Southwestern College of Maritime, Business and Technology, Inc.

Quezon Drive, Calero, Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro

www.scmbt.edu.ph / slmifnav.official@gmail.com / slmifnav@yahoo.com.ph

SUBJECT: NAV 1 WEEK 2

DATE & TIME: AUGUST 2021 INSTRUCTOR: OIC - Mark Bienn Pereña

I. I. TOPIC: The Electronic Position and Fixing System and Global Navigation System

II. LEARNING COMPETENCY

The learner should know the primary Principles of Terrestrial Navigation.

III. TARGET OUTCOMES:

At the end of the lesson, the student is expected to understand the Basic Terms of
Terrestrial Navigation.

IV. MATERIALS NEEDED:

To accomplish exercises and activities, you need the following: black pen,
notebook, other writing materials and other available references.

V. GEAR UP YOUR MIND

Global Navigation Satellite System

Principles of Satellite Navigation System

Satellite navigation is the technology that uses navigation satellites to transmit
positioning signals, in order to provide real-time positioning for users in the air, on the ground, at sea,
and in space. Since it can provide high-precision information such as three-dimensional position,
velocity and time (PVT) for any location and on any people and objects, it has unparalleled advantages
over other navigational technologies. Thus, it can be widely applied in civil fields such as
transportation, surveying, mapping, telecommunications, water conservancy, fishery, forest fire
prevention, disaster reduction, and disaster relief. It can also be used in military fields such as a space
and weapon guidance. Consequently, the satellite navigation system has become a keystone for a
country’s space information infrastructure, and an important indicator to reflect its status as a modern
country, are at power, and the country’s comprehensive national strength. Major countries and
organizations all around the world have been vigorously developing satellite navigation systems with
various characteristics.

The basis of all GNSS systems is that a user determines it position by measuring to at least 4 GNSS
satellites at the same time. These measurements give the user 4 distance measurements between himself
and the 4 satellites. With four measurements one can resolve 4 unknowns. For the end user these 4
unknowns are the 3 unknowns of his position (X, Y, and Z or Latitude, Longitude, and Height) and the
clock error of his GNSS receiver.
 GNSS Principles

GNSS and Time

So why do we need to estimate the clock error of our GNSS receiver!? Well, the measurements
that are made by GNSS receivers are not distance measurements. GNSS receivers measure the amount
of time it took the signal to travel from the satellite to the receiver, i.e., the travel time. However, to
measure this travel time the receiver has to know the time the signal left the satellite as well as the time
the signal arrived at the receiver. When leaving the satellite the signal gets a time-tag. In that way the
receiver knows the exact time of transmission of the signal. To know the exact time of arrival the
receiver needs to know its own time very accurately. The most economical way to realize this is by
using a very cheap clock inside the receiver, typically a quartz clock (oscillator) similar to the one in
your wrist watch or computer. This time will, however, not be accurate enough and therefore the
receiver has to compute the clock error of its own (cheap) clock. The measured travel time is multiplied
with the signal travel speed to get the actual distance between the satellite and the receiver. The signal
travel speed is the speed of light, i.e., 300 km/s, at least in the vacuum of space, a bit slower in the
Earth’s atmosphere. So in order to have a measurement accuracy of a few meters the satellite and
receiver time will have to be known with an accuracy of around 10 microseconds. This implies that the
satellites need to be able to keep time at this 10 micro-seconds level!! This timing accuracy can only be
achieved by using atomic clocks. And since time keeping is one of the most essential elements of a
GNSS satellite they actually carry several atomic clocks for redundancy. In addition the ground
segment monitors the clock behavior and in addition to time stamping the signals the satellites also
broadcast information regarding the offset, rate, and rate-rate of their on-board clock.

Due to the importance of accurate timing the European GNSS Galileo is planning to use very
advanced clocks called Hydrogen masers. This is one of the unique features of the Galileo system. The
GIOVE-B satellite is flying a H-Maser as proof of concept and to make it "space proven". The GPS
system evolutions, Block-IIF and Block-III, do unfortunately not plan to use such advanced clocks. The
expected (big) advantage of the H-Maser is that its behavior can be predicted much more accurately
over time spans of several hours.

Since the receiver has to compute the error of its own clock it actually got to tell time at an
amazing level of accuracy. So a GNSS based clock would be something really accurate! In fact there
are some GPS wrist watches on the market today because of power consumption they are rather bulky.
Nevertheless, timing is one of the fields in which GPS is used very much. Any application in need of
accurate timing is using a GPS receiver. Examples are time keeping of computer systems, time
stamping of bank transactions (very important!), communication systems, and in fact most likely the
time your computer in the office runs on is based on GPS.

REFERENCES European Global navigation Satellite Systems Agency

www.gsa.europea.eu
Google-GNSS.Com
 Name of Student: Mc. Olem M. Dayandayan n:
Instructor: OIC Mark Bienn Pereña Date:

II. BOOST UP YOUR LEARNING

Activity 2
DEFENITIONS:
1. What is the technology that uses navigation satellites to transmit
positioning signals, in order to provide real-time positioning for users in the air, on the ground, at sea, and
in space?
*Satellite Navigation
2. Who planned to use very advanced clocks called Hydrogen masers?
*European GNSS Galileo
3. The measured travel time is multiplied with__________ to get the actual distance between the satellite
and the receiver?
*The Signal Travel Speed
4. GNSS receivers measure the amount of _______ it took the signal to travel from the satellite to the
receiver?
*Of Time
5. When leaving the satellite the signal gets a _______?

*Time-tag

III. LEVEL UP YOUR LEARNING

Quiz # 2Test Your Knowledge.
1. To know the exact time of arrival the receiver needs to know its own time very _______.

*Accurately

2. The ______ satellite is flying a H-Maser as proof of concept and to make it "space proven"?

*GIOVE-B

3. In order to have a measurement accuracy of a few meters the satellite and receiver time will have to be
known with an accuracy of around 10 microseconds.
*The imphi that the satellites need to be able to keep time at this 10 micro seconds level!!

VIII. Dredge Up!

How’s your studies activities? I know you did a great job! Congratulations for the lesson you’ve learned in the
subject and for the tasks you successfully completed. Have more focus on your activities and studies. GOD bless.