Combining GPS and VLBI for inter-continental frequency transfer
Open accessAbstract
For decades the global positioning system (GPS) has been the only space geodetic technique routinely used for inter-continental frequency transfer applications. In the past very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) has also been considered for this purpose and the method's capabilities were studied several times. However, compared to GPS current VLBI technology only provides few observations per hour, thus limiting its potential to improve frequency comparisons. We therefore investigate the effect of combining GPS and VLBI on the observation level in order to draw the maximum benefit from the strength of each individual technique. As a test-bed for our study we use the CONT11 campaign observed in 2011. First we review the frequency transfer performance that can be achieved with independent technique-specific analyses, both with individual software packages and with the multi-technique software c5++. With this analysis approach both techniques, GPS and VLBI, show similar frequency link instabilities at the level of 10 −14 to 10 −15 (MDEV) on inter-continental baselines for averaging times of one day. Then we use the c5++ software for a combined analysis of GPS and VLBI data on the observation level. We demonstrate that our combination approach leads to small but consistent improvements for frequency transfer of up to 10%, in particular for averaging periods longer than 3000 s.
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The VLBI method is not the best in a short average period due to its low sampling rate.
“It is important to mention that the VLBI method is not the best in a short average period due to its low sampling rate (see Takiguchi et al. (2007); Rieck et al. (2010a); Hobiger et al. (2015).”
From Time transfer and significance of vertical land motion in relativistic geodesy applications: a review paper (2023) · cites this paper as Hobiger et al. (2015)
VLBI has been proposed to improve intercontinental frequency links and has been suggested for the comparison of optical clocks.
“Recently, VLBI has been proposed to improve intercontinental frequency links 28 and has been suggested for the comparison of optical clocks 29 .”
From Intercontinental comparison of optical atomic clocks through very long baseline interferometry (2021) · cites this paper as [28]
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Intercontinental comparison of optical atomic clocks through very long baseline interferometry
Pizzocaro, M., Sekido, M., Takefuji, K., Ujihara, H., Hachisu, H., Nemitz, N., Tsutsumi, M., Kondo, T., Kawai, E., Ichikawa, R., et al. (2021) · Nature Physics · doi:10.1038/s41567-020-01038-6 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Bagherbandi, M., Shirazian, M., Amin, H., & Horemuz, M. (2023) · Frontiers in Earth Science · doi:10.3389/feart.2023.1139211 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“It is important to mention that the VLBI method is not the best in a short average period due to its low sampling rate (see Takiguchi et al. (2007); Rieck et al. (2010a); Hobiger et al. (2015).”
- Authors
- Hobiger, T., Rieck, C., Haas, R., & Koyama, Y.
- Affiliations
- Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
- National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Hobiger, T
- ORCID
- Venue
- Metrologia
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2015-03-11
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 251-261
- ISSN
- 0026-1394 (ISSN-L)
- 1681-7575
- OpenAlex
- W2013861541
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 1.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Metrologia (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Chalmers Publication Library (Chalmers University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Chalmers Research (Chalmers University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Advanced Frequency and Time Standards
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › GNSS positioning and interference
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Ocean Engineering › Geophysics and Sensor Technology
- Keywords
- GPS, very long baseline interferometry, space geodesy, frequency comparison
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