Cascaded Multitype Interferences Suppression Method Using Sparse Representation and Array Processing for GNSS Receiver

Interference suppression techniques have been intensively studied in nearly two decades due to their importance for maintaining the integrity and functionality of global navigation satellite system (GNSS). However, the interference suppression method applicable for the complex receiving environment in which there are multitype interfering signals has not been considered in most of the researches. To deal with this problem better, a cascaded multitype interferences suppression method using sparse representation and array processing is proposed. In the first stage, according to the sparsity of the narrowband and modulated wideband interference signals, a novel parallel multichannel signal interference suppression method based on matching pursuit (MP) algorithm and a design strategy for the overcomplete dictionary are proposed to mitigate the interferences with sparse features. Then, the minimum power distortionless response (MPDR) beamformer is employed in the second stage to suppress the residuary interferences (such as Gaussian noise interferences). Compared with existing algorithms, the proposed method can not only effectively suppress the interference arriving from the same direction with the desired signal and increase the Degree of Freedom (DoF) of the array antenna, but also introduce no distortion into the navigation signal. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by theoretical analysis and several simulation results

Design and testing of compact dual-band dual-polarized robust satellite navigation antenna arrays

Die steigende Nachfrage nach präzisen Positionierlösungen für hochautomatisiertes Fahren und sicherheitskritische Anwendungen führt zu der Verwendung von Array-basierten Satellitennavigationsempfängern, die aufgrund des verbesserten Diversity-Gewinns und der potentiellen Strahlformungsfähigkeit eine bessere Leistung aufweisen. Die Notwendigkeit, die Robustheit von Navigationsempfängern gegenüber Quellen von Signalstörungen, wie Mehrwegempfang, atmosphärische, sowie Jamming- und Spoofing, zu verbessern, verlangt, den Empfänger weiter auszubauen, um Polarisations- und Frequenz-Diversity auszunutzen. Das hieraus resultierende Design ist durch eine signifikante Zunahme der Hardware- und Softwarekomplexität gekennzeichnet. Diese Komplexität steigt noch mit dem Trend, den Navigationsempfänger zu miniaturisieren, um die Integration in Fahrzeugen oder mobilen Systemen zu erleichtern. Da die gegenseitige Verkopplung zwischen den Antennenelementen eines kompakten Antennen- Arrays steigt, verschlechtert sich deren Strahlungseffizienz und Polarisationsreinheit und damit die Systemrobustheit. In dieser Arbeit wird ein kompaktes, dualbandiges und dualpolarisiertes Antennenarray für einen Navigationsempfänger untersucht, schaltungstechnisch entworfen und aufgebaut, womit Array-, Frequenz-, und Polarisations-Diversity ermöglicht wird. Dies führt zu einer signifikant verbesserten Robustheit gegenüber den angesprochenen Störungen. Diese Arbeit umfasst das Design des dualbandigen und dualpolarisierten Patchantennenelements, das Design des kompakten Antennenarrays, das Studium der Kreuzpolarisationsquellen in Patchantennen, die Analyse des Einflusses der gegenseitigen Kopplung auf die Strahlungseffizienz und Polarisationsreinheit, und die Abschwächung beider Effekte durch eigenmode-basierten Entkopplungs- und Anpassungsnetzwerken. Darüber hinaus beinhaltet die Arbeit die Integration des Antennensystems mit einem HF-Frontend zur Leistungsverstärkung, Filterung und Signalkonvertierung der Satellitensignale. Die Arbeit umfasst auch die Integration mit einem Array-basierten digitalen Empfänger, in dem neben der Datenerfassung, auch die Richtungsschätzung, das Beamforming und die Anti-Jamming-Algorithmen implementiert wurden. Die Machbarkeit sowohl der Array-Diversity als auch der Polarisations-Diversity wurde in Automotive-related Feldmessungen bestätigt, insbesondere für Elevationswinkel unter 40 bzw. 60 Grad, wo der Einfluss des Mehrwegempfangs ausreichend hohe Pegel erreicht. Die Messungen bestätigten die Robustheit des Empfängers gegenüber Stör- Nutzsignalverhältnissen von bis zu 85 dB und übertrafen damit mehrere "State-of-the-Art" Empfänger.The increasing demand for accurate positioning solutions for highly-automated driving and safety-critical applications motivates the use of array-based satellite navigation receivers that feature better performance, due to the enhanced diversity gain and the potential beamforming capability. The need for improving the robustness of navigation receivers against sources of signal distortion such as multipath propagation, atmospheric impact, jamming, and spoofing violations requests to extend the receiver to exploit polarization and frequency diversities. The resulting design is challenged by the significant rise in hardware and software complexity. This complexity increases even more with the trend to miniaturize the navigation receiver, to ease the integration in vehicles or mobile systems, because mutual coupling rises between the radiating elements of the receiver, and deteriorates their radiation efficiencies and polarization purities, and hence degrades the system robustness. In this thesis, a compact dual-band dual-polarized array-based navigation receiver that uses array diversity, frequency diversity, and polarization diversity is studied and designed, to provide robustness against the different types of distortions. The main contributions of the presented work include the design of the dual-band dual-polarized patch antenna element, the design of the compact antenna array, the study of the cross-polarization sources in patch antennas, the analysis of the mutual coupling impact on radiation efficiency and polarization purity of radiating elements, and the mitigation of both impacts using eigenmode-based decoupling and matching networks. Furthermore, the work also involves the integration of the antenna system with an RF-IF front-end, developed in cooperation with IMMS GmbH, for power amplification, filtering, and down-converting. The dissertation covers also the integration with an array-based digital receiver, developed in cooperation with RWTH Aachen University and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), to implement data acquisition, direction-of-arrival estimation, beamforming, and anti-jamming algorithms. The feasibility of both the array diversity and the polarization diversity was confirmed in automotive-related field measurements, particularly for elevations below 40 and 60 degrees, respectively; i.e., at directions far from the main beam direction of the even mode of the array (at zenith), and where the impact of multipath propagation on strength and polarization of the signal reaches sufficient levels to disturb the receiver. Measurements proved the receiver robustness against jamming-to-signal ratios up to 85 dB, outperforming several state-of-the-art receivers described in literature

GNSS array-based acquisition: theory and implementation

This Dissertation addresses the signal acquisition problem using antenna arrays in the general framework of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers. The term GNSS classi es those navigation systems based on a constellation of satellites, which emit ranging signals useful for positioning. Although the American GPS is already available, which coexists with the renewed Russian Glonass, the forthcoming European contribution (Galileo) along with the Chinese Compass will be operative soon. Therefore, a variety of satellite constellations and signals will be available in the next years. GNSSs provide the necessary infrastructures for a myriad of applications and services that demand a robust and accurate positioning service. The positioning availability must be guaranteed all the time, specially in safety-critical and mission-critical services. Examining the threats against the service availability, it is important to take into account that all the present and the forthcoming GNSSs make use of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) techniques. The ranging signals are received with very low precorrelation signal-to-noise ratio (in the order of ���22 dB for a receiver operating at the Earth surface). Despite that the GNSS CDMA processing gain o ers limited protection against Radio Frequency interferences (RFI), an interference with a interference-to-signal power ratio that exceeds the processing gain can easily degrade receivers' performance or even deny completely the GNSS service, specially conventional receivers equipped with minimal or basic level of protection towards RFIs. As a consequence, RFIs (either intentional or unintentional) remain as the most important cause of performance degradation. A growing concern of this problem has appeared in recent times. Focusing our attention on the GNSS receiver, it is known that signal acquisition has the lowest sensitivity of the whole receiver operation, and, consequently, it becomes the performance bottleneck in the presence of interfering signals. A single-antenna receiver can make use of time and frequency diversity to mitigate interferences, even though the performance of these techniques is compromised in low SNR scenarios or in the presence of wideband interferences. On the other hand, antenna arrays receivers can bene t from spatial-domain processing, and thus mitigate the e ects of interfering signals. Spatial diversity has been traditionally applied to the signal tracking operation of GNSS receivers. However, initial tracking conditions depend on signal acquisition, and there are a number of scenarios in which the acquisition process can fail as stated before. Surprisingly, to the best of our knowledge, the application of antenna arrays to GNSS signal acquisition has not received much attention. This Thesis pursues a twofold objective: on the one hand, it proposes novel arraybased acquisition algorithms using a well-established statistical detection theory framework, and on the other hand demonstrates both their real-time implementation feasibility and their performance in realistic scenarios. The Dissertation starts with a brief introduction to GNSS receivers fundamentals, providing some details about the navigation signals structure and the receiver's architecture of both GPS and Galileo systems. It follows with an analysis of GNSS signal acquisition as a detection problem, using the Neyman-Pearson (NP) detection theory framework and the single-antenna acquisition signal model. The NP approach is used here to derive both the optimum detector (known as clairvoyant detector ) and the sov called Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT) detector, which is the basis of almost all of the current state-of-the-art acquisition algorithms. Going further, a novel detector test statistic intended to jointly acquire a set of GNSS satellites is obtained, thus reducing both the acquisition time and the required computational resources. The eff ects of the front-end bandwidth in the acquisition are also taken into account. Then, the GLRT is extended to the array signal model to obtain an original detector which is able to mitigate temporally uncorrelated interferences even if the array is unstructured and moderately uncalibrated, thus becoming one of the main contributions of this Dissertation. The key statistical feature is the assumption of an arbitrary and unknown covariance noise matrix, which attempts to capture the statistical behavior of the interferences and other non-desirable signals, while exploiting the spatial dimension provided by antenna arrays. Closed form expressions for the detection and false alarm probabilities are provided. Performance and interference rejection capability are modeled and compared both to their theoretical bound. The proposed array-based acquisition algorithm is also compared to conventional acquisition techniques performed after blind null-steering beamformer approaches, such as the power minimization algorithm. Furthermore, the detector is analyzed under realistic conditions, accounting for the presence of errors in the covariance matrix estimation, residual Doppler and delay errors, and signal quantization e ects. Theoretical results are supported by Monte Carlo simulations. As another main contribution of this Dissertation, the second part of the work deals with the design and the implementation of a novel Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based GNSS real-time antenna-array receiver platform. The platform is intended to be used as a research tool tightly coupled with software de ned GNSS receivers. A complete signal reception chain including the antenna array and the multichannel phase-coherent RF front-end for the GPS L1/ Galileo E1 was designed, implemented and tested. The details of the digital processing section of the platform, such as the array signal statistics extraction modules, are also provided. The design trade-o s and the implementation complexities were carefully analyzed and taken into account. As a proof-of-concept, the problem of GNSS vulnerability to interferences was addressed using the presented platform. The array-based acquisition algorithms introduced in this Dissertation were implemented and tested under realistic conditions. The performance of the algorithms were compared to single antenna acquisition techniques, measured under strong in-band interference scenarios, including narrow/wide band interferers and communication signals. The platform was designed to demonstrate the implementation feasibility of novel array-based acquisition algorithms, leaving the rest of the receiver operations (mainly, tracking, navigation message decoding, code and phase observables, and basic Position, Velocity and Time (PVT) solution) to a Software De ned Radio (SDR) receiver running in a personal computer, processing in real-time the spatially- ltered signal sample stream coming from the platform using a Gigabit Ethernet bus data link. In the last part of this Dissertation, we close the loop by designing and implementing such software receiver. The proposed software receiver targets multi-constellation/multi-frequency architectures, pursuing the goals of e ciency, modularity, interoperability, and exibility demanded by user domains that require non-standard features, such as intermediate signals or data extraction and algorithms interchangeability. In this context, we introduce an open-source, real-time GNSS software de ned receiver (so-named GNSS-SDR) that contributes with several novel features such as the use of software design patterns and shared memory techniques to manage e ciently the data ow between receiver blocks, the use of hardware-accelerated instructions for time-consuming vector operations like carrier wipe-o and code correlation, and the availability to compile and run on multiple software platforms and hardware architectures. At this time of writing (April 2012), the receiver enjoys of a 2-dimensional Distance Root Mean Square (DRMS) error lower than 2 meters for a GPS L1 C/A scenario with 8 satellites in lock and a Horizontal Dilution Of Precision (HDOP) of 1.2.Esta tesis aborda el problema de la adquisición de la señal usando arrays de antenas en el marco general de los receptores de Sistemas Globales de Navegación por Satélite (GNSS). El término GNSS engloba aquellos sistemas de navegación basados en una constelación de satélites que emiten señales útiles para el posicionamiento. Aunque el GPS americano ya está disponible, coexistiendo con el renovado sistema ruso GLONASS, actualmente se está realizando un gran esfuerzo para que la contribución europea (Galileo), junto con el nuevo sistema chino Compass, estén operativos en breve. Por lo tanto, una gran variedad de constelaciones de satélites y señales estarán disponibles en los próximos años. Estos sistemas proporcionan las infraestructuras necesarias para una multitud de aplicaciones y servicios que demandan un servicio de posicionamiento confiable y preciso. La disponibilidad de posicionamiento se debe garantizar en todo momento, especialmente en los servicios críticos para la seguridad de las personas y los bienes. Cuando examinamos las amenazas de la disponibilidad del servicio que ofrecen los GNSSs, es importante tener en cuenta que todos los sistemas presentes y los sistemas futuros ya planificados hacen uso de técnicas de multiplexación por división de código (CDMA). Las señales transmitidas por los satélites son recibidas con una relación señal-ruido (SNR) muy baja, medida antes de la correlación (del orden de -22 dB para un receptor ubicado en la superficie de la tierra). A pesar de que la ganancia de procesado CDMA ofrece una protección inherente contra las interferencias de radiofrecuencia (RFI), esta protección es limitada. Una interferencia con una relación de potencia de interferencia a potencia de la señal que excede la ganancia de procesado puede degradar el rendimiento de los receptores o incluso negar por completo el servicio GNSS. Este riesgo es especialmente importante en receptores convencionales equipados con un nivel mínimo o básico de protección frente las RFIs. Como consecuencia, las RFIs (ya sean intencionadas o no intencionadas), se identifican como la causa más importante de la degradación del rendimiento en GNSS. El problema esta causando una preocupación creciente en los últimos tiempos, ya que cada vez hay más servicios que dependen de los GNSSs Si centramos la atención en el receptor GNSS, es conocido que la adquisición de la señal tiene la menor sensibilidad de todas las operaciones del receptor, y, en consecuencia, se convierte en el factor limitador en la presencia de señales interferentes. Un receptor de una sola antena puede hacer uso de la diversidad en tiempo y frecuencia para mitigar las interferencias, aunque el rendimiento de estas técnicas se ve comprometido en escenarios con baja SNR o en presencia de interferencias de banda ancha. Por otro lado, los receptores basados en múltiples antenas se pueden beneficiar del procesado espacial, y por lo tanto mitigar los efectos de las señales interferentes. La diversidad espacial se ha aplicado tradicionalmente a la operación de tracking de la señal en receptores GNSS. Sin embargo, las condiciones iniciales del tracking dependen del resultado de la adquisición de la señal, y como hemos visto antes, hay un número de situaciones en las que el proceso de adquisición puede fallar. En base a nuestro grado de conocimiento, la aplicación de los arrays de antenas a la adquisición de la señal GNSS no ha recibido mucha atención, sorprendentemente. El objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es doble: por un lado, proponer nuevos algoritmos para la adquisición basados en arrays de antenas, usando como marco la teoría de la detección de señal estadística, y por otro lado, demostrar la viabilidad de su implementación y ejecución en tiempo real, así como su medir su rendimiento en escenarios realistas. La tesis comienza con una breve introducción a los fundamentos de los receptores GNSS, proporcionando algunos detalles sobre la estructura de las señales de navegación y la arquitectura del receptor aplicada a los sistemas GPS y Galileo. Continua con el análisis de la adquisición GNSS como un problema de detección, aplicando la teoría del detector Neyman-Pearson (NP) y el modelo de señal de una única antena. El marco teórico del detector NP se utiliza aquí para derivar tanto el detector óptimo (conocido como detector clarividente) como la denominada Prueba Generalizada de la Razón de Verosimilitud (en inglés, Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT)), que forma la base de prácticamente todos los algoritmos de adquisición del estado del arte actual. Yendo más lejos, proponemos un nuevo detector diseñado para adquirir simultáneamente un conjunto de satélites, por lo tanto, obtiene una reducción del tiempo de adquisición y de los recursos computacionales necesarios en el proceso, respecto a las técnicas convencionales. El efecto del ancho de banda del receptor también se ha tenido en cuenta en los análisis. A continuación, el detector GLRT se extiende al modelo de señal de array de antenas para obtener un detector nuevo que es capaz de mitigar interferencias no correladas temporalmente, incluso utilizando arrays no estructurados y moderadamente descalibrados, convirtiéndose así en una de las principales aportaciones de esta tesis. La clave del detector es asumir una matriz de covarianza de ruido arbitraria y desconocida en el modelo de señal, que trata de captar el comportamiento estadístico de las interferencias y otras señales no deseadas, mientras que utiliza la dimensión espacial proporcionada por los arrays de antenas. Se han derivado las expresiones que modelan las probabilidades teóricas de detección y falsa alarma. El rendimiento del detector y su capacidad de rechazo a interferencias se han modelado y comparado con su límite teórico. El algoritmo propuesto también ha sido comparado con técnicas de adquisición convencionales, ejecutadas utilizando la salida de conformadores de haz que utilizan algoritmos de filtrado de interferencias, como el algoritmo de minimización de la potencia. Además, el detector se ha analizado bajo condiciones realistas, representadas con la presencia de errores en la estimación de covarianzas, errores residuales en la estimación del Doppler y el retardo de señal, y los efectos de la cuantificación. Los resultados teóricos se apoyan en simulaciones de Monte Carlo. Como otra contribución principal de esta tesis, la segunda parte del trabajo trata sobre el diseño y la implementación de una nueva plataforma para receptores GNSS en tiempo real basados en array de antenas que utiliza la tecnología de matriz programable de puertas lógicas (en ingles Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)). La plataforma está destinada a ser utilizada como una herramienta de investigación estrechamente acoplada con receptores GNSS definidos por software. Se ha diseñado, implementado y verificado la cadena completa de recepción, incluyendo el array de antenas y el front-end multi-canal para las señales GPS L1 y Galileo E1. El documento explica en detalle el procesado de señal que se realiza, como por ejemplo, la implementación del módulo de extracción de estadísticas de la señal. Los compromisos de diseño y las complejidades derivadas han sido cuidadosamente analizadas y tenidas en cuenta. La plataforma ha sido utilizada como prueba de concepto para solucionar el problema presentado de la vulnerabilidad del GNSS a las interferencias. Los algoritmos de adquisición introducidos en esta tesis se han implementado y probado en condiciones realistas. El rendimiento de los algoritmos se comparó con las técnicas de adquisición basadas en una sola antena. Se han realizado pruebas en escenarios que contienen interferencias dentro de la banda GNSS, incluyendo interferencias de banda estrecha y banda ancha y señales de comunicación. La plataforma fue diseñada para demostrar la viabilidad de la implementación de nuevos algoritmos de adquisición basados en array de antenas, dejando el resto de las operaciones del receptor (principalmente, los módulos de tracking, decodificación del mensaje de navegación, los observables de código y fase, y la solución básica de Posición, Velocidad y Tiempo (PVT)) a un receptor basado en el concepto de Radio Definida por Software (SDR), el cual se ejecuta en un ordenador personal. El receptor procesa en tiempo real las muestras de la señal filltradas espacialmente, transmitidas usando el bus de datos Gigabit Ethernet. En la última parte de esta Tesis, cerramos ciclo diseñando e implementando completamente este receptor basado en software. El receptor propuesto está dirigido a las arquitecturas de multi-constalación GNSS y multi-frecuencia, persiguiendo los objetivos de eficiencia, modularidad, interoperabilidad y flexibilidad demandada por los usuarios que requieren características no estándar, tales como la extracción de señales intermedias o de datos y intercambio de algoritmos. En este contexto, se presenta un receptor de código abierto que puede trabajar en tiempo real, llamado GNSS-SDR, que contribuye con varias características nuevas. Entre ellas destacan el uso de patrones de diseño de software y técnicas de memoria compartida para administrar de manera eficiente el uso de datos entre los bloques del receptor, el uso de la aceleración por hardware para las operaciones vectoriales más costosas, como la eliminación de la frecuencia Doppler y la correlación de código, y la disponibilidad para compilar y ejecutar el receptor en múltiples plataformas de software y arquitecturas de hardware. A fecha de la escritura de esta Tesis (abril de 2012), el receptor obtiene un rendimiento basado en la medida de la raíz cuadrada del error cuadrático medio en la distancia bidimensional (en inglés, 2-dimensional Distance Root Mean Square (DRMS) error) menor de 2 metros para un escenario GPS L1 C/A con 8 satélites visibles y una dilución de la precisión horizontal (en inglés, Horizontal Dilution Of Precision (HDOP)) de 1.2

Compact adaptive planar antenna arrays for robust satellite navigation systems

In den zurückliegenden zwei Jahrzehnten ist die Abhängigkeit der Industriegesellschaft von satellitengestützten Ortungssystemen, Navigationsdiensten und Zeitsignalen dramatisch gewachsen. Darauf aufbauende moderne Anwendungen reichen von hochgenauen Ortungsgeräten bis zu intelligenten Transportsystemen und von der Synchronisation mobiler Netzwerke zu Wetter- und Klimabeobachtung. Dies setzt neue höhere Standards in der Robustheit, Genauigkeit, Verfügbarkeit und Verlässlichkeit moderner Navigationsempfänger voraus. Möglich werden diese Verbesserungen aktuell mit der Einführung von Multiantennensystemen in den Navigationsgeräten. Jedoch wird die Nutzung dieses Ansatzes durch die größeren Abmessungen der Antennenarrays erschwert, weil standardmäßig der Elementabstand zu einer halben Freiraumwellenlänge gewählt wird, was im L Band ca. 10 cm bedeutet. In dieser Arbeit werden kompakte Antennenarrays für Navigationsempfänger mit geringerem Elementabstand vorgeschlagen, die eine Miniaturisierung der Empfängerabmessungen erlauben. Diese kompakten Arrays werden in ihrer Leistungsfähigkeit jedoch durch die negativen Effekte der Verkopplung zwischen den Einzelelementen beeinträchtigt. Für die Beurteilung der Empfängerleistungsfähigkeit existieren verschiedene Qualitätsparameter für Analyse und Entwurf der planaren Arrays. Damit werden z. B. Diversity Freiheitsgrade, Qualität der Richtungsschätzung, Polarisationsreinheit und die wechselseitigen Kopplungen gemessen und eine Entwurfsumgebung wird vorgestellt, in der das optimale kompakte Antennenarray für den jeweiligen Einsatzzweck ausgewählt und konfiguriert werden kann. Dieser Prozess wird durch eine Analyse des Rauschens und seiner Korrelationseigenschaften für den gesamten Empfänger begleitet. Darüber hinaus wird ein analytisches Modell des effektiven carrier-to-interference-plus-noise ratio abgeleitet, um die Leistungsfähigkeit der Navigationsempfänger in Szenarien mit Störsignalen zu untersuchen. Schließlich werden diese Betrachtungen durch den Aufbau eines kompletten Satellitennavigationsempfängers ergänzt, um mit ihm den Nachweis der Funktionsfähigkeit und der stabilen Funktion des entworfenen Systems mit kompaktem Array unter Störereinfluss bei Laborbedingungen und in den reale Außeneinsatz zu erbringen.Over the past two decades, humankind's reliance on global navigation satellite systems for precise positioning, navigation and timing services has grown remarkably. Such advanced applications vary from highly accurate surveying to intelligent transport systems, and from mobile network timing synchronization to weather and climate monitoring. This envisages new and higher standards of robustness, accuracy, coverage and integrity in modern navigation receivers. Recently, this has been accomplished with the incorporation of the multi-element navigation antenna receiver. However, the industrialization of this approach is limited due to the large antenna array size, hindered by the inter-element separation of half of the free-space wavelength, i.e. ≈ 10 cm at L band 1-2 GHz. In this thesis, compact navigation antenna arrays with smaller inter-element separations are proposed for the miniaturization of the overall size. However, these arrays become afflicted with the adverse effects of mutual coupling. Therefore, various figures-of-merit for the analysis and design of a compact planar navigation antenna array, such as performance diversity degrees-of-freedom, directional finding capabilities, and polarization purity, including mutual coupling effects, have been presented. This provides a general framework for the selection and configuration of the optimum compact navigation antenna array. In order to mitigate the mutual coupling, integration of the decoupling and matching network into customized compact navigation antenna array designs is performed. This is fostered by the correlated noise characterization of the complete receiver. Furthermore, an analytical model of the equivalent carrier-to-interference-plus-noise ratio is derived to investigate the navigation performance in interference scenarios. In the end, this is complemented by the implementation of the complete navigation receiver for verification and robustness validation of the derived compact antenna array concepts in indoor and outdoor interference scenarios

A scalable real-time processing chain for radar exploiting illuminators of opportunity

Includes bibliographical references.This thesis details the design of a processing chain and system software for a commensal radar system, that is, a radar that makes use of illuminators of opportunity to provide the transmitted waveform. The stages of data acquisition from receiver back-end, direct path interference and clutter suppression, range/Doppler processing and target detection are described and targeted to general purpose commercial off-the-shelf computing hardware. A detailed low level design of such a processing chain for commensal radar which includes both processing stages and processing stage interactions has, to date, not been presented in the Literature. Furthermore, a novel deployment configuration for a networked multi-site FM broadcast band commensal radar system is presented in which the reference and surveillance channels are record at separate locations

Massive MIMO is a Reality -- What is Next? Five Promising Research Directions for Antenna Arrays

Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) is no longer a "wild" or "promising" concept for future cellular networks - in 2018 it became a reality. Base stations (BSs) with 64 fully digital transceiver chains were commercially deployed in several countries, the key ingredients of Massive MIMO have made it into the 5G standard, the signal processing methods required to achieve unprecedented spectral efficiency have been developed, and the limitation due to pilot contamination has been resolved. Even the development of fully digital Massive MIMO arrays for mmWave frequencies - once viewed prohibitively complicated and costly - is well underway. In a few years, Massive MIMO with fully digital transceivers will be a mainstream feature at both sub-6 GHz and mmWave frequencies. In this paper, we explain how the first chapter of the Massive MIMO research saga has come to an end, while the story has just begun. The coming wide-scale deployment of BSs with massive antenna arrays opens the door to a brand new world where spatial processing capabilities are omnipresent. In addition to mobile broadband services, the antennas can be used for other communication applications, such as low-power machine-type or ultra-reliable communications, as well as non-communication applications such as radar, sensing and positioning. We outline five new Massive MIMO related research directions: Extremely large aperture arrays, Holographic Massive MIMO, Six-dimensional positioning, Large-scale MIMO radar, and Intelligent Massive MIMO.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Digital Signal Processin

Design and development of a technological demonstrator for the study of high dynamics GNSS receivers

[ES] En el marco de esta tesis se van a estudiar, principalmente, los efectos del movimiento de alta dinámica en receptores de Sistemas Globales de Navegación por Satélite (GNSS). El término alta dinámica es un término utilizado para referirse al movimiento de los vehículos en los que van embarcados receptores GNSS, los cuales se mueven lo suficientemente rápido como para causar un gran desplazamiento en frecuencia de la portadora debido al efecto Doppler. Se identificarán los problemas inherentes a este tipo de entornos y se estudiarán y propondrán soluciones. Para poder efectuar el estudio de estos fenómenos, se diseñará un demostrador tecnológico (conjunto de hardware y software para prueba y prototipado de tecnologías) en el que desarrollar el estudio de los casos de interés. Con el fin de trabajar en un entorno repetible, se utilizará un generador de señal GNSS. La señal generada se traslada a un receptor de radiofrecuencia definido por software, Software Defined Radio (SDR). Este tipo de receptor únicamente se encarga de digitalizar la señal de entrada y de llevar las muestras digitales a un ordenador, de modo que todo el procesado de señal se implementa en dicho ordenador. Este esquema de trabajo es ideal habida cuenta de su simplicidad y flexibilidad. Dicha flexibilidad conlleva la posibilidad de sintonizar el demostrador para poder estudiar una amplia gama de arquitecturas de receptor GNSS. Una vez se haya ensamblado el demostrador, se comprobará su correcto funcionamiento en escenarios conocidos usando los algoritmos más utilizados a día de hoy en receptores GNSS. Asegurado el correcto funcionamiento, se comparará el rendimiento de algoritmos de referencia con los algoritmos a estudiar y se extraerán conclusiones.[CA] En aquest treball s'estudiaran, principalment, els efectes del moviment d'alta dinámica en receptors de Navegació per Satèl.lit GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System). La denominació alta dinámica, s'utilitza per a descriure el moviment dels vehicles dins dels quals hi han receptors GNSS. El moviment d'aquests vehicles és suficientment ràpid com per a causar un gran desplaçament en freqüència de la freqüència portadora. Aquest desplaçament és consqüència de l'efecte Doppler. S'identificaran els problemes inherents d'aquest tipus de entorns GNSS i es propsararàn solucions. Per a estudiar l'efecte de l'alta dinàmica, es dissenyarà un demostrador tecnològic (conjunt de maquinari i software per a proves i prototipat de tecnologies) en que es pot desenvolupar l'estudi dels casos d'interès. Amb l'objectiu d'aconseguir treballar en un entorn repetible s'utilitzarà un generador de senyal GNSS. El senyal es processarà mitjançant un receptor SDR (Software Defined Radio). Aquest tipus de receptor s'encarrega del processat que fa un receptor GNSS en un PC. Aquesta filosofia de treball és idónia per la seua flexibilitat i simplicitat. Quan s'haja ensamblat el demostrador, és comprovarà el seu correct funcionament en escenaris de prova utilitzant els algoritmes implementats en receptors GNSS comercials. En aquest moment, el demostrador estarà preparat per a estudiar el casos d'alta dinàmica, que és l'objectiu fonamental d'aquest treball.[EN] The study of the effects of the high dynamics on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers constitute the main matter of study in this work. The term high dynamics refers to the movement of vehicles that carry GNSS embedded receivers, which move fast enough to generate a large carrier frequency drift caused by the Doppler effect. The problems linked to these environments will be characterized and solutions to counteract possible signal impairments will be discussed. In order to correctly characterize these problems, a technological demonstrator (set of hardware components interacting with software tools enabling fast prototyping) will be designed and constructed. Using this technological demonstrator, different case studies will be developed. With the aim of achieving experimental repeatability, a GNSS signal generator will be used. The generated GNSS signal is fed to a Software Defined Radio (SDR) GNSS receiver. This receiver type is in charge of digitizing the analog RF signal and carrying the resulting samples to a computer in which signal processing tasks implementing the functions of GNSS receivers, take place. The main advantage linked to the usage of this work scheme is that by changing the software part, different receiver architectures can be implemented in a simple manner. Furthermore, by taking advantage of the flexible architecture it is possible to tune the detector in such a manner that it is possible to implement many different architecture types. Once the technological demonstrator is assembled, tests to assure its correct operation will be conducted by performing comparisons with the behaviour of well-known GNSS receivers in known scenarios. Later on, comparative tests using signals from high dynamics scenarios will take place. Insight and analysis of comparative performance will be given.Alcaide Guillén, C. (2019). Design and development of a technological demonstrator for the study of high dynamics GNSS receivers [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/131697TESI

Localization as a Key Enabler of 6G Wireless Systems: A Comprehensive Survey and an Outlook

peer reviewedWhen fully implemented, sixth generation (6G) wireless systems will constitute intelligent wireless networks that enable not only ubiquitous communication but also high-Accuracy localization services. They will be the driving force behind this transformation by introducing a new set of characteristics and service capabilities in which location will coexist with communication while sharing available resources. To that purpose, this survey investigates the envisioned applications and use cases of localization in future 6G wireless systems, while analyzing the impact of the major technology enablers. Afterwards, system models for millimeter wave, terahertz and visible light positioning that take into account both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS channels are presented, while localization key performance indicators are revisited alongside mathematical definitions. Moreover, a detailed review of the state of the art conventional and learning-based localization techniques is conducted. Furthermore, the localization problem is formulated, the wireless system design is considered and the optimization of both is investigated. Finally, insights that arise from the presented analysis are summarized and used to highlight the most important future directions for localization in 6G wireless systems

Exploring the Synergy: A Review of Dual-Functional Radar Communication Systems

This review paper examines the concept and advancements in the evolving landscape of Dual-functional Radar Communication (DFRC) systems. Traditionally, radar and communication systems have functioned independently, but current research is actively investigating the integration of these functionalities into a unified platform. This paper discusses the motivations behind the development of DFRC systems, the challenges involved, and the potential benefits they offer. A discussion on the performance bounds for DFRC systems is also presented. The paper encompasses a comprehensive analysis of various techniques, architectures, and technologies used in the design and optimization of DFRC systems, along with their performance and trade-offs. Additionally, we explore potential application scenarios for these joint communication and sensing systems, offering a comprehensive perspective on the multifaceted landscape of DFRC technology.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

GNSS Receiver Architectures For Remote Sensing Applications

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals designed to support position, navigation and time, can also be used as signals of opportunity for remote sensing applications. As GNSS evolve, the receiver architectures need to evolve as well. This work explores how to improve the GNSS receiver for remote sensing. Three areas are developed throughout the thesis: utilization of modernized signals, signal cancellation for reduction of cross-correlation noise, and development of a vector delay frequency lock loop with support for Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The improved structures of modernized signals offer considerable advantages for GNSS Reflectometry. One of those signals is GPS L5, which features increased signal power and a higher chipping rate. A comparison study of the transmit power between GPS L1 and L5 showed that the transmit power difference for L5 is close to the specified 3.6 dB. Despite this, due to performance differences of the receive antennas, the benefit might not be obtained. The higher chipping rate of the L5 signal provide advantages in terms of increased waveform resolution for GNSS-R. A study of altimetry performance with WAAS L5 was undertaken. After optimizing the coherent integration time, the altitude standard deviation of the L5 signal, compared to the L1 signal was found to be 2.2 times smaller. The improvements were primarily seen when the aircraft changed altitude. Reducing cross-correlation noise by means of signal cancellation is an effective tool to improve weak signal tracking. Factors influencing performance of signal cancellation: filtering, analog quantization and processing resolution were studied. It was found that canceling a signal collected with a narrow filter bandwidth introduced a residual signal that contributed additional noise. A cancellation efficiency metric was developed in order to analyze how well a signal could be canceled. It was found that high cancellation efficiency could be obtained with 4 bit analog quantization and 9 bit processing resolution. GPS Radio Occultation measurements originate from the excess phase and amplitude of the occulted signal. The measurements can be obtained through open loop tracking, which requires precise orbit determination. The use of a vector delay frequency lock loop (VDFLL) with a low Earth orbit dynamic model is proposed to satisfy both of those requirements. The VDFLL takes advantage of inter-channel aiding for precision orbit determination as well as provides a natural extension to open loop processing. The algorithm was tested on simulated and live data, and was found to successfully track a low elevation signal from a spacecraft with geometric open loop processing through VDFLL.</p