Performance Analysis of Short Baseline Integer PPP (IPPP) for Time Comparison

In order to synchronize a remote system time to the reference time like Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), it is required to compare the time difference between the two clocks. GNSS Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is one of the most general geodetic positioning methods and can be used for time and frequency transfer applications which require more precise time comparison performance than GNSS code. However, the PPP technique has a main drawback of day-boundary discontinuity which comes from the PPP model that the code measurements are applied to resolve the floating carrier-phase ambiguities. The Integer PPP (IPPP) technique is one of the methods which has been studied to compensate the day-boundary discontinuities exited in the conventional PPP. In this paper, we investigate the time and frequency capabilities of PPP and IPPP by using the measurement data obtained from two time transfer receivers which are closely located and using common reference 1 Pulse Per Second (PPS) and RF signals. From the experiment, it is investigated that the IPPP method can effectively compensate the day-boundary discontinuities without producing frequency offset. However, the PPP method can generating frequency offset which can severely degrade the time comparison performance with long-term period data.