Implementation and Performance Evaluation of a Vector-based Receiver during Strong Equatorial Scintillation on Dynamic Platforms

Abstract

Strong equatorial scintillation is known to pose challenges for receiver carrier tracking with its simultaneous fast phase changes and deep fading. For applications on dynamic platforms such as aircrafts, a scalar-based carrier tracking loop will be further stressed by the platform dynamics and the dynamic vibration-induced phase noise. A vector-based structure benefits from the inter-channel correlation on the platform dynamics and oscillator noise with improved robustness and accuracy, while tightly linking the navigation performance with tracking performance. It is therefore necessary to gain knowledge of the priority between the two conflicting concerns in this scenario: the need to make use of more satellites to achieve better navigation geometry, and the need to drop or lower the weight of the measurements from satellites affected by severe scintillation. This paper evaluates the performance of a vector-based GNSS receiver under different satellite weighing implementations on dynamic platforms while operating during strong equatorial scintillation. A recently developed physics-based scintillation simulator is used to generate realistic strong equatorial scintillation signals from multiple satellites observed on dynamic platforms for the evaluation. The results show during strong equatorial scintillation, simply dropping the scintillationcontaminated measurements achieve a better performance in positioning.