3.3. Combining VLBI and GPS data on the observation level
Combination on the observation level reflects the concept of using all available geodetic data at a site in order to overcome potential deficits of a single technique. Since co-located instruments often share the same infrastructure (e.g. frequency standards) and are expected to experience the same environmental conditions, in particular the atmospheric conditions, one can estimate parameters related to these influences in a common model which only considers biases between the different techniques. It was demonstrated in [15] that the combination of GPS and VLBI on the observation level leads to a small but significant improvement of the geodetic target parameters and in particular improves the stability of the site coordinate time series. Since troposphere and clock parameters were estimated in [15] by a station-wise model it was obvious to investigate how the combination of these two techniques on the observation level can be utilized for the benefit of frequency transfer. As described in [15], troposphere parameters can be estimated with a common model that considers an offset between GPS and VLBI, caused by the height difference between the VLBI and GPS reference points, resulting in a hydrostatic delay difference which remains very stable over time.
On the other hand, a common clock model can be estimated by combining VLBI and GPS only if one considers that instrumental delays are not stable over time but are influenced by temperature-induced changes in reflections (cable multipath) and electrical lengths; for VLBI these can also depend upon the orientation of the antenna. It was suggested in [15] to estimate these inter-technique delay changes by a PLO model with a temporal resolution that is sufficient for representing at least a diurnal signal. A low temporal resolution, i.e. with a PLO step-width of more than 12 h, bears the risk of not modelling all inter-technique delay changes properly. However, a high temporal resolution reduces the benefit of combining GPS and VLBI since a large fraction of the information provided by the second technique gets absorbed into this parameter. Therefore, the proper choice of the temporal resolution for this crucial parameter is explored in section 4.3.
Another issue that arises from the combination of different observation types is related to the question on how to weight the data of each technique. In order to handle this problem with a proper stochastic model one needs to select an estimation strategy as described in the following.