Distribution of Reference Stations: Initial Explore on the Optimal Selection Strategy

The Satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) is intended to provide real-time differential global navigation satellite system corrections with the high accuracy, availability, and integrity required for aviation applications. Since the performance of Satellite clock and ephemeris (SCE) corrections and Ionospheric range delay (IRD) corrections can vary dramatically depending on satellites and Ground reference stations (GRSs) geometry, therefore, we present a GRSs distribution optimized criteria and process to improve SBAS corrections performance. The present step-by-step optimized scheme using the average satellite surveillance dilution of precision and relative centroid metric availability of grid points as fitness values to determine the appropriate GRSs distribution to sufficiently meet the corrections requirements. The results show that the statistical mean RCM availability can reach more than 0.5518 for all IGPs and the coverage depth of GRSs in China and its surrounding areas is more than 25, which fully satisfies the requirement for solving SCE and IRD corrections.