Software Receiver Research Articles

Employing a two stage process with resampling, decision rules, and fine acquisition to optimize the acquisition stage of GNSS receiver performance

The optimal design of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) software receivers should enable the accurate estimation of the receiver's position, velocity, and time under various environmental conditions. The software receivers consist of three sections: acquisition, tracking, and navigation. This paper specifically centers on the acquisition sections of the Global Positioning System (GPS), Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), BeiDou, and Galileo satellite navigation systems. The acquisition stage necessitates the prompt and precise transmission of the satellite list within the receiver's view, along with Doppler frequency estimation and phase code offset, to facilitate a seamless transition to the tracking stage with the utmost speed and accuracy. Conventional acquisition demonstrates commendable speed, but lacks accuracy, especially in environments with a low Carrier-to-Noise Ratio (CNR). Contrastingly, precise acquisition methods will impede the speed of the acquisition stage. In this paper, a novel acquisition method is proposed. By integrating concepts like resampling, two-stage acquisition, and fine-acquisition, this method enables the attainment of higher accuracy without compromising speed. The results demonstrate that the proposed method enhances accuracy by 7.275% compared to conventional methods and boosts speed by 76.97% compared to methods focused on accuracy improvement.

IRNSS/NavIC software receiver design with squared correlators code discriminator (SCCD) multipath mitigation method

IRNSS/NavIC software receiver design with squared correlators code discriminator (SCCD) multipath mitigation method

Airborne GNSS reflectometry for coastal monitoring of sea state

Sea level rise and sea state variability, resulting from climate change and global warming, are critical research areas. However, current techniques for observing and monitoring these phenomena have limitations in terms of spatial and temporal resolution, particularly in dynamic coastal zones. GNSS Reflectometry (GNSS-R) is an emerging bistatic radar-based technique that utilizes the GNSS direct (transmitter-receiver) and reflected (transmitter-reflection point-receiver) signals to extract properties of the reflecting surface. This study explores the potential of airborne GNSS-R as a means to monitor sea state in coastal areas by using the Doppler spread and reflectivity as observables. The paper aims to derive a sea state factor from the reflected signal power and the Doppler shift distribution to analyze its correlation with wind speed and significant wave height data obtained from the ERA5 model. The experiment involved four flights conducted along the coast between Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in July 2019. A GNSS software receiver processes the direct and reflected signals, tracking and re-tracking the reflected signals with the aid of a specular reflection model. The resulting in-phase and quadrature components are analyzed in the spectral domain every minute to estimate the power, the surface reflectivity, and the relative Doppler shift. The findings reveal that the sea state factor and Doppler spreading are sensitive to sea state conditions, correlated with the ERA5 parameters, and influenced by the elevation angle of GNSS satellites. At low elevations (E<10°), the sea state factor demonstrates an inverse relationship (anti-correlation) with the wind speed and significant wave height, while the Doppler distribution shows a correlation with these parameters. Both correlations decrease with increasing elevation angle. This research underscores the potential of airborne GNSS-R for monitoring sea state variability in coastal areas enhancing our understanding of the relationships between GNSS-R measurements and sea state parameters.

Kalman Filter with Adaptive Covariance Estimation for Carrier Tracking under Weak Signals and Dynamic Conditions

Kalman filtering (KF)-based tracking has been commonly employed in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers to achieve robust tracking. However, under more serious conditions, such as severe strength attenuation and abrupt dynamic coexisting environments, it is difficult for KF-based tracking to keep tracking well due to the fixed noise statistics. To further enhance the carrier tracking performance, this paper proposes an adaptive KF carrier tracking method for resisting signal strength fading and high dynamic environments. The proposed method introduces the adaptive factor to adjust the process noise covariance to accommodate the noise statistics in actual variable situations. Moreover, we apply the chi-square hypothesis test to detect system stability. The adaptive factor is only applied when the system is not stable, which can enhance computational efficiency. The proposed method is conducted in the GPS L1 software receivers. According to the results, the proposed algorithm can improve the robustness in tracking performance compared with other tracking methods under signal serious fading and high dynamic conditions. Using the proposed method, GNSS receivers’ navigation performance can be improved under complex conditions.

GPS Receiver Simplification for Low cost Applications and Multipath Mitigation Analysis on SDR based Re configurable Software Receiver

Many modern position-based applications rely heavily on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Most applications require precise position data obtained through sophisticated hardware with a high computational capacity in the receiver. Some cost-effective applications may not require precise position data and require less complex signal processing. The use of efficient hardware and signal processing techniques to reduce the overall cost of a GNSS receiver is an active research topic. This paper considers Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation and proposes two factors to reduce the receiver complexity: sampling frequency and the number of tracking channels. A Keysight GNSS signal generator to record GPS signals, a Software Defined Radio board and a software-based GPS receiver are used in the experimentation. The sampling frequencies are 40, 20, 10 and 5 MHz considered, and tracking channels are reduced from 12 to 6 and then 4. The increase of error in the receiver position with 6 and 4 satellites is considerably small, but the number of tracking channels and signal processing requirements are reduced considerably. The GPS signals are affected by many errors; one of the significant sources of error is multipath propagation. Three distinct GPS multipath scenarios are generated for four satellite signal combinations with the GNSS simulator for the receiver performance analysis. Three multipath mitigation techniques, namely Early Minus Late (EML), Narrow correlator (NC) and strobe correlator (SC) methods, are considered because of their simple structure and fewer signal processing requirements. The error reductions of three multipath scenarios are compared, and the SC method performs better in all three multipath scenarios.

An open-source software-defined IF signal simulator for GPS receivers

An open-source software-defined IF signal simulator for GPS receivers is released. The simulator is driven by user-specified trajectory and real ephemeris date. The model, design framework, and implementation of the IF simulator are depicted. The generated IF signals were processed and verified by a widely used software receiver.

Implementation of Signal Acquisition and Tracking for GPS-Based Software Defined Radio Receiver

“Global Positioning System (GPS)” is extensively used for various satellite-based navigation applications. Nowadays, a software-defined GPS receiver has been developed since it is low cost, flexible and able to use in developing more advanced navigation processing algorithms. To implement a GPS software receiver, it is necessary to process three main modules: acquisition, tracking and navigation demodulation for the position, velocity and time (PVT) solution. Signal acquisition estimates the two parameters from the incoming satellite signal, and signal tracking keeps track of them as they change in time. These two parameters are the code phase, the delay time between receiver and satellites, and the Doppler frequency shift instigated by the satellites’ movement relative to the receiver. This study mainly discusses the operation of signal acquisition and tracking. The theoretical study and simulation of the results are described and tested using MATLAB programming language. The input GPS signal is acquired from an antenna system in GPS and an RF front-end portion.

Spoofing Traction Strategy Based on the Generation of Traction Code

Traction spoofing is an important component of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) intermediate attacks, and the traction scheme directly determines the concealment of spoofing. However, spoofing via conventional traction strategies can be easily detected using Time of Arrival (TOA) and power detection. Based on a BPSK-modulated signal, a novel traction strategy using traction code is proposed to suppress part of the authentication signal and form an ideal correlation peak. This strategy was modeled and simulated to verify its theoretical feasibility. Effective spoofing data were generated based on the signal generation software to verify the spoofing effect with the reception of the software receiver. It can be inferred that no significant distortion occurred throughout the traction process, and the value range of the traction speed was expanded. The received results in different scenarios demonstrated that the observations’ Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE) percentage change in the proposed strategy is significantly better than those of conventional strategies. A Ratio Test was also performed, verifying that the strategy can bypass Signal Quality Monitoring (SQM) detection. Meanwhile, the proposed strategy remained effective when the C/N0 increased to 60 dBHz. In summary, the proposed strategy exhibits destructiveness, concealment, and adaptability on the battlefield.

A Wide Range Distributed Multi-Node Receive Chain Calibration Method Based on GNSS Software Receiver

The phase calibration of distributed multi-node receiving system is required considering the phase synthesis working mode of distributed radar system for echo signals. Whereas, in respect to the traditional calibration tower and unmanned aerial vehicle scheme, there are many disadvantages. The wide range distributed multi-node receive chain calibration method based on GNSS software receiver was proposed in this paper, taking advantage of the software receiver to calculate and obtain the actual phase difference among the receiving nodes as well as the coordinate information of satellites in transmitting signal. Therefore, the phase difference resulted from different transmit path can be deleted, and the phase inconsistencies among the receiving nodes can be obtained. Besides, the fingerprint maps database regarding inconsistencies among nodes and two-dimensional angle of relative receiving node for satellites was constructed in this paper, the correspondence between the omnidirectional two-dimensional angle and the inconsistencies among different nodes was established by the actual results and two-dimensional fitting, and the phase inconsistency results among nodes can be obtained only by solving the satellite coordinate information. There are many advantages for the method proposed in this paper, such as slight influence of multipath effect, capability of all-weather all-day calibration, low costs.

Interference Mitigation for GNSS Receivers Using FFT Excision Filtering Implemented on an FPGA

GNSS receivers process signals with very low received power levels (<−160 dBW) and, therefore GNSS signals are susceptible to interference. Interference mitigation algorithms have become common in GNSS receiver designs in both professional and mass-market applications to combat both unintentional and intentional (jamming) interference. Interference excision filters using fast Fourier transforms (FFTs) have been proposed in the past as a powerful method of interference mitigation. However, the hardware implementations of this algorithm mostly limited their use to military GNSS receivers where greater power and resources were available. Novel implementation of existing FPGA technology should make interference mitigation feasible with limited hardware resources. This paper details the practicalities of implementing excision filters on currently available FPGAs trading off the achievable performance against the required hardware resources. The hardware implementation of the FFT excision mitigation algorithm is validated with the GNSS software receiver. The results indicate that the desired performance of the developed algorithm has achieved the expectations and can provide significant improvement on mitigation techniques in current GNSS receiver hardware. Two hardware implementation designs (fixed-point and float-point data type format) are developed and compared to achieve the optimal design that can provide the best performance (C/No) with the possible minimum hardware resources.

Airborne Coherent GNSS Reflectometry and Zenith Total Delay Estimation over Coastal Waters

High-precision GNSS (global navigation satellite e system) measurements can be used for remote sensing and nowadays play a significant role in atmospheric sounding (station data, radio occultation observations) and sea surface altimetry based on reflectometry. A limiting factor of high-precision reflectometry is the loss of coherent phase information due to sea-state-induced surface roughness. This work studies airborne reflectometry observations recorded over coastal waters to examine the sea-state influence on Doppler distribution and the coherent residual phase retrieval. From coherent observations, the possibility of zenith total delay inversion is also investigated, considering the hydrostatic mapping factor from the Vienna mapping function and an exponential vertical decay factor depending on height receiver changes. The experiment consists of multiple flights performed along the coast between the cities of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in July 2019. Reflected signals acquired in a right-handed circular polarization are processed through a model-aided software receiver and passed through a retracking module to obtain the Doppler and phase-corrected signal. Results from grazing angle observations (elevation < 15°) show a high sensitivity of Doppler spread with respect to sea state with correlations of 0.75 and 0.88 with significant wave height and wind speed, respectively. An empirical Doppler spread threshold of 0.5 Hz is established for coherent reflections supported by the residual phase observations obtained. Phase coherence occurs in 15% of the observations; however, the estimated zenith total delay for the best event corresponds to 2.44 m, which differs from the typical zenith total delay (2.3 m) of 5%.

Multi GNSS IRNSS L5 IRNSS S1 and GPS L1 Hybrid Simulator A Reconfigurable Low cost Solution for Research and Defence Applications

Satellite-based positioning field of research is growing rapidly as there is an increase in demand for precise position requirements in various civil and commercial applications. There are many errors that affect the GNSS signals while propagation from satellite to receiver, which eventually induces errors in pseudo-range measurements. In order to assess the receiver characteristics for a specific error condition, the real-time signals may not be appropriate, and it is challenging to perform repeated experiments with the same error condition. The advantage of the GNSS simulator is that users can model the different scenarios for any given location on the globe, which are repeatable at any point of time. The conventional hardware simulators are expensive and have few limitations. In this paper, a reconfigurable hybrid simulator is proposed with some advantages over traditional hardware simulators, such as low cost, reconfigurability, and controllability over fundamental parameters. It can be able to record intermediate stage data, which makes it more suitable for the GNSS research field. The proposed multi-GNSS simulator considered implementing IRNSS-L5, IRNSS-S1, and GPS-L1 band signals. A general-purpose computer can perform the necessary calculations for signal generation. The hybrid simulator can be able to generate the digital I/Q data, which can be stored as I/Q data or can be connected to a general-purpose SDR (Software Defined Radio) for RF signal generation (bladeRF in this case). The I/Q data can be used with the software receiver to analyse the receiver performance concerning the specific error. The generated GNSS signals are validated with software and hardware receivers, and the obtained position is observed as expected.

High-Resolution Spectral Estimation for Continuous Wave Jamming Mitigation of GNSS Signals in Autonomous Vehicles

Future autonomous vehicles will rely mainly on global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers for positioning services. However, GNSS cannot maintain an accurate, continuous and reliable navigation solution in the presence of jamming. The widespread availability of in-car jammers or personal privacy devices (PPDs) made GNSS receivers an attractive target for signal jamming. Jammers not only jeopardize current positioning and timing services; they can indeed endanger the safety of the evolving intelligent transportation, autonomous road vehicles and critical infrastructure. The disruption of GNSS signal in some applications, especially safety-critical ones can lead to crucial consequences and risks such as loss of time synchronization and potential loss of life, to name a few. Thus, it is essential for future autonomous vehicles and transport service providers to deploy reliable GNSS anti-jamming techniques. This paper introduces a novel anti-jamming technique based on a high-resolution spectral estimation that utilizes fast orthogonal search (FOS) algorithm in which the jamming signal is modeled using a set of candidate functions and then eliminated from the received signal. The performance of the proposed method is assessed using experiments obtained from Spirent_TM GSS6700 simulation system. The jamming signal is either obtained from a real jammer or simulated using interference signal generator that is connected to Spirent_TM system. The results showed that the developed anti-jamming algorithm was able to successfully suppress the continuous wave (CW) interference signal, thus, the performance of the acquisition, tracking and navigation modules within a GPS software receiver were all enhanced.

Combating Single-Frequency Jamming through a Multi-Frequency, Multi-Constellation Software Receiver: A Case Study for Maritime Navigation in the Gulf of Finland.

Today, a substantial portion of global trade is carried by sea. Consequently, the reliance on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based navigation in the oceans and inland waterways has been rapidly growing. GNSS is vulnerable to various radio frequency interference. The objective of this research is to propose a resilient Multi-Frequency, Multi-Constellation (MFMC) receiver in the context of maritime navigation to identify any GNSS signal jamming incident and switch to a jamming-free signal immediately. With that goal in mind, the authors implemented a jamming event detector that can identify the start, end, and total duration of the detected jamming event on any of the impacted GNSS signal(s). By utilizing a jamming event detector, the proposed resilient MFMC receiver indeed provides a seamless positioning solution in the event of single-frequency jamming on either the lower or upper L-band. In addition, this manuscript also contains positioning performance analysis of GPS-L5-only, Galileo-E5a-only, and Galileo-E5b-only signals and their multi-GNSS combinations in a maritime operational environment in the Gulf of Finland. The positioning performance of lower L-band GNSS signals in a maritime environment has not been thoroughly investigated as per the authors’ knowledge.

Galileo OSNMA Public Observation Phase: Signal Testing and Validation

The Public Observation (PO) test phase of the Galileo Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) signal is officially opened since November <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$15^{\text {th}}~2021$ </tex-math></inline-formula> , by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA). During this phase, any interested users is allowed to access the Signal in Space (SIS) for testing purposes, while the crypto material needed to process the message and verify its authenticity is made available on the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) web portal. This paper describes the processing of the Galileo E1-B navigation message, as observed during the first days of PO. The purpose is to analyze the crypto and authenticated data carried by the SIS and apply the OSNMA protocol to authenticate the navigation message. The SIS has been processed with the NGene real time software receiver which verifies the authenticity of the navigation data, before evaluating the position fix. The work is completed by an assessment of OSNMA-ready receiver performance, mainly in terms of position accuracy.

Multi-GNSS Software Receiver Design Optimization for Accuracy Improvement

Abstract: Recently, tremendous research has been conducted on Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) software receivers to better serve the current challenging environments that suffers from multipath fading. Therefore, the development of GNSS receivers has seen a new rush toward a multi-GNSS as a solution for fading problems. In this paper, a multi-GNSS software receiver is designed, optimized, and its performance is presented. The implemented software receiver covers three different signals from two GNSS constellations, namely GPS L1, GPS L2, and Galileo E1. In this paper. the fundamentals of stages of GNSS signal reception (acquisition, tracking, and navigation) are discussed where each stage is customized and optimized for each considered signal and the stage of mutli-GNSS data combination is optimized afterword. The performance of the optimized multi-GNSS software receiver is examined under different combination scenarios where the Least-Square Estimation (LSE) method using precise positioning (PP) algorithms is adopted. Results showed that using multi-GNSS receiver enhances the accuracy of Position, Velocity, and Timing (PVT) solution. Keywords: GNSS, PVT, GPS, Galileo, and accuracy

Deformation Estimation Using Beidou GEO-Satellite-Based Reflectometry

Deformation monitoring has been brought to the fore and extensively studied in recent years. Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) techniques have so far been developed in deformation estimation applications, which however, are subject to the influence of mobile satellites. Rather than compensating for the path delay variations caused by mobile satellites, adopting Beidou geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites as transmitters directly eliminates the satellite-motion-induced phase error and thus provides access to stable phase information. This paper presents a novel deformation monitoring concept based on GNSS-R utilizing Beidou GEO satellites. The geometrical properties of the GEO-based bistatic GNSS radar system are explored to build a theoretical connection between deformation quantity and the echo carrier phases. A deformation retrieval algorithm is proposed based on the supporting software receiver, thus allowing echo carrier phases to be extracted and utilized in deformation retrieval. Two field validation experiments are conducted by constructing passive bistatic radars with reflecting plates and ground receiver. Utilizing the proposed algorithm, the experimental results suggested that the GEO-based GNSS reflectometry can achieve deformation estimations with an accuracy of around 1 cm when the extracted phases does not exceed one complete cycle, while better than 3 cm when considering the correct integer number of phase cycles. Consequently, based on the passive bistatic radar system, the potential of achieving continuous, low-cost deformation monitoring makes this novel technique noteworthy.

GPS Swept Anti-Jamming Technique Based on Fast Orthogonal Search (FOS)

Recently, there has been growing demand for GPS-based reliable positioning, with the broadening of a range of new applications that mainly rely on GPS. GPS receivers have, recently, been attractive targets for jamming. GPS signals are received below the noise floor. Thus, they are vulnerable to interference and jamming. A jamming signal can potentially decrease the SNR, which results in disruption of GPS-based services. This paper aims to propose a reliable and accurate, swept anti-jamming technique based on high-resolution spectral analysis, utilizing the FOS method to provide an accurate spectral estimation of the GPS swept jamming signal. resulting in suppressing the jamming signal efficiently at the signal processing stages in the GPS receiver. Experiments in this research are conducted using the SpirentTM GSS6700 simulation system to create a fully controlled environment to test and validate the developed method’s performance. The results demonstrated the proposed method’s capabilities to detect, estimate, and adequately suppress the GPS swept jamming signals. After the proposed anti-jamming module was employed, the software receiver was able to provide a continuous positioning solution during the presence of jamming within a 10 m positioning accuracy.

Design and Validation of a Cascading Vector Tracking Loop in High Dynamic Environments

This paper designs a cascading vector tracking loop based on the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for high dynamic environment. Constant improvement in dynamic performance is an enormous challenge to the traditional receiver. Due to the doppler effect, the satellite signals received by these vehicles contain fast changing doppler frequency shifts and the first and second derivatives of doppler frequency, which will directly cause a negative impact on the receiver’s stable tracking of the signals. In order to guarantee the dynamic performance and the tracking accuracy, this paper designs a vector carrier structure to estimate the doppler component of a signal. Firstly, after the coherence integral, the IQ values are reorganized into new observations. Secondly, the phase error and frequency of the carrier are estimated through the pre-filter. Then, the pseudorange and carrier frequency are used as the observations of the main filter to estimate the motion state of the aircraft. Finally, the current state is fed back to the carrier Numerical Controlled Oscillator (NCO) as a complete closed loop. In the whole structure, the cascading vector loop replaces the original carrier tracking loop, and the stable signal tracking of code loop is guaranteed by carrier assisted pseudo-code method. In this paper, with the high dynamic signals generated by the GNSS signal simulator, this designed algorithm is validated by a software receiver. The results show that this loop has a wider dynamic tracking range and lower tracking error than the second-order frequency locked loop assisted third-order phase locked loop in high dynamic circumstances. When the acceleration of carrier is 100 g, the convergence time of vector structure is about 100 ms, and the carrier phase error is lower than 0.6 mm.

SNR Enhancement of Back Scattering Signals for Bistatic Radar Based on BeiDou GEO Satellites

Using scattering signals of the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) for target detection has become one of the research hotspots. This technology faces the difficulty of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) target echoes. Since BeiDou geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites provide the opportunity to form a bistatic radar with some advantages, such as fixed coverage area and quasi monostatic configuration to avoid the interference from the direct signals, the target echoes may have regular phases that are beneficial to SNR enhancement. This study uses BeiDou GEO satellites and ground fixed receivers to form a bistatic radar and analyzes the phase changes in the reflected signal caused by the target, then gives two methods for SNR enhancement corresponding to two applications: deformation monitoring and ship detection. This paper first introduces the basic signal processing including the intermediate frequency (IF) signal collector and the range compression in the software receiver, then describes the basic SNR enhancement method, i.e., increasing coherence integration time (CIT), and shows its limitation by two target cases: static metal reflector on the land and ships in the water. After that, this study provides an improved SNR enhancement method based on Doppler and range compensation in the moving ship detection case. The experiment shows that by the SNR enhancement, the SNRs of target echo signals in range/Doppler domain increase more than 4 dB on average. This study also demonstrates the bistatic radar’s potential for monitoring surface deformation.