A Study of Seasonality of GNSS Positioning Utilisation Risk in Arctic Region

The ubiquitous and widespread implementation of Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS) in development, operation, and usage of the GNSS-based applications requires a robust risk model providing the probability that the GNSS positioning accuracy would not meet the requirements of a particular GNSS application. Our group has already proposed the Probability-of-Occurrence (PoO) model, a Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function (CCDF) -based model as the solution of the problem. Here the PoO model is validated in terms of the potential seasonality using the experimental GNSS observations in the scenario of usage in the economically attractive Arctic region. It is shown that the seasonal PoO models/curves does not differ significantly from the annual PoO model/curve. Additionally, solar and space weather disturbances are identified as a dominant source of the GNSS utilisation risk, overcoming the systemic seasonality effects of the Earth's atmosphere. The PoO is confirmed as a seasonality agnostic risk model, which enables the GNSS application developers, operators, and users to establish the QoS of their applications, and to assess the risk of their failure due to GNSS PNT performance degradation caused by the ionospheric effects.