22 research outputs found

    Radio Frequency Interference Impact Assessment on Global Navigation Satellite Systems

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    The Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen of the EC Joint Research Centre (IPSC-JRC) has been mandated to perform a study on the Radio Frequency (RF) threat against telecommunications and ICT control systems. This study is divided into two parts. The rst part concerns the assessment of high energy radio frequency (HERF) threats, where the focus is on the generation of electromagnetic pulses (EMP), the development of corresponding devices and the possible impact on ICT and power distribution systems. The second part of the study concerns radio frequency interference (RFI) with regard to global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). This document contributes to the second part and contains a detailed literature study disclosing the weaknesses of GNSS systems. Whereas the HERF analysis only concerns intentional interference issues, this study on GNSS also takes into account unintentional interference, enlarging the spectrum of plausible interference scenarios.JRC.DG.G.6-Security technology assessmen

    A new array concept using spatially distributed subarrays for unambiguous GNSS interference mitigation in automotive applications

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    Radio frequency interference (RFI) poses a severe problem for conventional GNSS receivers. Even low powered RFI can block the reception of satellite signals and prevent a position determination. Antenna array systems have been proven suitable to counteract RFI by incorporating spatial processing techniques. The large size of uniform rectangular arrays (URA) with half-wave antenna spacing impedes an installation in cars intended for the consumer mass market, where a hidden installation is a strict requirement by industry and customers. This paper introduces a new approach, where a conventional URA is split into distributed linear subarrays with the aim to reduce their footprint but to maintain the possibility of spatial processing. The achievable gain in robustness against RFI is evaluated. Drawbacks in terms of manifold ambiguities and their consequences for spatial processing techniques are also discussed. Furthermore, the accuracy of positioning results derived from a field test is put into context with a single antenna receiver

    Ku-band system design study and TDRSS interface analysis

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    The capabilities of the Shuttle/TDRSS link simulation program (LinCsim) were expanded to account for radio frequency interference (RFI) effects on the Shuttle S-band links, the channel models were updated to reflect the RFI related hardware changes, the ESTL hardware modeling of the TDRS communication payload was reviewed and evaluated, in LinCsim the Shuttle/TDRSS signal acquisition was modeled, LinCsim was upgraded, and possible Shuttle on-orbit navigation techniques was evaluated

    Multipath Mitigation Techniques for Satellite-Based Positioning Applications

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    This chapter addressed the challenges encountered by a GNSS signal due to multipath propagation. A wide range of correlation-based multipath mitigation techniques were discussed and the performance of some of these techniques were evaluated in terms of running average error and root-mean-square error. Among the analyzed multipath mitigation techniques, RSSML, in general, achieved the best multipath mitigation performance in moderate-to-high C/N0 scenarios (for example, 30 dB-Hz and onwards). The other techniques, such as PT(Diff2) and HRC showed good multipath mitigation performance only in high C/N0 scenarios (for example, 40 dB-Hz and onwards). The other new technique SBME offered slightly better multipath mitigation performance to the well-known nEML DLL at the cost of an additional correlator. However, as the GNSS research area is fast evolving with many potential applications, it remains a challenging topic for future research to investigate the feasibility of these multipath mitigation techniques with the multitude of signal modulations, spreading codes, and spectrum placements that are (or are to be) proposed.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

    Tracking and data relay satellite system configuration and tradeoff study. Volume 4: TDRS system operation and control and telecommunications service system, part 1

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    Major study areas treated in this volume are: 1) operations and control and 2) the telecommunication service system. The TDRS orbit selection, orbital deployment, ground station visibility, sequence of events from launch to final orbit position, and TDRS control center functions required for stationkeeping, repositioning, attitude control, and antenna pointing are briefly treated as part of the operations and control section. The last topic of this section concerns the operations required for efficiently providing the TDRSS user telecommunication services. The discussion treats functions of the GSFC control and data processing facility, ground station, and TDRS control center. The second major portion of this volume deals with the Telecommunication Service System (TSS) which consists of the ground station, TDRS communication equipment and the user transceiver. A summary of the requirements and objectives for the telecommunication services and a brief summary of the TSS capabilities is followed by communication system analysis, signal design, and equipment design. Finally, descriptions of the three TSS elements are presented

    TDRSS telecommunications study. Phase 1: Final report

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    A parametric analysis of the telecommunications support capability of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) was performed. Emphasis was placed on maximizing support capability provided to the user while minimizing impact on the user spacecraft. This study evaluates the present TDRSS configuration as presented in the TDRSS Definition Phase Study Report, December 1973 to determine potential changes for improving the overall performance. In addition, it provides specifications of the user transponder equipment to be used in the TDRSS

    Carrier multipath mitigation in linear combinations of Global Navigation Satellite Systems measurements

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    Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are the main systems that provide positioning, navigation and timing at a global level. They are being used in numerous applications in different sectors including transport, military, oil & gas, agriculture as well as location based services. A significant number of these applications require centimetre-level positioning accuracy, a challenging feat due to the many error sources that affect GNSS measurements. These include errors at the satellite, propagation medium, and receiver levels. Most of these errors can be mitigated by modeling, or by exploiting their spatial and temporal correlation characteristics. However, multipath errors, which result from the combination of the direct signal with reflected signals in the vicinity of the receiver antenna, are difficult to model and therefore, difficult to mitigate. Furthermore, high accuracy positioning applications typically rely on linear combinations of measurements at different frequencies (e.g. L1 and L2 in the case of the Global Positioning System) to mitigate frequency-dependent errors such as ionospheric errors (i.e. ionosphere free combination) or otherwise facilitate position calculation (e.g. Wide Lane observable). The multipath errors associated with such combinations are significantly larger than those of individual signals. The dependency of the multipath error on the environment and its low level in single frequency measurements (i.e. up to quarter of wavelength) makes modelling and mitigating it very difficult. Current techniques attempt to mitigate multipath errors for measurements at each individual frequency, independently of the error at other frequencies, even when linear combinations of measurements are used. The literature review carried out in this thesis has drawn three main conclusions regarding carrier multipath mitigation. Firstly, existing carrier multipath mitigation techniques are inaccurate, impractical or not effective. Secondly most of the practical techniques attempt to mitigate the error by de-weighting the measurements which are most prone to the multipath error (i.e measurement at low elevation). Thirdly, existing weighting techniques are oversimplified and do not reflect the error level accurately. In this research and for the first time, carrier multipath errors have been studied directly at the linear combination level. This is by exploiting the dispersive nature of multipath errors in order to model and correct them. New carrier multipath mitigation techniques applicable to linear combinations of measurements have been developed in this thesis on the basis of a new error model and a new observable referred to as the IFM (Inter-Frequency carrier Multipath). The IFM is computed from carrier phase measurements at two different frequencies, and corresponds to the combined multipath errors of those signals. In addition to multipath mitigation, this observable has various other applications. The well-defined relationship between the IFM and carrier multipath errors is used in this thesis to develop multipath mitigation techniques based on two approaches: multipath correction and measurement weighting. The new mitigation techniques are applicable to linear combinations of observations such as Wide Lane (WL) and Ionosphere Free (IF) carrier phase measurements in double differenced mode. The new multipath mitigation techniques have been validated using real data and the results compared with those obtained using the elevation weighting technique. The results show that the new methods developed in this thesis improve the mean error of horizontal position by up to 33% when using the IF combination. The results also show improvements of up to 78% in the time it takes to resolve ambiguities when using the WL combination.Open Acces

    Analyzing Code Tracking Algorithms for Galileo Open Service Signal

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    The ever-increasing public interest on location and positioning services has originated a demand for higher performance Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs). Galileo Open Service (OS) signal, part of the European contribution to future GNSS, was designed to respond to the above demand. In all GNSSs, the estimation with high accuracy of the Line-Of-Sight (LOS) delay is a prerequisite. The Delay Lock Loops (DLLs) and their enhanced variants (i.e., feed-back code tracking loops) are the structures of choice for the commercial GNSS receivers, but their performance in severe multipath scenarios is still rather limited. In addition, the new satellite positioning system proposals specify the use of a new modulation, the Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) modulation, which triggers a new challenge in the code tracking stage. Therefore, in order to meet this emerging challenge and to improve the accuracy of the delay estimation in severe multipath scenarios, this thesis analyzes feed-back as well as feed-forward code tracking algorithms and proposes a novel algorithm, namely Peak Tracking (PT), which is a combination of both feed-back and feed-forward structures and utilizes the advantages inherent in these structures. In this thesis, the code tracking algorithms are studied and analyzed for Sine BOC (SinBOC) modulated Galileo OS signal for various multipath profiles in Rayleigh fading channel model. The performance of the analyzed algorithms are measured in terms of various well-known criteria such as Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE), Mean-Time-to-Lose Lock (MTLL), delay error variance and Multipath Error Envelopes (MEEs). The simulation results show that the proposed PT algorithm outperforms all other analyzed algorithms in various multipath profiles in good Carrier-to-Noise-Ratios (CNRs). The simulation results are compared with the theoretical Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) and the comparison shows that the delay error variance for PT algorithm approaches the theoretical limit with the increase in CNR. Therefore, the proposed algorithm can be considered as an excellent candidate for implementation in future Galileo receivers, especially when tracking accuracy is a concern. /Kir1
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