Assessing BeiDou-3 PPP-B2b with Signal-in-Space Ranging Error (SISRE) and Its Performances in Positioning and ZTD Estimation

The PPP-B2b service of BeiDou-3 enables real-time precise point positioning (RT-PPP) through correction information contained in B2b signals, circumventing the reliance on ground-based network infrastructures. This study comprehensively evaluates the accuracy of PPP-B2b correction parameters and their impact on positioning and tropospheric zenith total delay (ZTD) estimation. The PPP-B2b DCB products exhibit good consistency with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) reference, with average differences below 1.2 ns and standard deviations within 0.11 ns, indicating comparable performance to CAS products. For BDS-3 satellites, PPP-B2b achieves a radial orbit accuracy of 0.07 m and a clock standard deviation of 0.17 ns, outperforming the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) real-time products in both aspects. For GPS satellites, the corresponding accuracies are 0.06 m and 0.20 ns. Kinematic PPP experiments using combined GPS and BDS-3 observations yield horizontal and vertical accuracies of 4.3 cm and 2.8 cm, respectively, comparable to CNES results, while the BDS-3-only solution performs better than CNES but is still slightly inferior to the CODE. The ZTD estimation accuracy reaches 1.8 cm for GPS+BDS-3 combinations and 2.3 cm for BDS-3-only cases. Overall, PPP-B2b delivers centimeter-level performance in real-time positioning and ZTD estimation, demonstrating strong potential as an independent, space-based precise service, though further improvement is required for GPS-only applications.