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GNSS Format Descriptions

Motivation

GNSS data sets follow a well defined set of standards. These standard formats provide many advantages, the most obvious being it is easy to exchange. ASCII and binary formats both satisfy this function, but ASCII does it with greater generality because binary formats are computer operating system dependent. These formats have evolved to satisfy growing requirements, satellite systems, capabilities, etc.


But reading a standard format description is a tough task. This section aims to provide the community a reliable and powerful tool which explains these necessary standards in a very easy and friendly way, aided with explanatory tooltips. These tooltips will be triggered automatically when the mouse is hovered over a field. These explanations include the standard description of the field, the format in which is written and, if applicable, its units.


Get familiar with the different format standard(s) involved in the GNSS data sets, take your time to analyse in detail particularities and characteristics of the GNSS systems, observables, versions, models through the different data sets provided. Please email any suggestions, comments or requests to us.

gFD Quiz

New to GNSS field? How much do you master the different GNSS standards? Do you think you know all the particularities of your daily used format standard? Discover it through the GNSS Format Descriptions (gFD) Quiz prepared by gAGE. The proposed Quiz is based on the explained GNSS formats gathered here. There are no complicated questions to answer, the test guides your mouse through the different formats involved. Click here to take the gFD Quiz now!

This quiz is based on the work of Adria Rovira-Garcia. The gFD Quiz is intentend to be used worldwide: not only by student of professionals starting in the GNSS field, but also to senior researches that need to refresh their knowledge on some particular standard, or need to move to a new format.

 

Explained Formats

 

File Type Version Version Date File Name Description
Antenna 1.3 20 September 2006 ANTEX v1.3.html ANTEX format for Phase Center Offsets (PCOs) and Phase Center Variations (PCVs) of geodetic GNSS antennae.
1.4 15 September 2010 ANTEX v1.4.html ANTEX format for Phase Center Offsets (PCOs) and Phase Center Variations (PCVs) of geodetic GNSS antennae.
Clocks 3.0 14 November 2006 RINEX CLOCKS v3.00.html RINEX format for satellite and receiver clock offsets determined by processing data of a GNSS tracking network.
3.04 8 July 2017 RINEX CLOCKS v3.04.html RINEX format for satellite and receiver clock offsets determined by processing data of a GNSS tracking network.
Ionospheric 1.00 25 February 1998 IONEX v1.0.html IONEX format for ionosphere models determined by processing data of a GNSS tracking network.
Navigation 2.11 10 December 2007 GLONASS Navigation Rinex v2.11.html RINEX format for GLONASS Navigation Message File.
2.11 10 December 2007 GPS Navigation Rinex v2.11.html RINEX format for GPS Navigation Message File.
3.01 22 June 2009 SBAS Navigation Rinex v3.01.html RINEX format for the complete broadcast data of Space-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS).
3.04 23 November 2018 MGEX Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for the complete broadcast data of IGS Multi-GNSS EXperiment (MGEX).
3.04 23 November 2018 GPS Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for GPS Navigation Message File.
3.04 23 November 2018 GLONASS Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for GLONASS Navigation Message File.
3.04 23 November 2018 GALILEO Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for GALILEO Navigation Message File.
3.04 23 November 2018 BDS Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for BDS Navigation Message File.
3.04 23 November 2018 QZSS Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for QZSS Navigation Message File.
3.04 23 November 2018 IRNSS Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for IRNSS Navigation Message File.
3.04 23 November 2018 SBAS Navigation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for the complete broadcast data of Space-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS)
3.05 1 December 2020

GPS Navigation Rinex v3.05.html

 RINEX format for GPS Navigation Message File.
3.05 1 December 2020

GLONASS Navigation Rinex v3.05.html

 RINEX format for GLONASS Navigation Message File.
3.05 1 December 2020 GALILEO Navigation Rinex v3.05.html RINEX format for GALILEO Navigation Message File.
3.05 1 December 2020 BDS Navigation Rinex v3.05.html RINEX format for BDS Navigation Message File.
3.05 1 December 2020 QZSS Navigation Rinex v3.05.html RINEX format for QZSS Navigation Message File.
3.05 1 December 2020 IRNSS Navigation Rinex v3.05.html RINEX format for IRNSS Navigation Message File.
3.05 1 December 2020 MGEX Navigation Rinex v3.05.html RINEX format for the complete broadcast data of IGS Multi-GNSS EXperiment (MGEX).
3.05 1 December 2020 SBAS Navigation Rinex v3.05.html RINEX format for the complete broadcast data of Space-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS)
4.00 1 December 2021 MGEX Navigation Rinex v4.00.html RINEX format for the complete broadcast data of IGS Multi-GNSS EXperiment (MGEX).
4.00 - GPS Navigation Rinex v4 (CNAV).html Unofficial RINEX format by MGEX to save LNAV and CNAV GPS navigation messages.
Observation 2.10 10 December 2007 Observation Rinex v2.10.html RINEX format for GPS and GLONASS observations.
2.11 10 December 2007 Observation Rinex v2.11.html RINEX format for GPS and GLONASS observations.
3.01 22 June 2009 Observation Rinex v3.01.html RINEX format for GPS and GLONASS observations.
3.04 23 November 2018 Observation Rinex v3.04.html RINEX format for Multi-GNSS observations.
3.05 1 December 2020 Observation Rinex v3.05.html RINEX format for Multi-GNSS observations.
4.00 1 December 2021 Observation Rinex v4.00.html RINEX format for Multi-GNSS observations.
Precise Products C 12 February 2007 SP3 Version C.html SP3 format for GNSS orbit and clock solutions.
D 21 February 2016 SP3 Version D.html SP3 format for GNSS orbit and clock solutions.
SBAS 2.10 14 September 2004 SBAS_Rinex_B.html RINEX‐type Exchange File for GEO SBAS Broadcast Data.
EMS 2.0 26 November 2004 EMS_v2.0.html EGNOS Message Service for offline analysis and non-SoL/non-real-time applications
Multi-band 9 October 2020 EMS_multiband.html EGNOS Message Service for offline analysis and non-SoL/non-real-time applications
Solution 2.02 1 December 2006 SINEX_v2.02.html SINEX format for GNSS solutions.

 

About the Data

Variable Type

FORTRAN Format

Example

Description
Integer In I4 : '2010' A 'n' position integer.
Note it can be specified the minimum lenght of the integer by including a number after the floating point symbol. This forces the number to be padded, even with zeros.
I5 : ' 2010'
I3.3 : '010'
Float Fn.m F8.2 : '-1402.50' A 'n' position double with 'm' decimal positions.
Note 'n' includes sign space and the floating point symbol.
F8.2 : ' 1402.50'
F7.3 : ' 44.000'
Exponential Dn.m D12.2 : '-1402.50D+02' A 'n' position exponential double with 'm' decimal positions.
Note 'n' is the total lenght of the exponential number, this includes sign space, the floating point symbol and the exponent itself.
In order to account for the various compilers, E,e,D, and d are allowed letters between the fraction and exponent of all floating point numbers in the navigation message files of RINEX v3.01. Zero-padded two-digit exponents are required, however.
D12.4 : '-0.1966D+06'
E12.3 : '44.000E+006'
e12.3 : '-44.000E+006'
Characters An A7 : 'GLONASS' A 'n' position character.
Note this includes empty characters.
A2: ' E'
Empty Fields nX 1X : ' ' A 'n' empty characters.
The fields that are defined as blanks are reserved fields which must remain blank as may be used in future versions.

 

RINEX FILENAMES DESCRIPTION (from v3.02 onwards)

Field

Field Description

Example

Required?

Comment/Example

<SITE/
STATION-
MONUMENT/
RECEIVER/
COUNTRY or
REGION>		 XXXXMRCCC
Where:
XXXX - 4 character
site designation
M – monument or
marker number (0-9)
R – receiver number
(0-9)
CCC – ISO Country
or Region code
(Total 9 characters)		 ALGO00CAN Yes File name supports a maximum
of 10 monuments at the same
station and a maximum of 10
receivers per monument.
Country or Region code to
follow: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3
<DATA SOURCE> Data Source
R – From Receiver
data using vendor or
other software
S – From data
Stream (RTCM or
other)
U – Unknown
(1 character)		 R Yes This field is used to indicate how
the data was collected either from
the receiver at the station or from
a data stream
<START TIME> YYYYDDDHHMM
YYYY – Gregorian
year 4 digits,
DDD – day of Year,
HHMM – hours and
minutes of day
(11 characters)		 2012150
1200		 Yes For GPS files use: GPS Year, day
of year, hour of day, minute of
day (see text below for details)
Start time should be the nominal
start time of the first observation.
GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, etc
use respective system time.
<FILE PERIOD> DDU
DD – file period
U – units of file
period.
File period is used to
specify
intended
collection period of
the file.		 15M Yes File Period
15M–15 Minutes
01H–1 Hour
01D–1 Day
01Y–1 Year
00U-Unspecified
<DATA FREQ>

DDU

DD – data frequency
U – units of data rate
(3 characters)

 05Z Mandatory
for RINEX
Obs. Data.
NOT
required
for
Navigation
Files.		 XXC – 100 Hertz
XXZ – Hertz,
XXS – Seconds,
XXM – Minutes,
XXH – Hours,
XXD – Days
XXU – Unspecified
<DATA TYPE >

DD
DD – Data type

(2 characters)

 MO Yes

Two characters represent the data
type:
MN - Mixed Obs. (All GNSS
Constellations tracked)
GO - GPS Obs.
RO - GLONASS Obs.
EO - Galileo Obs.
JO - QZSS Obs.
CO - BDS Obs.
IO - NavIC/IRNSS Obs.
SO - SBAS Obs.
MN - Mixed Nav. (All GNSS Constellations tracked)
GN - GPS Nav.
RN - GLONASS Nav.
EN - Galileo Nav.
JN - QZSS Nav.
CN - Beidou Nav.
IN - NavIC/IRNSS Nav.
SN - SBAS Nav.
MM-Meteorological Observation
<FORMAT>

FFF
FFF – File format

(3 characters)

 rnx Yes Three characters indicating the
data format:
rnx - RINEX file
crx - Hatanaka Compressed
RINEX file
<COMPRESSION> 34 or 35 gz, bz2, zip No Suggested to use gzip, but other
options are of course bzip2 and
zip , for example.
Sub Total 34 or 35
Separators (7 characters –Obs.
File)
(6 characters –Nav.
File)		 underscore between all fields
and “.” Between data type and
file format and the compression
method
Total 41-42(Obs. File)
37-38 (Nav. File)		 Mandatory IGS RINEX obs.
Characters