1

Satellite Communications
ELEM026
Professor Clive Parini
Lecture 5 Communication Satellites
2010
2
NAVSTAR GPS
Principle is the accurate measurement of distance from the receiver of
each of a number (4) of satellites which transmit accurately timed
signals as well as other coded data giving the satellites position
A 3D ranging system based on the knowledge of the precise position
of the satellites in space.
The distance between the user and the satellite is calculated by
knowing the time of transmission of the signal from the satellite and
the time of reception at the receiver and the fact that the signal
propagates at the speed of light.
The whole GPS system can be divided into 3 main segments:-
SPACE
CONTROL
USER
3
Principle of time based navigation - 2D
Requires precision clocks
(oscillators) at each station
No active participation by user
Low cost listen only receiver
To solve for the 2 unknown
latitude and longitude 2
independent measurements of
range are required (2 equations
with 2 unknowns)
Transmitters transmit unique
signal with time of transmission
encoded into it
Users receiver contains accurate
clock synchronised with those of
transmitters so transmission
delay!T can be determined
Range determined from radio
wave propagation speed C
4
Principle of time based navigation - 3D
Extend to 3D by adding
additional transmitter in the
third dimension
Achieved on a global scale
using satellite based transmitters
in a global constellation
27 (24 +3 spares) satellites in
12hr circular orbits at an altitude
of 20,183km
Orbits inclined at 55
0
to equator
in 6 orbital planes
At least 4 satellites can be seen
at any time above 15
0
elevation
angle of view for most places on
the earths surface
5
Satellite trajectories as viewed from earth
Ground track for 2 orbits (24 hours) is shown. One satellite orbit shown in blue
Pattern repeats every day although given satellite in give place is seen 4
minutes earlier each day
6
View of constellation from a user
At Poles
At 45 degree latitude
(London 52 degrees)
Equator
Red dots represent satellite position at any one time, blue line is track for one satellite
Centre of sky chart is zenith, outer circle is the horizon
7
8
How it works
Although it is technically possible to keep the clocks
on all the satellites synchronised (to of order 1nsec)
via pair of caesium and rubidium atomic clocks , the
user cannot have such a clock.
Cost about 100,000 and not very portable!
So user has cheap crystal based oscillator.
The measured time for the signal from one satellite to
reach the receiver is thus the transmit time plus the users
clock offset from GPS time
Range measurement is thus
!
R
1
= C("t
1
+ "T)
C = speed of light; R
1
= pseudo range
"t
1
= transmit signal time; "T = user clock offset
9
Additional unknown is user clock offset so we now
have 4 unknowns (x,y,z, user clock offset)
10
Satellite keeping of GPS time
The whole system works of a time standard called
GPS time which is maintained by the master
control station.
It is possible for a satellite clock to vary slightly
from this time but these errors are determined by
the system and transmitted to the user along with
the time of transmission and other useful data
11
System with known satellite clock offsets
My clock
offset is
12
4 equations 4 unknowns
!
for satellite 1
R
1
= C("t
1
+"T - #
1
)
let corrected range due to satellite clock error be R'
1
R'
1
= C("t
1
+"T)
true distance is = C"t
1
= R'
1
$c"T
= R'
1
$C
B
In spherical coordinates user position is
u
x
, u
y
, u
z
(x
1
- u
x
)
2
+(y
1
- u
y
)
2
+(z
1
- u
z
)
2
= (R'
1
$C
B
)
2
where x
1
, y
1
, z
1
are the known satellite positions
Remaining 3 equations are : -
(x
2
- u
x
)
2
+(y
2
- u
y
)
2
+(z
2
- u
z
)
2
= (R'
2
$C
B
)
2
(x
3
- u
x
)
2
+(y
3
- u
y
)
2
+(z
3
- u
z
)
2
= (R'
3
$C
B
)
2
(x
4
- u
x
)
2
+(y
4
- u
y
)
2
+(z
4
- u
z
)
2
= (R'
4
$C
B
)
2
unknowns are : u
x
u
y
u
z
C
B
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Velocity measurement
The users velocity can also be determined by measuring
the Doppler Shift of the received carrier frequency of the
signal from each of the 4 satellites
As in the case of time, an error due to the offset of the
receiver oscillator frequency with GPS Time can be
removed using a 4 satellite measurement
Set of equations with the 3 velocity components plus this
offset again gives 4 equations with 4 unknowns
Unknowns are Vx, Vy, Vz, user oscillator offset
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NAVSTAR GPS SPACE SEGMENT
Satellite operates in earth pointing 3-axis stabilised mode
Powered by solar arrays and rechargable batteries (for eclipse operation)
Down link is at several frequencies in L-band L1=1575.42 and
L2=1227.6MHz operating on right hand circular polarisation
Control Uplink and downlink is at S-band (2 -4)GHz
Down link antenna is 12 element helical array producing a shaped beam
Fig 7 Ground Control segment shown monitoring one satellite in the constellation
Master
control
Monitoring stations
S-band
Uplink=1783MHz
Downlink=2227MHz
L1 and L2 downlinks
L1 and L2 downlinks
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GROUND CONTROL SEGMENT-2
Monitoring stations around the globe at accurately known
locations receive the satellite user down link signals and
forward this raw data to the master control station. They
have accurate atomic clocks locked to GPS time.
There data is analysed and deviations of the satellites clock
from GPS time is determined as well as corrections to the
satellites predicted position in space (ephemeris). {i.e. its
deviation from modied Keplers laws}
These are then relayed up to the satellite by the Ground
Antenna using the S-band link
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User communications down link
GPS was originally a US military system and is still today
administered by the US DOD.
There are 2 levels of accuracy
Standard Positioning Service (SPS) - unrestricted use using the
L1=1575.42 MHz
Precision Positioning Service (PPS)-DOD authorised users only
using both L1=1575.42 MHz and L2=1227.6MHz
Both use CDMA as the multiplexing process and BPSK as the
modulation method
For SPS the spreading code is 1023 bits long and are called the C/A
(course acquisition) codes and the chip rate is 1.023Mbits/sec. The
spectrum of this modulated code is 1.023MHz either side of the L1 carrier.
For PPS an additional code P(Y) is transmitted on L1 and a second on L2.
In both cases the chip rate is 10.23Mbits/sec with a bandwidth of
20.46MHz. The P(Y) code is pseudo random and 37 weeks long! In
antispoong mode (Y-code) its further encrypted so never repeats.
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SPS using the C/A code
Each satellite has a unique 1023 bit spreading code and this code is
continually transmitted every 1msec. Hence chip rate of 1.023Mbits
The code is modulated by a 50bit/sec navigation message so each bit
of data spans 20 spreading code transmissions
1500 bit message sub-
divided into 5 sub frames of
300 bits each
The HOW bit gives the
accurate transmission time
Last frame is multiplexed
taking 25 frames of the C/A
code to transmit the complete
message
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PPS
The availability of signal propagation timings using 2
frequencies gives the ability to predict the effect of the
ionosphere on the propagation speed of light, so
enhancing accuracy to a few metres
The level of dithering of the clock signal (not now used) is
known so it can be removed
The very long (37 week or innite in case of anti-spoof
mode) spreading code means that the code is truly random
so that any integration length (or averaging as in our
example) will yield the desired signal from the noise, the
longer the integration length the more the recovered signal
raises above the background noise.
So long as you can generate the identical random code at
the receiver, and this is done by having a known key
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User terminal
Each system has same basic design of antenna
plus microwave front end receiver.
Received CDMA signal split into a number of
parallel channels enabling navigation messages
from individual satellites to be received in parallel
thus achieving fastest lock time. 12 channel
receivers are common today
block diagram of receiver
Filter and
Pre-amp
RF/IF
downconverter
A/D conversion
Channel 1
Channel 2
Channel n
Frequency
synthesiser
Reference
oscillator
DSP
CLOCK
Navigation
receiver
processor
CPU, user
control and
Display
antenna
Fig 10 (a) code phase timing, (b) carrier phase timing
Carrier phase
The raw propagation time is
determined for a given
satellite by loading into the
CDMA receiver correlator
the code for the desired
satellite and delaying it in
time until correlation is
achieved with the incoming
signal
This form of timing is often called
Code Phase timing as it attempts to
match the phase of the incoming
code with the receivers own
generated code, as illustrated in g
10a. Since the chip rate is about
one microsecond and the accuracy
to which the code phase can be
locked is about 1% of its period
then the timing accuracy is about
10nsec, corresponding to a
position error of 3metres
Carrier Phase
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Timing can be improved if Carrier Phase is used to give a
ner timing for the received edge of the incoming pseudo-
random code, as shown in g 10b.
The receiver can measure the carrier phase to about 1%
accuracy by keeping a running count of the Doppler
frequency shift of the carrier since the satellite acquisition
the overall phase measurement contains an unknown
number of carrier cycles, N, between the satellite and the
user.
If this Carrier Cycle Integer Ambiguity can be determined
accuracies of order 1mm could be achieved. The
techniques employed by differential GPS (DGPS),
described later aim to determine N.
High Sensitivity GPS receivers
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High Sensitivity GPS receivers use large banks of correlators and
digital signal processing to search for GPS signals very quickly.
This results in very fast times to rst x when the signals are at
their normal levels, for example outdoors.
When GPS signals are weak, for example indoors, the extra
processing power can be used to integrate weak signals to the point
where they can be used to provide a position or timing solution.
GPS signals are already very weak when they arrive at the Earths
surface. The GPS satellites have transmitters that only deliver 27
W from a distance of 20,200 km in orbit above the Earth. By the
time the signals arrive at the user's receiver, they are typically as
weak as "160 dBW, equivalent to one tenth of a millionth billionth
of a watt. This is well below the thermal noise level in its
bandwidth.
Outdoors, GPS signals are typically around the "155 dBW level.
High Sensitivity GPS receivers -cont
25
Conventional GPS receivers integrate the received GPS signals for
the same amount of time as the duration of a complete C/A code
cycle which is 1 ms. This results in the ability to acquire and track
signals down to around the "160 dBW level.
High Sensitivity GPS receivers are able to integrate the incoming
signals for up to 1,000 times longer than this and therefore acquire
signals up to 1,000 times weaker. A good High Sensitivity GPS
receiver can acquire signals down to "185 dBW, and tracking can be
continued down to levels approaching "190 dBW.
High Sensitivity GPS can provide positioning in many but not all
indoor locations. Signals are either heavily attenuated by the building
materials or reected as in multipath.
Given that High Sensitivity GPS receivers may be up to 30 dB more
sensitive, this is sufcient to track through 3 layers of dry bricks, or
up to 20 cm of steel reinforced concrete for example.
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Selective Availability (SA)
The role of SA was to deny accurate positioning to non-
authorised users
This was achieved by dithering the satellite clocks in a
pseudo random fashion to corrupt the the range
measurements
Authorised users had a key to that allows them to remove
dithering before processing
SPS accuracy was thus limited to about 100m
To circumvent SA the user needs to know the amount of
dithering and can be simply done by monitoring the GPS
satellite with a receiver at a known location.
The variation in position with time was largely due to the
dithering process so if this can be transmitted by radio to
other local users they can remove the effects of dithering.
Hence removed since yr 2000.
Commercial use of 2 frequencies
Besides redundancy and increased resistance to jamming, the
benet of having two frequencies transmitted from one satellite is
the ability to measure directly, and therefore remove, the
ionospheric delay error for that satellite.
As the ionosphere is a highly dynamic charged media its
permittivity is also dynamic and so the speed of light uctuates by a
small frequency dependant amount, hence leading to positional
errors. Ionospheric delay is one of the largest remaining sources of
error in the GPS signal for a static receiver.
Without such a two-frequency measurement, a GPS receiver must
use a generic model or receive ionospheric corrections from another
source. As part of a general development of NAVSTAR GPS the
introduction of a second civilian signal channel L2C was begun in
2006 (with the IIR-M) satellites, which by about 2016 will provide a
24-satellite constellation with this capability. 27
Local Area Differential GPS (LADGPS)
The concept of Local Area Differential GPS (LADGPS) is to place a GPS reference
receiver at a surveyed (known) location, compute the differences in latitude, longitude
and geodetic height between the GPS measured position and the known surveyed
location. The GPS reference receiver is a survey-grade GPS that performs GPS carrier
tracking and can work out its own position to a few millimetres.
For real-time LADGPS these differences are immediately transmitted to the local
receivers by a low frequency radio link (VHF or UHF) and they employ this data to
correct their own GPS position solutions. This requires that all the receivers make
pseudorange measurements to the same set of satellites to ensure that errors are common.
Where these is no need for real-time measurement, such as terrain mapping, the local
receiver needs to record all of its measured positions and the exact time and satellite data
etc., then post processing of the data along with that from the reference receiver yields
the required accurate locations.
In both cases the basic measurement errors (or biases) related to each satellite
measurement such as ionospheric and tropospheric delay errors, receiver noise and clock
offset, orbital errors etc. can be determined and corrected for.
Table 1 [2] gives the estimates of the pseudorange error components from various
sources in SPS mode. The total rms range error is estimated at 33m, and with LADGPS
the error drops by a factor of ten.
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Table 1 GPS C/A code pseudorange error budget (after [2])
Segment source Error source GPS
1 sigma error
(metres)
LADGPS
1 sigma error
(metres)
Space Satellite clock stability
Satellite perturbations
Selective availability
Other (thermal radiation etc.)
3.0
1.0
32.3
.5
0
0
0
0
Control Ephemeris prediction error
Other (Thruster performances
etc)
4.2
0.9
0
0
User Ionospheric delay
Tropospheric delay
Receiver noise and resolutions
Multipath
Other (interchannel bias, etc.)
5.0
1.5
1.5
2.5
0.5
0
0
2.1
2.5
0.5
SYSTEM Total (rms) 33.3 3.3
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GPS sources of ERROR
Satellite clock error:- 1nsec = 0.3m on ground (1.5m)
Errors tracked and transmitted to user
Atmospheric Delays :-propagation of radio through ionosphere &
troposphere not exactly at speed of light (2.5m)
Receiving information on more than one frequency (authorised users)
Knowledge of receiver to satellite elevation angle plus estimate of C
Atmospheric correction data from satellite supplied by monitoring stations
Orbital errors (1.5m)
Ephemeris data supplied in navigation message
Multipath :- signal received from more than one path upsetting timing
(worst inside buildings , cities etc) (2.5m)
Careful choice of location of the 4 satellites used for a x can help
accuracy
LADGPS -cont
Protocols have been dened for communicating between reference
station and user and one such is that from the Radio Technical
Commission for Maritime Services Commission (RTCM-104). The
data rate is low (200 Baud) so can be transmitted to the remote
receiver in a number of ways including a GPRS mobile phone
connection.
The error in the estimated corrections will be a direct function of the
distance between the reference and remote receivers, it is possible to
use a number of reference receivers providing a perimeter to the roving
remote receiver [3].
As mentioned in the previously the receiver can measure the carrier
phase to about 1% accuracy by keeping a running count of the Doppler
frequency shift of the carrier since the satellite acquisition by the
receiver, but the overall phase measurement contains an unknown
number of carrier cycles, N, between the satellite and the user (g 11).
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Fig 11 Carrier phase as a function of time for a given satellite link
Earth surface
user
Satellite orbital track
at times t
0
etc.
N
t
0
t
1
t
2
t
3
"+#
1
"+#
2
"+#
3
DGPS in surveying
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DGPS in agriculture
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Transportable DGPS reference
station Baseline HD by CLAAS
for use in satellite-assisted
steering systems in modern
agriculture
LADGPS -cont
The recording of this data over time can be done at both the
reference and roving receiver for the SAME set of satellites at the
SAME time. Combining this data in a form of interferometry
leads to a set of equations over time that can be solved to
determine the values of N (Carrier Cycle Integer Ambiguity) for
each satellite received by the reference and roving receivers. The
corresponding Code Phase measured data can be used to limit the
size of the integer ambiguity to about 10$ to aid the solution.
A brute force solution to determining N could then be applied by
calculating the least squares solution for each time iteration and
nding the minimum residual, but this is a large computational
task (of order 300,000 residuals for each time point for a 10$
ambiguity [3]).
A better approach uses advanced processing techniques to choose
suitable trial values for N [3] leading to 20cm accuracy in near
real-time and 1mm accuracy with post-processing.
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36
Performance of Differential GPS
Blue and green
are 2 different
locations
SPS mode
Strongly effected by SA
Differential GPS
with base-station
near the 2 sites
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Differential GPS with Carrier phase measurements
giving more accurate time of arrival measurement
Blue with base-station at 10Km distance
Green with base-station at 10m distance
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Dilution of precision due to poor choice
of the four satellite locations
39
Navstar upgrades
First batch of satellites launched in 1978 (called Block 1)
Improvements over the years with Blocks II, IIA and IIR
and next generation IIF
Block IIF
Transmit civilian code on L2 removing atmospheric effects
offering 10m accuracy
Third frequency to be added to system for all users would improve
accuracy by about an order of magnitude
Increased transmit power
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GPS Applications
Monitoring car usage for insurance purposes -a
mile driven at night is 10 times more dangerous
than one driven at 8am - US insurance company
Installed in mobile phone for emergency call
location
Building & surveying via differential GPS
As a universal time standard for CDMA 3G
mobile system
Air trafc control and automatic landing systems
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Future systems: ESAs GALILEO
By offering dual frequencies as
standard,, Galileo will deliver real-time
positioning accuracy down to the metre
range,
Part (18 satellites) Operational
Capability in 2014.
The fully deployed Galileo system
consists of 30 satellites (27 operational
+ 3 active spares), positioned in three
circular Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)
planes in 23616 km altitude
With an accuracy of better than one
billionth second in one hour, the clocks
on the Galileo satellites will allow you to
resolve your position anywhere on the
Earth's surface to within 45 cm
two clocks on board, one based on the
Rubidium atomic frequency standard
and the other using a passive Hydrogen
maser
ESA - European Space Agency