Estimation of the single GPS-receiver bias using the gradient descent algorithm

The ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) can be obtained from processing measurements of the dual-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The main sources of errors in the TEC calculation are satellite and receiver biases. In this paper, we apply the gradient descent algorithm on the receiver bias estimation. The TEC is derived from measurements at 12 dual-frequency GPS stations in Thailand. The criterion of receiver bias estimation is based on the minimum sum of the vertical TEC (VTEC) standard deviation method. The results show that the maximum receiver bias value is approximately 3.69 ns at UDON station, while the minimum value is −5.91 ns at SRTN station. The accuracy of the receiver biases from this algorithm is compared with the reference method. The maximum percentage deviation is about 7.5% at SRTN station. The percentage deviation of the minimum sum of the VTEC between the reference method and the proposed method from all stations are less than 0.05%. Thus, the proposed algorithm is a viable option to estimate the receiver bias.