LEO Enhanced Global Navigation Satellite System (LeGNSS): progress, opportunities, and challenges

Abstract

With the completion of Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), the world has begun to enjoy the Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) services of four Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). In order to improve the GNSS performance and expand its applications, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Enhanced Global Navigation Satellite System (LeGNSS) is being vigorously advocated. Combined with high-, medium-, and low- earth orbit satellites, it can improve GNSS performance in terms of orbit determination, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) convergence time, etc. This paper comprehensively reviews the current status of LeGNSS, focusing on analyzing its advantages and challenges for precise orbit and clock determination, PPP convergence, earth rotation parameter estimation, and global ionosphere modeling. Thanks to the fast geometric change brought by LEO satellites, LeGNSS is expected to fundamentally solve the problem of the long convergence time of PPP without any augmentation. The convergence time can be shortened within 1 minute if appropriate LEO constellations are deployed. However, there are still some issues to overcome, such as the optimization of LEO constellation as well as the real time LEO precise orbit and clock determination.