A Novel Approach for GNSS Signal Tracking Based on Sliding Mode Control

Abstract

Designing a robust carrier tracking loop for GNSS receivers is a challenging task under strong scintillation, multipath, clock uncertainty, interference, and vehicle high dynamics. The conventional tracking methods such as proportional integral filter (PIF), Wiener filter (WF), and Kalman filter (KF) are known to perform well under given GNSS signal model parameters and noise characteristics. If it is not the case, then performance deteriorates and may result in loss of the carrier lock. To circumvent this problem, we propose a robust control and filtering method based on the well-known sliding mode approach. In this paper, a sliding mode control and state estimation framework is developed for GNSS carrier tracking. The efficacy of the proposed method is proved by simulation studies for GPS(L1) signal. From static to high dynamics operating cases are simulated for proving its usage on the high dynamics vehicles such as high speed trains, flighter jets, and missile systems. The achieved results are promising for use of the proposed method on these vehicles and the receiver operating in the adverse (weak GNSS signal) conditions.