Fine Doppler shift acquisition algorithm for BeiDou software receiver by a look-up table

Abstract

The BeiDou software receiver uses the fast Fourier transform (FFT) to perform the acquisition. The Doppler shift estimation accuracy should be less than 500 Hz to ensure satellite signals to enter a locked state in the tracking loop. Since the frequency step is usually 500 Hz or larger, the Doppler shift estimation accuracy cannot guarantee that satellite signals are brought into a stable tracking state. The straightforward solutions consist in increasing the sampling time and using zero-padding to improve the frequency resolution of the FFT. However, these solutions intensify the complexity and amount of computation. The contradiction between the acquisition accuracy and the computational load leads us to research for a more simple and effective algorithm, which achieves fine acquisition by a look-up table. After coarse acquisition using the parallel frequency acquisition (PFA) algorithm, the proposed algorithm optimizes the Doppler shift estimation through the look-up table method based on the FFT results to improve the acquisition accuracy of the Doppler shift with a minimal additional computing load. When the Doppler shift is within the queryable range of the table, the proposed algorithm can improve the Doppler shift estimation accuracy to 50 Hz for the BeiDou B1I signal.