A fast cold-start method of GPS receiver based on satellite orbit prediction

Abstract

Time to first fix (TTFF) is one of the crucial indicators to evaluate the performance of a GPS receiver. In this paper, an orbit prediction algorithm to reduce the TTFF of GPS receivers without a network connection is presented. Satellite orbit is predicted by numerically integrating the satellite’s equation of motion. Satellite’s initial position and velocity value, as well as the Earth’s polar motion parameters, used in prediction correspond to the locally collected previous broadcast ephemeris. As the solar radiation pressure (SRP) is one of the most critical factors causing orbit prediction error, an empirical SRP model with two parameters that change with the movement of satellite and Earth is also described. The presented algorithm is verified by GPS satellites using the initial conditions divided from three groups of broadcast ephemeris data. Simulation results show that, with the SRP model described in this paper the satellite’s position error limited to 30 meters within 7 days prediction.