Analysis of the propagation distance and delay of GNSS sea-scattered signals in tropospheric ducts

To facilitate the analysis of the propagation characteristics of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) sea-scattered signals in tropospheric ducts, it is necessary to implement the mutual conversion of the propagation distance and delay. For different constellation orbits and elevation angles of GNSS satellites, a suite of simulations on the variations in the code delays of the sea-scattered signals relative to the direct signals and the specularly reflected signals with the horizontal distance from the scattering point on the sea surface to the receiving antenna are made in this paper. The results indicate that the impacts of the Pseudo Random Noise (PRN) code rates on the code delays are more significant than those of the orbit altitudes, and the code delays are taken as the minimum values in the case of specular reflection. Furthermore, when the elevation angle is extremely low, its variation with the horizontal distance between the satellite and the receiving antenna cannot be neglected.