A mean-squared-error condition for weighting ionospheric delays in GNSS baselines

Although ionosphere-weighted GNSS parameter estimation is a popular technique for strengthening estimator performance in the presence of ionospheric delays, no provable rules yet exist that specify the needed weighting in dependence on ionospheric circumstances. The goal of the present contribution is therefore to develop and present the ionospheric conditions that need to be satisfied in order for the ionosphere-weighted solution to be mean squared error (MSE) superior to the ionosphere-float solution. When satisfied, the presented conditions guarantee from an MSE performance view, when (a) the ionosphere-fixed solution can be used, (b) the ionosphere-float solution must be used, or (c) an ionosphere-weighted solution can be used.