RINEX

Charter

The IGS/RTCM Receiver INdependent EXchange (RINEX) Committee was established in December of 2011 to update and maintain the RINEX format to meet the needs of the IGS and the GNSS Industry. Since the RINEX format is widely used by the GNSS scientific community and industry it was decided that it should be jointly managed by the IGS and the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services – Special committee 104 (RTCM-SC104). In this way the Committee consists of IGS scientific and institutional members and RTCM-SC104 industry members. Document approval will follow the IGS/RTCM-SC104 consensus-based approach and majority voting will be used if a consensus cannot be reached in a reasonable amount of time.

RINEX documents will continue to be freely distributed both by the IGS and RTCM-SC104.

As a result of the limitations of the previous RINEX formats, RINEX 4 was created in 2021 to provide generic and systematic support for all GNSS constellations, signals and observations. Given the needs of both the IGS and GNSS communities and the strengths of RINEX 4, all stations are encouraged to use RINEX 4 for their data submissions.

RINEX 3.05 was the last versions of the RINEX 3 format supported by the IGS/RTCM. While the previous versions can be used for station data files according to the local needs and requirements, they will not be evolved further. File submissions in these formats should be limited to cases of older equipment not supporting RINEX 4 file generation, to support specific application programs, and/or for parallel storage during a station’s transition phase.

Finally, the RINEX Committee together with the IGS Real-Time Committee will ensure that the GNSS station data stream formats, RTCM, remain fully consistent with the RINEX standard. Ensuring that full accuracy RINEX files can always be written from GNSS receiver data streams.

RINEX Committee Goals

1. Continue to update RINEX to support both operational and new navigation satellite systems based on their latest signal-in-space ICDs.
2. Actively coordinate with the IGS Real-Time Committee, IGS Infrastructure Committee, and the RTCM group to ensure the station data remain fully consistent with RINEX.
3. Communicate the goals, objectives, new releases and achievements of the RINEX Committee to the GNSS communities through the established emails lists, forums, conferences, etc.
4. Encourage suggestions and improvements from the GNSS users to the RINEX standard to accommodate the GNSS community data storage needs.
5. Conduct RINEX Committee meetings and teleconferences with the membership as needed.
6. Ensure attendance of a RINEX Committee representative to RTCM, IGS, and any other meeting or forum where our expertise is required.

[Revised Dec 2023]