Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2006
The upcoming GNSS Galileo, with its new satellite geometry and frequency plan, will not only bring many benefits for navigation and positioning but also help to improve ionosphere delay estimation. This paper investigates ionosphere estimation with Galileo and compares it with the results from GPS-only and combined GPS-Galileo. The standard deviation of the Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) at a certain location can improve significantly by 40 per cent. Various Galileo configurations are considered to assess the differences in frequency plan and signals to be used. The IGS network, which is involved in producing the current IGS Global Ionosphere Map (GIM) is used in the simulation for more realistic results. A more accurate GIM will in its turn improve navigation and positioning performance.