The influence of tropospheric delay on GPS height variation in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Triggered by innovative field operation and system interoperability brought by the state-of-theart satellite-based positioning and navigation technology, Global Positioning System (GPS) has been widely used by professionals and practitioners to address diverse applications covering from the low cost and recreational uses to highly accurate and scientific purposes. As proper functioning of the receiver requires uninterrupted signal reception from at least four available satellites, the key limitations currently facing this fully-operational multi-satellites system is the latency of satellite-to-receiver signal arrival caused by the variability of tropospheric refractive indices, which in turn affects the accuracy of GPS measurements. This paper highlights the integration of GPS and ground meteorological campaigns performed within the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) campus and the Johor RTK network with the ultimate aim of better understanding on the subtleties of tropospheric delay and its impact on GPS height variation in Peninsular Malaysia. It was found that the tropospheric delay induces significant variations of about 42.2 cm to 119.5 cm in the accuracy of the GPS height determination. Greater attention during data processing is therefore recommended especially when dealing with high precision applications where the utmost possible accuracy is merely important and highly demanded.