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Sunnyvale, CA | This past year we enjoyed very good GPS performance, partly because of the improvement in GPS receivers over the last few years, and partly because of the low sunspot numbers. When the next sunspot cycle begins and the sunspots increase, GPS performance will degrade. The degree of performance degradation will depend upon the number of sunspots. This link is to an article discussing the possibilities for the next solar cycle.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14652-suns-face-virtually-s...
When the sunspots increase problems will be with those users of RTK who are working at large distances from a single base station. The error will increase with distance at a greater rate than currently, and the inability to lock-in at long ranges will become more frequent. The use of Network VRS RTK solutions will greatly mitigate this effect because of the improved ionomodelling in the VRS correction stream.
The other users who will see decreased performance, are users of WAAS. At the last solar cycle peak, WAAS had some serious issues, some of which will be improved due to improved algorithms in the WAAS system, however, WAAS performance will not be as good as it is now with no sunspots. | |
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Sun spots and GPS
