A Novel Carrier Loop Based on Adaptive LM-QN Method in GNSS Receivers

A well-designed carrier tracking loop in a receiver of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is the premise of accurate positioning and navigation in an aircraft-based surveying and mapping system. To deal with the problems of Doppler estimation in high-dynamic maneuvers, the interest on maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) is increasing among the academic community. Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) method is usually regarded as an effective and promising approach to obtain the solution of MLE, but the computation of Hessian matrix loads a great burden on the algorithm. Besides, a poor performance on convergency in final iterations is the common failing of LM implementations. To solve these problems, an LM method based on Gauss-Newton and a Quasi-Newton (QN) method based on Hessian approximation are derived, making the computation cost of Hessian decline from O(N) to O(1). Then, on the basis of these two methods, a closed carrier loop with adaptive LM-QN algorithm is further proposed which can switch between LM and QN adaptively according to a damping parameter. Besides, an ideal LM with super-linear convergence (SLM) is constructed and proved as a reference of the convergence analysis. Finally, through the analyses and experiments using aircraft data, the improvements on computation cost and convergence are verified. Compared with scalar tracking and vector tracking, results indicate a magnitude increase in the precision of LM-QN loop, even though more computation counts are needed by LM-QN.Peer reviewe

The Differential Vector Phase-Locked Loop for Global Navigation Satellite System Signal Tracking

A novel differential vector phase-locked loop (DVPLL) is derived that takes GNSS code-phase and carrier-phase measurements from a base station and uses them to maintain an integer ambiguity resolved quality solution directly in the vector tracking loop of a rover receiver. The only state variables estimated and used to create the replica code and carrier signals from the base station measurements are three position and two clock states for a static test. Closing the individual loops solely through the navigation filter makes this a pure vector method. For short baselines, where differential atmospheric errors are small, the DVPLL can be used on single-frequency data. An L1-only live-sky static test was performed using the method resulting in a 3D accuracy of 5.3 mm for an 18.5 m baseline. An acquisition algorithm is also developed to initialize the DVPLL. The algorithm performs a search in the space-time domain vice the measurement domain. An upper bound on the failure rate of the algorithm can be set by the user. The algorithm was tested on 24-h dual- and single-frequency CORS data sets with close to a 100% success rate and on a 15- min data set of single-frequency IF samples with a 100% success rate

Development and Analysis of Advanced Techniques for GNSS Receivers

With the rapid development of digital techniques, the concept of software-defined radio (SDR) emerged which accelerates the first appearance of of the real-time GNSS software receiver at the beginning of this century, in the frame of a software receiver, this thesis mainly explores the possible improvement in parameters estimate such as frequency estimate, code delay estimate and phase estimate. In the first stage, acquisition process is focused, the theoretical mathematical expression of the cross-ambiguity function (CAF) is exploited to analyze the grid and improve the accuracy of the frequency estimate. Based on the simple equation derived from this mathematical expression of the CAF, a family of novel algorithms are proposed to refine the Doppler frequency estimate. In an ideal scenario where there is no noise and other nuisances, the frequency estimation error can be theoretically reduced to zero. On the other hand, in the presence of noise, the new algorithm almost reaches the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) which is derived as benchmark. For comparison, a least-square (LS) method is proposed. It is shown that the proposed solution achieves the same performance of LS, but requires a dramatically reduced computational burden. An averaging method is proposed to mitigate the influence of noise, especially when signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is low. Finally, the influence of the grid resolution in the search space is analyzed in both time and frequency domains. In the next step, a new FLL discriminator based on energy is proposed to adapt to the changes brought by the new introduced signal modulation. This new discriminator can determine the frequency error only using the minimum period of data, it can also extend the pull-in range to nearly six times larger as the traditional arctangent discriminator. The whole derivation of the method is presented. From the comparison with traditional ATAN and another similar discriminator that is also based on energy, it is shown that the new proposed discriminator can inherit the merits of these two references, avoiding their drawbacks at the same time. Owing to the property of the new discriminator, in case of composite GNSS signals such as Galileo E1 Open Service (OS) signal, coherent combination of data and pilot channels can be adopted to improve the frequency estimate by exploiting the full transmitted power. In order to incorporate all the available information, the structure of a tracking loop with Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is analyzed and implemented. The structure of an EKF-based software receiver is proposed including the special modules dedicated to the initialization and maintenance of the tracking loop. The EKF-based tracking architecture has been compared with a traditional one based on an FLL/PLL+DLL architecture, and the benefit of the EKF within the tracking stage has been evaluated in terms of final positioning accuracy. Further tests have been carried out to compare the Position-Velocity-Time (PVT) solution of this receiver with the one provided by two commercial receivers: a mass-market GPS module (Ublox LEA-5T) and a professional one (Septentrio PolaRx2e@). The results show that the accuracy in PVT of the software receiver can be remarkably improved if the tracking is designed with a proper EKF architecture and the performance we can achieve is even better than the one obtained by the mass market receiver, even when a simple one-shot least-squares approach is adopted for the computation of the navigation solution. Furthermore in depth, KF-based tracking loop is analyzed, a control model is derived to link the KF system and the traditional one which can provide an insight into the advantages of KF system. Finally, conclusions and main recommendations are presented

Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

GNSS signals can be blocked and reflected by nearby objects, such as buildings, walls, and vehicles. They can also be reflected by the ground and by water. These effects are the dominant source of GNSS positioning errors in dense urban environments, though they can have an impact almost anywhere. Non- line-of-sight (NLOS) reception occurs when the direct path from the transmitter to the receiver is blocked and signals are received only via a reflected path. Multipath interference occurs, as the name suggests, when a signal is received via multiple paths. This can be via the direct path and one or more reflected paths, or it can be via multiple reflected paths. As their error characteristics are different, NLOS and multipath interference typically require different mitigation techniques, though some techniques are applicable to both. Antenna design and advanced receiver signal processing techniques can substantially reduce multipath errors. Unless an antenna array is used, NLOS reception has to be detected using the receiver's ranging and carrier-power-to-noise-density ratio (C/N0) measurements and mitigated within the positioning algorithm. Some NLOS mitigation techniques can also be used to combat severe multipath interference. Multipath interference, but not NLOS reception, can also be mitigated by comparing or combining code and carrier measurements, comparing ranging and C/N0 measurements from signals on different frequencies, and analyzing the time evolution of the ranging and C/N0 measurements

Direct position tracking in GPS using vector correlator

Traditional GPS receivers track the code and carrier of individual satellite signals and estimate the position and velocity of the receiver using trilateration. Different from this two-step approach, direct maximum likelihood estimation of position has proved to be beneficial in weak signal and multipath environments. In this thesis, an architecture of a direct position tracking loop that maximizes an approximation to the maximum likelihood cost function is presented. The unscented Kalman filter is used for direct position tracking using the vector correlator sum. This technique of maximizing the vector correlation sum proves to be beneficial in certain kinds of multipath environments. Further, the tracking loop architecture is validated using experiments with a software receiver

Performance assessment of a low-complexity autoregressive Kalman filter for GNSS carrier tracking using real scintillation time series

Altres ajuts: Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICIonospheric scintillation is one of the most challenging sources of errors in global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). It is an effect of space weather that introduces rapid amplitude and phase fluctuations to transionospheric signals and, as a result, it severely degrades the tracking performance of receivers, particularly carrier tracking. It can occur anywhere on the earth during intense solar activity, but the problem aggravates in equatorial and high-latitude regions, thus posing serious concerns to the widespread deployment of GNSS in those areas. One of the most promising approaches to address this problem is the use of Kalman filter-based techniques at the carrier tracking level, incorporating some a priori knowledge about the statistics of the scintillation to be dealt with. These techniques aim at dissociating the carrier phase dynamics of interest from phase scintillation by modeling the latter through some correlated Gaussian function, such as the case of autoregressive processes. However, besides the fact that the optimality of these techniques is still to be reached, their applicability for dealing with scintillation in real-world environments also remains to be confirmed. We carry out an extensive analysis and experimentation campaign on the suitability of these techniques by processing real data captures of scintillation at low and high latitudes. We first evaluate how well phase scintillation can be modeled through an autoregressive process. Then, we propose a novel adaptive, low-complexity autoregressive Kalman filter intended to facilitate the implementation of the approach in practice. Last, we provide an analysis of the operational region of the proposed technique and the limits at which a performance gain over conventional tracking architectures is obtained. The results validate the excellence of the proposed approach for GNSS carrier tracking under scintillation conditions

A Robust GNSS tracking enhancement for hostile environments

openIn urban environments any GNSS receiver is subjected to frequent sudden losses of the line-of-sight (LOS) signal and to the multipath phenomenon, which drastically reduce the accuracy, robustness and availability of the GNSS service. This thesis evaluates the implementation of a tracking loop for robust tracking of GNSS signals in hostile scenarios, developed in collaboration with Qascom and addressed to their software defined GNSS receiver, the QN400. After an initial analysis of the state of the art in robustness enhancement techniques, it was decided, together with Qascom's Advanced Navigation team, to integrate a Kalman filter inside the common tracking loop structure. More specifically, the proposed tracking loop integrates a fourth-order Kalman filter and an outage detection algorithm into the standard structure, with the overall goal of improving tracking performance in terms of robustness to multipath effects and signal's interruptions. The proposed design was extensively tested with Qascom's semi-analytical simulator in Matlab, both with simulated scenarios, based on the DLR land mobile multipath channel model, and more realistic ones based on live recordings of a GNSS receiver mounted on a vehicle moving in Bassano del Grappa. The proposed solution has shown great efficacy in all designed test environments. Specifically, it has demonstrated superior resilience in resisting signal outages when compared to the standard tracking loop

Vector-tracking-based GNSS/INS Deep Coupling and Experiment Platform for Urban Scenarios

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