and frequency. Three cesium frequency standards are available at SP and one is used for the realization of UTC(SP). Data from two HP5071A highperformance and one Oscilloquartz 3200 cesium standards are contributing to TAI. The entire time and frequency laboratory is hosted in a temperaturecontrolled environment where the temperature is continuously monitored and known to be 24 0.5 C. The GPS station in Bors is hosted in the same laboratory and all the receivers are consequently in the same temperature-controlled environment. Similarly as all SWEPOS sites the Bors station is equipped with two Ashtech Z12 receivers both connected to same antenna through a power splitting device. These two receivers are both hooked up to TCP/IP and delivers real-time data to the SWEPOS operational center. In addition, two TurboRogue SNR-8000 geodetic receivers and three timing receivers also receive GPS signals from the same GPS antenna. The four geodetic GPSreceivers in Bors all utilizes external 5 MHz from the cesium frequency standard from which UTC(SP) is based.

Figure 2: The SWEPOS station at SP in Bors. The GPS station in Bors is unique in the sense that, in addition to the GPS receivers, also the antenna cable is in a temperature controlled environment. The antenna cable is placed in a water pipe where the temperature of the water is kept at 7 1 C. Thus, we do not expect any significant fluctuation in the electrical delay of the cable due to temperature variations. The three-meter high concrete pillar, on top of which the GPS antenna is mounted, is shown in figure 2. The entire pillar is temperature-controlled by means of electrical heating and cooling water. As at all other SWEPOS sites the Bors station has a Dorne-Margolin T choke-ring antenna. A hemispheric radome is used to protect the antenna. The GPS antenna is not included in the temperature-controlled environment and may contribute to the error budget. A temperature sensor was therefore installed next to the GPS antenna in order to model this effect. 3.2 The IGS station at Onsala Space Observatory The Onsala station, located at the radio astronomy facility Onsala Space Observatory, is a long-standing member of the global GPS-satellite tracking network, IGS and also a member of SWEPOS. The station is equipped with two TurboRogue SNR-8000, three Ashtech Z12 GPS receiver, and one Ashtech Z18, tracking both GPS and GLONASS satellites. All the receivers are connected to the same Dorne-Margolin B GPS antenna via a power splitting device. The antenna is mounted on top a one meter concrete pillar and covered by a hemispheric radome (see figure 3). The Onsala GPS-receivers operates using an external hydrogen-maser frequency standard which is equivalent to the frequency standard used in the radio-astronomy and geodetic observations with the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique. The GPS antenna, antenna cable, and GPS receivers are not in a temperature controlled environment. However, the temperature are carefully logged every half hour near the antenna, the antenna cable, and inside the cabin hosting the GPS-receivers.

at the level of a few parts in 1016 after less than 12 h averaging time. Figure 4 shows the Allan deviation based on the zero-baseline test over 3 days. Apparently, the slope of the Allan deviation is close to 1 and may be restricted by the measurement phase noise.

Figure 3: The GPS antenna and pillar system at the Onsala station in front of the radome-enclosed 20 meter radio telescope used for e.g., in geodesy VLBI. 3.3 The GPS data analysis The analysis of GPS data basically adapted traditional methods used in space geodesy and remote sensing applications. Even though data from about 50 stations have been processed, this study includes only the results obtained from the TurboRogue receivers at Onsala and Bors. The entire data set was analyzed using the GIPSY software [3], based on a Kalman filter approach. Station coordinates were constrained to their a priori value within a mm. The signal propagation path delay in the troposphere is modeled as a random-walk process with stochastic updates of one zenith delay parameter and two gradient parameters per stations every five minutes. We used dual-frequency measurements, which eliminate most of the delay caused by the ionosphere. The receiver clock parameters were updated every five minutes using a white-noise process with very loose (1 s) a priori sigma. We have used the most accurate products produced by the IGS community as described above. The satellite orbits from the IGS were held fixed. Finally, we should mention the inclusion of accurate modeling of Earth tides and ocean loading. 4. RESULTS 4.1 Zero baseline test In order to eliminate all error sources and demonstrate the capability of the method, we have used a zero baseline test. Two GPS receivers were connected to the same antenna and also utilizing external 5 MHz from the same cesium frequency standard. Basically, all other error sources were eliminated except those associated with instrumental biases within the two GPS receiver themselves, data registration, and data analysis methods. Under these ideal conditions the GPS carrier phase-based technique are capable of frequency transfer Figure 4: The Allan deviation as a function of averaging time between two receivers sharing the same antenna, antenna cable, and external cesium standard. 4.2 Zero-baseline with different frequency standards In order to test the capability of frequency transfer the two TurboRogue receivers in Bors were connected to different cesium standards (see fig. 5). However, both receivers were sharing the same GPS antenna. Using a Time Interval Counter (TIC) the 1 PPS from each GPS receiver and cesium standard can be monitored. Thus, we may compare the difference between the cesium 1 and the cesium 4 obtained from the readings from the TIC and from the GPS data analysis, respectively.
Cesium 1 5 MHz CS1 -phase stepper 5 MHz FDA 5 MHz Digital clock UTC(SP) TIC 1-pps 5 MHz Switch TR1 1-pps

Cesium 4

5 MHz CS4 1-pps

TR2

1-pps

Figure 5: The setup used in the zero-baseline frequency transfer between cesium 1 and 4. The dashed 5 MHzline corresponds to the setup used in section 4.1. The difference between these two methods over a period of almost three weeks in March 1999 is plotted in figure 6. The GPS solutions were obtained daily and based on daily IGS orbits. Jumps of up to 150 ps in the time series are clearly evident from day-to-day and related to the GPS solutions. The entire period have a standard deviation of 120 ps. However, if we just look over a one-day periods (one GPS solution) we obtain 60 ps. The IGS orbits have an uncertainty of about 5 cm. Since a jump of 100 ps is roughly equivalent to 3 cm, orbit errors are significant. The corresponding Allan deviation is shown in fig. 7. We have also included a line describing white frequency noise reflecting the cesium standards.

4.3 A 60 km baseline with different frequency standards Using the same time period as above, frequency-transfer between the stations in Bors and Onsala have been performed. The two stations are separated by approximately 60 km. In figure 7 the time difference between the two receivers is shown. The frequency offset has been removed before plotting. In the same figure we have included both the indoor and outdoor temperature at the Onsala GPS station. A correlation between, especially, the temperature in the GPS cabin and the time difference is evident. Similar hardware temperature dependence has been detected by other investigations. In figure 8, the Allan deviation is plotted. The results closely follow the 0.5 slope and one may conclude that this is the performance level of the cesium frequency standard. Variations, most likely caused by changes in the temperature at Onsala, are visible in fig. 8.
0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 TIC - GPS [ns] 0,1 0 -0,1 -0,2 -0,3 -0,4 -0,5 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 Day of Year 1999

frequency standards hosted at the same site and simultaneously we also compared these two cesium standards with a hydrogen maser over a 60 km baseline. The Allan deviation plots show that the performance level of cesium frequency standards is reached. However, there is a correlation between temperature variation in the vicinity of the GPS hardware at Onsala and the results obtained in the frequency comparison. The Onsala IGS stations will now be upgraded. The receivers, the antenna cable, and the antenna will be temperature controlled similar to the Bors site. Finally, we intend for Bors to become an IGS station within the framework of the new IGS/BIPM pilot project.
10 8 6
Bors - Onsala [ns]

30 20 Temperature [C] 10 0

4 2 -10 0 -2 -4 -6 78 79 80 81 82 83 Day of Year 1999 84 85 86 87 -20

GPS Onsala outdoor temperature Onsala indoor temperature

-30 -40

Figure 7: The time difference between Bors and Onsala GPS receivers over 9 days (lower curve). Also plotted are the outdoor (mid curve) and the indoor (top curve) temperature at the Onsala station.

Figure 6: The difference between the time interval counter and the GPS estimates.

Figure 8: Frequency stability obtained from a 60 km baseline between Onsala and Bors. 6. REFERENCES Figure 6: The Allan deviation plotted as a function of averaging time for a zero-baseline experiment where the two GPS receivers were setup according to fig. 5. 5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The capability of using GPS carrier phase-based techniques in time and frequency transfer applications has been demonstrated. In a zero-baseline test we have obtained an Allan deviation of about 4 x 10-16 when averaged over less than 12 hours. Furthermore, a GPS zero-baseline was used to compare two cesium
[1] G. Petit, C. Thomas, Z. Jiang, P. Uhrich, and F. Taris. Use of GPS Ashtech Z12T Receivers for Accurate Time and Frequency Comparisons. IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium, Pasadena, Ca, May 27-29, 1998. [2] H.-G. Scherneck, J.M.Johansson, J.X.Mitrovica, and J.L.Davis. The BIFROST Project: GPS determined 3-D displacement rates in Fennoscandia from 800 days of continuous observations in the SWEPOS network. Tectonophysics, 294, pp. 305-321, 1998. [3] F.H.Webb and J.F. Zumberge. An Introduction to GIPSY/OASIS-II. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1993.