The retrieval of atmosphereric water vapor based on Beidou Ultra-rapid precise ephemeris using different mapping functions

Abstract

The atmospheric mapping function is an important model to convert the total tropospheric delay on the slant path of satellite signal into the zenith tropospheric delay. It is important to choose the appropriate mapping function to improve the accuracy of water vapor estimation. Beidou observation data in different seasons from 6 MGEX stations were processed using GAMIT 10.7 software. Three mapping functions (NMF/GMF/VMF1) were used in the estimating the atmospheric precipitable water vapor (PWV) based on Beidou Ultra-rapid precise ephemeris. The results of PWV/BDS were compared with the PWV/GPS. The experiments showed that the average bias between PWV/BDS and PWV/GPS is about 1-5mm. The GMF mapping function is slightly better than NMF and VMF1 in the retrieval of atmosphereric water vapor.