Analysis and Mitigation of Crosstalk Effect on Coastal GNSS-R Code-Level Altimetry Using L5 Signals from QZSS GEO

Coastal Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) can be used as a valuable supplement for conventional tide gauges, which can be applied for marine environment monitoring and disaster warning. Incidentally, an important problem in dual-antenna GNSS-R altimetry is the crosstalk effect, which means that the direct signal leaks into the down-looking antenna dedicated to the reflected signals. When the path delay between the direct and reflected signals is less than one chip length, the delay waveform of the reflected signal is distorted, and the code-level altimetry precision decreases consequently. To solve this problem, the author deduced the influence of signal crosstalk on the reflected signal structure as the same as the multipath effect. Then, a simulation and a coastal experiment are performed to analyze the crosstalk effect on code delay measurements. The L5 signal transmitted by the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) from a geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellite is used to avoid the signal power variations with the elevation, so that high-precision GNSS-R code altimetry measurements are achieved in the experiment. Theoretically and experimentally, we found there exists a bias in proportion to the power of the crosstalk signals and a high-frequency term related to the phase delay between the direct and reflected signals. After weakening the crosstalk by correcting the delay waveform, the results show that the RMSE between 23-h sea level height (SSH) measurements and the in-situ observations is about 9.5 cm.

Automated summary

This study focused on the crosstalk effect in GNSS-R altimetry, analyzing its impact on code delay measurements through simulations and coastal experiments. By utilizing a specific signal source and correcting delay waveforms, high-precision altimetry measurements were achieved.