Generation of Ionospheric Delay in Time Comparison for a Specific GEO Satellite by Using Bernese Software

Time comparison is necessary for the verification and synchronization of the clock. Two-way satellite time and frequency (TWSTFT) is a method for time comparison over long distances. This method includes errors such as atmospheric effects, satellite motion, and environmental conditions. Ionospheric delay is one of the significant time comparison error in case of the carrier-phase TWSTFT (TWCP). Global Ionosphere Map (GIM) from Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) is used to compare with Bernese. Thin shell model of the ionosphere is used for the calculation of the Ionosphere Pierce Point (IPP) between stations and a GEO satellite. Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) and Koganei (KGNI) stations are used, and the analysis is conducted at 29 January 2017. Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) which is generated by Bernese at the latitude and longitude of the receiver by processing a Receiver Independent Exchange (RINEX) observation file that is generated from the receiver has demonstrated adequacy by showing similar variation trends with the CODE GIM. Bernese also has showed the capability to produce high resolution IONosphere map EXchange (IONEX) data compared to the CODE GIM. At each station IPP, VTEC difference in two stations showed absolute maximum 3.3 and 2.3 Total Electron Content Unit (TECU) in Bernese and GIM, respectively. The ionospheric delay of the TWCP has showed maximum 5.69 and 2.54 ps from Bernese and CODE GIM, respectively. Bernese could correct up to 6.29 ps in ionospheric delay rather than using CODE GIM. The peak-to-peak value of the ionospheric delay for TWCP in Bernese is about 10 ps, and this has to be eliminated to get high precision TWCP results. The $10^{-16}$ level uncertainty of atomic clock corresponds to 10 ps for 1 day averaging time, so time synchronization performance needs less than 10 ps. Current time synchronization of a satellite and ground station is about 2 ns level, but the smaller required performance, like less than 1 ns, the better. In this perspective, since the ionospheric delay could exceed over 100 ps in a long baseline different from this short baseline case, the elimination of the ionospheric delay is thought to be important for more high precision time synchronization of a satellite and ground station. This paper showed detailed method how to eliminate ionospheric delay for TWCP, and a specific case is applied by using this technique. Anyone could apply this method to establish high precision TWCP capability, and it is possible to use other software such as GIPSYOASIS and GPSTk. This TWCP could be applied in the high precision atomic clocks and used in the ground stations of the future domestic satellite navigation system.