This is the author pre-publication version.

The final paper that should be used for referencing is:

S. Bijjahalli, S. Ramasamy, R. Sabatini, “A GNSS Multipath Model for Aerial Navigation”, Australian
International Aerospace Congress (AIAC17), pp. 92-97, Melbourne, Australia, 2017.

Normal Paper

A GNSS Multipath Model for Aerial Navigation

Suraj Bijjahalli, Subramanian Ramasamy and Roberto Sabatini

School of Engineering – Aerospace Engineering and Aviation

RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC - 3000, Australia

Abstract
The availability and integrity of navigation systems utilizing Global Navigation Satellite
System (GNSS) signals is adversely affected by signal multipath, a phenomena strongly
dependent on the local environment of the GNSS receiver antenna. This paper presents a ray-
tracing method to model multipath, specifically considering specular reflections and their
impact on the received signal. The model is applied to study the effect of satellite elevation
and azimuth on signal attenuation in a simulation-based case-study. The case study
demonstrates that the multipath contribution to signal fading can be isolated to specific
satellite azimuth and elevation zones. The general applicability of the model to any aircraft
renders it suitable as a design tool for developing Aircraft-Based Integrity Augmentation
(ABIA) systems.

Keywords: GNSS Signal Multipath, GNSS Fading Pattern Modelling, GNSS Integrity
Augmentation, Aircraft-Based Integrity Augmentation.

Introduction
The safe use of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) as the primary navigation
sensor for aircraft requires the accurate characterization of GNSS errors. Multipath, or signal
reflection prior to arrival at the receiver antenna typically dominates the GNSS error budget,
and is difficult to model owing to its site-specific nature. The research in this paper draws on
prior work in multipath modelling by utilizing ray-tracing approaches. Carrier-phase
measurement errors due to multipath in static scenarios was characterized in [1]. Similar work
on the effect of multipath errors on the Global Positioning System (GPS) code-range
measurements can be found in [2, 3]. The effect of signal reflections from dielectric surfaces
has been analysed by assuming planar wave propagation and specular reflection in [4].The
strength of ray-tracing methods lies in the opportunity to deterministically solve for signal
fading effects due to reflection and diffraction. The approach supports the integration of
antenna polarization and gain patterns, resulting in the potential to model the propagation
channel from end-to-end including the effects of signal interaction with the terrain.

GNSS satellites antennas transmit Right Circular Polarized (RCP) electromagnetic waves on
the L1 (1575.42 MHz) and L2 (1227.6 MHz) frequencies. A new civilian-use signal was
added on a frequency other than the L1 frequency used for the Coarse Acquisition (C/A)
signal called as the L2C signal. Two PRN ranging codes are transmitted on L5 (civilian
safety-of-life signal) including in-phase and quadrature-phase codes. The C/A pseudorandom
code used for computing the satellite-to-receiver range is modulated onto the L1 carrier by
Binary Phase Shift Key (BPSK) along with navigation data essential for the navigation
solution. The modelling work in this paper is restricted to the C/A-modulated L1 carrier wave
in the Global Positioning System (GPS), but can be generalized to other carrier waves and
other GNSS constellations (GLONASS, Beidou and GALILEO). GPS satellite orbits are at an
average altitude of 20,000 km so as to illuminate the earth’s surface by transmitting at a beam
angle of approximately 27°.Given the distance between the transmitting source (satellite
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antenna) and the airborne GNSS receiver antenna, the transmitted wavefronts can be assumed
to be planar at the receiver antenna location. Signal multipath is characterized in terms of four
parameters relative to the direct path or Line-Of-Sight (LOS) ray: time delay, amplitude,
phase, and phase rate-of-change. These parameters are functions of the satellite-reflector-
antenna geometry configuration at any given epoch and the material properties of the reflector
and the propagation medium (air). By incorporating the receiver antenna gain pattern, antenna
polarization, and the error in pseudorange measurements in the receiver correlators, the
overall positioning error due to multipath can be determined. The following sections will
describe the ray-tracing model used in this research, and its application to a simulation case-
study.

Modelling
The following section discusses the signal reflection model. Specular reflection of an RCP
wave on the interface between two media is illustrated in Figure1.

D C

P
A
B
S : Satellite
R : Receiver antenna phase-centre
: Receiver antenna image
: Angle of incidence
: Parallel polarized incident field
: Perpendicular polarized incident field
: Parallel polarized reflected field
: Perpendicular polarized reflected field
P : Point of reflection

Figure 1 : Ray-tracing model.

The time-delay of the reflected signal is determined through a ray tracing method wherein the
satellite-reflector-antenna geometry is analysed to identify the presence of a multipath ray in
addition to a LOS ray using the receiver-image method[3, 5]. The location of the point of
reflection on the reflector surface is given by [2, 6]:
. .
(1)
.

where is the location of the satellite, is a point on the plane of the reflector, is the unit
vector normal to the reflector plane, and is the image of the receiver about the reflector
surface. Once the point of reflection is determined, the additional path length covered by the
multipath ray relative to the direct ray is:
| | | | | | (2)
The time-delay in seconds is obtained by dividing the geometric delay by the speed of the
signal.In analysing the signal strength of a signal reflected from a reflector, it is convenient to
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resolve the circularly polarized electric field of the incident wave into linearly polarized
components parallel and perpendicular to the plane of incidence as shown in Figure 2.

Circular Polarization Elliptical Polarization

Figure 2: Circular and elliptical polarization.

The electric field vector propagating in the z-direction (out of the page) is described by:
E (3)
where and are the components of the field vector given by:
(4)
(5)
where is the angular frequency of the wave, is the wave number, and are the
amplitudes of the components, and is the phase difference between them. When = ,
and 90° , the wave is RCP. Figure 3 also illustrates a Left Elliptically Polarized (LEP)
wave ( , and 90°).

The power density of the incident signal propagating in the z-direction is described by the
time-averaged Poynting vector [7]:

̂ (6)
where Z is the intrinsic impedance of the propagation medium. On reflection, the amplitudes
of the perpendicular and parallel components are attenuated, and the power density of the
reflected signal is then:
| | ∥
̂ (7)
where and ∥ are the perpendicular and parallel Fresnel reflection coefficients
respectively. The Fresnel reflection coefficients describe the attenuation of the perpendicular
and parallel components of electromagnetic waves incident on the interface between two
media. The coefficients are dependent on the angle of incidence and the permittivities of
the reflector and the propagation medium (air) [7]:

(8)

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 ∥ (9)

The reflection-induced attenuation in the power density relative to the direct ray is then
described by the ratio ⁄ . GNSS receiver antennas are RCP so as to completely reject
(ideally) Left Circularly Polarized (LCP) waves. However, as mentioned previously, the
signal is LEP after reflection, leading to a non-zero polarization mismatch factor for the
multipath ray. Additionally, the multipath ray is further attenuated by a factor depending on
the directional gain of the antenna. The overall Multipath to Direct Ratio is then modelled
as:
(10)

is a ratio between 0 and 1.The polarization mismatch and attenuation due to antenna gain of
the multipath ray is omitted in this paper (F=1; G=1) to focus on the attenuation due to
interaction of the signal with the reflector. Ignoring the C/A modulation, a composite signal
consisting of a single LOS signal and multipath signals arriving at the receiver
antenna is then modelled as the real part of:
exp . 1 ∑ exp Δ (11)
where , , and are the amplitude, angular frequency, propagation time, and phase-
offset of the transmitted signal. Δ and are the propagation delay and phase delay of the
th multipath signal relative to the direct signal.

Simulation Case Study

The presented model was used to analyse the GNSS channel characteristics of the
AEROSONDE Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). After creating the 3-D aircraft surface
model, the corresponding CAD file was then transformed in a Stereolithography (STL) file
format. An STL file was used as it provides a convenient representation of any complex 3D
surface geometry, which is made by a number of oriented triangles. Each of these triangles is
described by two elements namely a unit normal vector to the facet and a set of three points
representing the vertices of the triangle. This representation is ideally suited for analysing the
proposed multipath model for integrity augmentation systems. The AEROSONDE 3-D
SketchUp model obtained is shown in Figure 3 (a). As an example, the AEROSONDE mesh
imported and plotted in MATLABTM is illustrated in Figure 3 (b).

(a) SketchUp model (b) MATLAB implementation

Figure 3: AEROSODNE 3D model discretization.
th
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Fig. 3 also illustrates the location of the receiver antenna on the wing. The antenna height was
above the wing was assigned a value of 0.05 metres. A preliminary assessment of the effect of
multipath signals due to reflection from the aircraft fuselage and wings on the received signal
strength was performed in this paper. The aircraft 3D model was discretised into a mesh
composed of triangular elements and imported into the MATLAB™ environment to analyse
the effect of multipath echoes from the aircraft fuselage and wings. The ray-tracing model
employed in this paper has been demonstrated previously in the literature to provide valid
results as long as the reflecting surfaces have dimensions comparable to or larger than the
signal wavelength [2, 3]. The permittivity of the carbon-fibre fuselage and wings (relative to
air) is assigned a value of 3.4 ( / =3.4). Subsequently, the reflection coefficients and the
received composite (direct plus multipath) signal was computed as a function of the satellite
elevation angle (as observed in the antenna frame of the aircraft). The normalized signal
strength (relative to the direct path LOS signal) as a function of satellite elevation and azimuth
as observed from the antenna reference frame is shown in Figure 4. Signal strength values
were mapped for satellite azimuth angles from 0° to 360° in 5° increments, and for satellite
elevation angles above a mask angle of 15°.

Figure 4: Normalised signal attenuation.

In Figure 4, the aircraft fuselage is aligned along the 0°-180° azimuthal line. The strong
specular reflection phenomena from the wings can be clearly observed in the deep fades close
to the 90° and 270° azimuth angles. At these azimuth angles, the maximum attenuation ≈ -12
dB was observed in the 45°- 60° satellite elevation angle range suggesting a greater incidence
of multipath signals that destructively interfere with the LOS signal, rendering the signal
tracking loops unable to maintain a lock with the satellite. The overall spatial signal strength
pattern was found to be highly sensitive to the height of the antenna above the wing surface.
The maximum signal strength was surprisingly, obtained at lower satellite elevation angles.
However, diffraction was not modelled in this preliminary work, and it is expected that
diffraction effects would dominate the composite signal at low elevation, resulting in deeper
fades at these angles, and demonstrating a more gradual transition between zones of different
signal-to-noise ratios. The general applicability of the proposed model to any aircraft renders
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it suitable as a design tool for developing Aircraft-Based Integrity Augmentation (ABIA)
systems [6, 8, 9]. The ABIA system allows real-time avoidance of safety-critical flight
conditions and fast recovery of the Required Navigation Performance (RNP) in case of GNSS
data losses. In particular, the ABIA system addresses all four cornerstones of GNSS integrity
augmentation in mission- and safety-critical avionics applications: prediction (caution flags),
avoidance (optimal flight path guidance), reaction (warning flags) and correction (recovery
flight path guidance) [6]. The analysis of multipath effects, which leads to a reduced carrier-
to-noise ratio and to range/phase errors will be improved by using the proposed model.

Conclusions
The model presented herein demonstrates flexibility of application to any aircraft and antenna
configuration. The model captured the pattern of the received signal strength as a function of
satellite elevation and azimuth for a given aircraft geometry and antenna configuration. The
multipath contribution to signal fading can be isolated to specific satellite azimuth and
elevation zones. Models of receiver antenna patterns, tracking-loops and navigation
processors can also be incorporated to achieve an end-to-end simulation of multipath effects
on GNSS-based navigation. The primary limitation is the computational expense of the
method. Increasing the number of triangular facets will yield greater accuracy by accounting
for a larger number of possible specular reflections at the expense of greater computational
expense. The lower bound of the mesh size is limited by the requirement of the element
dimensions to be equal to or greater than the signal wavelength. Future research in this
domain will include the effects of diffraction and diffuse scattering, generalization of the
reflection coefficients to include lossy materials and will focus on the development of a
knowledge-based integrity augmentation system using the developed models.

References
[1] L. Lau and P. Cross, "Development and testing of a new ray-tracing approach to GNSS
carrier-phase multipath modelling," Journal of Geodesy, vol. 81, pp. 713-732, 2007.
[2] S. H. Byun, G. A. Hajj, and L. E. Young, "Development and application of GPS signal
multipath simulator," Radio science, vol. 37, 2002.
[3] J. P. Weiss, Modeling and characterization of multipath in global navigation satellite
system ranging signals: ProQuest, 2007.
[4] R. Ercek, P. De Doncker, and F. Grenez, "NLOS-multipath effects on pseudo-range
estimation in urban canyons for GNSS applications," in Antennas and Propagation, 2006.
EuCAP 2006. First European Conference on, 2006, pp. 1-6.
[5] D. Laurenson, "Indoor radio channel propagation modelling by ray tracing techniques,"
University of Edinburgh, 1994.
[6] R. Sabatini, T. Moore, and C. Hill, "A New Avionics-Based GNSS Integrity
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[7] J. D. Kraus and D. A. Fleisch, Eletromagnetics: With Applications: WCB/McGraw-Hill,
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Augmentation System: Part 2 – Integrity Flags," Journal of Navigation, vol. 66, no. 4, pp.
511-522, June 2013. DOI: 10.1017/S03734633 13000143
[9] S. Bijjahalli, S. Ramasamy and R. Sabatini, "A GNSS Integrity Augmentation System for
Sustainable Autonomous Airside Operations." 2nd International Symposium on
Sustainable Aviation (ISSA 2016), Istanbul, Turkey, 2016.

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