SatCom Unit V GPS
SatCom Unit V GPS
SatCom Unit V GPS
Satellite Communications
Unit V: Satellite Navigation and GPS
Dr Yedukondalu Kamatham
B Tech (ECE), M Tech (OELT), Ph D (ECE), PGDDTVP
Fellow of IETE, India; Senior Member of IEEE, USA; Life Member of ISTE, India
Professor of ECE, CVR College of Engineering, Vastunagar, Magalpally (V),
Ibrahimpatnam (M), R.R. District, Hyderabad-501 510, India, [email protected]
5-12 November 2021
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➢ Disadvantages
– Sufficient number TRANSIT satellites were not there to provide
continuous position data, and
– The long time (10 min) required to obtain an accurate position fix.
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➢ A similar system called SARSAT (Search And Rescue Satellite) is used to find Emergency
Locator Transmitters (ELTs) on aircraft that have crashed.
– Analysis of the Doppler shift over the observation period provides information about
the location of the ELT, but with an accuracy of 1 or 2 kms.
– Almost 97% of ELT locations turn out to be false alarms- the ELT was dropped or
accidentally turned on.
➢ The Demand for accurate targeting of airborne weapons lead to the development of
GPS.
➢ GPS can provide a single navigation system with better accuracy and reliability than all
earlier radio navigation systems.
➢ It can provide navigation of aircraft directly between airports, instead of indirectly via
airways, while providing absolute position read out of Latitude and Longitude.
➢ Differential GPS can be used instead of ILS (Instrument Landing System).
➢ Eventually, GPS will replace all other means of Navigation
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Introduction to GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based navigation system that provides location
and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where
there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.
➢ Primary means of navigation for
❖Ships
❖Aircrafts
❖Surveying
➢ GPS also called as Navigation Satellite Timing And Ranging (NAVSTAR)
➢ Developed as military Navigation system for guiding
➢Missiles, Ships, and Aircrafts to their targets
➢ GPS satellite transmits L-band signals that are modulated by several codes
➢ C/A code: Made available to public in mid 1980s
➢to achieve positioning accuracy of 30 m
➢ P-code (secure and high accuracy): Authorized users (military)
➢to achieve positioning accuracy of 3 m
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GPS architecture
➢ GPS architecture consists of three segments:
-- space segment,
-- control segment, and
-- user segment.
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Space Segment
➢ GPS satellite constellation
consists of a minimum of 24
satellites.
➢ Altitude of about 20,183 km and
takes 11hr 58mins to orbit one
time.
➢ There are 6 orbital planes, each
consisting of a minimum of 4
satellites.
➢ The orbits are at an inclination of
55o with respect to the equator.
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Control Segment
➢ The GPS is controlled by the US Air Force from
➢ The Master Control Station (MCS), at Falcon Air force base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
➢ This station calculate ephemeris data for each satellite, atomic clock error, and numerous other
parameters needed for the navigation message.
➢ The data are transmitted to satellite using a secure S-band link and used to update onboard data.
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➢ The distance between a transmitter and receiver can be found by measuring the time it
takes for a pulse of RF energy to travel between the two
– The distance is calculated using the velocity of Electromagnetic waves in free space,
assumed to be equal to velocity of Light v= 2,99, 792, 452 (~3x108) m/s.
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➢ The P(Y) and C/A codes transmitted by each satellite create direct sequence Spread
spectrum signals which occupy the same frequency bands.
➢ Both C/A and P codes are publicly available, but P code can’t be recovered
in a GPS Rx without a knowledge of the Y-code decryption algorithm
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Q: Find the exact altitude of a GPS satellite that has an orbital period equal to
precisely one half of a sidereal day. Use a value of mean earth radius re = 6378.14
km and a sidereal day length of 23 hours 56 minutes 4.1 seconds.
• The orbital period of the satellite is 11 hours 58 minutes 2.05 s = 43,082.05 s.
• The orbital period is given by T2 = 4 π2 a3 / μ
• where μ = 3.986004418 x 105 km3/s2 and ‘a’ is the radius of the orbit in km.
• Hence a3 = T2 μ / 4 π2 = 7.49602025 x 1013 km3
• a = 26,561.764 km
• The orbital altitude ‘h’ above a mean earth radius (re) of 6378.14 km is
• h = a - re =20,183.62 km
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Q: Find the maximum Doppler shift of the L1 signal frequency for a GPS satellite at an altitude of
20,200 km when the satellite has an elevation angle of 10o. Hint: Maximum Doppler shift occurs
when the observer is in the plane of the satellite orbit. Find the velocity of the satellite and the
component of velocity towards the observer.
• For a satellite with an orbit radius a = 20,200 + 6378.14 km = 26,578.14 km,
• The circumference of the orbit is 2 π a = 166,995.38 km.
• The orbital period is T2 = 4 π2 a3 / μ where μ = 3.986004418 x 105 km3/s.
• Hence, T = 43,121.90 s = 11 hrs 58 mins 41.8 s.
• The velocity of the satellite is vs = 2πa/T = 166995.38/43121.90 = 3.87264 km/s
• We must calculate the relative velocity of the satellite towards an observer who is in
the plane of the satellite orbit when the satellite has an elevation angle of 10 0
• The geometry in the plane of the orbit is a triangle OGS, where O is the center of the
earth, G is the observer at the earth’s surface, and S is the satellite.
• When the satellite has an elevation angle of 10o, the angle OGS = 90o + 10o = 100o.
• The known lengths of the sides of the triangle are OG = re, OS = a, and the angle
between the satellite velocity vector and the line OS is 90o.
• We need to find the angle q, between the satellite velocity vector and the line SG.
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➢Range is calculated from the time delay incurred by the satellite signal in
traveling from the satellite to the GPS receiver, using known velocity of EM
waves in free space.
➢To measure the time delay we should know the precise instant at which the
signal was transmitted.
➢GPS satellite carry four atomic clocks → time standard → GPS time
➢Accuracy of atomic clock → 1 part in 1011
➢Clock offset.
➢C/A code receivers can synchronize their internal clocks to GPS time within
170 ns, corresponding to a distance measurement uncertainty of 50 m.
➢It is easy to remove the clock error.
➢3-time measurements to define location (x, y, z)
➢4th time measurement to remove receiver
KYK clock offset error T (x, y, z, T) 19
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➢ Accuracy for low cost GPS Rx using C/A code is 30 m defined as 2DRMS.
➢DRMS -> Distance Root Mean Square error of the measures position relative to the true position of Rx
➢ If measurement errors are Gaussian distributed -> 68% of measured position results in 1D
RMS from the true location.
➢ 95% of results in 2DRMS of the true location.
➢ Selective Availability (SA) -> Switched off on May 1, 2000 -> accuracy from 200 m to 10 m.
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Q: An observer at the geographical north pole has a GPS receiver. At an instant in time, four
GPS satellites all have the same range from the observer, and the GPS receiver records a
measured delay time for the C/A signal of 0.17097528 s for each satellite. The four satellites’
coordinates are calculated to be (0, -13280.5, 23002.5), (0, 13280.5, 23002.5), (-13280.5, 0,
23002.5), (13280.5, 0, 23002.5), where all distances are in km. Assuming an earth radius of
6378.0 km at the north pole, so that the observer’s coordinates are (0,0, 6378), determine the
clock offset error in the GPS receiver. (Use equations 12.1 and 12.3, and take the velocity of light
in free space to be 2.99792458 x 108 m/s.)
• From equation 12.1, the delay time of T = 0.17097528 s correspond to a
• psuedorange PR where
• PR = T c = 0.17097528 x 2.99792458 x 108 = 51,257,099 m = 51,257.099 km
• Equation 12.3 gives four simultaneous equations which give the psuedorange
to the satellite
• (Xi - Ux)2 + (Yi - Uy)2 + (Zi – Uz)2 = (PRi - t c)2
• where the receiver position is (Ux, Uy, Uz) and the four satellites have
positions (Xi , Yi, Zi).
• The earth station location is known asKYK(0, 0, 6378). 22
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GPS Time
➢GPS Rx use highly stable crystal oscillators
➢GPS satellite consists of two cesium clocks plus two rubidium clocks
(atomic clocks).
➢An atomic clock uses the fundamental resonance of the cesium or
rubidium molecule as a frequency reference to lock a crystal
oscillator.
➢In GPS satellites -> master oscillator is at 10.23 MHz
➢The atomic clocks are updated by controlling ground stations to
keep them within 1 μs of Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) (UTC =
GMT)
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• A GPS receiver with a 1 kHz signal acquisition loop bandwidth must search up to eight
receive frequencies to allow for the ±4 kHz Doppler shift of the received signal.
• The local oscillator in the GPS receiver consists of a numerically controlled oscillator (NCO)
followed by a frequency multiplier.
• The NCO base frequency is the 10.23MHz master oscillator in the receiver, which is locked
to the GPS satellite clock.
• The receiver must also search each of 1023 C/A code positions in one chip steps, or 2046
code positions in half bit steps, for all of the 24 C/A codes.
• Hence the combination of Doppler frequency and code position potentially requires a
search 8,184 (8x1023) or 16,368 (8x2046) Doppler frequency and code positions for each
of the C/A codes.
• This can be a lengthy process from a cold start, which is why GPS receivers have 12
channels of digital signal processing (DSP) that can work in parallel to speed up the search
process.
• If no signals are found from the first 12 C/A codes, some of the next 12 C/A codes must be
present.
• Most GPS receivers can acquire four satellites KYK within 30 seconds from a cold start. 37
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Differential GPS
• The accuracy of GPS measurements can be increased considerably by using Differential GPS (DGPS)
techniques.
• There are several forms of DGPS, all of which are intended to increase the accuracy of a basic GPS
position measurement.
• A second, fixed, GPS receiver at a reference station is always required in a DGPS system.
• In the simplest forms of DGPS, a second GPS receiver at a known position continuously calculates its
position using the GPS C/A code.
• The calculated (x, y, z) location is compared to the known location of the station and the differences
in x, y, and z are sent by a radio telemetry link to the first GPS receiver.
• However, this technique works well only if the two stations are close together and use the same four
satellites for the position calculation.
• In a more sophisticated form of DGPS, the monitoring station at a known location measures the
error in pseudorange to each satellite that is visible at its location and telemeters the error values to
users in that area.
• This allows other GPS users to select which satellites they want to observe and extends the area
over which the DGPS system can operate.
• The errors in a C/A code measurement are reduced to well below 1m using this approach.
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Differential GPS
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• The most accurate forms of DGPS use the relative phase of the many signals in
the GPS transmissions to increase the accuracy of the timing measurements.
• Suppose that you count the number of cycles of the 1575.42 MHz L1 carrier
wave between a satellite and a GPS receiver, and that the GPS satellites are
stationary for the length of time it takes to make the count at two separate
locations.
• The wavelength of the L1 carrier is 0.19043 m, so movement of the receiver by
0.01 m directly away from the satellite would change the phase angle of the
received wave by 18.9°.
• If the total number of cycles between the satellite and the receiver is known,
and fractional cycles are measured with a phase resolution of 20°, the true
distance to the satellite can be found to 0.01 m accuracy.
• In principle, measurements that compare the phase angle of the received L1
carriers from several GPS satellites could therefore be used to detect receiver
movements at the centimeter level.
• This is called differential phase or kinematic DGPS.
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• The obvious difficulty is that we cannot count the number of cycles of the L1 carrier
between the satellite and the receiver.
• However, we can make phase measurements and time of arrival comparisons for
various GPS signals at two different locations and resolve motion between the two
locations.
• If one of the receivers is a fixed reference station, it is then possible to locate the
second GPS receiver very accurately with respect to that fixed location.
• This technique is valuable in land surveying, for example, where a reference station
can be set up at a known location, such as the corner of a plot of land, and the
position of the plot boundary relative to that point can be measured.
• The same technique can be used to find the position of an aircraft relative to an
airport runway so that a precision approach path can be established.
• The difficulty with DGPS phase comparison measurements is that the L1 carrier has
cycles that repeat every 0.19043 m, and one cycle is identical to the next.
• This creates range ambiguity, which must be resolved by reference to the
wavelengths of other signals.
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• The 10.23MHzP-code transmission of the L1 carrier has a P-code chip length in space of
29.326 m, which is 154 cycles of the L1 carrier.
• The ambiguity of the carrier waveform can be resolved within the 29.326 m length of a P-
code chip by comparison of the time of arrival of a particular cycle of the L1 carrier with the
time since the start of the P code chip.
• Similar ambiguity resolution for the 29 m P-code chips is possible using the length of the C/A
code chip and the C/A code sequence.
• The length of a C/A code chip at 1.023MHz is 293.255 m, and the length of a C/A code
sequence is 293.255 km.
• When ambiguity resolution is applied using all of these waveforms, very small movements of
the receiver can be detected and ambiguity out to 293 km can be removed.
• Aircraft flight paths have been tracked to an accuracy of 2 cm over distances of tens of
kilometers using phase comparison DGPS techniques.
• The P-code can be used for real time differential measurements without knowledge of P-
code itself, because only a comparison of the time of arrival of the code bits is required.
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Conclusion
• Understood
• Radio and Satellite Navigation
• GPS Position Location Principles
• Receivers and Codes
• Satellite Signal Acquisition
• Navigation Message
• Signal Levels, Receiver Operation
• GPS C/A Code Accuracy
• Principle of Differential GPS
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