Time Transfer Experiments Based on BDS Code Observations

The Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is assuredly going to be used for remote clock comparisons and time dissemination, along with its primary use as a global navigation system. In its current preliminary stage, the performance of the BDS Common View (CV) time transfer has been investigated because of its simplicity and ease of operation. In the study presented here, four laboratories are involved in the experiments of BDS time transfer. First, the characteristics of the BDS code measurements are analysed, and it is verified that elevation-dependent delay variations exist in the BDS code-based measurements. When empirical correction values are applied, the quality of the BDS B2 code measurements is comparable to similar measurements that use GPS or Galileo signals. All the results of the four baselines show that using the BDS geostationary satellite signals results in the largest noise. We conclude that it is more suitable to restrict signals from the other BDS satellites, particularly the Europe to Asia long baselines.