Position, Navigation, and Timing

Technologies in the 21st Century

 IEEE Press
445 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854

IEEE Press Editorial Board

Ekram Hossain, Editor in Chief

Jón Atli Benediktsson David Alan Grier Elya B. Joffe

Xiaoou Li Peter Lian Andreas Molisch
Saeid Nahavandi Jeffrey Reed Diomidis Spinellis
Sarah Spurgeon Ahmet Murat Tekalp
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies
in the 21st Century

Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications

Volume 1

Edited by
Y. T. Jade Morton, University of Colorado Boulder
Frank van Diggelen, Google
James J. Spilker, Jr., Stanford University
Bradford W. Parkinson, Stanford University

Associate Editors: Sherman Lo, Stanford University

Grace Gao, Stanford University
Copyright © 2021 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Images: Global telecommunication network
© NicoElNino/Getty Images, GPS Satellite
© BlackJack3D/iStockphoto

Set in 9.5/12.5pt STIXTwoText by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In Memory of:
Ronald L. Beard
Per Enge
Ronald Hatch
David Last
James J. Spilker, Jr.
James B. Y. Tsui
 vii

Contents

Preface xiii
Contributors xv

Part A Satellite Navigation Systems 1

1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA) 3

Bradford W. Parkinson, Y.T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, and James J. Spilker Jr.

2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing 43

John W. Betz

3 The Navstar Global Positioning System 65

John W. Betz

4 GLONASS 87
S. Karutin, N. Testoedov, A. Tyulin, and A. Bolkunov

5 GALILEO 105
José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez, Jörg Hahn, Miguel Manteiga Bautista, and Eric Chatre

6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System 143

Mingquan Lu and Zheng Yao

7 IRNSS 171
Vyasaraj Rao

8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System 187

Satoshi Kogure, Yasuhiko Kawazu, and Takeyasu Sakai

9 GNSS Interoperability 205

Thomas A. Stansell, Jr.

10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring 215

Frank van Graas and Sabrina Ugazio

11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization 233

Oliver Montenbruck and Peter Steigenberger

12 Ground-Based Augmentation System 259

Boris Pervan

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 viii Contents

13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs) 277

Todd Walter

Part B Satellite Navigation Technologies 307

14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers 309

Sanjeev Gunawardena and Y.T. Jade Morton

15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking 339

Y.T. Jade Morton, R. Yang, and B. Breitsch

16 Vector Processing 377

Matthew V. Lashley, Scott Martin, and James Sennott

17 Assisted GNSS 419

Frank van Diggelen

18 High-Sensitivity GNSS 445

Frank van Diggelen

19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) 481

Sunil Bisnath

20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning 503

Peter J.G. Teunissen

21 Direct Position Estimation 529

Pau Closas and Grace Gao

22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals 551
Gary A. McGraw, Paul D. Groves, and Benjamin W. Ashman

23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) 591

Sam Pullen and Mathieu Joerger

24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation 619

Logan Scott

25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery 655

Mark Psiaki and Todd Humphreys

26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing 681

Andrew O’Brien, Chi-Chih Chen and Inder J. Gupta

Part C Satellite Navigation for Engineering and Scientific Applications 717

27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames 719

Chris Rizos, Zuheir Altamimi, and Gary Johnston

28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment 741
Yehuda Bock and Shimon Wdowinski

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 Contents ix

29 Distributing Time and Frequency Information 821

Judah Levine

30 GNSS for Neutral Atmosphere and Severe Weather Monitoring 849

Hugues Brenot

31 Ionospheric Effects, Monitoring, and Mitigation Techniques 879

Y. Jade Morton, Zhe Yang, Brian Breitsch, Harrison Bourne, and Charles Rino

32 GNSS Observation for Detection, Monitoring, and Forecasting Natural and Man-Made Hazardous Events 939
Panagiotis Vergados, Attila Komjathy, and Xing Meng

33 GNSS Radio Occultation 971

Anthony J. Mannucci, Chi O. Ao, and Walton Williamson

34 GNSS Reflectometry for Earth Remote Sensing 1015

James Garrison, Valery U. Zavorotny, Alejandro Egido, Kristine M. Larson, Felipe Nievinski,
Antonio Mollfulleda, Giulio Ruffini, Francisco Martin, and Christine Gommenginger

Part D Position, Navigation, and Timing Using Radio Signals-of-Opportunity 1115

35 Overview of Volume 2: Integrated PNT Technologies and Applications 1117

John F. Raquet

36 Nonlinear Recursive Estimation for Integrated Navigation Systems 1121

Michael J. Veth

37 Overview of Indoor Navigation Techniques 1141

Sudeep Pasricha

38 Navigation with Cellular Signals of Opportunity 1171

Zaher (Zak) M. Kassas

39 Position, Navigation and Timing with Dedicated Metropolitan Beacon Systems 1225
Subbu Meiyappan, Arun Raghupathy, and Ganesh Pattabiraman

40 Navigation with Terrestrial Digital Broadcasting Signals 1243

Chun Yang

41 Navigation with Low-Frequency Radio Signals 1281

Wouter Pelgrum and Charles Schue

42 Adaptive Radar Navigation 1335

Kyle Kauffman

43 Navigation from Low Earth Orbit 1359

Part 1: Concept, Current Capability, and Future Promise
Tyler G.R. Reid, Todd Walter, Per K. Enge, David Lawrence, H. Stewart Cobb, Greg Gutt,
Michael O’Conner, and David Whelan

43 Navigation from Low-Earth Orbit 1381

Part 2: Models, Implementation, and Performance
Zaher (Zak) M. Kassas

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 x Contents

Part E Position, Navigation, and Timing Using Non-Radio signals of Opportunity 1413

44 Inertial Navigation Sensors 1415

Stephen P. Smith

45 MEMS Inertial Sensors 1435

Alissa M. Fitzgerald

46 GNSS-INS Integration 1447

Part 1: Fundamentals of GNSS-INS Integration
Andrey Soloviev

46 GNSS-INS Integration 1481

Part 2: GNSS/IMU Integration Using a Segmented Approach
James Farrell and Maarten Uijt Haag

47 Atomic Clocks for GNSS 1497

Leo Hollberg

48 Positioning Using Magnetic Fields 1521

Aaron Canciani and John F. Raquet

49 Laser-Based Navigation 1541

Maarten Uijt de Haag, Zhen Zhu, and Jacob Campbell

50 Image-Aided Navigation – Concepts and Applications 1571

Michael J. Veth and John F. Raquet

51 Digital Photogrammetry 1597

Charles Toth and Zoltan Koppanyi

52 Navigation Using Pulsars and Other Variable Celestial Sources 1635

Suneel Sheikh

53 Neuroscience of Navigation 1669

Meredith E. Minear and Tesalee K. Sensibaugh

54 Orientation and Navigation in the Animal World 1689

Gillian Durieux and Miriam Liedvogel

Part F Position, Navigation, and Timing for Consumer and Commercial Applications 1711

55 GNSS Applications in Surveying and Mobile Mapping 1713

Naser El-Sheimy and Zahra Lari

56 Precision Agriculture 1735

Arthur F. Lange and John Peake

57 Wearables 1749
Mark Gretton and Peter Frans Pauwels

58 Navigation in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Automated Driving 1769

David Bevly and Scott Martin

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 Contents xi

59 Train Control and Rail Traffic Management Systems 1811

Alessandro Neri

60 Commercial Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) 1839

Maarten Uijt de Haag, Evan Dill, Steven Young, and Mathieu Joerger

61 Navigation for Aviation 1871

Sherman Lo

62 Orbit Determination with GNSS 1893

Yoaz Bar-Sever

63 Satellite Formation Flying and Rendezvous 1921

Simone D’Amico and J. Russell Carpenter

64 Navigation in the Arctic 1947

Tyler G. R. Reid, Todd Walter, Robert Guinness, Sarang Thombre, Heidi Kuusniemi, and Norvald Kjerstad

Glossary, Definitions, and Notation Conventions 1971

Index I1

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Preface
The ability to navigate has been an essential skill for
survival throughout human history. As navigation has
advanced, it has become almost inseparable from the ability
to tell time. Today, position, navigation, and timing (PNT)
technologies play an essential role in our modern society.
Much of our reliance on PNT is the result of the availability
of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and the growing
family of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs). Sat-
ellite-based navigation and other PNT technologies are
being used in the many fast-growing, widespread, civilian
applications worldwide. A report sponsored by the US
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
on the economic benefits of GPS indicated that GPS alone
has generated a $1.4 trillion economic benefit in the private
sector by 2019, and that the loss of GPS service would have a
$1 billion per-day negative impact.1 PNT has become a
pillar of our modern society. Knowledge and education
are essential for the continued advancement of PNT
technologies to meet the increasing demand from society.
That is the rationale that led to the creation of this book.
While there are many publications and several outstand-
ing books on satellite navigation technologies and related
subjects, this two-volume set offers a uniquely comprehen-
sive coverage of the latest developments in the broad field of
PNT and has been written by world-renowned experts in
each chapter’s subject area. It is written for researchers,
engineers, scientists, and students who are interested in
learning about the latest developments in satellite-based
PNT technologies and civilian applications. It also exam-
ines alternative navigation technologies based on other sig-
nals and sensors and offers a comprehensive treatment of
integrated PNT systems for consumer and commercial
applications.
The two-volume set contains 64 chapters organized into
six parts. Each volume contains three parts. Volume 1
focuses on satellite navigation systems, technologies, and
1 RTI International Final Report, Sponsored by the US National
Institute of Standards and Technology, “Economic Benefits of the
Global Positioning System (GPS),” June 2019.
xiii
applications. It starts with a historical perspective of GPS
and other related PNT developments. Part A consists of
12 chapters that describe the fundamental principles and
latest developments of all global and regional navigation
satellite systems (GNSSs and RNSSs), design strategies that
enable their coexistence and mutual benefits, their signal
quality monitoring, satellite orbit and time synchroniza-
tion, and satellite- and ground-based systems that provide
augmentation information to improve the accuracy of
navigation solutions. Part B contains 13 chapters. These
provide a comprehensive review of recent progress in satel-
lite navigation receiver technologies such as receiver archi-
tecture, signal tracking, vector processing, assisted and
high-sensitivity GNSS, precise point positioning and real-
time kinematic (RTK) systems, direct position estimation
techniques, and GNSS antennas and array signal processing.
Also covered are topics on the challenges of multipath-rich
urban environments, in handling spoofing and interference,
and in ensuring PNT integrity. Part C finishes the volume
with 8 chapters on satellite navigation for engineering and
scientific applications. A review of global geodesy and refer-
ence frames sets the stage for discussions on the broad field
of geodetic sciences, followed by a chapter on the important
subject of GNSS-based time and frequency distribution.
GNSS signals have provided a popular passive sensing tool
for troposphere, ionosphere, and Earth surface monitoring.
Three chapters are dedicated to severe weather, ionospheric
effects, and hazardous event monitoring. Finally, a compre-
hensive treatment of GNSS radio occultation and reflectom-
etry is provided.
The three parts in Volume 2 address PNT using alterna-
tive signals and sensors and integrated PNT technologies
for consumer and commercial applications. An overview
chapter provides the motivation and organization of the
volume, followed by a chapter on nonlinear estimation
methods which are often employed in navigation system
modeling and sensor integration. Part D devotes 7 chapters
to using various radio signals transmitted from sources on
the ground, from aircraft, or from low Earth orbit (LEO)
satellites for PNT purposes. Many of these signals were
xiv Preface
intended for other functions, such as broadcasting, net-
working, and imaging and surveillance. In Part E, there
are 8 chapters covering a broad range of non-radio fre-
quency sensors operating in both passive and active modes
to produce navigation solutions, including MEMS inertial
sensors, advances in clock technologies, magnetometers,
imaging, LiDAR, digital photogrammetry, and signals
received from celestial bodies. A tutorial-style chapter on
multiple approaches to GNSS/INS integration methods
is included in Part E. Also included in Part E are chapters
on the neuroscience of navigation and animal navigation.
Finally, Part F presents a collection of work on contem-
porary PNT applications such as surveying and mobile
mapping, precision agriculture, wearable systems, auto-
mated driving, train control, commercial unmanned air-
craft systems, aviation, satellite orbit determination and
formation flying, and navigation in the unique Arctic
environment.
The chapters in this book were written by 131 authors
from 18 countries over a period of 5 years. Because of the
diverse nature of the authorship and the topics covered
in the two volumes, the chapters were written in a variety
of styles. Some are presented as high-level reviews of prog-
ress in specific subject areas, while others are tutorials with
detailed quantitative analysis. A few chapters include links
to MATLAB or Python example code as well as test data for
those readers who desire to have hands-on practice. The
collective goal is to appeal to industry professionals,
researchers, and academics involved with the science, engi-
neering, and application of PNT technologies. A website,
pnt21book.com, provides chapter summaries; downloada-
ble code examples, data, worked homework examples,
select high-resolution figures, errata, and a way for readers
to provide feedback.
A comprehensive project of this scale would not be pos-
sible without the collective efforts of the GNSS and PNT
community. We appreciate the leading experts in the field
taking time from their busy schedules to answer the call in
contributing to this book. Some of the authors also
provided valuable input and comments to other chapters
in the book. We also sought input from graduate students
and postdocs in the field as they will be the primary users
and represent the future of the field. We want to acknowl-
edge the following individuals who have supported or
encouraged the effort and/or helped to improve the con-
tents of the set: Michael Armatys, Penina Axelrad, John
Betz, Rebecca Bishop, Michael Brassch, Brian Breitsch,
Phil Brunner, Russell Carpenter, Charles Carrano, Ian
Collett, Anthea Coster, Mark Crews, Patricia Doherty,
Chip Eschenfelder, Hugo Fruehauf, Gaylord Green,
Richard Greenspan, Yu Jiao, Kyle Kauffman, Tom
Langenstein, Gerard Lachapelle, Richard Langley, Robert
Lutwak, Jake Mashburn, James J. Miller, Mikel Miller,
Pratap Misra, Oliver Montenbruck, Sam Pullen, Stuart
Riley, Chuck Schue, Logan Scott, Steve Taylor, Peter Teu-
nissen, Jim Torley, A. J. van Dierendonck, Eric Vinande,
Jun Wang, Pai Wang, Yang Wang, Phil Ward, Dongyang
Xu, Rong Yang, and Zhe Yang. The Wiley-IEEE Press
team has demonstrated great patience and flexibility
throughout the five-year gestation period of this project.
And our families have shown great understanding, gener-
ously allowing us to spend a seemingly endless amount of
time to complete the set.
This project was the brainchild of Dr. James Spilker, Jr. He
remained a fervent supporter until his passing in October
2019. A pioneer of GPS civil signal structure and receiver
technologies, Dr. Spilker was truly the inspiration behind
this effort. During the writing of this book set, several pio-
neers in the field of GNSS and PNT, including Ronald Beard,
Per Enge, Ronald Hatch, David Last, and James Tsui also
passed away. This set is dedicated to these heroes and all
those who laid the foundation for the field of PNT.
Jade Morton
Frank van Diggelen
Bradford Parkinson
Sherman Lo
Grace Gao
 xv

Contributors

Zuheir Altamimi Jacob Campbell

Institut National de l’Information Géographique et Air Force Research Laboratory, United States
Forestière, France
Aaron Canciani
Chi O. Ao Air Force Institute of Technology, United States
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States
J. Russell Carpenter
Benjamin W. Ashman National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, United States
United States
Eric Châtre
Yoaz Bar-Sever European Commission, Belgium
Jet Propulsion Lab, United States
Chi-Chih Chen
Miguel Manteiga Bautista The Ohio State University, United States
European Space Agency, the Netherlands
Pau Closas
John W. Betz Northeastern University, United States
The MITRE Corporation, United States
H. Stewart Cobb
David Bevly Satelles, United States
Auburn University, United States
Simone D’Amico
Sunil Bisnath Stanford University, United States
York University, Canada
Evan Dill
Yehuda Bock National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, United States United States

Alexei Bolkunov Gillian Durieux

PNT Center, Russia Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Germany

Harrison Bourne Alejandro Egido

University of Colorado Boulder, United States Starlab, Spain

Brian Breitsch Naser El-Sheimy

University of Colorado Boulder, United States University of Calgary, Canada

Hugues Brenot Per K. Enge

Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Belgium Stanford University, United States
xvi Contributors

James Farrell Zaher (Zak) M. Kassas

Vigil Inc., United States University of California Irvine, United States

Alissa M. Fitzgerald Kyle Kauffman

A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates, LLC, United States Integrated Solutions for Systems, United States

Grace Gao Yasuhiko Kawazu

Stanford University, United States National Space Policy Secretariat, Japan

James Garrison Norvald Kjerstad

Purdue University, United States Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Norway
Christine Gommenginger
National Oceanography Centre, United Kingdom Satoshi Kogure
National Space Policy Secretariat, Japan
Mark Gretton
TomTom, United Kingdom Attila Komjathy
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States
Paul D. Groves
University College London, United Kingdom Zoltan Koppanyi
The Ohio State University, United States
Robert Guinness
Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, Finland Heidi Kuusniemi
Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, Finland
Sanjeev Gunawardena
Air Force Institute of Technology, United States Arthur F. Lange
Trimble Navigation, United States
Inder J. Gupta
The Ohio State University, United States Zahra Lari
Leica Geosystems Inc., Canada
Greg Gutt
Satelles, United States Kristine M. Larson
University of Colorado Boulder, United States
Maarten Uijt de Haag
Technische Universität Berlin, Germany Matthew V. Lashley
Georgia Tech Research Institute, United States
Jörg Hahn
European Space Agency, the Netherlands David Lawrence
Satelles, United States
Leo Hollberg
Stanford University, United States Judah Levine
National Institute of Standard and Technology,
Todd Humphreys United States
University of Texas–Austin, United States
Miriam Liedvogel
Mathieu Joerger Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Biology,
Virginia Tech, United States Germany

Gary Johnson Sherman Lo

Geoscience Australia, Australia Stanford University, United States

Sergey Karutin Mingquan Lu

PNT Center, Russia Tsinghua University, China
 Contributors xvii

Anthony J. Mannucci Peter Frans Pauwels

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States TomTom, the Netherlands

Francisco Martin John Peake

Starlab, Spain Trimble Navigation, United States

Scott Martin Wouter Pelgrum

Auburn University, United States Blue Origin LLC, United States

Boris Pervan
Gary A. McGraw
Illinois Institute of Technology, United States
Collins Aerospace, United States
Mark Psiaki
Subbu Meiyappan Virginia Tech, United States
NextNav LLC, United States
Sam Pullen
Xing Meng Stanford University, United States
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States
Arun Raghupathy
Meredith E. Minear NextNav LLC, United States
University of Wyoming, United States
Vyasaraj Rao
Antonio Mollfulleda Accord Software and Systems, India
Starlab, Spain
John F. Raquet
Oliver Montenbruck Integrated Solutions for Systems, United States
German Aerospace Center, Germany
Tyler G. R. Reid
Y.T. Jade Morton Stanford University, United States
University of Colorado Boulder, United States
Charles Rino
Alessandro Neri University of Colorado Boulder, United States
University of Roma TRE, Italy
Chris Rizos
Felipe Nievinski University of New South Wales, Australia
UFRGS, Brazil
José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez
Andrew O’Brien European Space Agency, the Netherlands
The Ohio State University, United States
Giulio Ruffini
Michael O’Conner Starlab, Spain
Satelles, United States
Takeyasu Sakai
Bradford W. Parkinson National Institute of Maritime, Port, and Aviation
Stanford University, United States Technology, Japan

Sudeep Pasricha Charles Schue, III

Colorado State University, United States UrsaNav, Inc., United States

Ganesh Pattabiraman Logan Scott

NextNav LLC, United States LS Consulting, United States
xviii Contributors

James Sennott Frank van Graas

Tracking and Imaging Systems, United States Ohio University, United States

Tesalee K. Sensibaugh Panagiotis Vergados

University of Wyoming, United States Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States

Suneel Sheikh Michael J. Veth

ASTER Labs, Inc., United States Veth Research Associates, United States

Todd Walter
Stephen P. Smith
Stanford University, United States
The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc., United States
Shimon Wdowinski
Andrey Soloviev Florida International University, United States
QuNav, United States
David Whelan
James J. Spilker Jr. University of California San Diego, United States
Stanford University, United States
Walton Williamson
Thomas A. Stansell, Jr. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States
Stansell Consulting, United States
Chun Yang
Peter Steigenberger Sigtem Technology Inc., United States
German Aerospace Center, Germany
Rong Yang
Nikolai Testoedov University of Colorado Boulder, United States
PNT Center, Russia
Zhe Yang
University of Colorado Boulder,
Peter J. G. Teunissen
United States
Curtin University, Australia and Delft University of
Technology, The Netherlands
Zheng Yao
Tsinghua University, China
Sarang Thombre
Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, Finland
Steven Young
National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Charles Toth
United States
The Ohio State University, United States
Valery U. Zavorotny
Andrei Tyulin
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
PNT Center, Russia
United States;
Sabrina Ugazio University of Colorado Boulder, United States
Ohio University, United States
Zhen Zhu
Frank van Diggelen East Carolina University,
Google, United States United States
 1

Part A

Satellite Navigation Systems


Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
Bradford W. Parkinson1, Y.T. Jade Morton2, Frank van Diggelen3, and James J. Spilker Jr.1
1
Stanford University, United States
2
University of Colorado Boulder, United States
3
Google, United States
1.1 Introduction
Knowledge of your current location is now taken for granted
by people worldwide. This is largely due to the advent of sat-
ellite-based navigation systems, particularly the Global Posi-
tioning System (GPS). These global navigation satellite
systems (GNSSs) are still rapidly evolving with more capabil-
ity and even greater robustness. Their fundamental purpose is
determining location in four dimensions – three geographical
positions plus time. A user is indifferent to the source of loca-
tion knowledge – any technique will do if it is reliable. While
much of this book is devoted to satellite-based navigation sys-
tems (satnavs), we intend to give full explanations of virtually
all modern sources of position, navigation, and timing (PNT).
The classical definition of navigation is the act, activity,
science, method, or process of finding a route to get to a
place when you are traveling in a ship, car, airplane, etc.
It involves the determination of position, course, and dis-
tance traveled [1]. A more contemporary, formal definition
of navigation is determining positions, orientations, veloci-
ties, and accelerations, all in three dimensions and in a
stated coordinate system, and time, as well as planning,
finding, and following a route.
The goal for most satnav users is assured PNT; providers
recognize that combining dissimilar sources of basic
PNT information leads to a much more robust positioning
capability – that is, greater PNT assurance. The United
States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) uses four cri-
teria to measure PNT capability. These are (i) Availability,
(ii) Accuracy, (iii) Integrity, and (iv) Continuity of opera-
tions. They are useful measures for all users and all appli-
cations, not just aviation. In particular, compounding or
augmenting systems (e.g. satnav + inertial) leads to greater
assurance of PNT in the face of deliberate or inadvertent
radio interference. Thus, another purpose of this book is
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
3
to illustrate such interconnecting relationships and the
benefits that accrue to the user.
Application Explosion For the user, GPS is simply a
technique to assure PNT; there are significant other ways
to find location today, and more will become available in
the near future. This book will explore both current and
future techniques, especially the other GNSSs and regional
navigation satellite systems (RNSSs). But GPS is now a
name familiar to nearly every cell phone user in the world.
By the year 2015, over 2 billion receiver sets had been pro-
duced, and, driven by cell phone applications, these are
increasing by over 1.4 billion per year.
Besides ubiquitous cell phones, GPS has stealthily crept
into virtually every corner of our society. Even the early
developers have been amazed by the countless applications.
Table 1.1 presents a partial list of application areas. Clearly,
any attempt to explore all applications of satnav and
PNT would require many volumes and be outdated as soon
as it was published. However, we do intend to describe
representative current and future applications for PNT in
this book.
GPS has been called “The Stealth Utility” because many
applications are usually invisible to the user. Operationally,
GPS availability has been over 99.9%, on a worldwide
basis [2]. This pervasive availability drives the enormous
GPS benefits in terms of safety, productivity, and conven-
ience. For example, there are now over 3600 certified
GPS runway approaches for aircraft in the United States.
An economic study for the US National Space-Based PNT
Advisory Board (PNTAB) calculated the mid-range value
of GPS at over $65 billion per year for the United States
alone [3]. These broad benefits have led to GPS being prop-
erly described as “a system for humanity.” As such, GPS
raises some historical questions. How did it come into being
and what applications are likely to be developed in the
4 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

Table 1.1 Twelve major application areas for satnav

Areas Example application

Aviation Area navigation, approach, landing up to Cat III, NextGen

Agriculture Autofarming: crop spraying, precision cultivating, yield assessment
Automotive Turn-by-turn guidance, concierge services, driverless cars
Emergency and Rescue Services 911, ambulance, fire, police, rescue helicopters, emergency beacons, airplane and ship locaters
Intelligent Transportation Train control and management, UAVs
Military Rescue, precision weapon delivery, unit and individual location
Recreation Geocaching, drones, hiking, boating, fitness
Robotics and Machine Control Bulldozers, earth graders, mining trucks, oil drilling
Scientific Earth movement and shape, atmosphere, weather forecasting, climate modeling, ionosphere, space
weather, tsunami warning, soil moisture, ocean roughness and salinity, wind velocity, snow, ice,
foliage coverage, etc.
Survey and GIS Mapping, environmental monitoring, tagging disease outbreaks
Timing Cell phone towers, banking, power grid
Tracking Fleets, assets, equipment, shipments, children, Alzheimer’s patients, wildlife, livestock, pets, law
enforcement, criminals, parolees, etc.

future? The history will be addressed in this introductory
chapter‚ and selected applications will be summarized
here, but expanded in later chapters.
While GPS has been the pioneer in satnav, other nations
are in the process of fielding their own systems. Three exam-
ples of newer Global satnavs are the upgraded GLONASS
built by the Russians, the EU-sponsored system called
Galileo,1 and the Chinese system, called BeiDou (formerly:
Compass). In addition, a number of countries are fielding
Regional satnav systems (RNSSs). In Volume I, Part A of this
book, we devote a chapter to each of these global and regional
systems. With these systems, an individual user is able to use
well over 40 satellites simultaneously for determining posi-
tion. The key enabler for the user is that the satnav systems
are at least interoperable, if not interchangeable. The simila-
rities and differences among the GNSSs as well as the chal-
lenges for interoperability are also addressed in this book.
Reliance on satnav alone is imprudent for many users.
What techniques and processes can be used to increase
robustness and accuracy? This first chapter will introduce
the topic‚ and later chapters will expand on this in depth.
The program to ensure PNT availability has been a major
subject for the US PNTAB and is called “PTA.” PTA stands
for Protect, Toughen, and Augment and will be further ela-
borated in this introduction.
An example of GNSS augmentation is the US FAA’s Wide
Area Augmentation System (WAAS). Driven by the need to
1 The recent Brexit will probably change Galileo management. There
is the possibility of an added British navigation satellite constellation.
ensure integrity for aviation, WAAS became operational on
10 July 2003. This pioneering system performs real-time
measurements of all GPS satellites and sends the user an
integrity message in near real time that also corrects any
real-time ranging errors. An example of the GPS measure-
ment accuracy performance: for the 22 WAAS ground sta-
tions in the third quarter of 2015, it was better than 2.2 m
of horizontal error at the 95th percentile [4]. The European
Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and
Japanese Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT)
Space-based Augmentation System (MSAS) perform simi-
lar functions. All of these are examples of satellite-based
augmentation systems (SBAS) for satnavs. A similar, more
local augmentation technique, called the Local Area Aug-
mentation System (LAAS), and other ground-based aug-
mentation systems (GBAS) and techniques are designed
for high-integrity, blind landing of aircraft. Furthermore,
numerous ground-based accuracy augmentation networks,
such as the Continuously Operating Reference Station
(CORS) networks, are the results of combined efforts by
government organizations, self-funding agencies, universi-
ties, and research institutions from over 100 countries
[5–7]. These networks and their combined super-networks
play a fundamental role in enabling broad areas of appli-
cations. These essential GNSS augmentation systems will
be discussed in this book.
Numerous innovative PNT algorithms and metho-
dologies have been developed since the inception of the
GPS concept. Volume I of this book focuses on the
progress made and future trends in satnav technologies

and applications, while Volume II focuses on non-GNSS
sensors, integrated PNT systems, and applications. The fun-
damental purposes of these volumes are to offer technical
explanations of the many satnav and other techniques that
provide civil PNT and to explore selected applications that
are useful to the global community. The chapters have been
written by world-class experts on the current state of the art
of these PNT technologies.
1.2 A Brief History Prior to SatNav
1.2.1 Early Navigation Techniques
As humans migrated across the globe, the ability to navi-
gate was an absolute prerequisite to survival. The Polyne-
sians developed techniques of using the observation of
stars and planets to navigate across vast areas of the Pacific
Ocean with legendary accuracy. In 1976, these voyages
were replicated using a newly built war canoe of ancient
Polynesian design. This vessel, named the Hokulea, was
navigated solely by the stars from Hawaii to Tahiti. It is a
fascinating story that elaborates on the ancient techniques
of using the heavenly bodies [8].
About 1000 years ago, the Chinese introduced the mag-
netic compass‚ which was particularly useful for voyages
in overcast conditions. On cloudy days, the Vikings may
have used cordierite or some other birefringent crystal
to determine the Sun’s direction and elevation from the
polarization of daylight through cloudy skies.
Then a series of techniques were developed to measure
the altitude (angle above the horizon) of stars and other
heavenly bodies to calculate position, culminating in the
invention of the sextant by British Vice-Admiral John Camp-
bell in 1757. Latitude could be determined by the elevation of
the Sun above the horizon at high noon or the elevation of
the star Polaris, but longitude required accurate time, syn-
chronized to an observatory that had published a nautical
almanac. The challenging requirement for synchronized
time soon led to the development of highly accurate ship-
borne clocks (called chronometers), with the initial success-
ful version by a Yorkshire carpenter, John Harrison‚ in 1761.
His clock was accurate to better than 1 second per day. This
history was documented in the excellent book Longitude by
Dava Sobel [9].
1.2.2 Radio Navigation
With the discovery and exploitation of radio waves, new
navigation techniques could be developed. Perhaps the
most elementary is radio direction finding (RDF), which
allows a user to determine the line of bearing to a radio
1.2 A Brief History Prior to SatNav 5
source with a known location. Practical RDF devices were
in use by the early 20th century. RDF is an example of
bearing-measurement systems that includes the modern
VHF omni-directional range (VOR) used by FAA. The
other four classes of radio navigation system are beam sys-
tems, transponder systems (including distance measuring
equipment (DME)), hyperbolic systems, and satnavs.
The most well known of the hyperbolic systems is prob-
ably LORAN (Long-Range Navigation). A modernized
variant of this is eLORAN (enhanced LORAN). The under-
lying technique is to measure the difference in time of
arrival (TOA) between pairs of transmitted pulses. Each sta-
tion pair produces a hyperbolic line of position. The user’s
location is determined by the intersection of two or more
such lines. This system is only two-dimensional (2D)
with accuracies of about 20 m in a calibrated differential
mode. It is appealing as an augmentation for GPS because
its powerful RF signal is in an entirely different radio
spectrum band.
1.2.3 Inertial Navigation
Inertial navigation is another method of providing posi-
tioning information. During World War II, the Germans
deployed an elementary guidance system for the V-2 rocket,
but this was not a generally useful configuration. The first
purely inertial, generalized system was invented and devel-
oped by Dr. Charles Stark Draper at MIT in the early 1950s
[10]. The basic idea is to mount very precise accelerometers
on a gyroscopically stabilized platform (in strapped-down
mode‚ such stabilization is maintained in software). By
doubly integrating the accelerometer outputs and correct-
ing for the effect of gravity, which cannot be sensed, posi-
tion can be determined. This requires very accurate initial
conditions (both position and velocity) as well as careful
alignment with an inertial coordinate frame. The nature
of double integration magnifies small sensor biases into
error growth that is proportional to time or time squared,
so periodic reset is essential for most applications.
Draper’s inertial navigation systems were very successful
and quickly became the basic navigation device for the
Navy’s ballistic missile submarines. Professor Walter Wrig-
ley has written a history of inertial navigation and said:
“Notwithstanding the work of those previously discussed,
the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory under Professor
C. S. Draper was the main spearhead in the development
of inertial navigation systems and components for aircraft,
ships, missiles, and spacecraft” [11]. Professor Wrigley
bases this statement on an earlier article in the American
Journal of the Institute of Navigation by H. Hellman [12].
These state-of-the-art inertial navigators still required peri-
odic updates of position and velocity to maintain the
6 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

desired accuracy. This led to the first space-based radio nav- 1.3 Initial GPS Development: Key
igation system‚ called Transit, which is discussed below. Milestones in the Early Development
Modern micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)
of Worldwide 3D satnav for PNT
which measure accelerations and rotations are now
common in many applications including automobiles.
Figure 1.1 depicts the major events in GPS and related devel-
Major efforts are being made to improve the accuracy
opments in two major segments: 1957–1983 and 1989–2020.
and stability of these devices. A parallel development of
The focus of this chapter is on the early history and develop-
chip-scale atomic clocks, which are both inexpensive and
ment of GPS. While major events related to other GNSSs and
accurate, is also a major advance. MEMS devices and
RNSSs and future development are touched upon as well,
these clock technologies are discussed in Volume II.
these topics are fully addressed in later chapters.

GPS DEVELOPMENT: 1957–1983

Getting, Aerospace Corp
Proposed 3D satnav system
Woodford & Nakamura,
US Air Force 621B study
CDMA signal structure
& Gold Code
White Sands tests,
Inverted ranges
US Air Force First GPS satellite President Regan
designated to develop launched formally guaranteed
Joint Navigation System GPS civil signal
availability
Pentagon “Lonely Halls”
meeting. GPS defined Initial operational
control system
DSARC 6 satellites in space
approved GPS Median accuracy 7m

57 58 1960 62 66 67 1970 73 74 78 79 1980 82 83

Transit, US Navy NTS-1, NRL
Guier & Weiffenbach Timation (quartz oscillator) First attempt to place
World’s first Navy Research Labs (NRL) First GLONASS
track satellite using Doppler. atomic clock in space
satnav system
Transit conceived. Experienced early Cicada, satellite launched
Sputnik, USSR radiation-induced failure USSR

RELATED DEVELOPMENT

GPS DEVELOPMENT: 1989–2020

GPS declared President Clinton First Block IIR First Block IIF
fully operational discontinued satellite satellite
Selective Availability broadcasting L1M, broadcasting L5
L2C, L2M signals signals launched
launched First GPS III satellite
broadcasting L1C launched
24 satellites in space Began broadcasting
SPS PS RMS 4m CNAV messages
19 GPS
satellites launched SPS PS RMS 6m

89 1990 93 95 96 2000 01 05 08 2010 12 13 14 17 18 2020

NavIC: Galileo,
QZSS: first 7 satellites NavIC, QZSS
GLONASS: Beidou I: Galileo: first test
satellite launched launched operational
24 satellites in space limited test system satellite GIOVE-A
operational launched Galileo: first Beidou II:
operational satellite 14 satellites
launched in space Beidou III
operational global
operation
OTHER GNSS & RNSS DEVELOPMENT

Figure 1.1 Timeline of major development in GPS, GNSS, RNSS, and related technologies.
 1.4 The Seminal System Study of Alternatives for Satellite-Based Navigation Sponsored by the Air Force and Ivan Getting 7

The first development occurred on 4 October 1957, when Table 1.2 Transit characteristics
the entire world was fascinated by the launch of the Rus-
First operational 1962
sian Sputnik satellite. The American public greeted this
prototype
event with both apprehension and curiosity. In 1958, the
Operational 1964–1996
Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity employed an extremely competent team of engi- Orbit Circular polar orbit at ~1000 km
altitude in 5+ nominal orbital
neers and scientists. Two of those scientists, Drs. William planes
Guier and George Weiffenbach, began to study the orbits
Transmit frequencies 150 and 400 MHz to correct for
of the new Sputnik satellites. The satellites were broadcast- ionospheric delays
ing a continuous tone signal, so their velocity, relative to the Time for a position fix ~15 min
ground, created a Doppler shift of the signal that was
Time between fix Periodic, ~90 min
unique. After some innovative work, Guier and Weiffen-
2D accuracy For moving ship, 200 to 500 m,
bach discovered they could determine the Sputnik’s orbit needs velocity correction
with a single pass of the vehicle.
For stationary user, 80 m
At that point, Frank McClure of APL made a very crea-
tive suggestion: why not turn the problem upside down?
Using a known satellite position, a navigator could deter-
mine their location anywhere in the world after receiving navigators of the United States Submarine Ballistic Missile
and processing the satellite signal for 15 minutes. His Force then being deployed. These submarines were a major
insight became the basis for the Navy’s Transit satellite deterrent during the Cold War. Transit was first tested in
program, also known as the Navy Navigation Satellite 1960 and by 1964 the system was operational.
System. This pioneering satellite system was developed Although limited in scope as a 2D shipboard navigation
under the leadership of Dr. Richard Kershner, head of satellite system, Transit was a major contributor to
APL (see his photo with Dr. Bradford Parkinson, who led satellite navigation as the first worldwide operational nav-
the development of GPS in Figure 1.2). Transit’s main igation satellite system. Table 1.2 lists key information on
purpose was to provide position updates to the inertial Transit.

1.4 The Seminal System Study of

Alternatives for Satellite-Based
Navigation Sponsored by the Air Force
and Ivan Getting [13]

New Satellite-Based Navigation Systems Proposed

Figure 1.2 Dr. Richard Kershner (left) who led the development of
Transit. On his right is Col. Bradford Parkinson, who led the
development of GPS.
1962–1970 By 1962, Dr. Ivan Getting, president of the Aer-
ospace Corporation, saw the need for a new satellite-based
navigation system. While he did not have a specific imple-
mentation, he envisioned a more accurate positioning
system that would be available in 3 dimensions, 24 hours
a day, 7 days a week. He had direct access to the highest
levels of the Pentagon and was a tireless advocate for his
vision.
Getting’s energy and foresight in the early 1960s were
essential to gaining Air Force support to study system alter-
natives. As a result, the Air Force formed a new satellite
navigation program that was later named 621B. His
efforts were recognized in 2003 when he shared the Charles
Stark Draper Prize of the National Academy of Engineering
(known as the “Engineer’s Nobel”) with Dr. Bradford
Parkinson.
8 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
By 1962, engineers at Aerospace, under Air Force spon-
sorship, were heavily immersed in studying the system
alternatives for a new navigational satellite system. From
1964 to 1966, the Air Force directed Aerospace to perform
an extensive, formal system study whose principal authors
were James Woodford and Hiroshi Nakamura, both highly
regarded space-systems engineers.
The Woodford/Nakamura study was summarized as a
DoD (Department of Defense) secret briefing in August
1966. As a result of the classification, it was unavailable
to anyone outside the project until 13 years later in 1979,
when it was finally declassified. Figure 1.3 shows the front
page of the GPS system study.
Figure 1.3 Front page of the seminal GPS system study performed
from 1964 to 1966 by USAF 621B program. Originally classified
SECRET, it was declassified after the initial GPS constellation had
been launched. This was the essential foundation for the GPS
design concept.
This report was a very complete system study that exam-
ined the following topics:
• Capabilities and limitations of then current DoD naviga-
tion systems.
• Tactical applications and utility of improved positioning
accuracy.
• Comprehensive analysis of alternative system configura-
tions and techniques for positioning using satellites.
Since the full survey of alternative system configurations
was extremely important in selecting an optimum system
configuration for GPS, we reproduce the summarizing fig-
ure in Figure 1.4. Twelve major alternatives were studied.
Note that the “COMPUTATION PERFORMED BY USER”
is split into two columns. The reader should focus on the
columns of the 1-WAY passive ranging techniques with
the red outline. These alternatives can have an unlimited
number of users – i.e. there is no system constraint. In this
column, there are two “user boxes,” one with “A” and one
USAF/621B 1964 Study of
12 Alternative GNSS Architectures
Competing NRL
proposal–User
required an atomic
clock
GPS selected the most Challenging
2
of 12 Alternatives – 4D Position
with no user need for an atomic
clock
12 (Demonstrated by USAF 621B–
1971)
Figure 1.4 Key summary of alternatives for satellite-based
navigation systems. The USAF Program Office selected the 12th
alternative. The competing Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
proposal (Option #2) was two-dimensional and relied on an atomic
clock at the user’s station.
with “X.” “A” shows that the user needs an atomic clock.
“X” shows the user needs only a crystal clock. The option
that was later selected for GPS is #12, designated with
the green box. This technique is the 3 Δρ (four satellites)
that eliminated the need for the user’s atomic clock and
provided three-dimensional positioning (really four-
dimensional since it also captured time). This technique
is illustrated in Figure 1.5 (taken from [14]).
1.4.1 The 621B Era – Additional USAF Studies
From 1966 to 1972, program 621B continued with trade-off
studies including signal modulation, user data process-
ing techniques, orbital configuration, orbital prediction,
receiver accuracy, error analysis, system cost, and comprehen-
sive estimates of the tactical mission benefits. In late 1968,
the Air Force’s NavSat program in the Plans Office (XR) at
the Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO) in
Los Angeles was re-designated as 621B. All of the various
proposals that went forward from SAMSO to Headquarters
came henceforth from the 621B office in XR. Over 90 NavSat
reports completed by USAF/Aerospace during this period
were filed in the Aerospace Corporation library.
1.4.2 The Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
or PRN Signal Structure
Of these studies, the most important were those aimed at
selecting the best passive ranging technique for the naviga-
tion signal. By 1967, it appeared that the best method was
 1.4 The Seminal System Study of Alternatives for Satellite-Based Navigation Sponsored by the Air Force and Ivan Getting
RN
b
+
(x, y, z)
Figure 1.5 Illustration of the principle of satellite navigation (from [14]). The user-satellite ranging measurements are based on the times
of transmission and receipt of signals. They are biased by a common time offset and are called pseudoranges. Four pseudoranges are
required. Source: Reproduced with permission of Ganga-Jamuna Press.
Figure 1.6 Dr. James Spilker Jr., one of the creative engineers who
led development of the GPS digital signal structure.
a variation of a new communications modulation known
as CDMA. Pioneering this signal were several outstand-
ing scientists and engineers, including Dr. James Spilker
(Figure 1.6) and Dr. Fran Natali (both of Stanford Telecom),
as well as Dr. Charlie Cahn and Bert Glaser (both of
Magnavox).
This signal has many names. In addition to CDMA, it is
sometimes called “spread spectrum” or “spreading code”
since the energy of the signal was spread over a wide range
of spectrum frequencies. It is also sometimes called PRN or
9
(x|, y|, z|)
R|
R1
Measurements: Pseudoranges {R|}
Given: Satellite positions {(x|, y|, z|)}
Ri = (x| – x)2 + (y| – y)2+ (z| – z)2 – b
i = 1, 2,...., N
Unknown: User Position (x, y, z)
Receiver clock Bias b
pseudorandom noise because the encoded (but repeated)
sequence appears to be random transitions of +1 and −1.
It is called Code Division because each satellite is
assigned its own coded signal. Each was a binary (digital)
sequence selected to be uncorrelated with other signals
and also uncorrelated with time shifts of the signal itself.
The expected, powerful advantage of this technique was
that all satellites would broadcast on exactly the same fre-
quency. It was clear that it would lend itself to digital
signal processing. Furthermore, and very importantly,
any time shifts induced by the receiver for the various sat-
ellite signals would be identical and effectively eliminated.
However, there were still a number of significant ques-
tions concerning CDMA that needed to be resolved. These
included the following:
1) Could such a signal be easily acquired in the face of time
uncertainty and Doppler shifts?
2) Was there a technique to encrypt the military signal so
that unauthorized users could not gain access?
3) How would the codes be easily selected to avoid a false
lock and also allow additional satellites to be added
without interfering with existing satellite signals?
4) Would the anticipated complexity of the receiver drive
costs to unacceptable levels?
5) Was the signal resistant to accidental or deliberate
interference?
6) Could this signal accommodate communication capa-
bility for satellite location, satellite clock correction,
and other parameters?
Fortunately, in 1967, a technique for selecting ortho-
gonal codes was invented by an accomplished applied
10 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
mathematician, Dr. Robert Gold of the Magnavox Corp. Nat-
urally these are now known as the Gold codes, and they par-
tially resolved the third CDMA issue stated above. But that
was not the whole story.
1.4.3 The White Sands Missile Range Tests and
Confirmation 1970–1972
To address the remaining problems, the USAF 621B pro-
gram developed two prototype versions of CDMA naviga-
tion receivers (Magnavox and Hazeltine) for testing at the
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). For the tests, 621B
arranged four transmitters in a configuration known as
the Inverted Range. These transmitters broadcast CDMA
signals from locations that were geometrically similar to
a satellite configuration except that they were broadcast
from the ground, i.e. “upside down.” By 1972, program
621B had successfully proven the effectiveness and
accuracy of the CDMA signal by demonstrating that such
a configuration would achieve 5 m, three-dimensional
navigational accuracy. These test results answered most
of the remaining questions regarding the CDMA signal.
The tests confirmed the enormous technical value of the
modulated signal by showing that all satellite signals could,
indeed, be received simultaneously on the same frequency.
These tests also corroborated the expectation that ranging
to four satellites eliminated the need for a highly precise
user atomic clock, while still supporting full, three-
dimensional navigation. This became an extremely impor-
tant feature of GPS. If each user had required an atomic-
clock-class frequency standard, no inexpensive user equip-
ment could have been produced within the technology
horizon visible at that time. This is still true today.
All this evidence supported CDMA as the passive ranging
signal of choice and was available to the Air Force’s 621B
team when the system configuration was selected at the
September 1973 meeting that will be discussed later.
1.4.4 Distinguishing Between the 621B Demo
Configuration and the 621B Preferred Operational
Configuration
From the time of the 1966 Woodford/Nakamura study on,
the Air Force and Aerospace advocated the use of atomic
clocks in the operational satellites with the modulation also
originating in the satellites. There were two significant risks
to placing atomic clocks on the satellites: first, the technol-
ogy readiness risk (no radiation-hardened atomic clocks
had ever been designed and flown), and second, the polit-
ical and budgeting risk associated with gaining approval for
a development/demonstration program of the full
capability. To reduce both of these risks, the Air Force
had developed a plan.
This included a proposal in early 1972 to deploy a four-
satellite “demonstration system.” This proposal addressed
both risks. It would reduce the technological readiness risk
in the clocks by launching simple L-band transponders.
The navigation signal would be generated on the ground
and transponded to users with a “bent-pipe” in the satellite.
At the same time, it would save substantial money, thereby
reducing the political and budgeting risk.
In many circles, this proposal was erroneously thought of
as the 621B operational proposal because it came from that
office. In fact, the operational concept for 621B never con-
templated or advocated using transponders in the final
operational system. The use of transponders had been
rejected for the operational system because they could be
easily jammed from the ground. Such a jamming signal
would overpower the transponder and steer all of the trans-
mitted energy away from the transponded navigational sig-
nal. This enemy jamming would shut down the entire
system, clearly an unacceptable risk.
621B Proposed Initial Satellite Constellation To dem-
onstrate four-satellite, passive ranging capability, 621B had
studied a number of orbital configurations, including
geosynchronous and inclined, lower orbits. They proposed
placing a constellation of four synchronous satellites in
orbits over the United States. This array would allow
extended periods of four-satellite testing without commit-
ting to a full global employment. If this demonstration were
successful, the next step would have been to add three
more longitudinal sectors, each with its own array. Again,
the principal redeeming feature of this approach was that
there was some hope of it being funded. The Air Force in
the Pentagon was placing enormous pressure on the
621B program to come up with the absolutely cheapest
way to demonstrate the four-satellite approach. In addition,
they wanted any initial configuration to provide the begin-
ning of a full global system.
This proposed constellation design was a reasonable
compromise, given the boundary conditions of a four-
satellite demonstration and absolutely minimal cost. It is
interesting that the Japanese, with a requirement to supple-
ment GPS with satellite signals to improve coverage in
urban areas (where there are high shading angles), have
been deploying a very similar constellation. The Japanese
configuration is intended to improve coverage restricted
to their longitudinal sector of the globe. The new system
is called Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), and the
Japanese have announced the four-satellite constellation
is now operational (2018) [15]. The system is further
described in Chapter 8.
 1.5 Competition, Parkinson Appointed Program Director, the Encounter with Dr. Currie, the “Lonely Halls” meeting, and GPS Approved
1.5 Competition, Parkinson Appointed
Program Director, the Encounter with
Dr. Currie, the “Lonely Halls” meeting,
and GPS Approved
1.5.1 NRL and the Timation Satellite
In 1964, the US Navy initiated a second Navy Navigation
and Timing satellite program, called Timation, under the
direction of Roger L. Easton Sr., a longtime member of
the NRL staff. The NRL’s Timation project was aimed at
exploring techniques for passive ranging to satellites as well
as time transfer between various timing centers around the
world. It subsequently developed a number of experimental
satellites, the first of which was called Timation 1. This was
a small satellite, weighing 85 pounds and producing 6 W of
power. It was launched on 30 May 1967 (Figure 1.7).
The key feature of Timation 1 was that it included a very
stable quartz clock. The fundamental ranging technique
was to synchronize a clock at the user’s location with the
clock on the satellite and use a passive ranging signal struc-
ture called Side Tone Ranging. By 1968, NRL demonstrated
single-satellite position fixes, accurate to about 0.3 nautical
miles, that required about 15 minutes of measurements.
NRL engineers encountered two significant problems dur-
ing their testing. First, solar radiation caused shifts in the
satellite clock’s frequency, and, second, the ionospheric
group delay created ranging errors.
A second Timation satellite, called Timation II, was
developed and launched into a 500 nautical mile orbit on
30 September 1969. To calibrate the ionospheric group
delay, the satellite broadcast on two frequencies: the same
technique pioneered by the Transit program. Its quartz
Figure 1.7 The Navy’s Timation satellite included a quartz clock.
11
oscillator was expected to be somewhat more stable – about
1 part in 1011. Again, a large frequency shift observed in the
clocks was finally traced to a solar proton storm. NRL was
able to demonstrate ranging accuracies of approximately
200 feet to a fixed location with dual frequency and
extended measurement times.
1.5.2 Competition
By 1972 some authorities in the Pentagon had already
recognized that a new satellite-based navigation system
would be valuable. There were literally hundreds of differ-
ent positioning and navigation systems currently used by
the DoD that were expensive to maintain and upgrade.
Obviously, a single replacement system offered significant
cost savings. Understandably, the two competing concepts
(621B and NRL) apparently confused the decision-makers
and led to a very acrimonious competition. As a result of
the competition and a reluctance to commit the necessary
monies, any decision was delayed.
In November 1972, Col. Bradford Parkinson was the
Director of Engineering for the Advanced Ballistic ReEntry
Systems Program (ABRES) at SAMSO. Brig. Gen. William
Dunn, who led the advance planning group (XR), identified
Col. Parkinson as a potential candidate to head the floun-
dering 621B program. At Dunn’s behest, Lt. Gen. Kenneth
Schultz, commander of SAMSO, asked Parkinson if he
would like to be assigned to the 621B program. Col. Parkin-
son had a very relevant background in navigation, guid-
ance, and control that included a PhD from Stanford in
Astronautics. The background was a match, but Parkinson
expressed an unwillingness to volunteer for the assignment
without assurance that he would be the Program Director.
At that point, General Schultz said he could not make that
promise, but, immediately after Parkinson left his office the
General reassigned him to the 621B program and effectively
made him the Director.
Beginning in December 1972, Col. Parkinson, immedi-
ately after he assumed control of 621B, instituted a series
of 7 a.m. educational meetings. At these gatherings, the pro-
gram re-examined every aspect of the proposed 621B pro-
gram, including alternatives. This educational process
was key to having everyone in the Program Office com-
pletely understand the technical issues they faced.
During this period, Gen. Schultz supported the program
in every way that he could. In particular, Parkinson was
allowed to recruit Air Force officers whose background
and experience were aligned with the needs of the fledgling
program. All had advanced engineering degrees from the
very best universities in the country including MIT, Mich-
igan, and Stanford. In addition, virtually every officer had
experience in developing hardware or in testing inertial
12 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
Figure 1.8 Major Gaylord Green. His creativity on modified orbits
ensured the success of GPS.
guidance systems. The first officer Col. Parkinson brought
aboard was Air Force Major Gaylord Green (Figure 1.8),
who had worked for him on ABRES. Maj. Green’s creativ-
ity, focused on satellites and orbits, had an extremely
important impact on the success of GPS. The result of Par-
kinson’s hunting license was a cadre of about 25 of the best
and brightest people that the Air Force had to offer. Many
names and photos of these and other “GPS heroes” can be
found in the GPS World magazine article “The Origins of
GPS” in the issues of May and June 2010.
In addition, there was a small, hand-selected group
of Aerospace technical support personnel led by Walter
Melton. This fine group of engineers and scientists was
experienced in all technical aspects of Space Navigation
Programs and particularly skilled at issues relating to
signal modulation, satellite position prediction, and build-
ing long-life satellites. The Aerospace contingent continued
to enjoy the strong support of the president of the Aero-
space Corporation, Ivan Getting.
During early spring of 1973, the newly appointed
Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDRE),
Dr. Malcolm Currie, formerly of Hughes Aircraft, would
fly round-trip to Los Angeles from Washington, D.C., on
most weekends (Figure 1.9). His secondary purpose was
to oversee the relocation of his family, but he needed an
“official” reason to travel to Los Angeles. So, each Friday
afternoon he would visit SAMSO in Los Angeles for a pres-
entation. After a few weekends, Gen. Schultz, his host, ran
out of subjects to present and instead invited Dr. Currie to
spend an afternoon with his new program director, Col.
Parkinson.
Figure 1.9 Dr. Malcolm Currie. His support was essential to
GPS approval.
Gen. Schultz’s invitation resulted in an astonishing meet-
ing because a newly promoted colonel does not usually
have the opportunity to confer with the number three per-
son in the DoD over an uninterrupted three- or four-hour
period. This informal one-on-one meeting was held in pri-
vate, in a very small cubicle within Parkinson’s Program’s
offices. Currie, with his PhD in physics, was a very quick
study, so the interaction was lively and deep, delving into
every aspect of the 621B proposal. After that meeting,
Dr. Currie became a good friend to and a sponsor of the
new satellite-based navigation program. He later played a
critical role in ensuring DoD support for GPS, especially,
during the Air Force’s subsequent attempts to cancel the
infant program.
On 17 April 1973, the Deputy Secretary of Defense
issued a memorandum which designated the Air Force as
the executive service in an effort to develop a Joint Service
navigation system. This would build on the technological
achievements of the predecessor Air Force and Navy
programs, and also incorporate the position/navigation
requirements of the US Army and Defense Mapping
Agency (DMA). The Navstar Joint Program Office (JPO),
still located at SAMSO in El Segundo, California, was the
first Joint Services Development Program. In addition to
the US Air Force Program Manager, the JPO initially
included Deputy Program Managers representing the
Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and the DMA.
DSARC 1 and Failure On 17 August 1973, Parkinson
was invited to the Defense Systems Acquisition Review
 1.5 Competition, Parkinson Appointed Program Director, the Encounter with Dr. Currie, the “Lonely Halls” meeting, and GPS Approved
Council meeting to make a presentation on 621B. The
meeting’s purpose was to determine whether to proceed
with the concept demonstration program. It was held in
the Pentagon, and attended by general officers of all ser-
vices, with Dr. Currie presiding. At the meeting’s conclu-
sion, the Council voted against approving the 612B
program. Dr. Currie immediately invited Parkinson into
his private office and told him he wanted Parkinson to
develop a new system proposal that would incorporate
the best features of all the technical alternatives. He empha-
sized the need for a joint program involving all services.
Regrouping: The “Lonely Halls” of the Pentagon
Meeting Parkinson immediately called a meeting in
the Pentagon over Labor Day weekend in September
1973. The purpose of the meeting was to define modifica-
tions to the 621B proposal that would meet Dr. Currie’s
directive. Parkinson wanted the 2500-mile isolation (from
his home base) to ensure unfettered creativity in defining
the new proposal.
Leading up to this, an updated systems study had been
performed by The Analytical Sciences Corporation
(TASC) under the guidance of (then USAF Major) Gaylord
Green. This study was a review and update of the earlier
systems study directed by Jim Woodford and H. Nakamura
for project 621B in 1964–1966.
Over that weekend, the world’s largest office building
seemed to be a series of poorly lit, uninhabited tunnels
because almost everyone was away on holiday. The light
at end of those tunnels, both figuratively and literally,
was in a small conference room, on the top floor, D-ring,
seating about a dozen attendees. All were Air Force officer/
engineers from Parkinson’s Los Angeles Office except for
three Aerospace Corporation engineers. Lt. Col Steve Gil-
bert (USAF Deputy), Captain Robert Rennard (the Deputy
Chief Systems Engineer), and Major Gaylord Green
(Satellite Project Manager) were essential contributors to
the discussion and definition of GPS.
After Parkinson’s team had completed the modified
design, they met with NRL officials to disclose the result
and request that NRL continue their clock development
under his program office, which they agreed to do.
1.5.3 Definition and Design of GPS
After much intense discussion over that weekend, the Par-
kinson-led team defined GPS with the following 10 facets:
1) The fundamental USAF 621B concept of simultaneous
passive ranging to four satellites would be the underly-
ing principle of the new system proposal, ensuring
that user equipment would not require a synchronized
atomic clock.
13
2) The signal structure would be the 621B CDMA modu-
lation (also called pseudorandom noise or spread
spectrum). It would include a clear (i.e. unencrypted)
acquisition modulation (C/A) and a precision military
modulation (P/Y). The C/A modulation was to be
freely available to civil users throughout the world.
3) There would be two GPS broadcast frequencies in
the L band using the same dual frequency technique
that Transit had employed to correct for the iono-
spheric group delay as well as provide redundancy.
The use of L-band signals instead of Transit’s UHF
substantially reduces the ionosphere group delay,
which is inversely proportional to the square of
frequency.
4) Based on the progress that NRL had made in satellite
clocks, the program would commit to space-hardened
atomic clocks on the first operational/demonstration
GPS satellites (called Navigation Development
Satellites–NDS). At the “Lonely Halls” meeting,
Parkinson had concluded that the NRL technology
was relatively low risk, obviating the need to use
the ground-relay, experimental demonstration
scheme that 621B had previously proposed. It later
turned out that the NRL development was not as
mature as it appeared, but the USAF/JPO backup
clocks (by Rockwell) were available in time for the
first launches.
5) The nominal constellation would be 24 satellites in
three rings of eight each. The orbits for the satellites
were to be circular and inclined at 62 and not geosyn-
chronous. NRL had advocated similar 8- or 12-hour
inclined orbits. Because of the need for an extensive
testing program on an instrumented range, exact 8-
or 12-hour orbits would have been unsatisfactory,
because those orbits would continuously shift relative
to Earth. Instead Green proposed 11 hour 58 minute
(sidereal synchronous) orbits that gave about two hours
of testing over the same United States test area each
day. While these orbits resembled those advocated
by NRL, Green’s modification was critical to the
success of the testing program. The corresponding
high altitude for these 11h 58m orbits (approximately
20,200 km) helped minimize the number of satellites
that were needed for Earth coverage. It also was the
maximum altitude that the selected booster could
achieve with the expected mass of the first-generation
satellites.
6) Orbit prediction would be handled with modifications
to the Transit-developed orbit-prediction programs
called Celeste.
7) The initial test constellation would include four
operational satellites, competitively procured, one of
14 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
which would be a refurbished Qualification Model.
They would be launched on refurbished Atlas-Fs,
which were retired intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs), to minimize cost, although they limited the
number of solar panels that could be carried because
of weight. As a result of that power limitation, the sec-
ond frequency signal to calibrate the ionosphere could
not be transmitted with both the civilian and the mil-
itary modulations at once. There was a switch allowing
either to be selected, but the second civilian signal was
seldom turned on.
8) A family of user equipment prototypes would be pro-
cured competitively. This equipment would span all
normal military uses, and also include a low-cost set
that would prototype civilian use. Where they were
affordable, competitive contracts would be used. Par-
ticular attention would be devoted to user equipment
integration with inertial navigation units and demon-
stration of anti-jam capabilities.
9) The master control/upload station and its backup
would be on United States soil with monitor stations
located all around the world.
10) The testing would be principally performed at the US
Army’s Yuma test range with accuracy measured from
a trilateration laser configuration. Using three laser ran-
ging devices at the same time would ensure that all test
vehicles could be measured to about a meter of position-
ing error in three dimensions. It was expected (and later
proved) that this technique could even precisely locate
an Air Force or Navy fighter aircraft flying close to
Mach 1. Testing would make use of the inverted range
concept with satellites replacing each range transmitter
as each newly launched GPS satellite became opera-
tional on orbit. This technique allowed the tests to begin
with the first orbiting satellite in 1978 (and three pseudo-
lites on the desert floor at Yuma).
GPS Made Available to Both Military and Civilian
from the Beginning Contrary to some inaccurate ver-
sions of history, from the very beginning, GPS was config-
ured to be a “dual-use” system. Civilian users were to be
given full access to the C/A signal for PVT.2
To enable widespread civil use, the detailed code struc-
ture was published as a specification document and freely
distributed worldwide. (The interesting consequence was
that the first civil receiver to lock onto the first GPS satellite
was developed by students at the University of Leeds in
England in 1978.)
2 The inherent accuracy was expected to be about 10 times worse than
the military signal, but innovative techniques (e.g. the Hatch/
Eschenbach filter), developed by civil contractors, very quickly
demonstrated about the same accuracy.
1.6 GPS Approval – December 1973
That Labor Day weekend of September 1973 had been a
very busy three days. With help from the Air Staff Program
Element Monitor (PEM), Lt. Col. Paul Martin, the “Lonely
Halls” gathering developed a seven-page Decision Coordi-
nating Paper (DCP) and a presentation of the new concept.
Over the next two and a half months‚ there was a flurry
of activity as Col. Parkinson made presentations and
defended the concept before all those who could block
the proposal in the Pentagon. This effort culminated with
Parkinson’s second presentation to the DSARC. He was
given approval to proceed on 14 December 1973. There
were no significant modifications to the proposal that
had been developed during the “Lonely Halls” meeting
in the Pentagon.
Parkinson, during the whole Phase I development,
resolved to avoid any conflict with the other original com-
petitors to build a satellite-based navigation system. He
deliberately ignored claims of invention and statements
regarding the origins of technology. He felt the real pur-
pose was to build the system, not to reopen the earlier
fight. His silence may have precipitated a recent article
that suggested the Air Force and JPO provided nothing
in terms of technology and system concept. Aware that
this was a false statement and denigrated the people
who had first analyzed, advocated, and demonstrated
the fundamental concept, as well as built the system, he
resolved to correct the record. The list of corrobora-
tors for this history includes virtually all of the major
Phase I development leaders who are still alive. See coau-
thors of the previously mentioned, May 2010 GPS World
article on GPS origins.
1.7 The Three Essential GPS
Innovations and Their Sources
The 10 points described above provide an outline of the GPS
design. A more complete technical description of GPS and
other satnavs will be provided in later chapters. However,
there were three key innovations in the fundamental design
that deserve elaboration. These have withstood the test of
time – all non-US satnavs have now adopted the same three
GPS innovations.3
3 The Russian GNSS system called GLONASS has finally accepted the
value of CDMA, and announced that the latest series of their satellites
will include a CDMA signal.

1.7.1 Innovation #1: The CDMA Signal and
Selection of Frequencies, Verified in the White
Sands Test – This Enabled Centimeter Accuracy
The most significant innovation of GPS may be the CDMA-
based passive ranging signal technique. There are three rea-
sons that support this bold statement. First, this choice
allowed all signals to be broadcast on exactly the same fre-
quency, eliminating all inter-frequency biases that could
occur in a multi-frequency technique, such as that advo-
cated in competing designs. Second, the CDMA spreading
codes enabled a signal processing technique with a proces-
sing gain, which gave substantial resistance to interference,
whether it came from natural sources or was deliberate.
Third, the particular implementation chosen dictated phase
coherence among the code, the carrier, and the data [16].
This led to the unprecedented accuracy in the radio naviga-
tion ranging measurement. By reconstructing the L-band
carrier, the receiver could perform measurements with
accuracy better than a millimeter. This corresponded to
measuring radio signal arrivals with a timing precision of
about 1% of 1 ns. A noteworthy use for this precision and
accuracy is the direct measurement of tectonic plate motion
in three dimensions, to fractions of a millimeter. Later
chapters will describe this application in greater detail.
The Russian GLONASS has operated without CDMA
thus far. It uses different frequencies on different satellites
in view, and the identical PRN code on all satellites. This
PRN code allows it to achieve the necessary processing
gain. And, with differential techniques, GLONASS provides
accuracy approaching GPS. The frequency division does
give an added measure of robustness to narrow band inter-
ference, but the overall argument of the relative benefits of
CDMA has been settled with the Russian decision to use
single-frequency CDMA in the modernized GLONASS sys-
tem now under development.
While the fundamental decision to select CDMA had
been made during the “Lonely Halls” meeting, a vast num-
ber of details had yet to be worked out. Perhaps the most
important detail was the decision that the carrier, code,
and data of the GPS signal would all be phase coherent,
as mentioned. Dr. James Spilker‚ who had also written a
Table 1.3 Key trade-off figures for three different Gold code lengths
Parameters
Peak cross-correlation (any Doppler shift) (dB)
Peak cross-correlation (zero Doppler shift) (dB)
Probability of near-worst-case cross-correlation (zero Doppler)
1.7 The Three Essential GPS Innovations and Their Sources 15
seminal reference book on digital satellite communications
[17], was an author of a key initial study and developed a
near-optimal method of locking the GPS user’s receiver
to satellite signals [18, 19]. Dr. Charles Cahn, Nat Fran
Natali, Burt Glazer, Ed Martin, and Dr. Robert Gold, a con-
sultant to Magnavox‚ all made significant contributions.
The Gold-developed theory guaranteeing code orthogo-
nality assumed no Doppler shifts between signals, but that
clearly was not the case. This is due to both satellite orbital
motion and the velocity of the user (including Earth’s rota-
tion). Selection of the optimal code length (in the face of
these Doppler shifts) required extensive computer simula-
tion at a time when existing computers were quite puny
compared to the current capability. This problem was
pointed out and solved by Dr. James Spilker. The selection
of the optimal Gold code length was shown to be 1023
(considering the limitations of the user’s digital electronics
in 1973). A summary of the key trade-off is shown in
Table 1.3, developed by Dr. Spilker. The optimum (lowest
probability) is circled in red.
On each of the two carrier frequencies, called L1 and L2,
two different signals, named C/A (Clear Acquisition) and
P/Y (Precise Military), were modulated in phase quadra-
ture. As mentioned earlier, the C/A signal on L1 was freely
available for civil use as well as for acquiring the military
signal. Again, these dual frequencies enabled a direct meas-
urement of the ionospheric group delay for correction of the
ranging signal. The civil L2 signal was seldom available due
to power restrictions on the first family of GPS satellites.
The latest generations of GPS satellites not only broadcast
the civil L2C signal, but also the new L5 civil signal in a
fully-protected radio authorization band.
The data message was integrated into both signals through
inversion of their codes every 20 ms. The data stream, there-
fore, came down at 50 bits per second. Through this tiny pipe
of information all the precision data for GPS had to pass.
It included the space vehicle orbit position information
(ephemerides), system time, space vehicle clock predic-
tion data, transmitter status information, and C/A signal
handover time for P/Y code acquisition. Also, as a part of
the message, ionospheric propagation delay models were
Code Length
511 1023 2047
−18.6 −21.6 −24.6
−23.8 −23.6 −29.8
0.5 0.25 0.5
16 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
Carrier at 1575.42 MHz (L1) 19 cm (L1)
1227.60 MHz (L2)
Code at 1.023 Mcps (C/A)
10.23 Mcps (P(Y))
300 m (CA)
Navigation data at 50 bps 6000 km
Figure 1.10 GPS signals were designed to be all phase-aligned
as transmitted (i.e. coherent) [14]. Source: Reproduced with
permission of Ganga-Jamuna Press.
incorporated for the single-frequency user. In addition, to aid
the rapid acquisition of new satellites just rising over the
horizon, the ephemerides of all other satellites in the whole
constellation had to be included. Each digital word had to be
defined in terms of scaling, bias offset, and precision in terms
of the number of bits transmitted.
About 95% of the GPS message has endured with no
changes needed at all. In a few cases, because the newer
user equipment is more accurate, greater precision is desir-
able (i.e. more bits). It is a great tribute to the dedicated
engineers and scientists, who designed the signal structure
in 1975 that it has endured for over 45 years with so little
need for modification (Figure 1.10).
1.7.2 Innovation #2: Four-Satellite
Instantaneous Measurement, Allowing
Inexpensive User Receivers to Solve for Three
Dimensions of Position Plus Time
The genesis of the four-satellite concept was clearly the
USAF/621B Woodford/Nakamura study of 1964 to 1966.
The use of four satellites for four-dimensional positioning
had been confirmed by the previously described tests that
were run by program USAF/621B at the WSMR with the
help of Joe Clifford, Bill Fees, and Larry Hagerman, all from
the Aerospace Corporation. This enabled inexpensive user
receivers without resorting to expensive user atomic clocks.
1.7.3 Innovation #3: Space-Hardened, Long-Life
(Space-Based) Atomic Clocks to Allow Long
Periods of Satellite Autonomy without Significant
Inaccuracy
In 1966, both the Air Force and the Navy recognized that
developing a precise, stable time base for generating the
one-way (passive) navigation ranging signal in the satellite
would be extremely useful. To use GPS required knowledge
of the satellites’ location and system time to nanoseconds.
With very stable clocks, position and time could be pre-
dicted for periods of 12 hours or more with only a small
growth in ranging errors. This prediction could be uploaded
to each satellite for future use without the need for contin-
uous satellite uploads.
An obvious choice to ensure timing stability was a space-
borne atomic clock. Cesium atomic clocks had been
invented, demonstrated, and offered for commercial sale
by the middle of the 1950s, well before the space age.
Unfortunately for satellite applications, they tended to be
bulky, power hungry, and not hardened against space radi-
ation. Particularly challenging, the orbits for GPS were to
be in the upper Van Allen belt, which is an extremely
intense radiation zone and required special hardening of
the clocks. An unshielded human would receive a lethal
dose in less than 10 seconds. For laboratory use, a new
clock based on the rubidium atom was commercially being
developed that was much smaller and drew less power.
Because this development was for ground-based civilian
use, it did not contemplate launch vibration, radiation
hardening, or the extreme temperature variations encoun-
tered in space.
The USAF Woodford/Nakamura study advocated a
technology program to space-harden the existing clock
technology, but it was not pursued by the Air Force at that
time. However, the NRL did institute a program in 1964
with a series of satellites that have already been men-
tioned. The first Timation satellite, launched in May
1967, carried a quartz clock, but the temperature-induced
variations in frequency were unacceptable. The second
Timation satellite also contained a quartz clock, as well
as a temperature controller and showed improved opera-
tion, but the results were still far short of operational
requirements.
This last satellite in the original Timation series was
launched in July 1974. By that time the Timation program
had been placed under the GPS JPO in Los Angeles, report-
ing through the JPO Navy Deputy, Cdr. William Huston,
to the Program Director Col. Bradford Parkinson. The
JPO had renamed the satellite as Navigation Technology
Satellite4 (NTS-1). The gross weight had been increased
to 650 pounds with a power requirement of 125 watts.
Developed by Peter Wilhelm of NRL, this satellite was
4 The NTS satellites were strictly technology-testing satellites. For
many reasons‚ they had no role in the development of the operational
satellites by the JPO and Rockwell. The latter were operational
satellites and were called NDS satellites (Navigation Development
Satellites). They were the only ones used in the operational testing
during Phase I of GPS.

Figure 1.11 NTS-I included first, but unhardened, cesium clocks.
Space-qualified cesium clocks were not successful until the fifth
GPS operational satellite. Source: https://www.nrl.navy.mil/news/
releases/first-gps-navstar-satellite-goes-display. Reproduced
with permission of U.S. Naval Research.
placed at an orbital altitude of 7500 nautical miles
(Figure 1.11).
The renamed NTS-1 included two small, lightweight
rubidium oscillators as clocks. A German commercial com-
pany called Efratom had independently developed these
models. Amazing at the time, they consumed only about
13 watts of power and weighed some four pounds each.
Efratom will be further discussed later. While NRL made
some electronic modifications, the clocks were unable to
withstand the radiation of the GPS orbits. Because of this,
the NTS-1 clocks could not be used as prototypes for the
operational GPS satellites.
Tests run at NRL also showed that the modified rubidium
clocks had an unacceptable level of sensitivity to tempera-
ture variations. Al Bartholemew of the NRL later wrote “the
lack of attitude stabilization system on NTS-1 resulted in
large temperature variations which ultimately masked
any quantitative evaluation of Rubidium standard perfor-
mance” [20]. This apparently occurred because the satellite
used a two-axis gravity gradient stabilization system that
did not function well at these altitudes.
Later, NRL developed their last satellite (NTS-II) for the
GPS Program Office. The vehicle included two modified
cesium beam oscillators developed by Frequency and Time
Systems Inc. (FTS) of Danvers, Massachusetts. The key
clock developer was the engineer and creative entrepre-
neur, Robert Kern. This clock showed great initial promise,
but it was not yet a space prototype in terms of radiation
hardening and parts life. In addition, the USAF/JPO
1.7 The Three Essential GPS Innovations and Their Sources 17
provided a Rockwell-developed Navigation Payload for
NTS-II that the JPO had developed for the operational
GPS satellites. This would enable the NRL satellite to
broadcast the GPS CDMA signal and participate in the ini-
tial GPS test constellation.
NTS-II was launched on 23 June 1977 from Vandenberg
AFB. Unfortunately, the NRL ranging transmitter in NTS-
II failed, rendering the NRL satellite unusable for the
Yuma Proving Ground testing. “Of the two experimental
Cesium standards carried on NTS-II,” Ron Beard wrote,
“one experienced a power supply failure after a period
of satisfactory operation.” The other cesium clock contin-
ued to operate for over a year, but quantitative drift rates
on orbit were never available. As a result of these failures,
these cesium clock tests were inconclusive [21]. Only tests
with the first four JPO/Rockwell (NDS) satellites were
available to support the full-scale GPS development
approval on 5 June 1979.
For the next step, NRL defined a radiation hardening
program and then contracted with FTS to develop a hard-
ened cesium clock. This new clock was flown on the fourth
operational GPS satellite (NDS 4, launched 10 December
1978). Unfortunately, the clock also suffered a premature
failure of the power supply after only 12 hours of operation.
FTS soon found the root cause and fixed the design. Begin-
ning with NDS 5, the on-board cesium clocks performed as
well or better than the rubidium clocks.
Based on the progress that NRL had made, the JPO,
during the 1973 “Lonely Halls” meeting, had earlier
decided to commit to atomic clocks in the first operational
GPS satellites. Ironically, it was only the backup clocks
independently developed by the JPO/Rockwell that were
operational on the initial NDS satellites.
First Operational GPS Clocks The operational GPS
space-based rubidium atomic clock technology was
derived from a unit produced by Efratom, the same Ger-
man company that had originally worked with NRL. This
breakthrough laboratory device was designed by two bril-
liant German Engineers, Ernst Jechart and Gerhard
Huebner.
By the summer of 1974, the JPO selected Rockwell Inter-
national to build the GPS operational satellites, including a
separate development of space-hardened rubidium clocks
as a backup to the NRL cesium clock effort in case the
NRL effort faltered. Hugo Fruehauf of Rockwell had inde-
pendently discovered and directly contacted Efratom, and
his interaction with Efratom was totally independent of
that of the NRL. In addition, Fruehauf’s relationship with
Efratom was simplified because of his fluency in German,
since Jechart was not an English speaker.
A summary of the early clock program is shown in
Table 1.4. In spite of NRL’s development difficulties, GPS
users owe a debt to NRL for pursuit of this technology. It
18 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

Table 1.4 Satellite navigation clock history to GPS

# of Sats / Nav
Program / (Service) Dates Nav Method Dim Clocks Ops Status

NNSS (Transit); 1964 to (7) Sats; 2D (1) Quartz oscillator Was fully operational
(Navy-JHU/APL) ~1990 Doppler meas.
Timation I & II; 1967 and (2) Sats; 2D (1) Quartz oscillator Experimental
(Navy- NRL) 1969 Ranging tones
Navigation Technology Launch July (1) Sat; Hazeltine 2D (2) Efratom Com’l Rb’s, Experimental: (1) Rb
Satellite-1 (NTS-1) 1974 621B Transm., No modified by NRL to operated for more than
(Navy- NRL) Data; Ranging tones perform in space, +(1) one year; (1) Rb failed
Quartz early
NTS-2; (Navy-NRL); Launch (1) Sat; ITT 2D (2) Proto space qualified Although intended to be
USAF/JPO provided July 1977 Engg. PRN FTS Cs + (2) Quartz part of the initial
Nav. payload Nav. Pkg. from oscillators (4) Satellite nav. testing,
USAF-JPO; + NTS-2 failed before nav.
Ranging tones testing began
GPS Operational Devlpmt. (4) Sats, Production 3D (3) RI-Efratom Rb’s on the GPS Constellation of
Prototypes, awarded to 1973-75; ITT PRN Nav. Pkg 1st (3) GPS Sats; 4th Sat & (4) Rockwell Block-I GPS
Rockwell in 1974 by Rockwell up, (3) RI-Efratom Rb’s + Satellites for the initial
USAF-JPO, now “GPS Block-I (1) 2nd gen. FTS Csb. 1st Cs Navigation Test Program
Wing”; named GPS in Dec launches on GPS 4 failed after 12 hrs; +(1) NRL NTS-2 Sat, but
1973; DNSDPa during began Feb. Cs ok - GPS-5 & up failed before nav. testing
early proposal effort 1978 began (see above)
a
Defense Navigation Satellite Development Program.
b
Later, Block-II and -IIA, flew (2) Rb and (2) Cs.
Source: From B. W. Parkinson and S. T. Powers, The origins of GPS, Fighting to Survive, Part 2, Figure 3, GPS World, June 1, 2010. Reproduced with
permission of GPS World.

was NRL’s apparent progress in developing atomic clocks
that induced the JPO’s critical decision at the “Lonely
Halls” meeting to depend on atomic clocks from the begin-
ning. The support of Ron Beard of NRL in this joint effort
has been invaluable to the program over many years. Over
450 atomic frequency standards have now flown in space.
By far the greatest user has been GPS.
1.8 The GPS Development Process
and Additional Major Challenges
The GPS Phase I program formal approval on 22 December
1973 meant that the real work could begin. By January
1974, the GPS program at the JPO was well underway.
With only about 30 officers in the program, the workload
was enormous. Fortunately, the Aerospace cadre of about
25 engineers was also making extraordinary contribu-
tions. In a flurry of activities, the team developed Requests
for Proposals (RFPs), drew up top-level specifications‚ and
published initial interface control documents (ICDs). The
work of converting viewgraphs into real hardware, as
many know, is an exacting and sometimes painful process.
By June 1974 (only 5 months after program approval), the
satellite contract had been awarded to Rockwell of Seal
Beach, California.
At the same time, the Air Force generally did not support
the GPS development, and the yearly budget was in constant
jeopardy. To shore up support, Col. Parkinson had to spend
many hours and trips back to Washington DC to avoid seri-
ous budget cuts, while at the same time directing the overall
program and making key technical decisions.
Of course, there were many additional development chal-
lenges, but three of them, principally engineering, stand out
as being particularly formidable. These were
1) Achieving rapid and accurate satellite orbit prediction
2) Ensuring and demonstrating spacecraft longevity
approaching 10 years
3) Developing a full family of GPS user equipment
Each of these challenges will be discussed in some detail,
including the names of those who were most instrumental
in meeting them.
 1.8 The GPS Development Process and Additional Major Challenges 19

1.8.1 Achieving Rapid and Accurate Satellite Transit, the measurements taken by the reference stations
Orbit Prediction – to within a Few Meters User had been batch-processed. Unfortunately, this processing
Ranging Error (URE) in 160,000 km of Travel would take too long to provide timely predictions for
GPS. The JPO devised a modification that included partial
Since the GPS system architecture only had upload stations
derivatives of predictions relative to reference station
on US soil, the satellites were out of sight for many hours,
measurements. These calculations allowed an extended
thus making accurate prediction of their orbits and clock
(linearized) Kalman filter to be used for near-real-time
drift essential. To achieve the expected positioning accu-
optimal prediction.
racy, the orbit prediction had to contribute less than a
Implementers of these techniques included Bill Feess of
few meters ranging error after 160,000 km of travel (one
Aerospace, Walt Melton of General Dynamics‚ and Sher-
complete orbit, bringing the satellite over an upload
man Francisco of IBM. These calculations were made in
station). Achieving this standard was a major challenge
the initial master control and uploaded from Vandenberg
in the early days of GPS. Such a prediction must account
Air Force Base. Primary control has since been moved to
for the complications of Earth pole wander, Earth gravita-
Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, and more
tional fields, Earth tides, general and special relativity, the
recently a backup master control station has been reestab-
noon turn maneuver of the satellites, solar and Earth radi-
lished at Vandenberg.
ation, the reference station’s location, as well as the drift in
Another important enabler to achieve rapid and accurate
the clock. An example of these problems is shown in
orbit determination is the operational GPS control segment,
Figure 1.12 as the plot of the Earth’s polar axis wander.
which performs precision pseudorange tracking of the
The pole axis of Earth moves in an irregular, but roughly
satellites for GPS satellite orbit and clock measurements.
circular way, occasionally reversing phase 180 . This effect,
The team of General Dynamics, IBM Federal Systems
known as the Chandler Wobble, has approximately a 400-
and Stanford Telecommunications won the contract for
day period and an amplitude of over 10 m. It is important if
the GPS Operational Control Segment, which both tracked
a PNT user would like sub-meter level accuracies.
the GPS satellites and estimated the satellite clock offset
Fortunately, the Transit program had pioneered precise
and precise orbit. Dr. James Spilker recommended that
orbit prediction and had taken most of these effects into
the best GPS control segment performance could be
account. Their program, called Astro/Celeste, was devel-
obtained by tracking each GPS satellite from multiple mon-
oped by Robert Hill and Richard Anderle at the Naval
itor stations with precision receivers that coherently
Surface Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia. For
tracked both code and carrier (which are transmitted from
each satellite coherently) as the satellites appear on one
horizon and disappear on the other and, furthermore, track
Pole coordinates (xp, –yp) Observatoire de Paris – SYRTE the carrier for each satellite without ever producing a car-
–150 08/12/1 rier cycle slip. He and his team successfully achieved this
–190 objective with extreme precision. The root-mean-square
–230
(rms) pseudorange error in these monitor station code/
05/1/1 carrier tracking loop receivers was only 7 mm, indeed an
–270
excellent performance for the 1980s time frame [22].
towards 90° East

06/7/27
–310

–350
1.8.2 Ensuring and Demonstrating Spacecraft
08/2/19 09/9/17
–390 Longevity Approaching 10 Years (Driving GPS
05/10/14 Affordability)
–430
y (mas)

–470
10 Meters The issue was simply that sustaining a constellation of
–510
24 satellites would be prohibitively expensive if the satel-
lites did not have long lives. Again, the Air Force/621B
–550
study by Woodford and Nakamura in 1966 focused on
–590 the problem: “the most specific change in satellite technol-
–630 ogy is the increase of Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF),
–150.00 –70.00 10.00 90.00 170.00 250.00 330.00
MTBFs on the order of 3 to 5 years can now be considered
x (mas) towards Greenwhich
feasible.” Amazingly, some of the recent GPS satellites have
Figure 1.12 Earth’s polar axis wander and example of effects orbital lifetimes of over 25 years. With a 24-satellite constel-
calibrated by GPS. lation, the annual launch rate is 24 divided by the average
20 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

satellite lifetime. The problem of short lifetimes is easily

illustrated in Figure 1.13.
• Enforcing a rigorous part selection program including
the de-rating of parts (class S or equivalent).
The light blue line shows the trade-off between the aver-
age satellite lifetime, L, and the required number of satel-
• “Testing as you fly” and insisting on an in-depth analysis
of all failures.
lites per year for a 24-satellite constellation (it is a plot of
Demonstrating long lifetimes was an essential key to GPS
24/L). The yellow box illustrates the US GPS experience
affordability, which helped win both approval and support.
of lifetimes of 10 years or more, which requires only two
to three launches per year. Also shown is the initial expe-
1.8.3 Developing a Full Family of GPS User
rience of GPS during Phase I. Even the first 10 GPS satellites
Equipment That Capitalizes on the Digital Signal
had an average age of 7.6 years. This is an enormous credit
(Leading to Inexpensive Digital Implementation)
to Rockwell International, particularly the Program Man-
and Spans Most Fundamental Military Uses, as
ager Richard Schwartz. GLONASS, the Russian system sim-
well as Demonstrating Civilian Feasibility
ilar to GPS, had the early experience shown in the darker
blue box. With satellite lifetimes averaging two to three The last, but certainly equally difficult‚ of these three engi-
years, the corresponding requirement for GLONASS was neering challenges was the development of nine different
8 to 12 satellite launches per year. GLONASS satellites types of GPS user equipment in less than four years. These
now have design lifetimes of 10 years. The following are sets cost $250,000 or more each and had only 1 to 5
the keys to long-lived GNSS satellites: receiver channels to make satellite ranging measurements.

•
Figure 1.14 shows some early GPS receivers: the Magnavox
Designs with carefully selected redundancy (e. g. clocks, X-set for GPS Phase 1 validation in 1974–1975 (left); the
power amplifiers). first Rockwell Collins GPS receiver from 1976 (center left);

14.00 Early Russian GLONASS

2–3 Year Lifetime
12.00 Requires 8–12/Year
Required Satellites per year

(working to correct)
10.00 US GPS
10–12 Year Lifetime
8.00 #3 –#10 Requires 2–3/Year
Satellites
6.00 9.1 Years Life

4.00
First 10 GPS
2.00 Satellites
7.6 Years Life
0.00
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Average Satellite Life – “L” (Year)

Figure 1.13 Sustainment of 24-satellite constellation. The plot shows the enormous penalty for short satellite lifetimes. GPS had to
launch about 1/4 of the satellites that the Russians would have needed to maintain a 24-satellite constellation. The current GLONASS
satellites have lifetimes of approximately 10 years.

Figure 1.14 Early GPS receivers. The Magnavox X-set (left) was manufactured in 1974–1975 for GPS Phase 1 validation. The first
Rockwell Collins GPS receiver was from 1976 (center left). The GPS Manpack was carried by solders in 1978 (center right). The TI 4100 GS
Navigator (right) was the first GPS commercial receiver by Texas Instrument in 1981. Source: (Left) Photo provided by Vito Calbi.
Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation. (Center Left) Photo courtesy of Rockwell Collins. Reproduced with permission of
Rockwell Collins. (Center Right) US Air Force photo. (Right) Photo courtesy of Phil Ward. Reproduced with permission of Phil Ward.
 1.8 The GPS Development Process and Additional Major Challenges 21

Table 1.5 User equipment developed from 1974 to 1978

User Equipment Set Description Manufacturer

X Unaided Four channels, high-performance, military Magnavox

X Aided Four channels, inertial-aided, military Magnavox
Y Unaided Single channel, sequential, military Magnavox
Y Aided Single channel, sequential, inertial-aided, Magnavox
military
HDUE-High Dynamic Five channels, high-performance, military Texas Instruments
MVUE-Manpack Vehicular Single channel Manpack/ground vehicle military Texas Instruments
GDM-Generalized Development Five channels, high anti-jam military Collins Radio of Rockwell International
Model
MP-Manpack Single channel Manpack/ground vehicle military Magnavox
Z Single channel, low-cost civil prototype Magnavox

the GPS Manpack receivers carried by solders in 1978 (cen-
ter right); the TI 4100 GPS Navigator was the first commer-
cial GPS receiver by Texas Instruments first offered for sale
in 1981 (right). Now, more than 35 years later, consumer
GNSS chips have over 100 channels and cost about one
dollar.
The Phase One user equipment had applications across a
wide variety of military uses. Another major goal was
demonstrating a very low-cost GPS receiver. In the interest
of brevity, we will not describe each of these development
efforts. Table 1.5 summarizes the development of user
equipment from 1974 to 1978.
1.8.4 Controversy: Origins of the GPS Concept
Over the past decade, a number of published reports have
attributed the origins of GPS to the NRL and Mr. Roger Eas-
ton. These claims are understandable, since the NRL was
evidently unaware of the earlier USAF/Aerospace
(Woodford/Nakamura) study performed from 1964 to
1966 because it was classified SECRET. This section will
clarify the historical antecedents of GPS.
In October 1970, Mr. Roger Easton applied for a patent
titled Navigation System using Satellites and Passive Ran-
ging Techniques that was awarded in January 1974
(#3789409) [23]. This apparently is the preferred concept
for a new satellite navigation system that Mr. Easton and
NRL advocated and is the basis of the claim of GPS
invention.
Note that the patent application was four years after the
completed, definitive USAF study by Woodford/Nakamura.
The NRL proposal used a ranging signal technique called
side-tone ranging that required satellites to broadcast on
different frequencies.
By the time of the NRL patent application, the USAF/
Aerospace was already embarked on studying and building
CDMA user receivers using the much-preferred PRN/
CDMA signal later adopted by GPS. In its design, the Navy
system was apparently focused on two-dimensional naviga-
tion; furthermore, the patent did not use the GPS four pseu-
dorange calculation to eliminate the need for a precise
(atomic) user clock. Instead it called for the user to have
a clock with stability equivalent to the satellite: “a naviga-
tor’s station including: receiving means for receiving said
broadcast multifrequency signals; signal generating means
including a second extremely stable oscillator for produ-
cing multifrequency signals the same as said broadcast sig-
nals …”. It is shown on the USAF 621B study summary
(figure 4) as #2, and was already described 4 years before
Mr. Easton’s patent application, but again Mr. Easton
was probably unaware of this work because of classification
at the time.
Thus, this patent and the NRL design cannot be described
as the source of GPS in any sense. It did not describe the four-
satellite technique to eliminate the ultra-stable user clock,
and it used an unsuitable ranging technique that was specif-
ically rejected by Col. Parkinson in the GPS design meeting.
Lastly, it was filed four years after the Woodford/Nakamura
(then classified) study that did describe the GPS technique
(as well as describing the technique used by Mr. Easton in
his patent). Finally, there is no record of the technique actu-
ally being experimentally verified, whereas the GPS concept
was confirmed with both the White Sands (1969–1972) and
Yuma testing (1978–1980; see below).
1.8.5 Verification of GPS and the Yuma Test
Results [24, 25]
By the spring of 1979, six satellites had been launched, nine
types of GPS user equipment built, and extensive test
results were available from over 650 individual tests. The
22 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
4-CHANNEL SET
C-141
100 ft
F-4
UH-IH
33 ft
ILS WINDOW
AT DECISION HT.
– 526 ft
– 400 ft – 200 ft 200 ft
– 33 ft
200 ft
DECISION HEIGHT
(SIMULATED)
GPS performance during landing approaches.
Figure 1.15 Errors at “decision height” for 25 GPS landing approaches.
summary test results confirmed GPS system accuracies of
7 m at the 50th percentile and 17 m at the 90th percentile.
An indication of the system capability is shown in
Figure 1.15, which plots the errors at “decision height” for
25 GPS landing approaches. These results are for three differ-
ent types of aircraft: a large transport (C-141), a fighter type
airplane (F4), and a helicopter (UH – 1H). Note that these
displacements are a combination of GPS and pilot errors.
There was no GPS receiver specifically designed for time
transfer, but an initial test was also performed on this capa-
bility. A synchronized cesium clock was flown from Wash-
ington, DC, to Vandenberg Air Force Base for this
evaluation. The result was a measured capability of about
50 ns. This error included any drift in the cesium clock
between the time it was synchronized at the Naval Observ-
atory in Washington, DC, and the comparison at the Yuma
Proving Ground. Of course, GPS time transfer receivers of
today have capabilities better than 10 ns.
For the details of these results, please consult [24, 25]. In
summary, virtually every performance claim in the original
GPS proposal of 1973 was met.
1.9 GPS Declared Fully Operational
17 July 1995
Twenty-one years and six months after initial approval for a
demonstration system, GPS was finally declared fully oper-
ational. If the production line for the initial satellites had
been extended, full system capability could have been
25
526 ft
400 ft
attained in half that time. Unfortunately, the Air Force
was ambivalent about its requirements for the system
and on a number of occasions recommended a budget that
would have canceled the project. The events leading up to
that operational date are described below.
The 11 block I satellites were followed by a series of block
II, IIR, IIRM, and IIF satellites with the characteristics
shown in Figure 1.16. Of the 72 satellites launched since
1978, at this time, over 40% of them are still operational.
In fact, many of the satellites have demonstrated lifetimes
of over 20 years, which attests to the spacecraft engineering
skills of their manufacturers (Figure 1.17).
From February 1989 through March 1993, 19 GPS satel-
lites were launched in 49 months. Thus, the system was
close to operational in the early portions of the Bosnian
war. This was a significant milestone because the precision
bombing capability of GPS was clearly established in the
minds of the operational Air Force.
GPS was declared fully operational (FOC) on 17 July
1995: “The Air Force announced today that the Global Posi-
tioning System satellite constellation has met all require-
ments for full operational capability. FOC status means
that the system meets all the requirements specified in a
variety of formal performance and requirements docu-
ments.” The GPS operational configuration is shown in
Figure 1.18 with six inclined orbital planes; each plane
hosts four to six satellites.
A full description of GPS accuracy standards can be
found in [26]. Table 1.6 is extracted from the December
2015 report to show civil capability (“Standard Service”).
 1.9 GPS Declared Fully Operational 17 July 1995 23

Legacy Satellites Modernized Satellites

Block IIA Block IIR Block IIR(M) Block IIF GPS III
0 12 7 11 3 in testing
operational operational operational operational 7 in production

• Coarse Acquisition • C/A code on L1 • All legacy signals • All Block IIR(M) • All Block IIF signals
(C/A) code on L1 • P(Y) code on L1 & L2 • 2nd civil signal (L2C) signals • 4th civil signal on L1
frequency for civil (L1C)
• On-board clock • New military M code •3rd civil signal on L5
users
monitoring signals for enhanced • Enhanced signal
• Advanced atomic
• Precise P(Y) code on • 7.5-year design jam resistance clocks reliability, accuracy,
L1 & L2 frequencies lifespan and integrity
• Flexible power levels • Improved accuracy,
for military users
• Launched in 1997- for military signals signal strength, and • No SA
• 7.5-year design 2004 quality • Satellites 11+: laser
lifespan • 7.5-year design
lifespan reflectors; search &
• 12-year design lifespan
• Launched in 1990- rescue payload
1997 • Launched in 2005- • Launched in 2010-
2009 • 15-year design lifespan
• Last one 2016
decommissioned in • 1st launch 2018, 2nd in
2016 2019, last launch
expected 2023

Figure 1.16 A summary of GPS satellites’ statistics and key parameters.

Block Launched Operational Testing/ Unhealthy Retired Launch

Reserve Failures
Block I 11 0 0 0 10 1
Block II* 9 0 0 0 9 0
Block IIA 19 0 8 0 11 0
Block IIR 13 12 0 0 0 1
Block IIRM 8 7 1 0 0 0
Block IIF 12 12 1 0 0 0
Block IIIA 3 0 2 0 0 0
Total 75 31 4 0 30 2

*One Block II prototype was never launched.

Figure 1.17 Summary of the number of satellites launched, operational, testing/reserve, unhealthy, retired, and launch failures for
different blocks.

The specifications on GPS service are extremely conserva-
tive; all independent test data indicate very comfortable mar-
gins against all parameters. It is hard to make an exact
comparison of existing measurement data against the speci-
fications. The GPS specifications are for a worldwide distri-
bution and include certain assumptions about the Age of
Data, which is the time since the last upload for a particular
satellite. In addition, the geometric distribution of satellite
ranging can drive the accuracy by factors of 10 or more.
However, the FAA Technical Center publishes a quarterly
evaluation of GPS performance as measured by their WAAS
North American monitoring stations [27]. A monthly report
24 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

1.9.1 Presidential Decisions Helping to Assure

GPS for Humanity
There were two presidential decisions that were a substan-
tial boost to the usefulness of GPS and growth of its appli-
cations. These were the decisions by President Reagan and
President Clinton to ensure that GPS was available for all of
humanity with no restrictions on accuracy.

1.9.1.1 President Reagan Guarantees GPS to be Freely

Figure 1.18 Current GPS operational configuration showing six
inclined planes with four to six satellites per plane. Source:
Schriever AFB. Reproduced with permission of Schriever AFB.
from January 2019 is shown in Table 1.7. This report showed
that the median horizontal accuracy (95%) has been better
than 3 m.
It is a tribute to the United States Air Force operators
that the historical trends of GPS Signal-in-Space (SIS) ran-
ging errors (SISRE) have been steadily improving. SISRE
is defined as the accuracy considering satellite location
and timing errors as well as the ionospheric correction.
While it does not include user-centered errors, such as
multipath and troposphere, it represents the foundation
system capability. Against the 4 m Standard Positioning
Service (SPS) Performance Standard (see Figure 1.19),
recent measurements show accuracies that are at least
four times better.
Available to Benefit Humanity
President Reagan’s Address to the Nation on the Soviet
Attack on a Korean Airliner (KAL 007) on 5 September
1983 [28] foreshadowed his orders that GPS would be made
available and supported for civilians throughout the world.
This event has been misconstrued by many reporters. In
fact, the signal had been freely usable for civilians since
1978, as discussed earlier, on a use-at-your-own-risk basis.
President Reagan’s announcement, however, formally
guaranteed civil-signal availability for an indefinite period
with a statement that any termination would have a 10-year
advanced warning. Thus, a signal which could be used only
at risk was converted to a signal with the backing and guar-
antee of the US government. In fact, by 1983, a major mar-
ket was already developing for the use of GPS in precision
survey and mapping.
1.9.1.2 President Clinton Directs Cessation
of Deliberate Civil-Signal Degradation
A different president, Bill Clinton, also made an announce-
ment that affected civil use. It was recognized, after the ini-
tial testing, that the civilian signal was virtually as accurate
as the precision military signal, which was encrypted.
There was a fear that such civil capability might be used
against the United States during periods of hostility. There-
fore, the DoD decided to deliberately degrade the accuracy
of the civil signal with a technique known as Selective
Availability (SA). This was done by perturbing the ranging

Table 1.6 GPS accuracy standards for civil capability (Standard Service)

Position Service Availability Standard Conditions and Constraints

≥ 99% Horizontal service availability, 17 m horizontal (SIS only) 95% threshold

average location 37 m vertical (SIS only) 95% threshold
≥ 99% Vertical service availability, Defined for a position/time solution meeting the representative user conditions and operating
average location within the service volume over any 24-hour interval.
≥ 90% Horizontal service availability, 17 m horizontal (SIS only) 95% threshold
worst-case location 37 m vertical (SIS only) 95% threshold
≥ 90% Vertical service availability, Defined for a position/time solution meeting the representative user conditions and operating
worst-case location within the service volume over any 24-hour interval

SIS = Signal-in-Space
 1.9 GPS Declared Fully Operational 17 July 1995 25

Table 1.7 FAA Monthly Civil Report Card on GPS performance published in January 2019 [27]

Operational Performance Parameter CY 2018 Dec 2018 Jan 2019

Availability Parameters
Average number of satellites usable 30.77 30.66 30.97
Average number of satellites usable in primary slots 23.83 23.98 23.98
(99.29%) (99.90%) (99.91%)
Average availability of 6 satellites in view 100% 100% 100%
99.99% Horizontal DOP
Area Median 1.4 1.4 1.4
Worst site 8.0 9.4 7.5
99.99% Vertical DOP
Area Median 2.4 2.4 2.4
Worst site 35.4 39.3 26.8
99.99% Position DOP (PDOP)
Area Median 2.7 2.7 2.7
Worst site 36.5 40.4 27.6
100% RAIM Availability (HAL = 185m)
NPA Service Area (NSA) 63.36% 47.05% 36.53%
World 65.93% 58.36% 56.45%
Accuracy Parameters
RMS Single Frequency User Range Error
Constellation Median 1.66 1.69 1.65
Worst Satellite 10.96 10.90 10.92
95% Horizontal Error
Area Median 1.70 1.68 1.70
Worst Site 2.99 2.87 2.69
Availability (% <4.5m (historical 3-sigma)) 99.97% 99.99% 100%
95% Vertical Error
Area Median 3.96 3.94 3.96
Worst Site 4.65 4.90 5.14
Availability (% <9m (historical 3-sigma)) 100% 99.99% 99.99%

Source: Wide-Area Augmentation System Performance Analysis Report, available quarterly at: http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov.

accuracy from the satellite. The degraded “raw” accuracies,
for civil use, were 50 to 100 m at the 50th percentile.
Unfortunately, this degradation scheme had the opposite
effect. Such degradation could easily be corrected using dif-
ferential GPS techniques. In fact, well-established differen-
tial techniques would enable accuracies about 50% better
than the best military sets. It was expected by some obser-
vers that this would accelerate the deployment of differen-
tial systems and indeed this was the case. The US
government was in the ironic situation that the DoD was
degrading the GPS signal, while the FAA and the US Coast
Guard were freely broadcasting the differential corrections
to undo that effect and more.
The government finally recognized the flaw of this
policy‚ and in May 2000, President Clinton announced
the following:
Today, I am pleased to announce that the United
States will stop the intentional degradation of the
Global Positioning System (GPS) signals available
to the public beginning at midnight tonight. We call
this degradation feature Selective Availability (SA).
This will mean that civilian users of GPS will be able
to pinpoint locations up to ten times more accurately
than they do now. GPS is a dual-use, satellite-based
system that provides accurate location and timing
26 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

8
2008 SPS Performance Standard (PS)
Standard Positioning Service (SPS) Worst of Any Healthy Satellite: 7.8m @95%
7
Signal-in-Space (SIS) Performance 2001-2018
2001 SPS PS 6m RMS
6
User Range Error (URE) (m)

Broadcast Orbit Precise Orbit

URE RMS 68% Worst of Any SV 95%

5
Error in
Broadcast
Orbit Satellite Equivalent RMS Value from 2008 SPS PS: 4m
Position
4 at Time t

Rad
ial 3.4 3.3
3.1 3.2 3.1
3 2.9
3 2.8 2.8 2.75
2.6 2.6

2 1.6
1.4
1.2 1.2 1.1 1.1 1 1 0.9 0.9 0.9
1 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6

0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Figure 1.19 Standard Positioning Service (SPS) Signal-in-space ranging errors (SISRE) performance from 2001 to 2019. The steady
decreasing error indicates improving accuracy over the time period.

data to users worldwide. My March 1996 Presiden-

SA Turned Off May 2nd, 2000
tial Decision Directive included in the goals for 150

GPS to: “encourage acceptance and integration of 95% Error With SA Without

GPS into peaceful civil, commercial and scientific 100 SPS East 31 m 4.9 m
SPS North 37 m 4.2 m
applications worldwide; and to encourage private SPS Vertical 81 m 14 m

sector investment in and use of U.S. GPS 50

Position Error (m)

technologies and services.” To meet these goals,

I committed the U.S. to discontinuing the use of 0
SA by 2006 with an annual assessment of its contin-
ued use beginning this year.
–50
95% Error

On 2 May 2000, SA was discontinued. Figure 1.20 shows –100

NSTB East 0.76 m
NSTB North 1.92 m
the abrupt improvement in positioning accuracy at the NSTB Vertical 1.2 m

fourth UTC hour. Also visible is the much smoother charac-

–150
teristic of errors, which implies that differential corrections 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (UTC Hours)
will be valid for a much longer period of time. The DoD
has announced that the latest generation of satellites (GPS Figure 1.20 Example position error plots showing the
III) will no longer have SA capability built into their hard- improvement of accuracy at the 4th hour, UTC when SA was
turned off.
ware. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that SA is gone forever.

1.10.1 GPS Modernization

1.10 Improved GPS, Newer GNSSs, While there have been many upgrades and modifications to
and Augmentations the GPS satellites, perhaps the most important improve-
ments are in the signal structure. The additional GPS civil
During the next 10 to 15 years, the world will experience an signals will allow direct measurement of the ionosphere,
explosion of improvements and expansions of GNSS and create redundancy, and form the basis for a common inter-
RNSS systems, which will be described in this section. national civil signal. GPS has recently launched the IIF and

Table 1.8 Current and planned GPS signals
Center frequency Signal description
1575.42 MHz L1 C/A: first civil signal
L1 P(Y): original military
L1 M: new military
L1C: new international GNSS (Block III)
1227.60 MHz L2 P(Y): original military
L2M: new military
L2 CM: civil data channel
L2 CL: civil pilot channel
1.176.45 MHz L5 I: new civil safety-of-life data channel
L5 Q: new civil safety-of-life pilot channel
III series of satellites, which are the latest to incorporate
new civil signals. Table 1.8 summarizes all 10 of the current
and planned GPS signals.
Especially noteworthy is L5 (1176.45 MHz), which is a
new civilian safety-of-life (SOL) signal (see GPS moderniza-
tion). This frequency falls into an internationally protected
band for aeronautical navigation, promising little or no
authorized interference under all circumstances. The first
Block IIF satellite to permanently provide this signal was
launched in 2010. L5 is expected to be fully operational
in the early 2020s. The first block III satellite was launched
in December 2019. The 4th GPS civilian signal, L1C, became
available for use in January 2020.
1.10.2 The Newer GNSSs
This section will provide an overview of the four GNSSs
and two RNSSs which are operational or under develop-
ment. GPS has already been discussed extensively. Each
of the GNSSs and RNSSs will be discussed in detail by
experts from their respective countries in this book in
Chapters 3 through 8.
1.10.2.1 GLONASS
The (then) USSR had mirrored the satnav developments in
the US, about four years later. By 1979, they had a system
similar to the US Transit system, called Cicada or Cricket.
A second system, called GLONASS, is similar to the US
GPS, and was first launched in October 1982. By 1995, a
24-satellite configuration was declared operational. Because
of the challenges of early failures, maintaining this constel-
lation has been problematic, but it now appears that it is a
high national priority, and satellite lifetimes are improving.
Up to now, the signal structure of GLONASS has been dis-
tinct from that of GPS; GLONASS uses a frequency division
1.10 Improved GPS, Newer GNSSs, and Augmentations 27
Civil (C) or
protected (P) First broadcast
C 1978
P 1978
P 2005
C 2019
P 1978
P 2005
C 2005
C 2005
C 2010
C 2010
multiple access (FDMA) technique which has each satellite
in view broadcasting on a distinct frequency with a short
PRN code of 511 bits. More recently, they have decided to
move to a CDMA structure with the GLONASS-K series
of vehicles. Although the orbital failures and short lifetimes
of early satellites have reduced the general availability of
GLONASS, the surveying community has made use of this
signal for many years, which improved GNSS availability,
especially for the sky-impaired users. And now almost all
new smartphones have GNSS receivers that support both
GPS and GLONASS as well as other constellations. GLO-
NASS is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.
1.10.2.2 Galileo
Galileo is a GNSS developed by the European Union (EU)
and the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide an inde-
pendent high-precision positioning system for European
countries. The first Galileo test satellite, GIOVE-A, was
launched in 2005‚ and the first operational satellite was
launched in October 2011. Galileo went live in 2016. As
of July 2018, 26 of the planned 30 active satellites were in
orbit. There are 22 operational satellites, 2 in testing, and
2 more marked as not available. Galileo provides a low-
precision basic service free and open to the public. It also
offers higher-precision correction capabilities. Because of
the geographical locations of the European countries, Gal-
ileo is intended to provide better position services at higher
latitudes than other positioning systems. Galileo is also to
provide a new global search and rescue (SAR) function.
The system characteristics are very similar to that of GPS;
for a comparison, see Table 1.9. Details of the Galileo sys-
tem will be discussed in Chapter 5, but the capability
is expected to be very similar to that of GPS. Current plans
call for full operational capability in 2020.
28 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

Table 1.9 Statistics of GNSSs and RNSSs

System GPS GLONASS Galileo BeiDou NavIC QZSS

Type GNSS RNSS

Provider United States Russian European China India Japan
Federation Union
Fully operational 1995 2011 2020 2020 2018 2018
Code structure CDMA FDMA CDMA
CDMA
(GLONASS-K)
Orbital altitude 20,180 km 19,130 km 23,222 km 21,520 km & 35,786 km 35,786 km
35,786 km
Period 11 h 58 min 11 h 16 min 14 h 5 min 12 h 53 min & 23 h 56 min 23 h 56 min
23 h 56 min
Revs/sidereal day 2 17/8 17/10 13/7 & 1 1 1

Repeat period (sidereal 1 8 10 7 1 1

days)
Number ofsatellites Nominal 24 operational 2 testing 3 GEOs 3 GEOs 4 IGSO
24 Current: 34 Planned: 22 operational 3 IGSO 4 IGSOs 1 GEO
(IIA, IIR, IIRM, 3 GLO-M Planned: 24 MEOs 2 on Stand- Planned
IIF, III) 9 GLO-K 30 MEOs by 2 IGSOs
9-10 GLO-K2 2 Planned 1 GEOs
4 GLO-V
Frequencies See Chapter 2 in this book
Status Operational Operational Operational Operational Operational Operational

1.10.2.3 BeiDou
The fourth GNSS is being developed by China and is called
BeiDou Satellite Navigation System (BDS). It began opera-
tion as a limited test system in the year 2000, denoted BeiDou
I (BDS-1). BDS-1 used Radio Determination Satellite Service
(RDSS) to provide coarse two-dimensional positioning and
timing via two-way transmissions with geostationary Earth
orbit (GEO) satellites. It was decommissioned at the end
of 2012. The second generation of the systems, BDS-2,
became fully operational in 2012 to provide regional services.
It has 14 satellites, including 5 GEO, 5 inclined geosynchro-
nous orbit (IGSO), and 4 MEO satellites, adding radio navi-
gation satellite service (RNSS) via passive trilateration to the
BDS-1 functionality. In 2014, BDS was officially enrolled as a
part of the worldwide radio navigation system. In 2015,
China started the build-up of the third-generation systems,
the BDS-3, in the global coverage constellation and launched
the first BDS-3 satellite. By 2018, BDS-3 has established a
baseline constellation with 18 MEO satellites and 1 GEO sat-
ellite to provide PNT services to global users. BDS aims to
provide global services from at least 24 MEO satellites, while
retaining a regional overlay constellation of at least 6 satel-
lites in GEO and IGSO to provide a richer coverage over the
longitudes of East Asia and Oceania by 2020. BDS-3 also
offers a number of unique capabilities, including an inte-
grated SBAS from its satellites at GEO, integrated operation
of ground and space segments, intersatellite links for precise
orbit determination (POD), a global SAR service, and a
regional precise point positioning (PPP) service. The designs
of BDS-3 signals build on concepts developed for GPS and
Galileo, but with differences that make them unique yet
interoperable. A unique feature of the BDS-3 signal is a
highly flexible multi-carrier constant envelope multiplexing
technique. It allows the efficient transmission of a legacy
BDS-2 civil signal in the upper L band for backward interop-
erability, and the new BDS-3 civil signal that is interoperable
with the corresponding Galileo and GPS signals. BDS is cov-
ered in Chapter 6.
1.10.2.4 Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC)
and QZSS
Japan and India are both developing RNSS to serve a sector
of their corresponding world. The QZSS relies on four satel-
lites in highly inclined, slightly elliptical, geosynchronous
orbits to provide highly precise and stable positioning ser-
vices in the Asia-Oceania region. The primary purpose of

QZSS is to increase the availability of navigation satellite
signals in Japan’s numerous urban canyons, where only
satellites at very high elevation can be seen. The QZSS satel-
lites transmit signals compatible with the GPS L1 C/A, L1C,
L2C, and L5 signals. Additionally, QZSS satellites also
broadcast GPS augmentation messages on the GLS L1 fre-
quency. The combined system GPS plus QZSS delivers
improved positioning performance via ranging correction
data provided through the transmission of augmentation
messages from QZSS. It also improves reliability by means
of failure monitoring and system health data notifications.
In addition, QZSS also provides other support data to users
to improve GPS satellite acquisition. QZSS became fully
operational in November 2018.
The India Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS)
was approved by the Indian government in 2006. IRNSS
was renamed as NavIC later. Its primary service area is
intended to cover India and regions around extending to
1500 km around it. NavIC will provide two levels of ser-
vices: the SPS for civilian use and a restricted service (RS)
for authorized users. NavIC satellites transmit an SPS signal
and a Precision Service (PS) signal. Both will be carried on
L5 and S bands. The SPS signal is modulated by a Binary
Phase Shift-Keying (BPSK) signal, while the PS signal uses
GPS
GLONASS
Galileo
BeiDou
QZSS
NavIC
SBAS
1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300
Figure 1.21 Current and planned GNSS and RNSS frequencies [29]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation.
1.10 Improved GPS, Newer GNSSs, and Augmentations 29
Binary Offset Carrier (BOC). A messaging interface is
embedded in the NavIC system which allows warnings to
be sent to a specific geographic area. NavIC has already
launched seven satellites: three in GEO and four in IGSO.
Its full operation was expected in 2018. Due to failures of
one of the satellites and its replacement effort, no new date
for operational status has been set. There is a plan to extend
the full constellation to 11 in the future.
NavIC and QZSS are covered in Chapters 7 and 8,
respectively.
1.10.3 Comparison of Existing and Planned
Systems
Table 1.9 summarizes the major characteristics of current
and planned GNSSs and RNSSs. Figure 1.21 shows the fre-
quencies and signals associated with these systems. More
detailed discussions on the systems, frequencies, and sig-
nals associated with the various satnav systems are pre-
sented in Chapters 3 through 8. Until recently, there was
only one civil signal (GPS C/A) available worldwide, with
GLONASS working to attain full availability. As can be
seen, GNSS capability will be greatly expanded in the
coming years.
Open: Blue, Encrypted: Red
JWBetz
1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610
30 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

250
Accumulated Number of Successful Satellite Launches
1978-2020
200
GPS GLONASS Galileo BDS QZSS NavIC SBAS

150

100

50

20
8
0
2
4
86
88
90
92
94
96
98
00
02
04
06
08
10
12
14
16
18
7
8
8
8

20
20
20
20
20
20
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19

20
20
20
20
20
Figure 1.22 Cumulative launches of GNSS satellites (including SBAS) since 1978.

Note that all the constellations have orbital periods that
are integral fractions of a sidereal day: the GPS orbit period
is ½ sidereal day, GLONASS 8/17, etc. This means that the
apparent orbits, as viewed from a stationary observer on
Earth, repeat in an integral number of sidereal days. Here
is why: any such satellite with an orbit period of M/N side-
real days will complete N orbits in M sidereal days; mean-
while, the Earth will have completed exactly M rotations,
and the satellite will appear in the same place in the sky
as it started M sidereal days ago.
Because GPS satellites last so long, replenishments are
infrequent‚ and their launch rate has greatly tapered since
the 1995 era. On the other hand, the three newer GNSS con-
stellations continue to sustain the worldwide launch rate of
GNSSs. To date, over 200 GNSS satellites have been
launched by these four providers. This history of cumula-
tive launches is shown in Figure 1.22. More details on
the newer GNSSs and RNSSs and their innovations will
be covered in later chapters.
1.10.4 Integrity PNT Augmentation Systems:
WAAS, EGNOS, and MSAS
For aviation use, a central issue is the integrity of the PNT
solution. As described in the introductory section, the FAA
has deployed a system called WAAS. Using about 36 mon-
itoring stations throughout North America, all satellites
within view are carefully measured. Within six seconds
of detecting a faulty satellite, a message is transmitted to
the user from a geosynchronous satellite stationed over
the North American continent. Because this signal is broad-
cast on the GPS frequency, there is no significant additional
cost for the user to receive the message. Aircraft that use
WASS can then quickly eliminate the problematic satellite.
In addition, the WAAS provides four-dimensional correc-
tions (called wide area differential corrections) for each sat-
ellite, as well as an ionospheric model for those users that
do not use the two-frequency correction technique. While
principally intended to service the aviation community,
WAAS has been rapidly adopted by many users for a great
variety of applications.
In Europe, a similar system, called EGNOS, has been
deployed and is operational. The Japanese have also
deployed a version called MSAS that has additional features
to service the transportation industries. Russia and India
are also deploying similar capability. Chapter 11 elaborates
on the characteristics of these systems.
1.10.5 Ground-Based Networks for Accuracy
Augmentation
For many civil applications, accuracy is often perceived as
the most desirable feature of a positioning service. Some of
the earliest GPS civil applications are surveying, geodesy,
and geodynamics. These applications depend accurate
measurement of positions of terrestrial points. They also
require knowledge on fundamental properties of the Earth,
such as its geometric shape, orientation in space, and
gravitational field. The accurate measurements and knowl-
edge are used to study the dynamics of the Earth, such as
plate tectonics motion, sea floor spreading, mountain build-
ing, volcanoes, and earthquakes, etc. The stringent require-
ments in measurement accuracy of these geophysics
subjects are major driving forces that led to the develop-
ment of carrier-phase-based techniques which ultimately

made GPS as precise as it is today [30, 31]. GPS is now rou-
tinely used to achieve millimeter-level position precision,
an improvement of accuracy by four orders of magnitude
over the original design specifications. Moreover, techni-
ques such as differential GPS, real-time kinematic (RTK)
positioning, and PPP all rely on augmentation services that
combine GPS and communication technologies to support
a wide range of consumer, engineering, and scientific appli-
cations to meet the demand of markets at various levels
from local, regional, and national to global.
The backbones of the accuracy augmentation services are
the numerous CORS networks established in many coun-
tries by consortia of stakeholders: GNSS equipment manu-
facturers, communication service providers, product
agents, government agencies, professional associations,
academic institutions, standard organizations, etc. These
networks and their associated data analysis centers provide
GNSS data products consisting of carrier phase and code
range measurements and station information in support
of precision PNT applications. For example, the US CORS
network, managed by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS),
an office of the NOAA’s National Ocean Service, currently
consists over 2000 stations contributed by over 200 govern-
ment, academic, and private organizations [7, 32]. While
these stations are independently owned and operated, their
data are shared with NGS, and NGS, in turn, analyzes and
distributes the data free of charge. A variety of networks,
each with its own unique characteristics and managed by
organizations in other countries‚ exist. They range from
the densely populated GNSS Earth Observation Network
System (GEONET) in Japan [33] to Geoscience Australia’s
widespread regional networks covering the Australia and
South Pacific regions [34], and to the focused Hong Kong
Satellite Positioning Reference Station Network (SatRef )
[35], etc. The powerful “super-network” of the Internal
GNSS Service (IGS) [36] produces high-quality real-time
and post-processed GNSS data products, such as precise sat-
ellite orbit, ionosphere total electron content (TEC) map,
tropospheric path delays, Earth rotation parameters, etc.
for public open access. There are also privately operated
networks, such as the OmniSTAR network [37] and John
Deere’s StarFireTM network, which offer augmentation ser-
vices for users with special equipment via subscriptions.
The proliferation of these ground-based networks and the
high-quality services provided by their data centers have
led to the gradual abandonment of the need for users to
operate GPS base station receivers [6]. Being able to per-
form differential positioning using a single receiver greatly
reduces the cost and complexity. Moreover, recently estab-
lished CORS networks are capable of providing real-time
services to enable RTK functions. These accuracy augmen-
tation networks and applications, such as RTK, PPP, global
1.10 Improved GPS, Newer GNSSs, and Augmentations 31
geodesy, geodetic sciences, ionosphere effects and monitor-
ing, survey and mobile mapping, precision agriculture, that
rely on the services of the network will be covered in Chap-
ters 19, 20, 27, 31, 55, and 56, respectively.
1.10.6 Frequency-Diverse PNT Augmentations:
Enhanced LORAN (eLORAN) and DME
eLORAN is a concept that has been tested, but not yet
deployed and was briefly described in the introductory sec-
tion. It has a powerful ground-based (nearly impossible to
jam) signal with up to 100 kW and can be deployed in
expandable local regions. The operating signal frequency
is at 100 kHz, in a band totally different from GNSS. It is
two-dimensional, but in calibrated local areas, differential
eLORAN is perhaps as accurate as 15 m and better than
100 ns in time dissemination. eLORAN uses GNSS for sig-
nal synchronization.
eLORAN meets the needs of a number of critical applica-
tions: 10–20 m navigation accuracy for harbor entrance; 0.3
mile required navigation performance (RNP 0.3) and avia-
tion integrity; and Stratum 1 for time and frequency users
with 50 ns time accuracy [38].
eLORAN is a significant update from the earlier LORAN
deployment: new infrastructure, solid state transmitters,
state-of-the-art time and frequency equipment, uninterrupt-
ible power supplies; new operating concepts, time of
transmission, all-in-view signals, message channel with dif-
ferential corrections, integrity; and new user equipment that
can digitally process eLORAN and GPS signals interchange-
ably with compact H-field antennas eliminate p-static.
In August 2006, the Department of Transportation (DOT)
undersecretary for policy sponsored a task at the Institute
for Defense Analyses (IDA) to form an Independent Assess-
ment Team (IAT) to review the need for eLORAN. The con-
clusion was that “eLoran is the only cost-effective backup
for national needs; it is completely interoperable with
and independent of GPS …” [39]. The PNTAB also unani-
mously recommended that the US deploy eLORAN. The
DOT and Homeland Security supported it. Unfortunately,
with a change of administrations and with a budget crunch,
the United States began dismantling the existing LORAN
C stations. Congress now appears to be taking action,
and the recent GLONASS outages have given an impetus
to eLORAN deployment. LORAN and eLORAN will be dis-
cussed in Chapter 41.
For aviation, greater accuracy and vertical coverage are
desired. The current plan is to upgrade a selected subset of
DME for backup to GPS. Since DME is installed in virtually
all commercial airplanes, this would be a minimal cost
upgrade. While the FAA does not yet explicitly have a plan
32 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
for the use of non-US GNSS, it is probable that they will be
included after suitable techniques are available to ensure
integrity. These subjects will be further explored in Chapter 61.
1.10.7 “Self-contained” Augmentations:
Inexpensive and More Accurate Inertial
Components and Systems
As described earlier, inertial navigation predates satellite-
based navigation. Although it has been somewhat super-
seded by the GNSS revolution, it is still a very useful tech-
nique with appropriate precautions about unbounded drift
and reliance on precise initial conditions.
Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS) implements
inertial measurement sensors onto silicon chips. These
MEMS devices include accelerometers, rate gyroscopes,
magnetometers‚ and pressure sensors (for altitude meas-
urement). They have become extremely affordable and
are now used in automobiles and smart phones. Even
greater improvements are underway for accelerometers,
gyroscopes, and chip-scale atomic clocks.
For many reasons, a marriage of GNSS and inertial com-
ponents can be extremely useful. For example, inertial com-
ponents can improve the jam resistance of GNSS receivers,
allowing operation closer to any source of interference. In
addition, if total reception is denied, such inertial compo-
nents can allow fly wheeling of the solution through such
periods. The fly wheeling can be more accurate because
GNSS can perform real-time calibrations of the various
inertial-component drift parameters right up to the occur-
rence of jamming. The advent of chip-scale atomic clocks
has also proved extremely useful in the event of jamming.
1.10.8 Assisted GNSS
Assisted GNSS (A-GNSS) is another form of augmentation,
distinct from those discussed in the previous sections. A-
GNSS is a technique for decreasing time to fix and increas-
ing sensitivity by providing satellite data over an alternative
communications link (like LTE, or Wi-Fi). A-GPS came to
prominence after the E911 mandate was enforced in the
United States. This mandate required cell phones to provide
location along with any emergency (911) call.
The E911 rules mandated location, but not the location
technology. Indeed, in the first few years, GPS was the
underdog and cellular-network-based location systems
were the early leaders in the race to be the technology of
choice. A-GPS changed all that, dropping GPS time to fix
by about 100× and increasing sensitivity by 1000×, thus
allowing GPS to work efficiently in cell phones. With
Moore’s law on its side, GPS soon became the default tech-
nology for E911 and found its way into most US cell phones.
Commercial applications followed, such as turn-by-turn
navigation, and today it is virtually impossible to find a
smartphone without GNSS. Cell phones account for over
90% of all GNSS receivers.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
issued the wireless E911 order in 1996 with a phase-in
period over the following years. Several A-GNSS technolog-
ical breakthroughs occurred in these years. They can be
summarized as follows:
1) Massive parallel correlation: Combined with the assis-
tance data, this allows a receiver to acquire the GNSS
signal almost instantly if the signal is strong. If the signal
is weak, the receiver can dwell for a long time on all pos-
sible hypotheses, integrating the signal over time to
increase sensitivity by more than 30 dB (1000×).
2) Coarse-time navigation: Allows the navigation solution
to be computed before the time data from the satellite
has been decoded. This allows instant location following
acquisition.
3) Long-term orbits/extended ephemeris: Following the
discontinuation of SA, it became feasible for a civilian
receiver to observe the orbits precisely and, using this
information, compute future orbits. This has become
an industry standard for delivering future orbits to
mobile devices.
Funding for deployment of E911 services was established
by a bill passed in 2004.
1.11 Prerequisites for Assured
GNSS-Based PNT
Virtually all modern PNT systems rely on GNSS, either as
the sole means of position determinations or as the tech-
nique to initialize position, synchronize time, or calibrate
measuring devices. To assess threats and vulnerabilities,
let us start with a review of the prerequisites for GNSS-
based PNT.
The first GNSS-based PNT prerequisite is a receivable,
accurate ranging signal with full integrity.
Integrity deserves a little elaboration. “Integrity” is the
assurance that the system is operating within the nominal
accuracy bounds. Integrity assurance is a particular focus of
both the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
and, in the United States, the FAA. In many cases‚ they
require that PNT errors not exceed specified bounds more
than once in 10 million measurements (1 × 10−7). This
integrity level is difficult to verify experimentally because
that would require too many samples – we have not had
that many measured airplane landings, but, with effort, it
can be calculated. The specification is the equivalent of
 1.12 Actions to Assure PNT (Protect, Toughen, Augment) – the PTA Program
3 seconds of bad data per year. That is more easily under-
stood than availability, which tends to 99.9XXX%. The ulti-
mate goal is that unavailability be zero. The following
paragraphs summarize the main techniques for ensuring
integrity.
External, Independent, Integrity Monitoring Cur-
rently, the US GPS control segment continuously monitors
GPS satellites. If a fault is recognized (which may take
many minutes or even hours) the satellite is set “inopera-
tive” until the problem is resolved. This is not fast enough
to find a fault during aircraft landing and approach (the
requirement is 6 seconds to alarm). For rapid integrity
alarms, the United States relies on WAAS‚ and Europe uses
EGNOS to independently monitor the integrity of the GPS
L1 C/A signal. As Galileo becomes operational, integrity
assessments should be expanded to include it.
Unfortunately, the United States does not yet have a plan
for reciprocal WAAS monitoring of Galileo signals. In fact,
formal approval for even using these signals has just been
granted by the US FCC. Fortunately, there is another real-
time tracking network of 200+ sites, known as the Global
Differential System (GDGPS). Although GDGPS is admi-
nistered by NASA, these individual sites are maintained
and operated by local country engineers. They currently
monitor GPS with very high precision (centimeters) and
potentially will be monitoring Galileo. This technique
could be a powerful measure of satellite integrity, but it
is not yet officially part of the current GPS control segment.
Self-Integrity (RAIM) If an all-GNSS receiver has six
or more satellites in view, the user can use RAIM
(Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring). RAIM is a
well-established concept that checks all satellite ranging sig-
nals against the common solution to find erroneous satellites
and guard against spoofing. Recently GLONASS experienced
an extended outage that created problems for certain users.
However, receivers that had built-in RAIM reportedly were
successfully inoculated against the problem.
1.11.1 Challenges to Receiving Accurate Signals
There are six main challenges to receiving accurate ranging
with integrity:
1) Too Powerful Authorized Signals Nearby: A recent
event was a surprise to both GPS users and developers.
The FCC authorizers licensed a powerful signal in the
frequency band adjacent to GPS. This would degrade
accuracy or totally deny receipt of GPS signals. Such
••
interference can be called authorized jamming. All
PNT providers must be very vigilant about this; we have
seen ignorant elements of the government poised to do
great harm with well-intended, but destructive actions,
without knowledge of the unintended consequences.
33
2) Natural Interference: This interference, the cause of sig-
nal delays and attenuation is reasonably well under-
stood, and the subject of much research, dating back
to when GPS was first defined. Random events, such
as solar flares, can potentially cause serious disruptions,
particularly in the high latitude and equatorial regions.
Use of dual frequencies can virtually eliminate the
problem of signal delays. However, during ionospheric
storms, the user can experience deep fading and loss
of signal. Fortunately, this does not usually occur simul-
taneously on all frequencies and for all satellites within
view of a receiver.
3) Inadvertent Natural/Manmade Jamming: A nearby
device that creates spurious, destructive emissions can
be a serious problem for GPS receivers. This class tends
to be manageable by well-designed receivers.
4) Collateral: Collateral damage can occur when a person
who wants to evade tracking inadvertently jams another
receiver rather than his own local tracking device.
5) Deliberate Jamming or Spoofing: This is perhaps the
major concern for developers and users.
6) Errors in the Satellite Signal: In the case of GPS, these
errors have been extremely infrequent but not
unknown. A prudent user or equipment manufacturer
still should incorporate detection and mitigation techni-
ques for this class of problem. Satellite signal quality
monitoring is essential to assured PNT.
1.11.2 The Second Major Challenge for the PNT
User: Satellite Unavailability
There are two possible underlying problems: (1) The satellite
constellation has a “brown-out” because of failures or inade-
quate numbers (possibly due to hostile action), or (2) the user
is operating in a mountainous area or urban area with high,
local shading angles. The user who cannot see enough of the
sky is called “sky-impaired.” Overcoming sky impairment
requires a denser constellation or use of multiple GNSSs.
1.12 Actions to Assure PNT (Protect,
Toughen, Augment) – the PTA Program
With the above fundamental prerequisites in mind, the
PNTAB of the US government has advocated a program
called PTA. The three central strategies are the following:
Protect the systems and the signals.
Toughen the user’s receivers and the system.
•
Augment GNSS as needed to ensure the user’s PNT
requirements are met.
34 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

Note: The focus is assured PNT, not simply the satnav-
derived position. The following sections will expand on
each of the three strategies.
1.12.1 Assured PNT: P – Protect the System
and the Signal
This can be organized into seven items, three Pre-Actions
and four Re-Actions. Pre-Actions are to be taken before there
is serious interference, and Re-Actions obviously come after
interference occurs.
Pre-Action One: Protect the Spectrum Figure 1.23
represents the frequency plan for the L1 Band, and displays
some of the sources of the 400 signals that will soon be in
this band [29]. The GPS L1 C/ A and the US GPS military
signal (including the P(Y) and the new M code spectrum)
are shown. One can see the military signal has important
power lobes close to the band edge.
The Galileo power curve, which is green, has very signif-
icant nodes close to or at the band edge. The imperative for
these wider bandwidths is that they produce sharper corre-
lation edges and consequently produce greater measure-
ment precision. This leads to greater accuracy,
usefulness, and utility for many PNT users.
The Threat of Reallocation of Radio Bands Adjacent
to GNSS The band edge of the proposed high-power com-
munication signal (sometimes called broadband) is shown
as the black vertical line. It obviously overlaps the edges of
most of the PNT signals. Tests of a proposed power increase
of an adjacent band, non-navigation signal conclusively
demonstrated unacceptable levels of interference with
L1 C/A.
Consider the proposed, high-powered terrestrial
broadband signal one quarter mile from a GPS receiver.
This produces a power ratio of 5 billion (broadband) to
one (GPS). This is the power ratio that was almost
authorized with 40,000 ground-based transmitters in
the United States. At a city block away, the effect is
10 times worse.
Crowding in this band will worsen in the next decade as
the newer signals become operational. The proposed adja-
cent broadband signal is even more incompatible with the
newer GNSS signals since they will be closer to the proposed
broadband frequency. Note that the whole approach was
rejected, solely on the basis of L1 C/A. It was not even tested
against the other, more modern, signals. The worst would
have been yet to come, had they been authorized to broad-
cast in the adjacent band.
Adjacent bands can continue to broadcast non-GNSS sig-
nals originating in space because the power levels will be
comparable with the PNT spectrum. But authorities must
be very vigilant to stop any high-power terrestrial signals from
being authorized. They would become, effectively, author-
ized jammers.
There is an important frequency authorization concern
for Europe. A group at the Electronic Communications
Committee, European Commission recommends allowing
pseudolites to broadcast in the L1 GNSS band. Such signals
will generally add to the noise floor and, depending on the
proximity, create a direct jamming signal. Pseudolites can
very useful, but their broadcast frequencies should be cen-
tered well away from any current GNSS band.
Pre-Action Two: Stiff Legal Penalties for Interfer-
ence The second pre-action is to increase the legal penalties

GPS C/A Code GLONASS L1OF

QZSS C/A Code and SAIF
GL

L1 SBAS
Power Spectral Density (dBW/HZ)

Upper band edge

ON

of proposed broadband GLONASS

AS

GPS L1C L1OC

S

BeiDou Galileo
L1

Galileo BeiDou GalileoE1 OS

SF

B1-A PRS
)

PRS B1-A GPS BeiDou B1-C

de (Y

GPS
Co S P

M Code M Code
GP

GLONASS
L1SC

Betz
1560 1565 1570 1575 1580 1585 1590 1595 1600 1605 1610
Frequency (MHz)

Figure 1.23 GNSS signal spectrum at L1 band [29]. There will be many more signals at this band in the near future. Protecting the
spectrum is an imperative. Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation.
 1.12 Actions to Assure PNT (Protect, Toughen, Augment) – the PTA Program
for GPS jamming, both in terms of jail time and fines. The
goal is to deter low cost GPS jammers that can be purchased
on the Internet. The US FCC website lists penalties for
using a GPS jammer, including forfeitures of up to
$16,000 and possible jail sentences. The Australians take
a much stronger view: up to five years imprisonment or
$850,000 fines in some cases.
Pre-Action Three: Stop Manufacturing and Sales of
Jammers The third pre-action is to prevent proliferation
by shutting down manufacturing and Web sales of jam-
mers. The FCC website states that manufacturers should
comply with the law: stop marketing these devices in the
United States and stop selling and shipping to addresses
in the United States. The loophole is that these devices
apparently can be manufactured in United States, if sold
outside the United States. This loophole seems to contradict
the underlying purpose of the law.
In addition, the authority should take steps to shut down
all Web sales of such devices. A casual Web search shows
jammers for everything from cell phones to GNSS.
When Jamming has occurred, the following are the
responses:
Reaction One: Detect Jamming To stop the act of
jamming, the first step is to know when it is occurring.
There are a variety of ways to do this. Some devices or con-
cepts, such as the Chronos CTL3510 GPS Jammer Detec-
tor, Exelis Signal Sentry Jammer Detector, and NavSys
J911 cell phone detection and reporting of jamming, are
products that are already available. The idea behind the
NavSys J911 is that all GPS-equipped smartphones have
the capability to detect jamming. This does not pinpoint
the jammer location, but alerts authorities to the problem.
The phone location can be reported to a central database
for the next two actions.
Reaction Two: Pinpoint Jammer Location Techni-
ques range from directional antennas to computing the time
difference of arrival (TDOA) using fast Fourier transforms
(FFTs). The latter was demonstrated for the FAA over
10 years ago, with the location pinpointed within 5 m.
Cell towers could implement such techniques, since they
have accurate time and could run correlations to get the
precise location. There are already commercial GPS
jamming locators (called JLOCs, e.g. NavSys jammer loca-
tor). The British are using similar techniques for jammer
detection on some of their freeways.
Reaction Three: Eliminate Jammer Having pin-
pointed the jammer, the next step is to physically eliminate
it. Some progress has been made. At Newark Airport, there
is an FAA-owned GPS GBAS antenna close to the New Jer-
sey Turnpike. It is part of a blind landing system (LAAS). In
early 2010 there was an infamous jammer interfering with
the FAA GPS receiver. It took three months to locate the
35
truck and shut down the jammer. The progress is that, more
recently, in the same general location, a similar moving
jammer was located within 24 hours after the interference
started. However, these are very special locations. Recent
studies have suggested that interference sources are much
more widespread. Note that only certain law enforcement
personnel are authorized to seize the jammer and arrest
its operator.
Reaction Four: Prosecute Having apprehended the
offender, the law should then be applied to prosecute. Lee-
way should be applied, commensurate with the circum-
stances. In this New Jersey case‚ the authorities say the
offender is liable for a forfeiture of $31,875.
1.12.2 Assured PNT: T – Toughen Receivers
The second strategy of PTA is to design and manufacture
GNSS receivers that have significantly greater resistance
to jamming. This is called “toughening.” There are at least
five well-known ways to toughen receivers, thereby
increasing jam resistance:
1) Increased satellite signal spreading (such as the new
L1C and L5 signals) allows greater processing gain.
2) Integration with inertial navigation components allow-
ing tighter tracking filters.
3) Incorporating digital beam-steering or null-steering
antennas can improve resistance by factors of 1000
or more.
4) Increased satellite power (such as L5).
5) Local antenna shading, for example, the top of an air-
plane which is shaded from the jammer.
These effects generally cascade‚ and the improvements
are cumulative; the remaining problem is to make such
techniques more affordable. Civil receivers of today can
be toughened so that they can operate as close as 1 mile
from a 1 kW deliberate jammer. Such techniques will be
discussed in later chapters.
The point is that toughening the PNT receiver with the
technologies mentioned is an extremely effective strategy.
Some have advocated increasing the power in the satellite
signal. Such increases are very expensive because of the
demands for additional solar panels and will take decades
to incorporate into all satellites. Many receiver-toughening
techniques are very affordable today, while others, such as
digital beam-forming antennas, may be too expensive for
the ordinary user. However, the cost of digital components
continues to go down. In addition, there is a potential US
problem of export restrictions. These restrictions have
the perverse effect of incentivizing non-US development
and production.
36 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)
1.12.3 Assured PNT: A – Augment with Other
Systems, Sensors, or Techniques
The last element of the PTA strategy is to Augment or sub-
stitute PNT sources. Chapters 35–43 in Part D and Chapters
44–52 in Part E of Volume II are devoted to non-GNSS-
based PNT sensors and sensor integration techniques.
1.12.3.1 Augmentations: Using the “Other” GNSSs
A PNT user may regard any GNSS as primary; the other
GNSSs are, nevertheless, opportunities to augment and
increase the robustness of the PNT solution. Such augmen-
tation will diversify signals and frequencies, thereby alle-
viating certain classes of interference. Other GNSSs can
be a very effective counter to spoofing, using advanced
crosschecking of range measurements (ARAIM). Such aug-
mentation also improves availability for the sky-impaired
user because of densification of satellite sources. Thus,
satellites from multiple constellations can significantly
improve availability, provided integrity requirements
are met.
With these additional constellations, there are three
major levels of cooperation:
1) Compatible: no mutual interference
2) Interoperable: designed to allow common time and
geodesy system
3) Interchangeable: using accurately calibrated biases and
offsets – any four SVs will be enough
The major problem again is most probably integrity,
because to ensure economic value, availability requires
known integrity. Please see the previous section for addi-
tional discussion of integrity. As far as the US FAA and
ICAO are concerned, for aircraft operations, the integrity
value should be expressed as zero minutes of unavailability.
That may seem extreme, but public safety demands it.
Regarding integrity, some new GNSS are clearly making
faster progress than others.
1.12.3.2 Augmentations: eLORAN and DME
These frequency-diverse sources of PNT measurements are
a powerful deterrent to deliberate or inadvertent jamming.
They have been extensively discussed in an earlier section,
which will not be repeated here. The FAA is sponsoring a
detailed study on the use and upgrades of the legacy DME
to augment GNSS‚ which helps ensure that a disruption to
GPS will not impact aviation operations. Note that a com-
pound receiver could combine GNSS and eLORAN or DME
in a way that was seamless to the user. This is another tech-
nique to flywheel through periods of GNSS unavailability.
1.12.3.3 Augmentations: Inexpensive Inertial
Components and Systems
The value of augmenting GNSS-derived PNT with inexpen-
sive inertial components to flywheel through periods with-
out GNSS measurements has already been described.
Ground augmentations also include pseudolites, but it is
important that such devices transmit on frequencies out-
side the normal GNSS bands for reasons that have been
discussed.
1.12.4 Who Should Be Responsible for PTA
Implementation?
Some elements of PTA are currently being pursued, but
there is no single entity that has the authority, the knowl-
edge, the breadth, and the resources to implement all. Some
suggestions for responsibility are outlined below.
1.12.4.1 Protect PNT
•
Work with lawmakers to increase legal penalties for PNT
interference.
•
Work with communications and enforcement to improve
the timeliness and accuracy of interference identification
(crowdsourcing, every cell phone a detector).
• Deploy jammer location equipment.
1.12.4.2 Toughen PNT
• Develop industry (ICAO/RTCA/RTCM) standards for
deep inertial integration; use directional antennas.
• Develop vector receivers that use all GNSS signals. See
Chapter 16 on this subject.
• Continue to implement ARAIM and inertial for Integrity
(+WAAS/EGNOS).
• Encourage users to move to more jam-resistant receiver
designs.
1.12.4.3 Augment and Supplement
•
Must ensure Integrity for all GNSS – NASA’s GDGPS is
an option.
•
Develop RTCA standards for seamless DME and
GPS/GNSS.
•
Implement eLORAN and develop RTCM standards for
seamless use.
•
Create a blueprint for GNSS Certification for all GNSSs
(GLONASS, Galileo‚ and BeiDou); study feasibility of
interchangeability; all signals to include WAAS and
EGNOS (as well as MSAS and similar systems‚ etc.).

1.13 Selected Current Applications
and Their Values
Volume II of the book is devoted to current and emerging
PNT applications. The following are selected current appli-
cations that are representative of GPS and GNSS uses for
humanity.
1.13.1 Aircraft Blind Landing
In 1992, under direction of Professor Bradford Parkinson, a
group of Stanford students led by Clark Cohen developed
and demonstrated the first Category III (Blind Landing)
system in a commercial aircraft. It only used GPS as a sen-
sor for both position and attitude. The carrier tracking
receiver relied on the CDMA signal structure for accuracy
and integrity. Independent tracking by a laser verified that
the system was accurate to a fraction of a meter. The traces
from the 110 landings, from a laser tracking system, are
shown in Figure 1.24. The FAA now has a program, using
similar technology, to develop certified, GPS-based, cate-
gory II/III landing systems. This project was sponsored
and funded by the FAA.
1.13.2 Geodesy and Survey
The first commercially viable market for GPS receivers was
land survey‚ as mentioned. Beginning about 1982, sur-
veyors and scientists were able to make accurate measure-
ments, periodically during the day, when only 8 of the
24 satellites were in the constellation. Dr. Charles Counsel-
man III of MIT and the commercial companies, Macro-
meter Inc., Texas Instruments, and Trimble Navigation
(under CEO Charles Trimble), and JPL pioneered this field.
They quickly demonstrated accuracies better than a
5
4
3
Laser Accuracy
2
Vertical NSE (ft)
1 Most people use GPS for geographical location, but GPS
0
–1
–2
–3
–4
–5
500 450 400 350 300 250 200
Nominal Altitude for 3 Degree Glideslope (ft)
Figure 1.24 First demonstration of aircraft blind landing using
GPS alone. The traces from the 110 landings and from a laser
tracking system are shown.
1.13 Selected Current Applications and Their Values 37
centimeter in three dimensions and have now improved
to fractions of a millimeter. Today, GPS and GNSS are a
vital part of surveying and mapping industries around
the world, supporting accurate mapping, monitoring, and
modeling of the physical world. In addition to providing
the highest accuracy, GPS-based data collection is also
much faster than conventional surveying and mapping
techniques, enabling timely decisions and efficient utiliza-
tion of resources to benefit society.
One interesting application is tracing tectonic plate
motion, as illustrated in Figure 1.25. This shows the global
horizontal velocity fields based on the International Terres-
trial Reference Field (ITRF) 2014 [40]. A major input for the
calculation is daily GNSS data submitted by IGS stations
spanning a period of over 11 years (1994 to 2015). The accu-
racy of the velocity measurements is better than 0.2 mm/
year. Such accurate measurements are currently used to
derive the latest plate motion model.
1.13.3 Robotic Vehicles
Robotic Farm Tractor Using similar technology, a
different group of Stanford students, led by Mike O’Connor
and Tom Bell‚ demonstrated the first precision robotic farm
tractor, using GPS alone. Again the capability was enabled
by the GPS CDMA signal. This research was sponsored by
the John Deere Company. At least six companies now offer
products and have total annual sales of over $800 million
(Figure 1.26).
Robotically Guided Bulldozers With sub-centimeter
accuracy, GPS has spawned a revolution in the automatic
or robotic control of many classes of vehicles. The operator
can go directly from digital databases to automatic com-
mands for tractor motion and blade control. There is typi-
cally a pair of antennas attached to the bulldozer blade
which yield tilt as well as vertical position. There are many
examples of this class of applications.
1.13.4 Banking and the Use of Precise Time
time also plays a key role in many activities that are not
highly visible. For example, cell towers and the power grid
are both synchronized by time from GPS. A less visible
application is the use of GPS to create financial transaction
timestamps. By providing time and time delay information,
150 100 50 0
banking companies can ensure that the transaction has not
been captured for hostile uses. Any undue time delay
implies that the transaction was not made directly, but
rather had gone through a third party with a strong prob-
ability of illegal actions. The goal of banking transactions
38 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

ITRF2014 horizontal velocity field

90°

60°

30°

0°

–30°

–60°

2 Cm/yr
–90 Zuheir Altamimi
0° 60° 120° 180° 240° 300°

Figure 1.25 GNSS monitoring of global tectonic motions. The arrows are horizontal site velocities with a formal error of less than
0.2 mm/year derived from ITRF2014 [40]. Source: Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

Figure 1.26 Robot tractor first demonstrated by Stanford researchers.


is to timestamp with accuracies of better than a microsec-
ond, which is easily attained by GPS.
1.13.5 Advanced PNT Applications for Ground,
Air, and Maritime Vehicles
Self-Driving, Long-Haul Trucking This PNT applica-
tion could revolutionize long-haul trucking. With drivers
frequently driving for up to 12 hours a day, relieving them
from the tedium could significantly improve safety and pro-
ductivity. While there are many issues of integrity and reli-
ability to be resolved, the first steps have already been
taken. Daimler-Benz, in October 2015, announced: “Fitted
with smart systems including radars, cameras and active
speed regulators, the truck made a successful journey
between Stuttgart airport and Denkendorf.” A company
called Freightliner was granted a license to operate these
trucks in the state of Nevada. Such trucks do not operate
autonomously, but are under the supervision of a human
driver. Figure 1.27 shows a Daimler-Benz self-driving
long-haul truck. In this case, PNT is provided by a combi-
nation of visual, radar, and GNSS sensors.
Remotely Piloted Cargo Airplanes There are
already thousands of remotely piloted aircraft flying for
both civil and military uses. It is hard to visualize such air-
planes carrying human passengers, but flights that simply
carry cargo may be a very different story. While landing
and takeoff are the critically challenging maneuvers in
an airplane, there are long spells of droning through the
sky that require minimal supervision. The issues of integ-
rity and reliability are also prominent in this case.
Robotic Cargo Ships While most ships of the day still
require a crew for maintenance and operation, the
improvements in reliability and navigation offer the poten-
tial for completely unmanned cargo ships. This idea is being
explored by several companies. Advanced and reliable
communication links would be required for remote
operation.
Figure 1.27 Daimler-Benz self-driving long-haul truck. Source:
Courtesy of Daimler-Benz.
1.13 Selected Current Applications and Their Values 39
1.13.6 Scientific Applications
Originally designed for PNT applications, GPS and GNSS
have found unexpected applications in scientific discov-
eries and in studies of our environment. GNSS receivers
are deployed around the world and fleets of low-earth-orbit
(LEO) satellites are using GNSS signals to
••
observe the ionosphere and space weather activities,
provide information to improve accuracy for meteorolog-
ical and global climate models,
•
offer an unprecedented view of ice, snow, soil moisture,
ocean surface conditions, and vegetation coverage on the
Earth surface, and
• monitor earthquake, volcano eruptions, and potentially
providing advanced warning for tsunami events.
Ionosphere and Space Weather One of the original
reasons for including two frequencies for GPS signals was
to enable correction for the ionospheric group delay. Today,
this capability is utilized by scientists worldwide to generate
ionospheric TEC maps and monitor the space environment
through the establishment of numerous ground networks
as well as receivers on LEO satellites. Just like the meteor-
ological weather on the surface of the Earth that can disrupt
our daily lives, the ionosphere also experiences stormy
“space weather” which can affect operations of all space-
based systems and power grids. The globally distributed
nature of GPS signals offers unparalleled spatial and tempo-
ral coverage of the highly dynamic ionosphere, providing a
powerful tool for studying space weather phenomena and
to further our understanding of the complex Sun–Earth
interactions. Figure 1.28 shows a global TEC map obtained
with dual frequency GPS measurements from a network of
worldwide GPS stations. Ionospheric effects on GNSS recei-
vers and development of ionospheric scintillation monitor-
ing GNSS receivers have led to the utilization of GNSS
signals as a major source of studying ionosphere and space
weather.
Meteorological Weather Monitoring, Forecasting,
and Climate Modeling The troposphere delay on GPS
signals is not dependent on frequency‚ and nearly 90% of
the delay errors can be predicted accurately using well-
established atmospheric models. The major variable in
the troposphere error is water vapor, which is an important
parameter in the meteorological weather system. GPS net-
works are now able to provide near-real-time water vapor
measurements to enable assimilation into weather models
to improve short-term forecasting accuracy. GPS radio
occultation (RO) receivers on board LEO satellites now rou-
tinely produce near-real-time measurements which are
inverted into atmospheric parameters, such as tempera-
ture, pressure, and water vapor distributions on a global
40 1 Introduction, Early History, and Assuring PNT (PTA)

2015-06-22 20:17:00 UTC

1.8

70°N 1.7

50°N
1.6
30°N
1.5
10°N
1.4
10°S
1.3
30°S
1.2
50°S

70°S 1.1

90°S 1.0
180° 150°W 120°W 90°W 60°W 30°W 0° 30°E 60°E 90°E 120°E 150°E 180°

Figure 1.28 A snapshot of global total electron content (TEC) map generated from a network of dual frequency GPS receivers managed
by MIT’s Haystack Observatory. The figure shows steep gradients of ionization across the north-eastern United States and in South
America. These types of results are often used in conjunction with other measurements from space and the ground by scientists to
study ionosphere responses to solar and geomagnetic events. Source: Courtesy of Dr. Anthea Coster and Dr. Juha Vierinen.

KOMPSAT-5 Metop-AB PAZ COSMIC-2

Figure 1.29 Location distributions of COSMIC 2 GNSS radio occultation soundings over one day period. The densely populated locations
of atmospheric profiles by the COSMIC 2 satellites are shown in stark contrast with those of three other dedicated satellite-based
remote sensing satellite systems: KOMPSAT-5 (Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-5), Metop-AB (Meteorological Operational Satellite Program
of Europe), and PAZ (Spanish for “peace”). Source: Courtesy of Dr. William Schreiner and Dr. Jan Weiss of UCAR.

scale. The joint Taiwan and US Constellation Observing
System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate
(COSMIC)/Formosa Satellite mission is a successful exam-
ple that has led to a new era of remote sensing research
based on GPS signals. The upcoming COSMIC 2 mission
promises ~6,000 atmospheric profiles on a daily basis over
the ocean and land terrains on Earth’s surface [41].
Figure 1.29 contrasts the densely populated locations of
atmospheric profiles by the COSMIC 2 satellites with those
of three other dedicated satellite-based remote sensing
satellite systems: KOMPSAT-5 (Korea Multi-Purpose
Satellite-5), Metop-AB (Meteorological Operational
Satellite Program of Europe), and PAZ (Spanish
for “peace”).
GNSS Reflectometry Multipath reflections of GPS
signals were considered one of the major obstacles for
high-accuracy PNT applications. Two decades ago, this
“nuisance” factor was utilized as a passive altimetry for air-
borne and space-based observation platforms. In recent
years, it has evolved into a sub-discipline of its own referred

to as GNSS-R and become a major focus of Earth observa-
tion applications. GNSS-R exploits the propagation effects
of GNSS signals, their reflection and scattering off the
Earth’s surface to retrieve surface properties such as ice
and snow coverage, soil moisture, ocean surface roughness,
wave heights, salinity levels, and wind speed. Several satel-
lite-based GNSS-R missions have been successfully
launched in recent years and are already generating useful
information. For example, NASA’s Cyclone Global Naviga-
tion Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission lead by the Univer-
sity of Michigan has successfully launched a constellation
of eight microsatellites in LEO orbit. These satellites are
equipped with GPS receivers to receive reflected signals
over the ocean surface‚ and the measurements are used
to retrieve wind speed [42]. GNSS-R remote sensing com-
plements other existing active and passive Earth observa-
tion systems. The vast number of GNSS satellite and
signals provide much needed continuity of measurements
and has the potential to provide the foundation for opera-
tional applications in Earth observation.
Natural Hazardous Event Monitoring and Warning
GPS receivers at various monitoring stations worldwide
could be used to increase the speed and accuracy of earth-
quake and tsunami warnings. While large-magnitude
earthquake and tsunami events are rare, these unpredicta-
ble events can have a disastrous impact on human lives.
Seismic instruments used to detect the earthquake’s vibra-
tions and issue tsunami warnings may take more than
20 minutes to obtain information about the exact strength
and reach of the resulting tsunami. For earthquakes of very
large magnitude, seismic measurements become less accu-
rate and have led to devastating consequences. For exam-
ple, inaccurate tsunami warnings generated for the
Tōhoku, Japan 2011 earthquake underestimated the
quake’s magnitude at 7.9, which is 30 times weaker than
the actual event. On the other hand, real-time GPS data
gathered at hundreds of geophysical monitoring stations
around the world have the potential to determine tsunami
strength within 2–3 minutes with much greater accuracy,
especially for larger movements on the ground. Moreover,
solid-Earth and ocean-wave-generated perturbations create
disturbances in the ionospheric plasma, and hence the TEC
values, which can be detected by remote GPS stations to
produce warnings ~20 minutes to over 1 hour in advance.
1.14 Summary
This introduction and early history have emphasized
GNSS, and GPS in particular. But the history of PNT is still
being written in bold terms and involves many more tech-
nologies and techniques. While most people in the world
References 41
today take for granted their knowledge of location, the
improvements in integrity, accuracy, and availability will
lead to ever more creative applications. At the same time,
it is extremely important that the developers and providers
be proactive in protecting PNT. This is particularly imper-
ative for the GNSSs‚ which have such low power in received
signals. PTA provides a strategy for this protection.
In this book‚ we want to describe the state of the art in the
science and engineering of PNT and stimulate the reader’s
imagination for developing even more PNT applications for
humanity.
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20 Bartholomew, C.A., “Satellite frequency standards,” in
Global Positioning System, Vol.1, p. 25, the Institute of
navigation, Washington DC, 1980.
21 Beard, R. L. et al., “Test and evaluation methods at the NRL
clock test facility,” Proc. IEEE 43rd Annual Symposium on
Frequency Control, p. 276, 1989.
22 Francisco, S., “GPS operational control segment,” in Global
Positioning System: Theory and Applications (eds. B.
Parkinson and J. Spilker), Vol. 1, Chapter 10, AIAA, 1996.
23 Easton, R.L., “Navigation system using satellites and
passive ranging techniques,” US patent 3,789,409, January
29, 1974.
24 Henderson, D.W. and Strada, J.A., “NAVSTAR field test
results,” Navigation, J. Inst. Nav., Vol. 26, No. 1, 12–24,
Spring 1979.
25 Parkinson, B.W. and Gilbert, S.W., “NAVSTAR: Global
positioning system—ten years later,” Proc. IEEE, Vol.71,
No.10, 1177–1186, Oct. 1983.
26 Global Positioning System Standard Positioning Service
Performance Standard, 4th edition, September 2008. Can
be found at: http://www.gps.gov/technical/ps/2008-SPS-
performance-standard.pdf
27 Wide-Area Augmentation System Performance Analysis
Report, available quarterly at: http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov.
28 President Reagan’s address to the nation on the Soviet
attack on a Korea Airliner (KA 007): https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=9VA4W1wDMAk
29 Betz, J.W., “Signal Structures for Satellite-Based
Navigation: past, present, and future,” Proc. ION Pacific
PNT Meeting, pp. 131–137, Honolulu, HI, 2013.
30 Blewitt, G., “Advances in Global Positioning System
technology for geodynamics investigations: 1978-1992,” in
Contributions of Space Geodesy to Geodynamics: Technology
(eds. D.E. Smith and D.L. Turcotte), AGU Geodynamics
Series, Vol. 25, Washington DC, ISBN 0-87590-526-9,
1993.
31 Blewitt, G., “GPS and space-based geodetic methods,” in
Treatise in Geophysics (ed. G. Shubert), 2nd Ed., Vol. 3:
Geodesy, pp. 307–338, Elsevier, Oxford. doi:10.1016/B978-
0-444-53802-4.00060-9, 2015.
32 US Continuously Operating Reference Systems (CORS)
website: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS/
33 Japan’s GNSS Earth Observation Network System
(GEONET): http://datahouse1.gsi.go.jp/terras/
terras_english.html
34 Australia’s Global Navigation Satellite System Networks:
http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/positioning-
navigation/geodesy/gnss-networks
35 Hong Kong Satellite Positioning Reference Station
Network (SatRef ): http://www.geodetic.gov.hk/smo/gsi/
programs/en/GSS/satref/satref.htm
36 International GNSS Service (IGS): http://www.igs.
org/about
37 OmniSTAR: http://www.omnistar.com/
38 Narins, M., “The global Loran/eLoran infrastructure
evolution: a robust and resilient PNT backup for GNSS,”
Space-Based PNT Advisory Board meeting presentation, 3
June 2014.
39 Independent Assessment Team (IAT) Summary of Initial
Findings on eLoran, Institute for Defense analysis, 4850
Mark Center Dr., Alexandria, VA, 15 January 2009.
40 Altamimi, Z., Rebischung, P., Metivier, L., and Collieus, X.,
“ITRF2014: A new release of the International Terrestrial
Reference Frame modeling nonlinear station motions,”
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2016JBO13098, 2016.
41 COSMIC: http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/cosmic2/index.html.
42 Ruf, C.S., Chew, C., Lang, T., Morris, M.G., Nave, K.,
Ridley, A., Balasubramaniam, R., “A new paradigm in
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satellite constellation,” Sci. Rep., Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 8782, 2018.
 43

2
1

Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing1

John W. Betz
MITRE Corporation, United States

2.1 Introduction
Satellite-based navigation and timing (satnav) has become
the predominant technology for positioning and timing,
with billions of users and an almost infinite number of appli-
cations. As additional satnav systems are added to the Global
Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), this trend will increase,
even while other technologies are increasingly used to aug-
ment and extend satnav to overcome its limitations.
The general term satnav includes a wide range of technol-
ogies and approaches. Radio frequency (RF), optical, and
infrared techniques can be used for positioning – a simple
example would be an imaging satellite geolocating a build-
ing on Earth’s surface. Active techniques for positioning or
timing, where the user equipment must transmit, include
approaches based on Radio Determination Satellite System
(RDSS) technology [1], and other similar transponder-
based approaches.
A variety of passive techniques, where the user equip-
ment only receives and does not transmit, include the
following:
• Triangulation, where the receiver estimates its position
by measuring the angle of arrival of signals transmitted
from known locations.
• Multilateration, also known as hyberbolic positioning, where
the receiver estimates its position by measuring the time dif-
ference of arrival of synchronized signals transmitted from
pairs of known locations, with a known speed of propagation.
• Trilateration, where the receiver estimates its position by
measuring the propagation time of signals transmitted
from known locations, with a known speed of propagation.
Passive RF trilateration2 has become the dominant sat-
nav technique, and is the focus of this chapter.
As discussed in [3], satnav using passive RF trilateration
has attributes that are unmatched by any other currently
known positioning and timing technology:
• Availability
– All-weather operation: Satnav’s use of L-band signals
in the 1 GHz to 2 GHz band makes its use for calculat-
ing position, velocity, and time (PVT) insensitive to
most weather effects, except for the heaviest rain-

• Radar and its equivalent at other wavelengths, where

external sensors estimate an object’s location by measur-
storms and occasional space weather events.
– Day and night utility: Satnav’s use of RF signals allows
it to work under any conditions of light or dark.
ing the propagation time and Doppler shift of a signal
– Worldwide service: Global systems using satellite con-
reflected from the object with known speed of propagation
stellations in medium Earth orbit (MEO) allow satnav
and communicate its position and velocity to the object.

• Doppler ranging (used on the first satnav system, Transit

[2]), where the receiver estimates its position by measuring
to work anywhere there is an adequate view of the sky,
on the surface of Earth and even in air and space.
– Consistency: Consistent performance even over fea-
Doppler shifts over time of a signal transmitted by a satel-
tureless surfaces of Earth.

•
lite having a known orbit.
1 Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited; MITRE Case
Number 17-0108.
The author’s affiliation with The MITRE Corporation is provided for
identification purposes only, and is not intended to convey or imply
MITRE’s concurrence with, or support for, the positions, opinions or
viewpoints expressed by the author.
Absolute accuracy
– Absolute measurements: Measurements of position and
time are made, or can be transformed into, inertial
2 More rigorously, the satnav systems described here use biased
passive trilateration, since all range measurements share a common
bias, as will be seen.

Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, ,Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
44 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing
coordinate systems, absolute Earth-centered and Earth-
fixed coordinate systems, and universal coordinated
time, not relative to another location or time epoch.
– Three-dimensional positioning: Accuracy on the order
of meters without augmentations, centimeters with
real-time augmentations, and millimeters with non-
real-time augmentations.
– Timing accuracy: Accuracy to tens of nanoseconds
without augmentations.
– Consistency: Consistent accuracy over time and location.
• Ease of use
– Inexpensive user equipment: Receiver costs range from
tens of dollars for a simple consumer device to several
thousands of dollars for a professional device to tens
of thousands of dollars for a certified aviation device.
– Ease of use: User equipment with small size, low mass,
and modest power consumption.
– User training: No or minimal user training, without
requirement for expertise involved in using traditional
means for navigation.
– Rapid updates: Time, position, and velocity measure-
ments reported on the order of seconds or fractions of
seconds.
– Passive operation: User equipment does not need to
transmit, but only receive.
– No local infrastructure: Sparsely spaced monitoring
stations and several ground control stations with
antennas that transmit to the satellites are the only ter-
restrial infrastructure needed for satnav.
– No detailed local surveying or measurements: No need
for local surveys of gravity, terrain, or magnetic fields,
and no need to know building topography.
• Privacy: Unless the receiver communicates the position,
only it has that information.
• Maturity
– Existing, widely fielded technology.
– Continuing enhancements.
Two additional characteristics that have amplified
the use of satnav based on passive RF trilateration
result from far-sighted policies rather than technological
characteristics:
• No user charges: For decades, both GPS and GLONASS
have provided civil signals to the world free of user
charges, funded out of the United States and Russian
Federation government budgets.
• Open signal descriptions: For decades, both GPS and
GLONASS have provided full technical descriptions of
their civil signals, with openly available documentation
on how to use them. Anyone can build and use receivers
for these signals.
These policies have led to worldwide acceptance and
use, and to innumerable innovations that exploit satnav
systems and signals in ways never conceived by their
original developers. Furthermore, more recently intro-
duced and planned systems have mostly adopted similar
policies.
However, satnav has limitations. Severe space weather
events can cause fading, signal distortion, and loss of track-
ing lock in receivers, especially those operating in equatorial
and high latitude regions. Satnav signals do not propagate
underground or underwater, and they do not propagate well
to receivers deep indoors. In urban canyons and indoors,
even when receivers can obtain and process the signals, mea-
surements are often distorted by shadowing and multipath,
producing errors of tens or hundreds of meters. Since the
received power of satnav signals is very low, receivers of
these signals are susceptible to even relatively low-power
interference. Many receivers in use today do not use secure
designs; like first-generation computers on the Internet,
many satnav receivers have been specified, designed, and
tested under the implicit assumption that no one would
attack them. Consequently, many receivers assume that
any apparently valid signal is in fact valid, making the recei-
vers potentially vulnerable to spoofing. There are ways to
mitigate, but not eliminate, these limitations, and multiple
efforts are underway to do so.
Section 2.2 introduces satnav basics – the measurements;
calculations of PVT; and the overall structure of a satnav sys-
tem. Sections 2.3 through 2.6 describe different parts of a sat-
nav system: the space segment, navigation signals, the
ground segment, and the user segment respectively. An
increasingly important part of satnav is its augmentation sys-
tems of various types, discussed in Section 2.7. Key to satnav
performance is understanding, characterizing, and mitigat-
ing various sources of errors; this topic is discussed in
Section 2.8. Section 2.9 summarizes this chapter.
2.2 Satnav Basics
This section provides the basics of satnav. Section 2.2.1
describes the mathematics of passive trilateration for stand-
ard point positioning (SPP), which solves for receiver posi-
tion and the time offset between satnav system time and
receiver time using observables called pseudoranges.
Section 2.2.2 presents the special case for a timing receiver
having a pre-surveyed position. Section 2.2.3 then pro-
gresses to the mathematics that solve for receiver velocity,
either using observables called delta pseudorange, delta
ranges, or pseudorange rates. Section 2.2.4 completes the
 2.2 Satnav Basics 45

introduction to satnav basics by describing the overall 2 2 2 1 2

architecture of a satnav system, setting the stage for further r k
= Tkc = x k
− xr + y k − yr + z k − zr
sections that address the constituent components of the
21
architecture in more detail.
and the pseudorange, which includes the range bias due to
the time offset between system time and receiver time, is
2.2.1 Standard Point Positioning ρ(k) = c(Tk + Δr) = r(k) + cΔr.
The resulting system of SPP equations for K satellites is
The concept of passive trilateration is illustrated in
Figure 2.1. It all starts with time, and there are two different 2 2 2 1 2
ρ1 = x 1
− xr + y 1 − yr + z 1 − zr + cΔr
time standards involved. Signals transmitted from all the
satnav system’s satellites are synchronized to system time. 2 2 2 1 2
Receiver time is different for each receiver, and is based on ρ2 = x 2
− xr + y 2 − yr + z 2 − zr + cΔr
a time reference within the receiver whose time offset and
drift from system time are unknown. Thus, the unknowns
at a particular epoch are the receiver position [xr, yr, zr]T 2 2 2 1 2
ρK = x K
− xr + y K − yr + z K − zr + cΔr
and velocity x r , yr , zr T , as well as the time offset between
receiver time and system time, Δr. This time offset yields 22
a common bias in all the measurements, which are termed
At least four equations are needed in Eq. (2.2) in order to
pseudodelays rather than delays because of the com-
solve for the four unknowns (xr, yr, zr, Δr).
mon bias.
In practice, receiver processing provides measurements
Positions in satnav are generally computed in an Earth-
centered, Earth-fixed (ECEF) coordinate system, then con- of the pseudoranges ρk as observables. An iterative
verted to other coordinate systems as needed. Consequently, algorithm is commonly used to solve Eq. (2.2), based on
in Figure 2.1, the positions are in ECEF coordinates. Assume estimates of the geometry matrix
that at a particular epoch, the receiver knows the speed of
propagation, c, the positions of K ≥ 4 satellites, [x(k), y(k), −e 1 1
z(k)]T, and the system time at which a specific point on each −e 2
1
signal was transmitted. The receiver then measures the times H= 23
(in receiver time) at which the same points on the signals are
received. If the time delay between transmission of the signal −e K 1
by the kth satellite and reception of the signal is Tk, the
receiver can measure the biased signal propagation times, computed using the unit direction vectors from the receiver
or pseudodelays, Tk + Δr, that incorporate the unknown to the kth satellite
time offset between receiver time and system time. Conse-
ek = x k
− xr r k
y k − yr r k
z k − zr r k
quently, the geometric range between the kth satellite and
the receiver is 24

(x(3), y(3), z(3)), ts

(x(2), y(2), z(2)), ts
(x(1), y(1), z(1)), ts (x(4), y(4), z(4)), ts

Pseudodelay D2 Pseudodelay D4
Pseudodelay D1 Pseudodelay D3

Four Unknowns:
(xr, yr, zr), tr = Δr + ts

Figure 2.1 Standard point positioning geometry [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
46 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing

In this algorithm, the initial estimate for the unknowns x r,ℓ + 1 x r,ℓ δx r,ℓ
x r,0 , yr,0 , zr,0 , Δr,0 can be either a set of recently calculated yr,ℓ + 1 yr,ℓ δyr,ℓ
values, or the center of Earth with zero time offset: = + 2 10
zr,ℓ + 1 zr,ℓ δzr,ℓ
x r,0 , yr,0 , zr,0 , Δr,0 = 0, 0, 0, 0 . At the ℓth iteration, the Δr,ℓ + 1 Δr,ℓ δΔr,ℓ
estimate of the unknowns x r,ℓ , yr,ℓ , zr,ℓ , Δr,ℓ is used to form
the ℓth estimates of the pseudoranges Subsequently, the left-hand side of Eq. (2.10) is (with ℓ
incremented) substituted into Eq. (2.5), then Eqs. (2.6)–
k 2 2 2 1 2 (2.10) are computed again.
ρℓ = x k
− x r,ℓ + y k − yr,ℓ + z k − zr,ℓ + cΔr,ℓ
The iteration stops when the vector norm βℓ,OLS is
25 small. Typically, no more than five or so iterations are
which are then used to form the ℓth estimates of the unit needed, and only one or two iterations if the error in the
direction vectors from the receiver to each satellite initial estimate is within a few kilometers [4]. The left-hand
side of Eq. (2.10) is then the final estimate.
k x k
− x r,ℓ y k − yr,ℓ z k − zr,ℓ If the pseudorange measurements have an invertible
eℓ = 26
k k
ρℓ − cΔr,ℓ ρℓ − cΔr,ℓ ρℓ − cΔr,ℓ
k covariance matrix that is different from the identity matrix
and is known a priori
from which an estimate of the ℓth geometry matrix is
formed ρ1
ρ2
− eℓ
1
1 Rρ = E ρ1 ρ2 ρK
2
− eℓ 1
ρK
Hℓ = 27
ρ1
K ρ2
− eℓ 1
−E ρ1 ρ2 ρK ,
Linearizing Eq. (2.2), using a Taylor expansion around the
initial estimate [3], produces the linear system of equations ρK

1 a weighted least-squared (WLS) variation of the above

δρℓ δx r,ℓ algorithm can be employed in the above algorithm by using
2
δρℓ δyr,ℓ 1
= Hℓ 28 δx r,ℓ δρℓ
δzr,ℓ 2
δyr,ℓ T −1 T δρℓ
K cδΔr,ℓ βℓ,WLS = = Hℓ Rρ− 1 Hℓ Hℓ Rρ− 1
δρℓ δzr,ℓ
cδΔr,ℓ K
that relates the differences between the receiver’s measure- δρℓ
ments of the pseudoranges and ℓth estimates of the pseu- 2 11
k
doranges δρℓ = ρ − ρℓ to the corrections of the ℓth
k k
instead of Eq. (2.9).
estimates. This linear equation is now solved in the stand- Variants of these equations can be used under special cir-
ard way, premultiplying by the left pseudoinverse of the cumstances [3]. If the receiver’s altitude is known a priori
† T −1 T
geometry matrix estimate: Hℓ = Hℓ Hℓ Hℓ . (altitude hold), then the receiver can use a variation of
the above equations that needs as few as three measure-
The result is the ordinary least-squares (OLS) estimate
ments. Similarly, if the receiver time offset is accurately
1 known or modeled (clock hold), only the three dimensions
δx r,ℓ δρℓ
of position need to be found, again requiring as few as three
2
δyr,ℓ † δρℓ measurements.
βℓ,OLS = = Hℓ 29
δzr,ℓ
cδΔr,ℓ K
2.2.2 Timing Using a Pre-Surveyed Receiver
δρℓ
If the receiver is only used to provide time and it has been
enabling the updated estimate of receiver location and surveyed into a known location, the pre-surveyed receiver
clock offset location can be inserted into Eq. (2.2), leaving only Δr as an
 2.2 Satnav Basics 47

unknown. One measurement alone can be used to directly k

cN θ
solve the system of equations The pseudorange rate is k
, which also is biased
T f + fΔ
2 2 2 1 2
ρ1 − x 1
− xr + y 1 − yr + z 1 − zr by fr. In this case, the biased estimate of the line-of-sight
1 velocity, or pseudorange rate, to the kth satellite is
2 2 2 1 2 k k
1 ρ2 − x 2
− xr + y 2 − yr + z 2 − zr 1 ρ ≜ c Nθ T + f Δ f + fΔ .
= Δr
c
The equation relating receiver velocity to pseudorange
2 2 2 1 2
1 rates is obtained by differentiating Eq. (2.8), yielding
ρK − x K
− xr + y K − yr + z K − zr
1 1
2 12 ρ − ρℓ δx r,ℓ δx r,ℓ
2 2
ρ − ρℓ ∂ δyr,ℓ δyr,ℓ
for the time offset Δr. As long as >1, then either the OLS or = Hℓ + Hℓ
WLS solution to (2.12) is used, with the OLS solution, as ∂t δzr,ℓ δzr,ℓ
1 K K K cδΔr,ℓ cδ f r,ℓ
well as the solution for K = 1, given by Δr = ρk ρ − ρℓ
cK k = 1
2 13
2 2 2 1 2
− x 1
− xr + y k
− yr + z k
− zr In SPP, as ∂
Typically, Hℓ is small‚ and the first term on the right-
well as altitude hold, clock hold, and stationary timing recei- ∂t
hand side can be ignored.3 In this case, the geometry matrix
vers, appropriately using more than the minimum number of
is known from having already solved for the receiver posi-
measurements enhances accuracy and robustness.
tion, and Eq. (2.13) becomes
The time offset Δr can be used to estimate system time,
enabling synchronization among receivers all using signals 1 1
ρ − ρℓ δx r,ℓ
from the same satnav system. Data modulated onto the sat- 2 2
nav signals can also be used to calculate coordinated uni- ρ − ρℓ δyr,ℓ
=H 2 14
versal time (UTC) from system time, making the satnav δzr,ℓ
receiver a precision clock. K K cδ f r,ℓ
ρ − ρℓ
2.2.3 Estimating Receiver Velocity leaving a linear system of equations like Eq. (2.8), but relat-
Once the position and time offset are determined, Doppler ing the receiver velocity to the pseudorange rates and fre-
(or pseudorange rate) measurements can be used to com- quency offset. An iterative OLS or WLS algorithm
pute the receiver velocity. Receiver processing estimates analogous to that used to solve Eq. (2.8) rapidly converges
the received carrier frequency of each signal. Typically, to a solution.
the receiver does not form this estimate from the RF signal
itself, but from a version of the signal that has been fre-
quency-translated in the receiver by fΔ. If the estimate of 2.2.4 Satnav System Architecture
the frequency-translated carrier frequency from the kth sat-
k Figure 2.2 depicts the architecture of a satnav system. The
ellite is f , then the delta range over a time interval T is
k k
space segment comprises a constellation of satellites that
c f + fΔ − f0 T f + f Δ , where f0 is the carrier fre- broadcast signals to the system’s service region – the part
quency. Generally, the receiver’s oscillator is biased from of Earth, the atmosphere, and outer space where the system
the true frequency, so that the estimated frequency of arri- is defined to provide given levels of PVT service. These sig-
k nals are carefully designed and precisely transmitted,
val f m + f Δ is biased by fr. The biased estimate of the aver-
enabling receivers to make the number and quality of mea-
age line-of-sight velocity, or pseudovelocity, to the satellite
surements needed to form the needed observables. The user
over time interval T is then the delta range divided by T, or
k k
segment consists of all devices that receive and process
k
ρ ≜c f + fΔ − f0 f + fΔ . these broadcast satnav signals for any purpose. While many
Alternatively, if the receiver processing tracks the carrier of these are used to estimate position, velocity, or time,
k others are used for remote sensing or other applications.
phase, it can count the number of carrier cycles N θ
to the kth satellite received over a time interval T (where
k 3 If the receiver velocity is known (typically, if the receiver is
Nθ need not be an integer), producing an alternative stationary), Eq. (2.13) can be solved for receiver position using Doppler
k k
estimate of the received frequency N θ = f − f0 T . measurements alone, as shown in Chapter 8 of [5].
48 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing

actually perform involve many subtleties beyond the basics

Space Segment
User Segment
Ground ...
Segment
Receiver
Receiver
Receiver
Figure 2.2 Satnav system architecture [3]. Source: Reproduced
with permission of IEEE.
The ground segment monitors the broadcast signals for
accuracy, quality, and integrity, controlling the satellite
buses and payloads, and uplinking to the satellites data that
is modulated onto the broadcast signals and used by the
receivers.
While the satnav system operator designs and controls
the space and ground segments and the signals, the opera-
tors have little control, or even influence, over the user seg-
ment. This situation is both a boon, enabling tremendous
diversity and innovation in the use of satnav, and a concern,
since user equipment may use signals in ways that are
flawed or fragile with resulting problems blamed on the sat-
nav system.
These components enable the functionality described in
Sections 2.2.1, 2.2.2, and 2.2.3. However, the functions they
described in these previous sections. Without the many
detailed steps that address these subtleties, positioning
errors would be hundreds or even thousands of meters,
with corresponding timing errors. The many steps needed
to achieving meter-level or even centimeter-level position-
ing, and correspondingly small timing errors, are outlined
in subsequent sections of this chapter.
2.3 Space Segment: Satellites and
Constellations
This section discusses the space segment, consisting of mul-
tiple satellites in a carefully designed and controlled con-
stellation. Section 2.3.1 describes the basics of a satnav
satellite, followed by a discussion of satnav constellations
in Section 2.3.2. Section 2.3.3 introduces a specific set of
constellation characteristics that are used in subsequent
chapters to describe specific satnav constellations.
2.3.1 Satnav Satellites
Figure 2.3 shows the architecture of a satnav satellite’s pay-
load, with an example of five signals on two carrier frequen-
cies. Telemetry, tracking, and control (TT&C) links
intermittently or continuously provide payload and bus sta-
tus to the ground segment, and receive data from the
ground segment. An atomic frequency standard (AFS) in
the payload provides precision frequency information to
the signal generator, which produces a set of satnav signals

Baseband Signal Generation

Signal A
Generation

RF
Signal B Signal Upconversion Power
Generation Multiplexing to f1 Amplification

Signal C
RF
Generation
Power
Combining
Signal D
Generation RF
Signal Upconversion
Power
Multiplexing to f2
Signal E Amplification
Transmit
Generation Antenna

Atomic
Frequency
Standard

Figure 2.3 Satnav satellite payload [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

at one or more different carrier frequencies. Signals are
amplified to high power, combined, and then broadcast
from a transmit antenna.
Many satnav systems have adopted or are moving toward
use of S band or C band for TT&C. AFS technologies
include cesium, rubidium, and hydrogen maser clocks.
Typically, a satellite is equipped with several of these
clocks, so that if one fails it can be replaced with another.
The signal generator produces satnav signals, which are
described in Section 2.4. Multiple signals are typically used,
often with two or more on each carrier frequency, and mul-
tiple carrier frequencies, to meet the needs of different user
groups, and provide frequency diversity for robustness and
to assist receivers in mitigating the deleterious effects of sig-
nal propagation.
Signals are typically formed digitally at baseband, after
which those to be transmitted on the same carrier fre-
quency are digitally combined. The resulting composite
signals on each carrier frequency may then be upcon-
verted to RF, or may be directly synthesized digitally into
an RF waveform. Power amplifiers typically operate in
saturated mode for highest efficiency, so the composite
signals are constant envelope, motivating the use of
sophisticated signal-combining approaches [3]. The
power amplifier outputs typically have tens of watts of
power. RF power combining is accomplished by a multi-
plexer that must handle the signals at high power,
bandpass filtering around each carrier to meet the require-
ments for out-of-band emissions, and combining the com-
posite signals at different carrier frequencies into a single
higher-power RF waveform for transmission. Transmit
antennas typically are an array of antennas – helices or
patches are common – pointed at nadir. Their gain pat-
terns may be shaped to provide higher gain at angles off
nadir, to provide approximately the same received power
to near the edge of Earth as at nadir. Such a gain pattern is
known as isoflux.
Other satellite architectures exist, including those that use
transponders, where the signal is generated on the ground,
broadcast at a different carrier frequency up to the satellite,
then frequency-translated on the satellite to the desired car-
rier frequency for the broadcast signals. Such a bent pipe
configuration simplifies the satellite payload but requires
continuous communication connectivity with the ground
segment.
Satnav satellites are three-axis stabilized. They typically
have a dry mass (not including the propellant) on the order
of 1000 to almost 4000 kg. Satellite power is provided by
solar arrays producing several kilowatts of power used by
the bus and the payload. While the RF power entering
the transmit antenna ranges from tens of watts to hundreds
of watts, the transmit antenna focuses this power on the
2.3 Space Segment: Satellites and Constellations 49
service region, providing a gain on the order of 20 to
40 (13 dBi to 16 dBi)4 for MEO satellites, and approximately
100 (20 dBi) for satellites at geosynchronous equitorial orbit
(GEO). Thus, the effective isotropic radiated power, or
EIRP (the apparent RF power when viewed from the serv-
ice region), typically exceeds 500 watts for MEO satellites
and 1000 watts for GEO satellites.
2.3.2 Satnav Constellations
As described in subsequent chapters, the first two satnav
systems were designed for a global service region, as are
two additional systems currently being completed. How-
ever, the space and ground segments are less complex if a
satnav system’s service region covers only a portion of
Earth, and several satnav systems have been or are being
deployed to provide regional coverage as well.
Regardless of whether the service region is global or
regional, a satnav system’s constellation is designed with
several characteristics in mind:
• As seen in Section 2.2, measurements from multiple
satellites are typically needed.
• Section 2.8 shows that there are accuracy benefits when
these multiple measurements employ signals arriving
from angles that are geometrically diverse in azimuth
and elevation.
• Users typically desire continuous availability of satnav
capability, so multiple satellites must be in view contin-
uously, providing the desired geometric diversity.
• User equipment may be situated where signals cannot be
received from every angle down to the horizon, so it is desir-
able to provide enough satellites at higher elevation angles.
• Satellites may be temporarily taken out so service, or may
fail, so it is beneficial to design the constellation to pro-
vide good performance even if one or more satellites
are not functional.
These capabilities motivate a constellation having many
satellites, but the costs of developing, acquiring, launching,
and operating the satellites is high (the United States’ GPS
is said to cost more than US$1 billion per year). Consequently,
there is a strong motivation for well-designed constellations
that provide these benefits with modest numbers of satellites.
4 Typically, transmit antennas are designed to focus power on the
small angular region subtended by Earth. The expressions in Chapter 2
of [3] show that, for a satellite at 20,000 km altitude, Earth subtends a
solid angle of 0.235 steradians, representing approximately 1.9% of the
total sphere’s solid angle, yielding a theoretical antenna gain of 17.3
dBi. For a satellite at a geosynchronous orbit altitude, Earth subtends a
solid angle of 0.092 steradians, representing approximately 0.7% of the
total sphere’s solid angle, yielding a theoretical antenna gain of 21.4
dBi. The gain of an actual antennas is typically approximately 2 dB less
than that predicted by theory.
50 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing
Closely related to the number of satellites in the constel-
lation is the satellite altitude. While low Earth orbit satel-
lites can provide a given level of received power with
lower RF power due to less propagation loss, hundreds of
low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites would be required to serv-
ice Earth with four or more satellites at reasonable eleva-
tion angles. By contrast, satellites at MEO altitudes or
higher provide visibility to a much larger portion of Earth,
allowing a smaller constellation – one that can provide
global service with on the order of two dozen satellites.
Interestingly, the RF power needed to provide a given
level of received power to the edge of Earth is essentially
invariant with satellite altitude from MEO to GEO, since
the transmit antenna beamwidth can be reduced at higher
altitudes, increasing the transmit gain commensurate with
the greater path loss.
For satnav systems having a global service region, MEO
constellations are best, as shown by early studies for GPS,
and confirmed by the adoption of MEO constellations for
all global systems. Satellites in these MEO constellations
are typically placed in three to six inclined planes, with
inclinations typically exceeding 55 to provide service to
receivers at higher latitudes.
Satnav systems providing regional service employ a blend
of geostationary satellites and inclined geosynchronous
satellites to provide an adequate number of satellites with
the desired geometry over the service region. The inclina-
tions and eccentricities of the geosynchronous orbits vary,
depending upon the latitude of the service region.
2.3.3 Constellation Characteristics
Table 2.1 lists a comprehensive set of constellation character-
istics that will be employed in Chapters 3 through 8. These
characteristics, while not offering sufficient detail for a
Table 2.1 Summary of nominal constellation characteristics
Total number of operational satellites
Orbital altitude (km)
Orbital radius (km)
Orbit eccentricity
Orbital period: hour/minute/second (sidereal days)
Time between ground track repeats (sidereal days)
Walker constellation description
Number of orbital planes
Number of satellites per plane
Separation of right ascending nodes ( )
Inclination ( )
Satellite speed (km/s) in ECI coordinates
Maximum satellite speed (km/s) in ECEF coordinates
precise representation of satellite locations over time, pro-
vide a useful way to compare constellation characteristics.
In some cases, there may be multiple values for a given con-
stellation, or a range of values may be more appropriate than
a specific value.
2.4 Satnav Signals
Satnav signals enable a receiver to produce the observables
described in Section 2.3. Receivers make precise measure-
ments of each signal’s time of arrival and carrier frequency
of arrival, along with reading data modulated onto the sig-
nal. Thus, satnav signals must have the characteristics of
radar signals (enabling precise measurements by the
receiver) as well as communications signals (enabling
error-free demodulation of data by the receiver).
Two additional aspects also make satnav signals very dif-
ferent from most communication signals. One is that satnav
(at least the passive RF trilateration technology considered
here) is a broadcast system – satellites transmit to an unlim-
ited number of receivers, and receivers only need to receive
the signals and need not transmit anything. The other is
that, for conventional SPP, four signals must be received,
requiring multiple access techniques.
Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) is used for sat-
nav signals, enabling receivers to make precise time-of-
arrival measurements; wide bandwidths improve accuracy
since even using small amounts of signal power in fre-
quency-domain sidelobes can provide substantial accuracy
improvements [4]. DSSS also enables efficient and flexible
sharing of limited spectrum by multiple signals and signal
types, as well as providing improved resistance to some
types of interference.
Each satnav system transmits a number (typically
between four and eight) of signal types, where each signal
type has its own design as described below. In some cases,
more than one satnav system shares the same signal type.
Each satellite in a satnav system transmits a different signal
of each given signal type. Even though all signals of a given
type have the same design, each signal of that type contains
different data message content, and, depending upon the
multiple access technique used, either employs a different
spreading code for code division multiple access (CDMA),
or a different carrier frequency for frequency division
multiple access (FDMA).
As introduced in [6] and detailed in Chapter 3 of [3],
12 characteristics can be used to describe a satnav signal
type. These characteristics are reviewed briefly here.
A signal type’s carrier frequency is typically within the
L band, although some signals are in the S band, and
the C band is under consideration. L-band frequencies
are inthe range 1164 MHz to 1300 MHz, or 1559 MHz to
1610 MHz, based on frequency allocations by the
 2.4 Satnav Signals 51

International Telecommunications Union, with 1575.42 spreading modulation with a chip rate of fc = n × 1.023 ×
MHz the most widely used carrier frequency. Various phys- 106 Hz is denoted BPSK-R(n).
ics-related considerations motivate the choice of the L band Many new and modernized signals employ more
or S band, with significant disadvantages attached to the advanced spreading modulations that provide more design
use of either higher or lower carrier frequencies. parameters, allowing shaping of the spectrum to reduce
Received signal power for terrestrial receivers is typically MAI, and enabling receivers to obtain improved measure-
in the range of −160 dBW to −150 dBW out of a 0 dBi ment accuracy. Binary offset carrier (BOC) spreading mod-
receive antenna for civil signals, depending upon geometry ulations employ spreading symbols that are segments of a
between satellite and receiver, propagation conditions, and square wave, providing two design parameters: the chip rate
other loss factors, including polarization losses. This range and the fundamental frequency of the square wave. A BOC
of power corresponds to feasible transmit power levels, and spreading modulation with a square wave fundamental fre-
also ensures that even an aggregation of a constellation’s quency, or subcarrier frequency, fs = m × 1.023 × 106 Hz and
signals produces a received power spectral density (PSD) chip rate fc = n × 1.023 × 106 Hz is denoted as BOC(m, n).
whose peak value is comparable to the receiver’s noise Other spreading modulations such as alternative BOC
floor – limiting multiple access interference. (AltBOC), multiplexed BOC (MBOC), and binary coded
The corresponding transmit power is found using a free symbols (BCS) offer even greater design flexibility. These
space propagation loss at 1575.42 MHz of approximately are described in detail in Chapter 3 of [3].
185 dB from MEO altitudes, and approximately 189 dB Spreading modulations are commonly defined by their
from GEO altitudes, to a receiver near the edge of Earth. PSDs, computed under the assumption of an ideal long
The EIRP must then be approximately 30 dBW (1 kilowatt) spreading code [3]. The unit-power PSD of a BPSK-R(n)
from MEO and approximately 34 dBW (2.5 kilowatt) from spreading modulation is
GEO. If the transmit antenna gain from MEO is 15 dBi and
from GEO 19 dBi (as described in Section 2.3.1, higher gain 1
ΦBPSK-R n f = sinc2 πf f c 2 15
is possible from GEO while maintaining Earth coverage) fc
RF power into the transmit antenna is approximately
where sinc(x) ≜ sin (x)/x.
15 dBW, or approximately 30 W.
For BOC(m, n) spreading modulations, the PSD depends
The polarization of transmitted satnav signals is approx-
upon the BOC ratio, defined as kBOC ≜ 2fs/fc = 2m/n and
imately circular, to accommodate all possible relative orien-
constrained to an integer value.
tations between transmit and receive antennas, and the
A sine-phased BOC spreading modulation is produced
effects of Faraday rotation in the ionosphere. By conven-
when the rising edge of the square wave is aligned with
tion, right-hand circular polarization is used by all current
the time that the chip values change. In that case, the
systems.
unit-power PSD is
Since a receiver must process multiple signals, multiple
access techniques must be used. Almost all satnav signals 1 πf
employ CDMA, using different spreading codes from a fam- sinc2 πf f c tan 2 , k BOC even
fc 2fs
ily of spreading codes. The only exception is original GLO- ΦBOCs m,n f =
1 cos 2 πf f c πf
NASS signals that use FDMA, although modernized tan 2 , k BOC odd
f c πf f c 2 2fs
GLONASS signals employ CDMA. Some different signal
types are also transmitted in distinct frequency bands 2 16
(a form of FDMA) and some different signal types also
employ different spectral shapes, even when sharing the A cosine-phased BOC spreading modulation is produced
same carrier frequency, to reduce multiple access interfer- when the chip values change at a time half way between the
ence (MAI). rising edge and falling edge of the square wave. In that case,
The signal type’s spreading modulation and bandwidth the unit-power PSD is
are also key characteristics. The spreading modulation is 2
πf
defined by the shape of the spreading symbols, with each 4 sin 2 4 fs
sinc2 πf f c , k BOC even
biphase modulated by a spreading code bit. The bandwidth fc cos πf
2 fs
is the frequency extent over which the transmitted signal is ΦBOCc m,n f = 2
πf
defined to provide a given received power and to meet the 4 cos 2 πf f c sin 2 4 fs
signal quality specifications. The original GPS and GLO- , k BOC odd
f c πf f c 2 cos πf
2 fs
NASS signals employ binary phase shift keying with rectan-
gular spreading symbols, known as BPSK-R. A BPSK-R 2 17
52 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing

The default BOC spreading modulation is sine-phased; Correlation functions for these spreading modulations
often the subscript is not employed for sine-phasing, but can be calculated from the inverse Fourier transform of
only for cosine-phasing. these PSDs, or in some cases for infinite bandwidth signals
Several modern signals employ spreading modulations using explicit formulas found in Chapter 3 of [3].
that have a multiplexed-BOC (MBOC) PSD that is the con- Figures 2.4 and 2.5 show the PSDs of representative
vex sum of two different BOC PSDs, each having different spreading modulations, all having unit power. The different
subcarrier frequencies and the same spreading code chip spreading modulations have very different PSD shapes;
rate. A unit-power MBOC PSD is given by BPSK-Rs have a dominant peak at the carrier frequency‚
while BOCs have two dominant peaks offset from the car-
ΦMBOC m1 ,m2 ,n,α f = 1 − α ΦBOC m1 ,n f rier frequency by approximately the subcarrier frequency.
The null-to-null width of the dominant peaks is twice the
+ α ΦBOC m2 ,n f 2 18 spreading code chip rate.
Spreading codes are unique binary-valued sequences.
with 0 < α < 1.
One bit modulates the phase of each spreading symbol,
Several signals also use AltBOC spreading modulations.
spreading the spectrum of the signal and enabling a
There are different variants, each having slightly different
receiver to distinguish each signal from others of the same
PSDs. An AltBOC signal having BPSK-R(n) signals on
signal type. While some signals use cryptographically gen-
both carrier phases of both subcarriers, with independent
erated non-repeating spreading codes, signals available for
data messages, is denoted AltBOC(m, n) where the subcar-
open use employ repeating spreading codes, in many cases
rier frequency is fs = m × 1.023 × 106 Hz and the chip rate
generated using linear feedback shift registers. A family of
is fc = n × 1.023 × 106 Hz. The unit-power PSD of the
spreading codes is developed for each signal type, designed
resulting constant envelope AltBOC(m, n) signal, when
to be nearly balanced (taking on each binary value approx-
kBOC is odd-valued, is [3]
imately half the time), having low autocorrelation side-
2 lobes, and low cross-correlation among members of the
4 f c cos πf f c
ΦAltBOCce m,n f = family.
π 2 f 2 cos πf f s
The data message provides the time of transmission, satel-
× cos 2 πf 2 f s − cos πf 2 f s
lite ephemeris, corrections between satellite time and system
− 2 cos πf 2 f s cos πf 4fs +2 2 19 time offset, constellation almanac, status of the signals and

–60 BPSK-R(1) BPSK-R(2)

PSD (dBW/Hz)

–80

–100

–60 BOC(1,1) MBOC(1,6,1,1/11)

PSD (dBW/Hz)

–80

–100

–60 BOC(5,2.5) BPSK-R(5)

PSD (dBW/Hz)

–80

–100
–10 0 10 –10 0 10
Frequency Offset (MHz) Frequency Offset (MHz)

Figure 2.4 Power spectral densities of representative narrower bandwidth spreading modulations

PSD (dBW/Hz) –60 BPSK-R(10) BOC(10,5)
–80
–100
–60 BOCc(10,5) BOCc(15,2.5)
PSD (dBW/Hz)
–80
–100
–60 BOC(14,2) AltBOC(15,10)
PSD (dBW/Hz)
–80
–100
–20 0 20 –20
Frequency Offset (MHz) Frequency Offset (MHz)
Figure 2.5 Power spectral densities of representative wider bandwidth spreading modulations.
the satellites, coordinate conversions, and other correction
factors and system information, represented as digital data.
Data messages are typically composed of frames that each
contain hundreds of bits of information. Frames may consist
of different subframes, each containing different types of
information. Some data message structures are rigid, with
pages of frames in a fixed repeated sequence to describe
all the needed information. Other signal types use flexible
message formats where different message types, each con-
taining information needed by receivers, can be transmitted
in an arbitrary sequence by each satellite.
Data message error correction and detection involves
redundant bits added to the data message bits. The redun-
dancy allows a receiver to correct some data demodulation
errors and detect the presence of other errors, even when
they cannot be corrected, using standard techniques from
digital communications [7]. Forward error correction
(FEC) enables a receiver to correct errors in demodulating
data message bits, and allows a receiver to detect some
errors even when they cannot be corrected. Different
FEC codes are employed in different signals, and in some
cases the encoded symbols are also interleaved to add pro-
tection against burst errors. Cyclic redundancy checks
(CRCs) are part of many data messages, ensuring a very
high probability that receivers can detect random errors
that cannot be corrected. In that case, the receiver can wait
for the next repetition of the same message content. Data
message bit rates are relatively slow, with different signal
types using data message bit rates between 25 bits per sec-
ond to 1000 bits per second.
2.4 Satnav Signals 53
0 20
Data modulation encodes onto a signal the symbols pro-
duced by error correction and detection. Biphase keying is
used in many cases, although several higher data rate signal
types employ code shift keying.
Many modern signals typically employ separate pilot and
data components. Each component is a signal having a differ-
ent role, with the same carrier frequency, different spreading
codes, and spreading modulations that can be the same or dif-
ferent. Only the data component is modulated by the encoded
data message bits. The pilot component has no data modula-
tion, and hence after synchronization its waveform is com-
pletely known to the receiver, since there is no unknown
data modulation. Consequently, the receiver can use more
capable processing approaches on the pilot component,
enhancing its ability to make measurements. Different signal
designs combine the two components in different ways. They
can be multiplexed in time on a spreading symbol by spread-
ing symbol basis, placed in phase quadrature, or added in the
same phase using code division multiplexing.
Although spreading codes are the easiest to design and
implement when they are short, short spreading codes
introduce several disadvantages [3]. Overlay codes extend
the effective length of short spreading codes, biphase-
modulating each duration of a spreading code by a single
binary value, and thus extending the period of the spread-
ing code by a factor of the number of bits in the overlay
code. Like the spreading code itself, overlay codes are docu-
mented in the signal specification, so that receivers can
exploit knowledge of the overlay code bit values in their
processing.
54 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing

In many cases, each satnav satellite transmits two or more Table 2.2 (Continued)
signals or components on each carrier frequency, requiring
Spreading Code Type
multiplexing of these multiple signals onto the same physical
Spreading Code Duration (ms)
carrier. While the different signals and components could
simply be added together at baseband, with the resulting com- Spreading Code Length (bits)
posite signal used to modulate the carrier, this sum would not Overlay Code Bit Rate (bps)
have a constant envelope, and thus would require less effi- Overlay Code Duration (s)
cient power amplification on the satellite. More complex mul- Overlay Code Length (bits)
tiplexing approaches are typically employed to produce a Data Message Bit Rate (bps)
composite signal that has a constant envelope, enabling more Data Message Symbol Rate (sps)
efficient power amplification on the satellite. If there are only
Data Fraction of Power (%)
two signals or components, and each is itself a constant envel-
Pilot Component
ope, they can modulate the carrier in phase quadrature, yield-
Spreading Modulation
ing a constant envelope signal. With more than two signals or
components, various other more complicated multiplexing Spreading Code Chip Rate (Mcps)
techniques are employed, as discussed in [3]. Spreading Code Symbol Duration (microseconds)
Table 2.2 provides a list of signal characteristics used to Spreading Code Type
describe each signal from each satnav system in Chapters 3 Spreading Code Duration (ms)
through 8. This description allows for separate data and pilot Spreading Code Length (bits)
components, although some signals have only a data Overlay Code Bit Rate (bps)
component.
Overlay Code Length (bits)
Table 2.3 provides a corresponding set of data message
Overlay Code Duration (s)
characteristics used to describe each signal. These signal
summaries provide a succinct way to compare the charac- Pilot Fraction of Power (%)
teristics of different signals from different systems.

Table 2.2 Summary of signal characteristics Table 2.3 Characteristics of data messages

Signal Name Signal Name

Signal Summary Data Message Name
Service Message Structure (Fixed/Flexible)
Interface Specification or Interface Control Document Message Length (bits)
Satellite’s Broadcasting Signal Message Duration (s)
Signal Characteristics Forward Error Correction
Carrier Frequency (MHz) Error Detection
Transmit Bandwidth, Two-Sided (MHz) Repetition of Clock Corrections and Ephemeris (s)
Data and Pilot Combining Maximum Broadcast Interval for Ionospheric Model (min)
Correlation Loss (dB) Maximum Broadcast Interval for UTC Conversion
Specified Minimum Received Total Power in All Components Maximum Broadcast Interval for Time Offset to Other Satnav
(dBW) System Times
Data Component Time Rollover (weeks)
Spreading Modulation Leap Seconds Included (yes/no)
Spreading Code Chip Rate (Mcps) Clock Correction and Ephemeris Validity Interval (min)
Spreading Code Symbol Duration (μs) Typical Message Upload Rate (uploads/day)

2.5 Ground Segment
The ground segment is the “brains” of a satnav system,
forming a closed loop system that provides commands to
the satellites updating the broadcast signals to provide
accurate information to receivers. The ground segment pro-
vides three fundamental functions: monitoring the signals,
determining clock corrections and ephemeris, and control-
ling the broadcast signals’ contents (e.g. data message con-
tents and message sequence) and characteristics (e.g. power
levels, operating modes). The ground segment may also
control and monitor payloads and satellite buses as well,
but these details are not addressed here.
Figure 2.6 shows the architecture of a typical ground
segment consisting of monitoring stations, a master con-
trol station, and ground antennas. Monitoring stations dis-
tributed on the ground throughout the service region
receive the broadcast signals and examine the RF charac-
teristics of the broadcast signals and the data messages
modulated onto these signals to ensure that the signals
are “healthy” – within specification, containing the cor-
rect information, and thus suitable for use. These monitoring
stations are precisely located and independently surveyed, so
their location is known a priori. The monitoring stations also
process the signals to produce observables. Modern global
systems typically have a dozen or more monitoring stations;
better performance is obtained if satellites can be tracked
continuously over their orbits, and even better performance
is obtained if two or more monitoring stations can view each
satellite with geometric diversity. In some cases, monitoring
Monitoring Station Monitoring Station
Antenna and Antenna and
Antenna Antenna
Electronics … Electronics
Monitoring Monitoring
Receiver Receiver
Master Control Station
• Orbit determination
Master Clock
• Synchronization
• Message generation
Figure 2.6 Ground segment architecture.
2.5 Ground Segment 55
stations may also have access to other information, such as
satellite ranging information from laser ranging from the
ground or RF transponders on the satellites.
Time-tagged information is transmitted from monitoring
stations via communications links to the master control sta-
tion. Typically, systems have a master control station that is
the primary location for this processing, as well as one or
more alternate master control stations at other locations,
which can be used in case the master control station is
not functional.
The master control station compares observables and any
ranging measurements from the different monitoring sta-
tions with their known locations, essentially inverting the
SPP equations to determine offsets between each satellite’s
clock and system time, and differences between each satel-
lite’s actual orbit and the ephemeris information in the data
message. A master clock provides UTC to the master con-
trol station. The updated clock corrections and ephemeris
are combined with updated system information (constella-
tion almanac, system status, coordinate conversions and
geodetic updates, relationship between system time and
UTC, etc.) into data messages that are uplinked to the sat-
ellite payloads via ground antennas, of which there may be
several spaced over the service region. This updated infor-
mation applies to a specific validity interval that could last
for tens of minutes to hours, best approximating that infor-
mation over that time. During a single upload, data mes-
sages for multiple validity intervals may be uploaded, so
that contact between the ground antenna and the satellite
is not needed at every validity interval.
Ground
Antenna
…
Ground
Antenna
56 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing
Monitoring stations may also receive TT&C messages
describing the status of the payload, as well as that of the
bus. Occasionally, a payload may need to be taken out of
service if a component is to be switched in or switched
out (payloads carry backup clocks and duplicates of other
components to extend the payload life), to perform testing,
or if the satellite itself is maneuvering for station-keeping.
Such maintenance of the payload, bus, and satellite is typ-
ically scheduled in advance, users are warned, and signals
are either disabled or marked with indicators that they
should not be used during maintenance.
2.6 Satnav User Equipment
As navigation and timing technology continues to employ
more diverse sources of information, the term navigation
and timing (NT) user equipment is employed to describe
the device that provides PVT, possibly along with route find-
ing. NT user equipment that employs satnav as its primary
source of PVT information is called satnav user equipment;
it may be augmented or aided by other sensors such as a
precision clock or inertial sensors. Section 2.6.1 describes
the typical architecture of satnav user equipment, while
Section 2.6.2 outlines the receiver processing. Section 2.6.3
addresses receiver performance, and Section 2.6.4 overviews
other aspects of receiver processing.
2.6.1 Satnav User Equipment Architecture
Satnav user equipment as described in this section has the
architecture shown in Figure 2.7; it comprises an antenna
and associated antenna electronics, a receiver, other sen-
sors that augment or aid the receiver, and interfaces to a
Antenna
Antenna
Electronics
Route Turn-by-Turn
Finding Directions
Receiver
Position,
Velocity,
Time
Aiding
Sensors
Figure 2.7 Satnav user equipment.
user or host system; route finding is optional and is not
addressed further in this chapter.
The receive antenna must be able to receive signals from
satellites over the upper hemisphere. The simplest way to
accomplish this is with an antenna that has an approxi-
mately hemispherical gain pattern, known as a fixed recep-
tion pattern antenna (FRPA). The antenna electronics for
an FRPA are relatively simple – protection from lightning
or other overvoltages, filtering to suppress strong out-of-
band interference, and amplification. An alternative to an
FRPA is to use an array of elements whose outputs are
weighted in gain and phase and then summed to decrease
the gain in the direction of the undesired signals (interfer-
ence or jamming) while retaining the gain in the direction
of the desired satellite signals. This is called a controlled
reception pattern antenna (CRPA), and its antenna
electronics is a far more complicated set of analog elec-
tronics (e.g. filters, amplifiers, phase shifters, summers)
usually combined with digital electronics (analog-to-
digital converters (ADCs), processors). Much greater
detail is found in [8, 9].
While there are many fundamentally different receiver
architectures used for different applications, a generic pro-
cessing flow is shown in Figure 2.8. The antenna and
antenna electronics output RF waveforms that contain
the satnav signals of interest, along with noise and interfer-
ence. These RF signals are conditioned by filtering and
amplification within the receiver, then downconverted
(shifted in frequency) to a lower, intermediate frequency
(IF) or to baseband, changing the carrier frequency but
retaining the other characteristics of the waveforms. IF con-
ditioning then includes additional filtering and amplifica-
tion, along with ADC, although more modern receiver
architectures can perform ADC after RF conditioning
rather than on the IF waveforms. Signal processing involves
the extraction of needed information from the signals, as
described subsequently. Navigation processing uses this
information to produce PVT. An oscillator drives a fre-
quency synthesizer providing frequency references and
timing signals used throughout the receiver. Classic refer-
ences on GPS receivers include chapters in [10–12], and
Part III of [3].
2.6.2 Satnav Receiver Processing
Processing in a conventional receiver involves synchroniza-
tion, time-of-arrival estimation, frequency-of-arrival esti-
mation, reading the data message, and observables
formation. This signal processing is performed on each sat-
nav signal to be used; the signals can be at one or more car-
rier frequencies.

Receive
Antenna
RF Condi- Down- IF Condi- Signal
tioning conversion tioning Processing
Frequency
Synthesizer
Oscillator
Figure 2.8 Conventional receiver processing flow [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
Synchronization involves initial synchronization and
subsequent synchronization, both of which must be per-
formed when the receiver first begins processing, or when
a new satellite signal is to be processed.
Initial synchronization involves a “guess and check”
strategy, where a replica of a desired signal is generated
in the receiver using information in the signal’s interface
specification of the signal’s interface specification. The
frequency-shifted replica is cross-correlated against the
received signals plus noise plus interference at different
delays and frequency shifts. A large-magnitude output indi-
cates that the desired received signal is present, with delay
and frequency shift indicated by the delay-frequency coor-
dinates of the peak.
Subsequent synchronization involves alignment to the
data message symbol edges, overlay codes, and data mes-
sage framing. The details vary with the construction of each
signal and its data message.
Once synchronization is complete, a conventional
receiver transitions to steady state processing, where it
repeatedly estimates the time and frequency of arrival,
demodulates the data message, and forms observables. In
a conventional receiver, this processing is replicated for
each signal in a separate receiver channel. The results then
are used to produce updated PVT estimates.
The primary measurement of time of arrival involves
“wiping off,” or removing, the carrier, exposing the base-
band spreading modulation and spreading code of the sig-
nal. Since there is relative motion between the receiver and
satellites, the time of arrival changes over time. Code track-
ing involves cross-correlation of a replica of the spreading
modulation, spreading code bits, and (when applicable)
overlay code bits with the received signals plus noise plus
interference. The cross-correlation samples drive a so-
called “code tracking loop” that provides time-varying
2.6 Satnav User Equipment 57
Nav
Processing
estimates of the time of arrival, while suppressing jitter
due to noise, interference, and hardware imperfections.
Frequency-of-arrival measurements are made by “wiping
off” the spreading modulation and spreading code (the
spreading modulation and spreading code are known from
the signal’s interface specification, while their delay is
obtained from the time-of-arrival measurement), revealing
the carrier, which may still be biphase-modulated by data.
Some receivers only measure the carrier frequency, while
the carrier phase is more commonly measured in modern
receivers. When the signal has a pilot component, the over-
lay code can also be wiped off, exposing a pure sinusoidal
carrier not modulated by data or overlay code bits. More
capable and robust carrier tracking approaches can be used
on this unmodulated carrier. If the carrier phase is esti-
mated, the carrier frequency can be determined from the
rate of change of the carrier phase. Also, the carrier phase
provides an additional measurement of the signal’s time of
arrival, although it is ambiguous in the number of integer
carrier cycles between the receive antenna and transmit
antenna.
Other approaches to producing repeated time-of-arrival
estimates involve block processing, essentially repeating
initial synchronization processing over narrow ranges of
delay and frequency shift, and using the resulting sequence
of estimated delay and frequency shift in subsequent
processing.
Reading the data message uses conventional techniques
from digital communications [7] that vary depending upon
the data modulation, interleaving, forward error control,
and error detection used in the signal. Essential informa-
tion read from the data message includes the time of trans-
mission (in satellite time), correction from satellite time to
system time, and satellite ephemeris, along with various
system and signal status data.
58 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing
Measurements are transformed to high-accuracy obser-
vables by the various steps detailed in [3]:
•
Adjusting the time of transmission, determined from the
data message, to account for offset between satellite time
and system time.
•
Subtracting the time of arrival from the time of transmis-
sion (in system time) to determine the uncorrected
pseudodelay.
• Correcting the pseudodelay for tropospheric delay and
reducing ionospheric delay either by applying the iono-
sphere model in the data message, or by employing an
ionosphere-free pseudodelay using dual-frequency
measurements.
••
Smoothing the pseudodelay using carrier measurements.
Adjusting the measured frequency of arrival based on fre-
quencies used in downconversion.
Once the above steps are completed for the number of sig-
nals being processed, PVT is calculated using the approach
outlined in Section 2.2. Various adjustments, including for
the Sagnac effect, are then performed.
2.6.3 Receiver Performance
The fundamental processing function in a receiver is the
cross-correlation between a replica generated in the
receiver, and the received sum of signals, noise, and inter-
ference output by the antenna. A generalization of cross-
correlation processing, cross-ambiguity function proces-
sing, is used in initial synchronization, where detections
are based on the magnitude of the correlation peak, and ini-
tial estimates of the delay and frequency shift are obtained
by the location of the peak. Cross-correlation processing is
also used in code tracking, where the location of the
correlation peak in delay is tracked. Complex values of
the correlation peak are used in carrier tracking and data
demodulation.
The ratio between the magnitude-squared average peak
of the correlation function, and the variance of the corre-
lation function is called the correlator output signal-to-
noise ratio (SNR). In turn, the correlator output SNR is
directly related to a fundamental quantity called the
effective carrier power to noise PSD ratio, denoted as
(C/N0)eff = (C)eff/(N0)eff.
When the carrier phase is perfectly removed, or “wiped”
before correlation processing, the correlator output SNR
(see Chapter 5 of [3]) is given by
ρ = 2T C N 0 eff 2 20
Here, (C/N0)eff is the effective C/N0 – the ratio of the
received signal power to the white noise PSD that would
produce the same output SNR in an ideal receiver.
The effective C/N0 is given by
Cη2
C N0 = 2 21
eff
ηN 0 + Iκ ιs
where C is the received signal power at the input to the
receiver, and all filtering before the correlation processing
is represented by bandlimiting to the bandwidth ±βr/2, the
bandlimiting factor being
η≜
βr 2
Φs f df 2 22
− βr 2
with Φs f being the signal’s normalized PSD
∞
Φs f df = 1.
−∞
In Eq. (2.21), N0 is the thermal noise computed using the
Friis formula [3]. Interference effects are represented by
Iκιs, where I is the received power of the interference,
and κιs is the spectral separation coefficient (SSC)
βr 2
κιs ≜ Φι f Φs f df 2 23
− βr 2
which has units of s, or Hz−1, and is often expressed in dB/
Hz. In Eq. (2.23), Φι f is the PSD of the interference, nor-
malized to unit power over infinite bandwidth. The effect of
other losses, including those from sampling and quantiza-
tion, can also be accounted for in the expressions for
(C/N0)eff [3].
Performance of initial synchronization, carrier tracking,
and data message demodulation all can be expressed in
terms of (C/N0)eff, which describes the vertical fluctuations
of sequential estimates of the correlation function peak.
Thus, in white noise the (C/N0)eff does not depend upon
the signal’s PSD, except for the bandlimiting factor
(Eq. (2.22)). However, the code tracking performance is
related to horizontal fluctuations of the correlation func-
tion peak, and is not uniquely determined by (C/N0)eff;
the code tracking accuracy does depend on the signal’s
PSD even in white noise. Chapters 18 and 19 of [3] provide
expressions and numerical results for carrier tracking and
code tracking performance.
2.6.4 Other Aspects of Receiver Processing
The term acquisition is used to describe all the steps
between when initial synchronization begins and when
PVT is first output with specified accuracy. Acquisition per-
formance is typically expressed in terms of the time to this
first output (time to first fix) at a given (C/N0)eff.

Location
Server
Figure 2.9 Assisted satnav [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
As described in Section 2.6.2, conventional signal proces-
sing uses independent tracking loops for code and carrier
tracking of each signal. Since carrier frequency tracking
produces accurate measurements of line-of-sight Doppler
between receiver and satellite, the carrier frequency mea-
surements can be used to aid the code tracking loop, remov-
ing dynamics from the code tracking to allow more robust
processing when (C/N0)eff is low, either due to noise and
interference, or to weak-signal conditions.
More generally, individual tracking loops for each
signal can be replaced by cross-coupled tracking loops that
jointly process measurements from multiple signals. Such
processing, sometimes called vector-locked loops, pro-
vides increased robustness and faster resynchronization
when tracking of a signal is temporarily lost. The compu-
tational complexity, however, can increase significantly.
Inertial sensors can also be used to aid signal tracking
using what is called tight coupling between inertial sensors
and satnav processing [3]. Transformed into line of sight
between receiver and satellite, receiver dynamics measured
by inertial sensors can be removed from both the carrier
and code tracking loops, enabling more robust processing
in low (C/N0)eff conditions. When cross-coupled tracking
loops and inertial assistance are combined in a single joint
process for tracking all signals, the resulting ultratight cou-
pling (also known as deep integration) provides even more
robust tracking performance.
2.7 Augmentation Systems
Over the past two decades, augmentation systems have
provided tremendous enhancements to satnav. The most
widely used augmentation around the world is assisted
2.7 Augmentation Systems 59
User
Receiver
satnav, or A-satnav, described in [5] and Chapter 24 of
[3] and depicted in Figure 2.9. Using infrastructure that
reads data messages from all broadcast signals, A-satnav
provides the needed information via communications
links to a satnav receiver integrated with a communica-
tions system – typically a commercial wireless network.
The receiver then need not perform much of the relatively
fragile and time-consuming process of reading informa-
tion from each broadcast signal’s data message, although
the time of transmission may be needed. Furthermore, the
communications network can also provide a frequency
reference and time reference to the receiver, allowing it
to reduce the uncertainty region over which it needs to
search for signals. The result of A-satnav is a much faster
time to first fix, along with positioning under challenging
conditions, such as indoors, where stand-alone satnav
reception would not function.
A second type of augmentation system, known as Satel-
lite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS), was developed
to enable greater reliance on satnav for aviation safety
of life. As shown in Figure 2.10, SBAS uses reference sta-
tions dispersed over the service region, which may be the
size of a continent or larger. Receivers at these reference
stations, whose antennas are in precisely surveyed loca-
tions, read the data messages from broadcast signals and
measure the quality of the broadcast signals, while per-
forming code tracking to measure pseudoranges to the
satellites. This information is passed to a master station,
which computes the errors between the measured pseu-
doranges and the true pseudoranges between the satellites
and the known receiver antenna locations, as well as ion-
ospheric delays using dual-frequency, ionosphere-free,
measurements [3].
60 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing
GEO Satellite with
SBAS Transponder
Augmented
Satellite
Ground Ground
Reference Reference
Station Station
Master Uplink
Station Station
Figure 2.10 Satellite-Based Augmentation System [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
If a signal’s data message, signal quality, or pseudorange
error is unacceptable, the master station determines that
there is a loss of integrity in that signal. In addition, the
master station uses many measurements to attribute the
errors to ionospheric delay, broadcast clock corrections,
and broadcast ephemeris. The master station constructs
augmentation messages containing a map of ionospheric
delays, indicators of each signal’s integrity, and corrections
to each signal’s broadcast clock corrections and ephemeris.
The augmentation messages are passed to an uplink station
that forms a signal modulated by the augmentation mes-
sage, and transmits this signal (typically at C band,
K band, or Ku band) to a transponder on a geostationary
satellite. The transponder frequency shifts the signal to
an L-band frequency, amplifies it, and broadcasts it toward
Earth. Receivers use the augmentation message to deter-
mine if satnav signals have adequate integrity, and also
to correct measurements made with the satnav signals.
Although SBAS signals are primarily communications sig-
nals, in some cases the receiver can also make measure-
ments using them.
The third type of augmentation system, shown in
Figure 2.11, makes differential measurements between a
user receiver, or rover, and a reference receiver or network
of reference receivers that are accurately surveyed to
known locations. The rover uses code or carrier phase mea-
surements, along with information transmitted via a com-
munications link from the reference receiver or network, to
accurately determine the rover receiver’s location relative
to the reference. When the reference and rover receivers
Augmented
Satellite
Ground Ground
Reference Reference
Station Station
make measurements on the same satellites, the rover can
compute differences between pairs of measurements in
ways that remove many sources of error. Decimeter accura-
cies can be obtained using code measurements, and centi-
meter accuracies can be obtained using carrier phase
measurements, once the carrier phase ambiguities have
been removed.
2.8 Satnav Errors
As shown in Figure 2.12, errors in position and time esti-
mates produced by satnav receivers are attributed to four
sources: the ground segment, the space segment, signal
propagation, and user equipment. Often, some errors due
to signal propagation are attributed to the ground segment
and others to user equipment, based on the segment’s
responsibility to compensate for them; in the following dis-
cussion, they are all included in user equipment errors.
Ground and space segment errors are typically consid-
ered together as the signal-in-space ranging error
(SISRE), resulting from three major contributors: clock
error, ephemeris error, and satellite group delay. The clock
error and ephemeris error both reflect the difference
between the contents of the data message and reality. Clock
and ephemeris errors are caused by a combination of esti-
mation error, prediction error, and curve fit error. Estima-
tion errors reflect discrepancies in the ground segment’s
measurement of clock and ephemeris. Prediction errors
reflect differences between what the ground segment
 2.8 Satnav Errors 61

Reference User
Station Receiver

Figure 2.11 Differential satnav [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

Geometry Errors
Space Segment Errors

Propagation Errors

Control
Segment
Errors

User
Receiver

Figure 2.12 Satnav error sources [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

predicts the clock and ephemeris values to be at some time
in the future, and what they actually turn out to be. Curve
fit errors reflect the fact that the predicted value cannot be
perfectly represented using parametric models with limited
precision. One additional contributor to clock error is clock
stability error, which results from fluctuations in instanta-
neous clock characteristics. Group delay error is caused by
delay variations introduced in signal paths within the sat-
ellite, and is included in the clock correction parameters
broadcast in the data message. Differential group delay
describes relative delays between different signals broad-
cast by the satellite.
Before May 2000, civil GPS signals also exhibited a dom-
inant source of ground and space segment error that was
intentionally introduced: Selective Availability (SA) intro-
duced errors to limit the accuracy of civil signals. Now that
SA is turned off, it need no longer be considered; the major
contributors introduced in the preceding paragraph are
now the dominant sources of ground and space segment
errors.
Propagation errors include delays introduced by the ion-
osphere5 and troposphere, along with the effects of multi-
path, discussed in Chapter 22 of this book and in
Chapter 24 of [3] – additional copies of received signals
5 Extreme space weather can cause severe ionospheric disturbances
that produce effects beyond those discussed here, including time-
varying distortion of the signal amplitude and carrier phase.
62 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing

whose amplitude, delay, and carrier phase differ from those SISRE and the UEE is the total pseudorange error between
of the direct path signal. Multipaths sum with the direct receiver and a satellite, called the user equivalent range
path signal, distorting receiver measurements of carrier error (UERE):
and phase. When the direct path is shadowed or blocked
by structures or vegetation, a receiver may process only a 2 2 1 2
UERE = SISRE + UEE 2 24
multipath, mistaking it for the direct path signal and mak-
ing grossly incorrect measurements of the time of arrival as The second step is to project the UERE, the line-of-sight
a result. errors between receiver and satellites, onto errors in esti-
User equipment also introduces group delay errors in the mating position and time. When many simplifying and typ-
antennas and RF electronics, as well as errors in measure- ically unfounded assumptions are made (including that the
ments caused by noise and interference in the receiver. UERE is the same to each satellite, and that the UERE to
Ranging errors differ significantly for stand-alone and each satellite is uncorrelated with the UERE to other satel-
differential operations. The following discussion applies lites), a beautiful and simple relationship is found between
to stand-alone receivers. SISRE is typically under 1 m the UERE and positioning or timing error:
root-mean-squared (RMS) for well-operated systems. Iono-
Standard Deviation of Positioning Error = DOP × UERE
spheric error can approach 10 m RMS, depending upon ion-
ospheric conditions, for a single-frequency receiver that 2 25
uses the broadcast ionospheric model to partially remove While the UERE has dimensions of length, dilution of
this error. A dual-frequency receiver that produces iono- precision (DOP) is dimensionless. DOP depends upon the
sphere-free measurements can drive the ionosphere error measurement being made, with different expressions for
to less than 1 m, depending upon multipath and other positioning (vertical, horizontal, three-dimensional) and
errors in receiver measurements. Multipath errors can be timing. Further, DOP involves only the geometry between
multiple meters or even tens of meters, with even larger receiver and satellites, as expressed in the geometry matrix
errors if shadowing blocks the direct path and the receiver H defined in Eq. (2.3).
erroneously extracts measurements from a multipath. The DOP matrix is
Depending upon the type of differential system and the
separation between the rover and the base, differential sys- D11 D12 D13 D14
tems can cancel some or effectively all the SISRE, as well as −1 D12 D22 D23 D24
D = HT H = 2 26
the contributions to the user equipment error (UEE) from D13 D23 D33 D34
the ionosphere and troposphere. Multipath is often the D14 D24 D34 D44
dominant error; using carrier phase measurements can
reduce this error to the centimeter level, if shadowing is When the unit direction vectors in H are defined in a
not involved. local-horizontal coordinate system, different DOP mea-
Error analysis involves either exquisite knowledge of a sures can be developed from the DOP matrix. Geometric
particular situation of interest, or a systems engineering DOP (GDOP) for estimating time and three-dimensional
approach based on several simplifying assumptions. While position, position DOP (PDOP) for estimating three-
these assumptions rarely apply in practice, the resulting dimensional position, horizontal DOP (HDOP) for estimat-
systems engineering error analysis is useful for assessing ing position in the horizontal plane, vertical DOP (VDOP)
overall trends and capabilities, and is summarized here. for estimating height, time DOP (TDOP) for estimating
The first step is to describe the effect of the above error time, are each expressed as
sources on pseudorange errors, projecting these errors onto
GDOP = D11 + D22 + D33 + D44
the line of sight between receiver and satellite. Typically,
each error source is assumed to be uncorrelated from others PDOP = D11 + D22 + D33
for that signal, so that their standard deviation is the root HDOP = D11 + D22 2 27
sum squared (RSS) of each error source’s standard devia- VDOP = D33
tion. The SISRE is the RSS of all ground segment and space TDOP = D44 c
segment errors, projected onto the line of sight between
receiver and satellite. The RSS of all propagation and user Substituting any of the first four into Eq. (2.25) yields an
equipment errors, projected onto the line of sight between error having units of distance, while TDOP is divided by the
receiver and satellite, is called the UEE. The RSS of the speed of light to yield an error having units of seconds.

When the UERE in Eq. (2.24) is an RMS quantity in units of
meters, using PDOP in Eq. (2.25) provides the RMS error in
three dimensions, using HDOP in Eq. (2.25) describes the
RMS horizontal error (useful for positioning on the
ground), using VDOP in Eq. (2.25) describes the RMS ver-
tical error, and using TDOP in Eq. (2.25) describes the RMS
time error.
Typically, values of PDOP less than six are considered
acceptable, and less than two are considered very good.
PDOP is typically a factor of 2.1 greater than HDOP. Good
values of HDOP are less than unity, and VDOP is typically a
factor of 1.9 times HDOP. An intuitive explanation for
VDOP being larger than HDOP is that low-elevation satel-
lites with diverse azimuths provide excellent geometrical
diversity for horizontal positioning, but ground-based
receivers cannot use satellites below the receiver (since
Earth blocks their signals), limiting the diversity for vertical
positioning.
Different communities use different accuracy measures
that can all be approximately related to these RMS values
and to each other. See Chapter 6 of [3, 13] for these
relationships.
GPS
GLONASS
Galileo
BeiDou
QZSS
IRNSS
SBAS
1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300
Frequency (MHz)
Figure 2.13 Future satnav signals [3]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
2.9 Summary 63
2.9 Summary
Satnav using passive RF trilateration is the foundational NT
technology for many applications, and will remain essential
for decades to come. While the principles of satnav are
straightforward, sophisticated implementations are needed
to provide the exquisite performance that is commonly
obtained.
The unique capabilities and benefits of satnav now touch,
either directly or indirectly, virtually everyone on Earth.
The principles and techniques summarized in this chapter,
primarily developed either by or for GPS, are now being
applied and extended to a GNSS that will consist of four
global satnav systems, three regional satnav systems, and
a growing number of SBASs whose coverage will continue
to increase over much of Earth’s landmasses.
The projected set of signals transmitted by the GNSS
occupy much of the L-band spectrum between 1 GHz
and 2 GHz, as well as a slice of the S band between 2583
MHz and 2500 MHz, as shown in Figure 2.13. This rich
set of signals, to be transmitted by as many as 150 satellites,
promises a new revolution in satnav.
Blue: Open Signals
Red: Encrypted Signals
Also Signals
Near 2500 MHz
JW Betz
1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610
64 2 Fundamentals of Satellite-Based Navigation and Timing
References
1 “RDSS LLC,” www.rdss.com, accessed 28 August 2016.
2 Danchik, R.J., “An Overview of Transit Development,”
Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1998,
http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td/td1901/danchik.pdf,
accessed 7 May 2016.
3 Betz, J.W., Engineering Satellite-Based Navigation and
Timing: Global Navigation Satellite Systems, Signals, and
Receivers, Wiley-IEEE Press, 2015.
4 Betz, J.W. and Kolodziejski, K.R., “Generalized Theory of
Code Tracking with an Early-Late Discriminator, Part 1:
Lower Bound and Coherent Processing,” IEEE
Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Vol. 45,
No. 4, pp. 1538–1550, October 2009.
5 van Diggelen, F., A-GPS: Assisted GPS, GNSS, and SBAS,
Artech House, 2009.
6 Betz, J.W., “Signal Structures for Satellite-Based
Navigation: Past, Present, and Future,” Proceedings of the
Institute of Navigation Pacific PNT Conference, Institute of
Navigation, April 2013.
7 Proakis, J. and Salehi M., Digital Communications, 5th Ed.,
McGraw-Hill, 2007.
8 Chen, X. et al., Antennas for Global Navigation Satellite
Systems, Wiley, 2012.
9 Rama Rao, B. et al., GPS/GNSS Antennas, Artech
House, 2013.
10 Parkinson, B.W., Spilker, J.J., Jr., Axelrad, P., and Enge, P.
(eds.), Global Positioning System: Theory and Applications,
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1996.
11 Misra, P. and Enge, P., Global Positioning System: Signals,
Measurements, and Performance, revised 2nd Ed., Ganga-
Jamuna Press, 2006.
12 Kaplan, E.D. and Hegarty, C. J. (eds.), Understanding GPS/
GNSS: Principles and Applications, 3rd Ed., Artech
House, 2017.
13 van Diggelen, F., “GNSS Accuracy: Lies, Damn Lies, and
Statistics,” GPS World, January 2007.

3
1
The Navstar Global Positioning System
John W. Betz
MITRE Corporation, United States
The Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) is the most
widely used satnav system in the world. Its availability and
consistently excellent performance have revolutionized nav-
igation and timing, enabling many previously unimagined
applications. GPS is a dual-use civil/military system, provid-
ing consistently high navigation and timing accuracies to bil-
lions of consumer and commercial users worldwide, as well
as to many militaries around the world. Third party augmen-
tations to GPS have provided additional levels of robustness,
integrity, and accuracy to stand-alone GPS, enabling even
more extensive and indispensable applications.
Entire books, including [1–3], are available that focus on
GPS, its constituent technologies, and its applications in
considerable detail. This information is complemented by
extensive official documentation on GPS, its services, and
its signals at the official US website that provides informa-
tion about GPS and related topics [4].
This chapter describes Navstar GPS in summary form.
Section 3.1 outlines the history and evolution of GPS, while
Section 3.2 explains the current structure for managing
GPS. Section 3.3 describes the geodetic and time reference sys-
tem employed by GPS, and Section 3.4 depicts GPS services
including their performance standards. Sections 3.5, 3.6, and
3.7 summarize key characteristics of the GPS constellation,
ground segment, and signals, respectively. Section 3.8 sum-
marizes the GPS ionosphere model, Section 3.9 describes other
payloads and functions provided by GPS and its satellites,
while Section 3.10 is a summary of this chapter.
1 Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited. Case Number
17-2409.
The author’s affiliation with The MITRE Corporation is provided for
identification purposes only, and is not intended to convey or imply
MITRE’s concurrence with, or support for, the positions, opinions, or
viewpoints expressed by the author.
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, ,Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
65
3.1 GPS History
As the world’s premier satnav system, GPS had led in exploring
and implementing concepts that other satnav systems have
subsequently adopted and extended. Development and mod-
ernization of GPS has involved continuing innovation, put into
practice. Section 3.1.1 provides an overall timeline for GPS, fol-
lowed by Sections 3.1.2, 3.1.3, 3.1.4, and 3.1.5, which describe
the evolution of GPS signals, the GPS space segment, the
GPS ground segment, and GPS user equipment, respectively.
3.1.1 GPS Timeline Summary
The events involved in developing technologies needed for the
original GPS, and in establishing the joint GPS program under
the Air Force leadership, are described in Chapter 1 of this
book, along with other references [5–7]. This section sum-
marizes early history as well as describing more recent events.
On-orbit testing of GPS began in 1974 and continued
through 1985, as enough test satellites were launched to
validate the underlying concepts and assure that perfor-
mance expectations would be achieved or exceeded.
In 1983, shortly after the Soviet Union shot down Korean
Air Flight 007 when the 747’s guidance system malfunc-
tioned and it wandered into prohibited airspace, President
Reagan recommitted the United States to provide free civil
use of GPS for improved navigation and air safety. Later in
the 1980s, deployment of the GPS constellation was slowed
by funding challenges, combined with the 1986 Space Shut-
tle Challenger disaster – the plan had been to deploy oper-
ational GPS satellites using the space shuttle, but after the
Challenger explosion, the decision to use Delta II rockets
introduced a two-year delay.
In 1990, Selective Availability (SA) and anti-spoofing
(AS) capabilities were introduced. SA degraded the accu-
racy of the signal available to civil users, while AS crypto-
graphically protects the military signal.
66 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System
Operation Desert Storm in 1991 involved the first signif-
icant use of GPS in military operations. Ground troops used
GPS to maneuver with unprecedented accuracy through
featureless desert terrain, in sandstorms, and in the dark.
GPS receivers were also used in aircraft to enable more
accurate air strikes, and to enhance combat search and res-
cue. Since there were not sufficient numbers of military
receivers, thousands of civil receivers were purchased
and employed. Consequently, SA was temporarily turned
off to enhance the accuracy provided by these civil
receivers.
The Desert Storm experience led the military to more
fully recognize the benefits of GPS. GPS began to be widely
integrated into systems, operations, and tactics, eventually
influencing the US military force structure. In 1993, the
24th operational satellite was launched and brought into
use, leading the Department of Defense (DoD) and Depart-
ment of Transportation (DOT) to announce Initial Opera-
tional Capability (IOC). By 1995, 27 satellites were
operating, leading to declaration of Full Operational Capa-
bility (FOC).
Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard began development of
differential GPS (DGPS) service for coastal coverage of
the continental United States, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico,
portions of Alaska and Hawaii, and portions of the Missis-
sippi River Basin. Maritime DGPS uses fixed reference sta-
tions with radio beacons that broadcast corrections to
receivers. The receivers use the corrections to remove errors
from their measurements, enhancing accuracy. IOC for
maritime DGPS was declared in 1996, and the system
was expanded subsequently to provide nationwide
coverage.
Almost simultaneously, in 1994, the DOT and FAA began
to develop the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), a
nationwide differential correction service whose signals are
broadcast by transponders on geostationary satellites, using
signals like the GPS C/A-signal. The primary motivation for
WAAS was to provide enhanced accuracy and integrity to
aircraft equipped with satnav receivers. Aircraft equipped
with certified GPS/WAAS receivers could perform preci-
sion approach and landing without the need for infrastruc-
ture at every airport. The WAAS signal was activated for
general aviation, covering much of the continental United
States as well as portions of Alaska.
WAAS became the first Satellite-Based Augmentation
System (SBAS). As described in Chapter 13, other SBASs
are deployed and under development. Although each sys-
tem is regional, their combined service regions promise
to cover most of the Northern Hemisphere’s landmass, with
increasing coverage of the Southern Hemisphere as well.
All SBASs conform to a set of standards maintained by
the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO),
allowing the interoperability of receivers with differ-
ent SBASs.
Ironically, the corrections provided by DGPS and SBAS
remove the effects of SA. Thus, in parallel with the devel-
opment of SA by DoD, civil agencies were investing in tech-
nologies that counter it. In May 2000, at the direction of
President Bill Clinton, the US government discontinued
its use of SA to make GPS more responsive to civil and com-
mercial users worldwide.
In September 2007, the US government announced its
decision to procure the future generation of GPS satellites,
known as GPS III, without SA [8]. This statement makes
the policy decision in 2000 permanent, and eliminates a
source of uncertainty in GPS performance that had been
of concern to civil GPS users worldwide.
While the original GPS was still being deployed and uses
were still developing, the National Research Council per-
formed a seminal, forward-looking study. Among the
recommendations in the study’s report [9] are the follow-
ing: eliminating SA, adding a new civil signal to provide
dual-frequency civil service, adding more monitor stations,
and evaluating prospects for a new military signal. Similar
recommendations followed from other groups. These
recommended GPS enhancements led to what is now called
GPS Modernization.
In 1996, recognizing the importance of GPS to civilian
users as well as military users, US President Bill Clinton
issued a policy directive [10]. This directive reaffirmed that
GPS is a dual-use system. It also established a governance
structure, the Interagency GPS Executive Board (IGEB),
led by representatives of the DoD, and the Transportation
Department, to manage GPS as a national asset.
The timeline for GPS Modernization thus begins with
turning SA off in 2000. Subsequent events, described in
more detail in subsequent sections, involve adding new
civil signals, new military signals, and new monitor sta-
tions. Related upgrades and replacements to GPS satellites,
the GPS ground segment, and military GPS receivers are
ongoing. It is increasingly apparent that GPS Moderniza-
tion is not an event or even a phase in the history of
GPS, but an ongoing process that will continue indefinitely.
Yet another event in the 1990s turned out to have great
influence on the 21st century, and on satnav more gener-
ally. In recognition of the increasing use of mobile devices,
the Federal Communications Commission introduced
requirements [11] that mobile phones become “location-
capable” when making emergency E911 calls – reporting
position to first responders. While the requirements were
technology-agnostic, there was a widespread selection of
GPS as the most desirable way to meet this mandate. The

result was two important contributions to the utility and
use of GPS:
•
The development of Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) [12], which
makes consumer device use of GPS more responsive
and more robust,
•
Significant investment in small, inexpensive, and low-
power GPS chipsets that drastically increased the utility
and utilization first of GPS and then other satnav
systems.
GPS history since 2000 has had two primary focuses:
implementing GPS Modernization and adapting to the
internationalization of satnav. The details of GPS Modern-
ization are described in Sections 3.1.2 through 3.1.5. Inter-
nationalization, however, is described below.
While GPS has always provided service to an interna-
tional set of users, GPS’s international interactions
expanded in the 21st century to include a leadership role
with other satnav system operators. Although GPS and
GLONASS had coexisted in the 1990s, there was little inter-
action between the two service providers. Not even spec-
trum coordination was needed since GLONASS and GPS
signals use distinct frequencies. As Europe’s development
of Galileo began after the turn of the century, however,
two realizations occurred in the United States:
•
It became clear that GPS and GLONASS would be joined
by other satnav systems, with their signals sharing the
limited frequency spectrum allocated by the Interna-
tional Telecommunications Union (ITU) for Radionavi-
gation Satellite Service (RNSS) use,
• It was obvious that receivers could benefit by using sig-
nals from multiple satnav systems.
These realizations led to a US decision to catalyze inter-
national efforts to coordinate compatibility and interopera-
bility among satnav systems. Negotiations between the
United States and European Community, which started
in 2002, led to an agreement on GPS–Galileo cooperation
[13]. The work during these negotiations introduced the
formal concepts of compatibility (multiple signals and sys-
tems can be used separately or together without unaccept-
ably degrading or otherwise affecting use of an individual
service or signal) and interoperability (receivers and appli-
cations can use multiple signals and multiple systems to
obtain better capability than could be obtained using only
one signal or system). Methods for assessing radio fre-
quency compatibility developed by GPS [14] were subse-
quently formalized for international use [15]. Spreading
modulations originally developed by GPS and subsequent
variants proved valuable in designing signals that are
compatible and interoperable, while offering superior
3.1 GPS History 67
performance. The design effort for the newest GPS signal,
L1C, included consultation with experts representing other
satnav systems leading to widespread adoption of similar
signal designs to enhance interoperability.
These contributions from GPS have formed the basis for
bilateral coordination and technical working groups
between GPS and other satnav systems, as well as between
other pairs of systems. In addition, the International Com-
mittee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG) [16],
founded in 2005, has provided a forum for multilateral dis-
cussions not only among satnav providers, but also with
users across the world.
Internationalization also continued to affect US policy. In
2004, President Bush updated relevant US policy [17]. Even
the title is notable, referring to PNT rather than GPS in the
earlier policy. This new policy recognized foreign satnav
systems and the need for compatibility and interoperability,
extensively addressing interactions and relationships with
foreign systems. The policy also replaced the IGEB with a
National Executive Committee for Space-Based Position-
ing, Navigation, and Timing, defining higher level co-chairs
than IGEB leadership.
President Obama’s 2010 National Space Policy [18] took
further steps toward internationalization, permitting the
use of foreign PNT services to augment and strengthen
use of GPS. The 2011 National Security Space Strategy
[19] went even further, seeking collaboration with partners
to augment US capabilities, sharing risk and cost.
3.1.2 GPS Signal Evolution
Although the details of GPS signals are summarized in
Section 3.7, this section summarizes their evolution, which
also has driven the evolution of satellites, ground segment,
and user equipment. The original GPS signals were the
Coarse/Acquisition (C/A) signal and Precision (P) signal
on Link 1 (L1) – a carrier frequency of 1575.42 MHz –
and the P-signal on Link 2 (L2) – a carrier frequency of
1227.60 MHz. The first Block II satellite, launched in
1989, introduced the ability to transmit the encrypted (Y)
version of the P-signal, known as the P(Y)-signal.
In 1998, the IGEB decided to add two new civil signals
[20]. The result was the L2 civil (L2C) signal at L2 and the
L5-signal at a carrier frequency of Link 5 (1176.45 MHz).
Even the earliest GPS satellites were specified to be able
to transmit either the P-signal or the C/A-signal on L2.
When the decision was made to transmit both a civil signal
and the P(Y)-signal on L2, the intent was merely to transmit
a duplicate of the L1 C/A-signal on L2, in addition to P(Y)-
signal. However, the C/A-signal’s design included several
undesirable compromises.
68 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System
Repetition of spreading codes within a data bit intro-
duced issues with radio frequency interference, and the
biphase transitions due to data message modulation disrupt
long coherent integration times in receiver processing,
making tracking of the signal more fragile. While these lim-
itations were recognized at the time of the design, they were
adopted in the C/A-signal design to simplify receiver pro-
cessing [21]. A third fundamental limitation of the C/A-
signal is the rigid structure of the data message, which does
not allow adaptation as needs change.
The GPS program office agreed to adopt a modified C/A-
signal design for the L2 civil signal, as long as the changes
had minimal impact on satellite cost and schedule. Thus,
the BPSK-R(1) spreading modulation was maintained,
but time division multiplexed pilot and data components
were introduced, with longer spreading codes. A flexible
data message design was also introduced. Unfortunately,
the aviation community eschewed the L2C-signal since it
was not in an ITU-protected Aeronautical Radio Naviga-
tion Service (ARNS) frequency band.
Subsequently, the L5-signal was designed, with primary
emphasis on its ability to meet the needs of civil aviation.
The history of its development is summarized in [22]; its
design includes a spreading modulation like that of P(Y)-
signal, pilot and data components in phase quadrature,
and a flexible data message turned to the needs of civil
aviation.
Almost in parallel, a new military signal was being
designed to overcome the projected inherent limitations
of the P(Y)-signal [23]. This signal, to be known as the
M-signal, or military signal, uses the BOC spreading mod-
ulation invented to concentrate the signal’s power at fre-
quencies away from those used by civil signals sharing
the same center frequency.
The fourth civil signal and eighth GPS signal, L1C,
resulted from political considerations. As the United States
and European Community negotiated concerning GPS and
Galileo in the 2002 through 2004 time frame, European
representatives encouraged the United States to adopt a
civil signal at 1575.42 MHz – the frequency that GPS calls
L1 and Galileo calls E1 – that would have common charac-
teristics with the corresponding Galileo signal. The United
States committed to this in the 2004 agreement [24], open-
ing the possibility for a modernized GPS civil signal in the
most commonly used frequency band. After the agreement,
European experts proposed changes to the commonly
adopted BOC(1,1) spreading modulation, but US experts
disapproved of these proposed changes. Finally, the United
States proposed an improved spreading modulation that
was mutually acceptable, and it was jointly refined and
adopted. The result is a common spectrum shape, although
the GPS and Galileo signals differ in the waveforms that are
used, and in many other aspects of their signal designs.
The received power of GPS signals continues to evolve. In
the early 2000s, the specified minimum received power of
C/A-signals and P(Y)-signals was increased by 1.5 dB to
accommodate increased interference as GPS shared spec-
trum with other satnav systems; this was a “paper” power
increase effected by reducing the excess atmospheric loss in
link budget calculations. Actual increases in minimum
received power have occurred for some signals with Block
IIF satellites, and will occur for L2C-, L2P(Y)-, L5-, and
both M-signals with GPS III satellites, compared to Block
II satellites.
Figure 3.1 depicts the evolution in GPS signals, accompa-
nied by the satellites that implement the changes. In this
graphic, the power spectral densities are all portrayed at
the same power, not reflecting the actual different received
power levels of the different signals.
3.1.3 GPS Space Segment Evolution
Institution of the GPS Program led to the launch of two
technology demonstration satellites, with the first atomic
clocks ever launched into space [26, 27]. The first Naviga-
tion Technology Satellite, denoted NTS-1, was a modified
TIMATION satellite. It was launched in 1974, and used
two rubidium-vapor frequency standards (clocks) to gener-
ate signals composed of a set of sequential side tones cen-
tered at 335 MHz and 1580 MHz. NTS-1 was fitted with
laser retroreflectors for precise orbit determination. The
NTS-1 orbital altitude, slightly less than 14,000 km, was sig-
nificantly lower than the eventual GPS orbital altitude,
leading to an orbital period of slightly less than 8 hours.
The NTS-2 satellite, launched in 1977 and portrayed in
Figure 3.2, introduced many technologies fundamental to
satnav [28]. Also known as the first GPS Phase 1 satellite,
it used cesium frequency standards for signal generation
and a nickel-hydrogen battery to provide power during
solar eclipses. Its three-axis gravity-gradient stabilization
employed momentum-wheel unloading. Like NTS-1, it
was fitted with laser retroreflectors for precise orbit deter-
mination. Besides side tone ranging, it could also transmit
a direct sequence spread spectrum signal. Experiments per-
formed using its signals verified Einstein’s relativistic clock
shift. Figure 3.2 shows NTS-1 and NTS-2, with their long
structures to perform gravity stabilization.
While numerous constellation architectures were consid-
ered, the selected GPS constellation placed satellites in six
planes evenly spaced around Earth, inclined at 55 . The
orbits are circular, with a medium Earth orbit (MEO) alti-
tude of approximately 20,200 km. This orbit design resulted
 3.1 GPS History 69

L5 1176.45 MHz L2 1227.60 MHz L1 1575.42 MHz

C/A
P(Y) P(Y)

L2C

M M

L5

L1C

JWBetz
1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610
Frequency (MHz)

Figure 3.1 Modernization of GPS signals [25]. Source: Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

Figure 3.2 NTS-1 [29] (Left) and NTS-2 [30] satellites. Images Courtesy of US Naval Research Laboratory. Source: (Left) Reproduced with
permission of Gunter Dirk Krebs. (Right) Reproduced with permission of Gunter Dirk Krebs.
70 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System
Figure 3.3 GPS Block I [32] (left; Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech) and Block II/IIA [33] (right) satellites. Source: (Left) Reproduced with
permission of NASA. (Right) Reproduced with permission of GPS.
in two orbits per sidereal day, and hence each satellite had a
repeating ground track every day. The specified minimum
number of satellites is 24, and 30 or 31 satellites have been
operational more recently.
A complete listing of GPS satellite launches is found at
[31]. Ten more Block I satellites were launched from
1978 through 1985, one of which was lost to launch failure
[32]. These satellites were used to validate the fundamental
concepts of GPS, leading to the decision to deploy a full
operational system. Block I satellites were three-axis stabi-
lized and nadir pointing using reaction wheels. Dual solar
arrays supplied over 400 W at end of life, and nickel-
cadmium batteries supplied power during eclipses. TT&C
used S-band Space-Ground Link Subsystem (SGLS) com-
munications, and UHF cross-links were implemented
between spacecraft. Like subsequent GPS satellites, a
hydrazine propulsion system was used for station-keeping.
Block I satellites transmitted the C/A-signals and P-signals.
In 1989, the launch of the first operational GPS satellites,
termed Block II, began. These launches had been delayed,
since the initial plan was to deploy the GPS satellites using
the space shuttle, but the 1986 Challenger disaster caused a
change of plans, leading to the use of Delta II rockets. Nine
Block II satellites were launched in 20 months. Block IIA
(“Advanced”) satellites, first launched in 1990, were
updated with the capability to operate for 180 days without
contact from the control segment. (Block II satellites could
only operate for 3.5 days.) Both types of satellites broadcast
C/A-signals and P(Y)-signals, using solar panels that pro-
duced 700 W at end of life. With 19 Block IIA satellites
launched, the Block II and IIA satellites became the
mainstay of the GPS constellation for many years, lasting
far beyond their 7.5 year design life. Two of the Block
IIA satellites were equipped with laser retroreflectors.
A Block I and a Block II or IIA satellite are shown in
Figure 3.3.
The first operational Block IIR (“Replenishment”) satel-
lite was launched in 1997 after the first IIR satellite was lost
to a launch failure earlier that year. Block IIR satellites were
functionally like IIA satellites, except that the IIR satellites
were equipped with Autonav capability to maintain full
system accuracy for at least 180 days [34]. Block IIR solar
panels produced 1136 W of power at end of life.
As discussed in Section 3.1.2, modernized GPS signals
were being designed while Block IIR satellites were being
constructed and launched. A decision was made to modify
the final 8 of the planned 20 satellites, adding M-signals on
L1 and L2, as well as the L2C-signal. Adding the L5-signal
at a new carrier frequency was deemed too great a modifi-
cation. These Block IIR-M (“Modernized Replacement”)
satellites were launched starting in 2005. When the second
to the last Block IIR-M satellite was being completed, it
became clear that the Block IIF (“Followon”) satellites,
which were also to transmit the L5-signal, would not be
ready for launch in time to satisfy the ITU requirement
for bringing into use the GPS frequency filing for the L5-sig-
nal. If GPS were to miss this deadline, it would lose priority
in spectrum coordination relative to other satnav systems
that had subsequently filed for that frequency. Conse-
quently, it was decided to add a “test transmitter” to this
Block IIR-M satellite to bring the L5 filing into use. Unfor-
tunately, this modification was not properly implemented

and tested, and after the satellite was launched it was found
that there was a reflection within the satellite’s RF signal
chain, causing a multipath-like distortion of the broadcast
signals [35]. Consequently, while it succeeded in satisfying
the ITU criterion for bringing the L5-signal into use, this
satellite has never been made operational. Thus, there
are only seven operational Block IIR-M satellites. Block
IIR and Block IIR-M satellites are shown in Figure 3.4.
Block IIF (“Followon”) satellites were designed to be the
first to transmit an operational L5-signal. Block IIF solar
panels provide 2440 W at end of life. At one time, modifi-
cation of later Block IIF satellites to transmit higher-power
regional M signals (known as a spot beam) was considered,
but this modification was not pursued because of technical,
schedule, and cost concerns with the basic satellites. The
design life of Block IIF satellites was extended from the
7.5 years in earlier blocks to 12 years. Meanwhile, some
IIA and IIR satellites had been operating for more than
20 years.
The GPS Block III program was intended to provide
32 satellites in three different sub-blocks, each providing
increasing capabilities. The first eight Block IIIA satellites
would develop the basic design using a satellite bus archi-
tected to enable capability growth. It would provide the
Earth coverage M signals at higher power than provided
by the Block II satellites, and broadcast the L1C-signal.
Block IIIB and IIIC satellites would provide an M-signal
spot beam, modern cross-links, and other more advanced
Figure 3.4 GPS Block IIR [33] (left) and Block IIR-M [33] satellites. Source: Reproduced with permission of GPS.
3.1 GPS History 71
capabilities. Technical, schedule, and cost problems pla-
gued the GPS Block III program, however, causing a change
in plans. As of 2017, it appears that the first 10 GPS Block III
satellites will all have similar capabilities. The Air Force
re-competed the contract for the final 22 Block III satellites.
The additional capabilities to be provided, and at what
point in the procurement of these 22 satellites they will
be added, have not yet been determined. Early Block III
satellites have a design life of 15 years, and their solar
panels produce 4480 W at end of life [36]. Block IIF and
Block III satellites are shown in Figure 3.5. Block IIIF (“Fol-
low-on”) satellites will be introduced after the first ten
Block III satellites, offering additional benefits including
provision of a regional high power M-signal.
Table 3.1 summarizes characteristics of these satellites,
showing an increase in capability with commensurate
increases in mass.
3.1.4 GPS Ground Segment Evolution
NTS-1 and NTS-2 employed ground segments customized
for these experimental satellites. Six tracking stations, dis-
persed across Earth, were used for NTS-1, while four track-
ing stations were used for NTS-2, providing almost
continuous tracking coverage. Control operations were
manually intensive.
The first generation GPS ground segment supporting
Block I operations was known as the Initial Control
72 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System

Figure 3.5 GPS Block IIF [33] (left) and Early Block III [33] satellites. Source: Reproduced with permission of GPS.

Table 3.1 Summary of GPS Satellite blocks

Satellite First Dry Number of navigation signals

designation launched Total number mass (kg) transmitted

NTS-1 1974 1 293 2

NTS-2 1977 1 431 2
Block I 1978 11 (one lost to launch failure) 450 3
Block II 1989 9 833 3
Block IIA 1990 19 989 3
Block IIR 1997 13 (one lost to launch failure) 1080 3
Block IIR-M 2005 8 (one not operational due to signal 1080 6
distortion)
Block IIF 2012 12 1705 7
Block III 2018 10 2268 8

Segment (ICS). The ICS, consisting of a control station,
ground antenna, and monitor station, was installed at Van-
denberg AFB, California, in the late 1970s. Other monitor
stations were located at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska; Andersen
AFB, Guam; and the Naval Communication Station,
Hawaii [37].
Development of the Operational Control System (OCS)
began in 1980. The OCS began operations at Vandenberg
AFB in 1985. In 1988, command and control of the satellites
was transitioned to the 2nd Satellite Control Squadron
(2SCS) located at Falcon Air Force Station (renamed
Schriever Air Force Base in 1998) in Colorado Springs, Col-
orado [38]. By the early 1990s, system testing had been com-
pleted, demonstrating interoperability between the ground
segment and the satellites, and operations commenced
using an architecture based on an IBM mainframe com-
puter. Five monitor stations were employed in Hawaii, Col-
orado Springs, Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, and
Kwajalein, communicating with the Master Control Station
(MCS) at Falcon Air Force Station.
Ground antennas for TT&C of the satellites were located
at most of the monitor stations, as well as at Cape Canav-
eral, Florida. The ground antennas uplinked data to the
satellites via SGLS. This data includes ephemerides and
clock correction information transmitted within the navi-
gation message, as well as command telemetry from the
MCS. While data could be uplinked to each satellite three
times per day, it was usually updated just once a day.

Modernization of the GPS ground segment began with
the Legacy Accuracy Improvement Initiative (L-AII).
New monitor stations, operated by the National Geospatial
Agency, were incorporated into the GPS ground segment.
These additional monitor stations provided greater visibil-
ity of the constellation, and hence greater accuracy: Cape
Canaveral was incorporated in 2001, and in 2005 six new
stations were added at Adelaide (Australia), Buenos Aires,
Hermitage (United Kingdom), Manama (Bahrain), Quito
(Ecuador), and Washington, DC. In 2006, five more stations
were added at Fairbanks (United States), Osan (South
Korea), Papeete (Tahiti), Pretoria, and Wellington (New
Zealand). L-AII was completed in 2008, yielding a 10% to
15% improvement in the accuracy of clock and ephemeris
information provided by the broadcast GPS signals. At
any time, each satellite could be monitored by at least three
monitor stations.
In conjunction with L-AII, the Air Force implemented
the Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP). AEP replaced the
IBM-mainframe-based architecture in the MCS with the
then-modern distributed architecture of Sun workstations.
AEP improved the flexibility and responsiveness of GPS
operations, and paved the way for operation of Block IIF
satellites. AEP also introduced an alternate MCS
(AMCS), a fully operational backup for the MCS located
at Vandenberg AFB, CA. The final version of AEP was
declared fully operational in 2011. The current GPS MCS
can command and control an operational constellation of
up to 32 satellites.
In 2007, 2SOPS fielded the Launch, Anomaly Resolution,
and Disposal Operations (LADO) system to control GPS
satellites outside the operational constellation: newly
launched satellites undergoing checkout, satellites taken
out of service for anomaly resolution, residual satellites
stored in orbit, and satellites requiring end-of-life disposal.
The LADO system serves three primary functions. The
first is telemetry, tracking, and control. The second is the
planning and execution of satellite movements during
LADO. The third function is LADO simulation of different
telemetry tasks for GPS payloads and subsystems. The
LADO system uses only the Air Force Satellite Control Net-
work (AFSCN) remote tracking stations, not the dedicated
GPS ground antennas.
The LADO system has been upgraded several times since
2007. In October 2010, the Air Force operationally accepted
a new version adding GPS Block IIF capability, following
testing during the launch of the first GPS IIF satellite.
In 2010, the Air Force awarded a contract to Raytheon for
development of the Next Generation Operational Control
System, called OCX. OCX would involve new hardware
and software architectures, enhanced cybersecurity, and
the ability to fully control the modernized signals: M,
3.1 GPS History 73
L1C, L2C, and L5. It would also perform launch, checkout,
and control for GPS III satellites, and replace AEP for oper-
ating the remaining Block II satellites. Eventually, it would
also perform monitoring of civil signals, while controlling
more than 32 satellites.
In 2016, after years of delays and cost overruns in the
OCX program, the Air Force declared a Nunn-McCurdy
breach, indicating that costs would increase by more than
25% over the original plan. Later that year, the Office of the
Secretary of Defense certified that continuing the OCX pro-
gram was essential and preferred over alternatives. OCX
capabilities will now be delivered in stages after 2020.
3.1.5 GPS User Equipment Evolution
The first user equipment was test equipment developed to
support the development, testing, and demonstration of
GPS. Once the decision was made to develop a full opera-
tional system, receivers were also needed. The “X set”
was an advanced development model that could receive
four C/A-signals or P-signals simultaneously. A less com-
plicated development receiver, called the “Y set,” tracked
only one C/A-signal or P-signal at a time, sequentially mak-
ing measurements on four signals to obtain a position solu-
tion. The “Z set” was an even simpler version of the Y set,
performing sequential processing only of C/A-signals, but
developed as a backpack prototype for operational military
capability. Section 3.1.5.1 describes the evolution of mili-
tary user equipment, and Section 3.1.5.2 summarizes civil-
ian user equipment developments
3.1.5.1 Military GPS User Equipment
During the 1980s, development of initial-generation mili-
tary receivers proceeded, leading to production of multiple
types of military receivers in the early 1990s [39]. Airborne
and shipborne receivers processed five channels in parallel,
while receivers for ground vehicles and manpack were one-
and two-channel receivers that employed sequential pro-
cessing, where one or two channels were tracked at a time.
A two-channel receiver, known as the Small Lightweight
GPS Receiver (SLGR), processed only the C/A-signal and
was used extensively in Operation Desert Storm [39].
Example early military receivers are shown in Figure 3.6.
DARPA-sponsored developments led to the Miniature
GPS Receiver (MGR) and later, the Precision Lightweight
GPS Receiver (PLGR), a handheld receiver that was touted
for weighing less than 4 kg. Each took advantage of rapidly
advancing microelectronics technology to provide greater
capability and lower power consumption in a smaller pack-
age. Adaptive anti-jam antenna systems were also intro-
duced in the 1990s, using multi-element antenna arrays
known as controlled reception pattern antennas (CRPAs)
74 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System
Figure 3.6 Early military receivers: Manpack Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver circa 1980 [40] (left), RCVR-3A Airborne GPS
receiver circa 1988 [40] (right). Images © Rockwell Collins, used with permission. Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of
Navigation.
and antenna electronics that formed spatial nulls in the
direction of jammers.
More recent military receivers provided similar function-
ality with reduced size, weight, and power. The Defense
Advanced GPR Receiver (DAGR), introduced in 2004,
weighs less than half of the PLGR, while the Miniature Air-
borne GPS Receiver (MAGR) weighs one-third of the
RCVR-3A [41]. They are portrayed in Figure 3.7. Distinc-
tively, the helical antenna of the PLGR is replaced by
embedded patch antennas in the DAGR.
Development of next-generation military receivers,
known as Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE), has pro-
ceeded since the mid-2000s. These receivers are known as
YMC/A receivers for their ability to receive P(Y)-, M-, and
C/A-signals. After delays and cost overruns, MGUE full
production is currently planned for sometime after 2020.
3.1.5.2 Civilian GPS Receivers
Civil receivers rapidly caught up with military receivers,
before surpassing them in many ways such as lower cost,
size, weight‚ and power (CSWaP); sensitivity; and user inter-
face. The first commercially available receiver used analog
electronics to perform dual-frequency sequential processing
of C/A-signals and P(Y)-signals [44]. A codeless receiver, the
Macrometer [45], was also developed, exploiting the cyclos-
tationarity of GPS signals [25] to produce sinusoidal
waveforms that could be tracked for relative positioning
without use of the spreading codes.
The Texas Instruments TI 4100 NAVSTAR Navigator
was the first widely used commercial GPS receiver. Sold
from 1981 to 1989, it was distinctive for its use of digital
circuitry, processing C/A-signals and P-signals on L1
and L2 from four satellites. A geodetic version was also
available that provided higher-accuracy differential posi-
tioning. These receivers were used for surveying even
when four Block I satellites were in view only for several
hours a day. The Macrometer and TI-4100 were primarily
used for professional applications such as geodesy and sur-
veying, pioneering the concepts of single- and double-
difference measurements that are widely used in precision
satnav applications today.
The first handheld GPS receiver was marketed in 1989,
using sequential processing of C/A-signals from different
satellites. Consumer receivers became more common in
the 1990s, with the first GPS receiver in a mobile phone
introduced in 1999 [46]. Figure 3.8 shows some of these pio-
neering civil GPS receivers.
Professional civil receivers also matured during the
1990s, with more receiver channels, “semicodeless” proces-
sing of the encrypted P(Y)-signal for dual-frequency iono-
spheric measurements, use of carrier phase differential
processing for decimeter accuracy, and the addition of
GLONASS signals for geometric diversity. Use of GPS for
civil aviation also increased during the 1990s, becoming
increasingly popular in the United States as WAAS became
operational in 2003.
 3.2 GPS Management Structure 75

Figure 3.7 Followon military receivers: PLGR and DAGR [42] (left), and MAGR [43] (right). Images © Rockwell Collins, used with
permission. Source: (Left) Reproduced with permission of Defense Industry Daily. (Right) Reproduced with permission of
GlobalSecurity.org.

Figure 3.8 TI-4100 [40] (left; image courtesy of Mr. Phil Ward); Magellan NAV 1000, the first handheld receiver [47] (Navigation, Division
of Work & Industry, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution); Benefon!, the first commercially available mobile
phone with GPS [46] (right). Source: (Left) Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation. (Center) Reproduced with permission of
Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

As described in Chapter 1, Section 1.1, the FCC’s E911
mandate in 1994 stimulated low-power, low-cost GPS chip-
sets that revolutionized GPS in consumer devices, facili-
tated by assisted-GPS techniques. Billions of GPS
receivers are now in use worldwide, with new chipsets
increasingly capable of also receiving signals from SBAS,
GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS.
Modern civil receivers employ a front-end integrated cir-
cuit that inputs RF signals from the antenna and outputs
digitized samples at low IF or baseband, followed by a dig-
ital integrated circuit that products PVT measurements.
The newest receivers employ tens or even hundreds of
channels to process signals from GPS as well as other satnav
systems at one, two, or three different carrier frequencies.
Their low CSWaP makes them suitable for embedding in
many devices.
3.2 GPS Management Structure
The current GPS management structure, shown in
Figure 3.9, reflects the extensive applications and dual-
use nature of GPS. Decisions regarding GPS and GPS
augmentations are made by the National Executive
76 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System

WHITE HOUSE
Defense

Transportation
NATIONAL
State EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
ADVISORY
FOR SPACE-BASED PNT
BOARD
Interior
Executive Steering Group Sponsor: NASA
Agriculture
Co-Chairs: Defence, Transportation
Commerce

Homeland Security NATIONAL

COORDINATION OFFICE
Joint Chiefs of Staff
Host: Commerce
NASA

GPS International
Engineering Forum Ad Hoc
Working Group
Co-Chairs: Defense, Working Groups
Chair: State Transportation

Figure 3.9 GPS management structure. Source: From [48].

Committee for Space-Based PNT, commonly referred to as development opportunities related to GPS and augmenta-
the National PNT EXCOM. Co-chaired by the Deputy Sec- tion systems.
retary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Transportation, Not only does this management structure reflect the
National PNT EXCOM members include senior represen- diversity of GPS use within the United States but it also
tatives from the departments, agencies, and organizations explicitly accounts for the widespread international use
shown on the left side of Figure 3.9. The National PNT of GPS in three complementary ways:
EXCOM is supported by the National Space-Based PNT
Advisory Board (NSBPNTAB), a Federal Advisory Com-
mittee comprised of experts from outside the US govern-
• As a member of the National PNT EXCOM, the State
Department actively solicits and then represents interna-
tional perspectives.
ment. Currently, there are 25 members representing US
industry, academia, and international organizations.
The National Coordination Office (NCO) is the permanent
• Membership of the NSBPNTAB includes international
representatives who participate in deliberations of this
advisory board, ensuring that international perspectives
staff of the National PNT EXCOM, collecting GPS-related
are included in this board’s advice to the National
information from multiple federal agencies to support the
PNT EXCOM.
operations of the National Executive Committee. The
NCO performs interagency coordination, consensus
development, and issue resolution. It also maintains the
• The GPS International Working Group discusses and
addresses international activities and policies involving
GPS, reflecting the perspectives of many different depart-
Five-Year National Plan for Space-Based PNT and assesses
ments that have various international dealings concern-
its implementation by the member agencies. The office
ing GPS including the ICG, multilateral spectrum issues
organizes meetings of the National Executive Committee
associated with the ITU, bilateral interactions with other
and its Executive Steering Group. The office tracks the
satnav systems including spectrum coordination and
implementation of tasks and working groups established
technical working groups, and international military
by those bodies. Technical support is provided by the
interactions with NATO and other partners.
National PNT Engineering Forum (NPEF), co-chaired
by representatives from the DoD and the DOT. The NPEF Thus, this management structure accounts for GPS inter-
provides a US-government-wide forum for analysis and ests not only across the US government, but also interna-
discussion of systems engineering issues and technology tionally as well.

3.3 GPS Geodetic and Time Reference
Systems
The positioning and timing accuracy provided by GPS moti-
vates precise reference systems for geodesy and time, mov-
ing these often-arcane topics from specialized fields to
widespread adoption. Section 3.3.1 described the geodetic
reference system used by GPS, while Section 3.3.2 addresses
the time reference system.
3.3.1 GPS Geodetic Reference System
The geodetic reference system used by GPS is called the
World Geodetic System (WGS) 84 [49, 50], and updated
per [51]. WGS 84 defines the surface of Earth as an ellip-
soid, or oblate spheroid, with coordinate origin located at
Earth’s center of mass. The nominal sea level surface at
any location is then defined by deviations from this ellip-
soid expressed as a spherical harmonics expansion.
WGS 84 closely corresponds to the International Terres-
trial Reference System (ITRS) maintained by the IERS [52],
and realized by the International Terrestrial Reference
Frame (ITRF). WGS 84 and the ITRS are consistent at
the 1 m level [53].
3.3.2 GPS Time Reference System
GPS time is provided by the US Naval Observatory
(USNO) [54]. The GPS epoch is midnight UT on 6 January
1980. It is not adjusted for leap seconds, and therefore dif-
fers from UTC by an integer number of seconds – 18 s as of
April 2017. GPS time resets to zero, or “rolls over,” every
1024 weeks after the GPS epoch in the legacy GPS signals
(C/A- and P(Y)-signals), and after 8192 weeks in the mod-
ernized GPS signals (L1C-, L2C-, L5-, and M-signals).
GPS system time is maintained by a “paper,” or com-
posite, clock, comprising frequency standards on all satel-
lites and monitor stations. System time is referenced to
the Master Clock maintained by USNO and steered to
UTC(USNO), and will not deviate by more than one μs
from UTC(USNO). The GPS data messages provide a con-
version from GPS system time to UTC(USNO); this con-
version consists of correcting for leap seconds in
UTC(USNO) as well as adjusting for small time
differences and rates of change between system time
and UTC. The conversion between GPS time and
UTC(USNO) is known at the UTC Offset Error, and is typ-
ically less than 10 ns RMS for the entire GPS constellation
over any given day.
3.4 GPS Services 77
Since other satnav systems employ their own system
times, GPS plans to broadcast the offset between GPS sys-
tem time and the system time for selected other satnav sys-
tems in the data messages for modernized GPS signals,
enabling receivers to compute blended PVT solutions
using measurements from single satellites from different
systems. Extensive work has been provided on the GPS-
Galileo time offset (GGTO), as described in [55].
3.4 GPS Services
GPS provides two services, the Standard Positioning Service
(SPS) and the Precise Positioning Service (PPS). The SPS
refers to the civilian, or open, GPS service, while PPS
describes the GPS service for authorized (typically military)
users. Both services are more than positioning services, also
providing time transfer and velocity. PPS may have been
called “precise” based on authorized receivers’ ability to
remove accuracy degradations from SA, employ dual-
frequency signals for ionosphere-free ranging, and use signals
with wider bandwidth spreading modulations. However,
none of these distinctions exist today, making the names of
these services anachronisms.
GPS Performance Standards (PSs) define the perfor-
mance of the broadcast signals in terms of accuracy, integ-
rity, continuity, and time accuracy. Received signal
performance is not specified; propagation effects (including
ionospheric delay model errors), user equipment effects,
and operator errors are not included. These PSs include
many different specifications.
The SPS PS [56] defines the performance that the US gov-
ernment commits to the SPS user community, and provides
a basis for certification of aviation receivers. The current
SPS PS applies only to the service provided by the GPS
C/A-signal.
The PPS PS [57] defines the performance that the US gov-
ernment commits to the PPS user community. The current
PPS PS applies only to the service provided by the GPS P(Y)-
signal. Some PPS receivers read and apply the Wide Area
GPS Enhancement (WAGE) NAV Message Corrections
Table (NMCT) data in the NAV message‚ while others
do not.
Some of the most fundamental specifications in the SPS
PS and PPS PS, which apply during normal operations (as
opposed to the rare extended operations that occur when
satellites are not uploaded regularly), are summarized in
Table 3.2. The PPS PS values in the table apply to dual-
frequency P(Y)-signal receivers.
78 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System

Table 3.2 Fundamental GPS performance specifications, under normal operations

Characteristic Technical specification SPS value PPS value

Availability Global Average PDOP over Any 24 Hour Interval ≤60 (98%) ≤60 (98%)
Worst Site PDOP over Any 24 Hour Interval ≤60 (88%) ≤60 (88%)
Accuracy SISRE Global Average at Any Age of Data 12.8 m (95%) 12.8 m (95%) without WAGE
4.4 m (95%) with WAGE
Integrity Probability of the SIS Instantaneous URE or UTCOE Exceeding 10−5 None
Reported Tolerance without Timely Alert
Time to Alert Alarm or Warning when Signal Should Not Be Used 10 s 10 s
Continuity Probability over Any Hour of Not Losing Signal Availability 0.9998 0.9998
from a Defined Constellation Slot
Time Accuracy UTC Offset Error Global Average at Any AOD 40 ns (95%) 40 s (95%)

3.5 GPS Constellation Configuration Table 3.3 Summary of nominal GPS baseline constellation

Total number of operational 24, but typically 30 or

The baseline GPS constellation consists of 24 slots in six satellites 31 over the past 15 years
orbital planes with four satellites per plane. Table 3.3 Orbital altitude (km) 26,559.7
describes the baseline constellation using the same charac-
Orbital radius (km) 20,188.7
teristics defined in Table 2.1 in Chapter 2.
Orbit eccentricity 0
Orbital period: hour/minute/ 11/58/2 (1/2)
second(sidereal days)
3.6 GPS Ground Segment Time between ground track 1
Configuration repeats (sidereal days)
Walker constellation description N/A
The GPS ground segment consists of an MCS at Schriever Number of orbital planes 6
AFB, Colorado, and an alternate MCS (AMCS) at Vanden- Number of satellites per plane 4 to 6
berg AFB, California, along with 15 monitor stations and Separation of right ascending 60
11 command and control ground antennas around the nodes ( )
world. Six of the monitor stations are operated by the US Inclination ( ) 55
Air Force, while nine others are operated by the National Satellite speed (km/s) in ECI 3.9
Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Four of the command coordinates
and control ground antennas are known as ground anten- Maximum satellite speed (km/s) 3.2
nas, and are dedicated to GPS use. Eleven other command in ECEF coordinates
and control ground antennas are part of the AFSCN, and
are also used for other Air Force space systems.
Figure 3.10 shows the geographical locations of elements
characteristics and the mapping of signals to GPS services.
of the GPS ground segment.
Section 3.7.3 summarizes the characteristics of the data
messages employed for each signal. Section 3.7.4 sum-
marizes the ionospheric model provided in GPS signals.
3.7 GPS Signal Configuration
3.7.1 GPS Spectrum Plan
Modernized GPS provides eight signals, four reserved for
authorized military use on two carrier frequencies, and four Figure 3.11 shows the three frequency bands occupied by
more civil, or open, signals on three carrier frequencies. Sig- GPS navigation signals. They all fall within the RNSS bands
nals available for civil use are described in Interface Stan- allocated by the ITU. Chapter 3 of [25] also describes con-
dards IS-GPS-200, IS-GPS-705, and IS-GPS-800 found at siderations involved in the choice of these frequencies,
[59]. Section 3.7.1 provides an overview of the GPS fre- bandwidths, and other signal characteristics. Table 3.4
quency plan, while Section 3.7.2 summarizes GPS signal summarizes these frequency bands.
 3.7 GPS Signal Configuration 79

GPS Control Segment

Greenland

Alaska

Schriever AFB
Colorado United Kingdom
New Hampshire South Korea
Vandenberg AFB
USNO Washington
California
Cape Canaveral
Florida Bahrain
Hawaii

Guam
Ecuador Kwajalein

Ascension Diego Garcia

South Africa Australia New

Zealand
Master Control Station Alternate Master Control Station
Ground Antenna AFSCN Remote Tracking Station

Air Force Monitor Station NGA Monitor Station

Figure 3.10 Geographical locations of GPS ground segment elements [58]. Source: Reproduced with permission of GPS.

RNSS RNSS

L5 L2 L1

1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610
Frequency (MHz)

Figure 3.11 Frequency plan for GPS navigation signals [25]. Source: Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

Table 3.4 GPS frequency band characteristics

Frequency band name Center frequency (MHz) Two-sided bandwidth (MHz) GPS signals in band

L1 1575.42 30.69 C/A, L1P(Y), L1M, L1C

L2 1227.60 30.69 L2P(Y), L2M, L2C
L5 1176.45 24.0 L5

numerous references including [25, 60]. Consequently, these

3.7.2 Signal Descriptions
GPS signals, their characteristics, and their processing are
extensively described in GPS Interface Specifications, com-
plemented by detailed descriptions and discussion in
detailed descriptions are not repeated here. Table 3.5
provides a summary of the characteristics of different GPS
signals, using the same characteristics introduced in
Table 2.2 in Chapter 2.
Table 3.5 Summary of GPS signal characteristics

Signal name C/A P(Y) M L1C L2C L5

Signal summary

GPS service SPS PPS PPS SPS SPS SPS

Interface specification or interface IS-GPS-200 IS-GPS-200 N/A IS-GPS-800 IS-GPS-200 IS-GPS-200
control document
Satellites broadcasting signal All All IIR-M and After GPS III and After IIR-M and After IIF and After

Signal

Carrier Frequency (MHz) 1575.42 1575.42 1575.42 1575.42 1227.60 1176.45

1227.60 1227.60
Transmit bandwidth, two-sided (MHz) 30.69 30.69 30.69 30.69 30.69 24.0
Data and pilot combining N/A N/A Time division Code division Time division Phase division
Correlation loss (dB) 0.3a/ 0.6† 0.6 N/A 0.2 0.3a/0.6† 0.6
Specified minimum received total power in −158.5 −161.5b N/A −157.0 −160.0a/−158.5b −154.9a/ −154.0b
all components (dBW)

Data component

Spreading modulation BPSK-R(1) BPSK-R(10) BOC(10,5) BOC(1,1) BPSK-R(1) BPSK-R(10)

Spreading code chip rate (Mcps) 1.023 10.23 2.5575 1.023 0.5115 10.23
Spreading code symbol duration (μs) 0.9775 0.09775 0.1955 0.9775 0.9775 0.09775
Spreading code type Gold Restricted Restricted Weil-based L2CM: Short-cycled L5
m- sequencec
Spreading code duration (ms) 1 N/A N/A 10 20 1
Spreading code length (bits) 1023 N/A N/A 10230 10230 10230
Overlay code bit rate (bps) None None None 100 None 1000
Overlay code duration (s) None None None None None 0.01
Overlay code length (bits) None None None None None 10
Table 3.5 (Continued)

Signal name C/A P(Y) M L1C L2C L5

Data message bit rate (bps) 50 50 0/25/100 50 25 50

Data message symbol rate (sps) 50 50 0/50/200 100 50 100
Data fraction of power % 100 100 50 25 50 50

Pilot component None None

Spreading modulation BOC(10,5) TMBOC(6,1, 4/33) BPSK-R(1) BPSK-R(10)

Spreading code chip rate (Mcps) 2.5575 1.023 0.5115 10.23
Spreading code symbol duration (μs) 0.1955 0.9775 0.9775 0.09775
Spreading code type Restricted Weil-based L2CL: Short-cycled m- L5
sequencec
Spreading code duration (ms) N/A 10 1500 1
Spreading code length (bits) N/A 10230 767250 10230
Overlay code bit rate (bps) None 100 None 1000
Overlay code length (bits) None 1800 None 20
Overlay code duration (s) None 18 None 0.02
Pilot fraction of power % 0 0 50 75 50 50

Notes:
a
GPS III satellites.
b
Satellites preceding GPS III.
c
Maximal-length sequence.
82 3 The Navstar Global Positioning System

3.7.3 GPS Data Message Summary elevation angle from the receiver. The complexity of this
model was selected to remove 50% of the ionospheric error
Table 3.6 summarizes each signal’s data message character-
in typical situations. The GPS control segment uploads new
istics, using the same characteristics introduced in Table 2.3
ionosphere parameters at least every six days.
in Chapter 2. The characteristics of the M-signal’s data mes-
sage, denoted MNAV, are not in the public domain and
hence are not described here.
3.9 Other GPS Payloads

3.8 GPS Ionosphere Model
GPS’s model for ionospheric delay is documented in [61]. It
uses a single set of parameters all of Earth. The model
accounts for diurnal variation in electron density, as well
as the geomagnetic latitude of each “pierce point” – the pro-
jection onto Earth’s surface where a broadcast signal is esti-
mated to penetrate a shell that provides an idealized model
of the ionosphere’s layers. The Klobuchar model employs a
shell with an altitude of 350 km. The total electron count
(TEC) along the path between satellite and receiver is com-
puted using a slant factor that varies with the satellite
From the beginning, it was determined that GPS satellites
would carry nuclear detonation (NUDET) sensors (NDS) as
a secondary payload. NDS is intended to detect nuclear
weapon explosions [62]. The first GPS satellite to carry
an NDS payload was the sixth Block 1 satellite, launched
in 1980 [34]. All subsequent GPS satellites carry an NDS
payload, and GPS III satellites will host an updated design
[63].
After GPS III satellite 10, and perhaps as early as satellite
11, subsequent GPS satellites will also carry a Search and Res-
cue (SAR) payload [63–65]. This payload will receive UHF
signals from user terminals, and provide near-instantaneous

Table 3.6 Characteristics of GPS signal data messages

Signal name C/A P(Y) L1C L2C L5

Data message name LNAV LNAV CNAV-2 CNAV L5 CNAV

Message structure (fixed/flexible) Fixed Fixed Flexible Flexible Flexible
Message length (bits) 1500 1500 900 300 300
Message duration (s) 30 30 18 6 6
Forward error correction None None BCHa (51,8) for time of day, ½-rate, ½-rate,
½-rate LDPCb for other data constraint constraint
length 7 length 7
Error detection (32,26) (32,26) 24 bit CRC 24 bit CRC 24 bit CRC
Hamming Hamming
Code Code
Repetition of clock corrections and 30 30 18 48 24
ephemeris (s)
Maximum broadcast interval for 750 750 Not Specified 288 144
ionospheric model (minutes)
Maximum broadcast interval for 750 750 Not Specified 288 144
UTC conversion
Maximum broadcast interval for time None None Not Specified 288 144
offset to other satnav system times
Time rollover (weeks) 1024 1024 8192 8192 8192
Leap seconds included (yes/no) No No No No No
Clock correction and ephemeris 240 240 180 180 180
validity interval (min)
Typical message upload rate 2 2 2 2 2
(uploads/day)
Notes:
a
Bose, Chaudhuri, and Hocquenghem.
b
Low density parity check.

relay of the signals to ground stations that contact emergency
services to provide assistance. The SAR payloads on GPS
will be compatible with others on Galileo and GLONASS
satellites.
Future GPS III satellites will also host a laser reflector
array that can be interrogated by low-power lasers at
ground stations, enabling highly accurate measurements
of satellite locations. These measurements will allow the
GPS ground segment to better isolate ephemeris errors
from clock errors, yielding satellite orbit determination
with better than 1 cm accuracy [63].
3.10 Summary
As the first and still most widely used satnav system using
passive trilateration, GPS has a long history of developing
and fielding new technologies in satellites, signals, ground
segment, and receivers. The internationalization of satnav
started with worldwide use of GPS, resulting in billions of
GPS receivers in use worldwide. The resulting accurate
position and time – virtually anytime and anywhere – have
changed technologies, economies, and even societies.
Modernization of GPS is providing new levels of perfor-
mance that provide even greater benefits. New satellites,
new signals, and an updated ground segment are being fielded.
As other satnav systems are becoming operational, it is
increasingly common for user equipment to blend mea-
surements from the other systems with those from GPS.
Collaboration among those systems has led to compatibility
and interoperability that benefit users worldwide.
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 87

GLONASS
Sergey Karutin, Nikolai Testoedov, Andrei Tyulin, and Alexei Bolkunov
PNT Center, Russia

4.1 GLONASS Overview operational capability was declared. GLONASS provides

continuous global navigation of all user types with different
4.1.1 Timeline levels of performance requirements by using standard and
high-accuracy signals with the availability of 95% for
Development of the GLONASS navigation satellite system
18 satellites and 99.7% for 24 satellites in a constellation.
(GLObal NAvigation Satellite System) of the Russian Feder-
Dissolution of the Soviet Union and reduction in funding
ation has more than a fifty-year history. It began with the
for the space industry in 1990 led to degradation of the
launch of the first artificial Earth satellite on 4 October 1957.
GLONASS orbital constellation (OC) and system perfor-
The full-scale development of the Russian navigation sat-
mance. In order to preserve and revive the system, in
ellite system started in the mid-1960s, and in 1967 the first
2000–2001 the President and the Government of the Rus-
Russian navigation satellite, Kosmos-192, was launched. In
sian Federation approved the dedicated program funding
1979, the Cicada navigation system consisting of four satel-
for the GLONASS project [3].
lites was introduced into service [1]. Navigation solutions in
Within the dedicated program funding‚ the following
the Cicada system were based on Doppler radio-frequency
actions were covered: R&D, ground testing and in-orbit val-
shift measurements and therefore were not instantaneous
idation of prospective space vehicles (SVs); modernization
(there was a 5-6 delay with approximately 97 km accuracy).
of the ground control complex; deployment of the OC suffi-
Since the beginning of the 1970s, research was undertaken
cient for provision of services to domestic and international
to find a more general navigation method that would provide
users; launch of GLONASS and its augmentations [4–9];
an instantaneous position fix and velocity determination of
user equipment production; introduction of high-precision
any moving object. Such a unique and universal method
differential navigation capabilities in airports, sea and river
turned out to be a passive temporal (or passive RF trilatera-
ports, urban transport systems in large cities, transport
tion) method based on measurements of distances between a
terminals and motor roads in Russia, as well as in all transport
navigation receiver and a group of satellites emitting simul-
facilities dealing with trans-border traffic; creation of a prin-
taneously the control time tag. A number of theoretical,
cipally new national system of geodetic support in compli-
experimental, and developmental efforts resulted in the con-
ance with the international standards and economic needs.
cept of the second-generation navigation satellite system
With the adoption of the dedicated program funding, the
which later was called GLONASS and implemented to give
GLONASS modernization R&D started. In 2011, the pri-
continuous global and instantaneous satellite navigation.
mary objective of the first stage of the program, GLONASS
In December 1976, the Resolution of the USSR Council of
operational capability, was fully achieved:
Ministers “On Deployment of the Single National Naviga-
tion Satellite System” was signed, and in September 1978 1) Full OC of 24 satellites on nominal positions was
the system’s conceptual design research (CDR) was con- deployed.
ducted. Flight tests of GLONASS began in October 1982 2) GLONASS accuracy achieved was better than the initial
with the launch of the Kosmos-1413 satellite. requirements by an order of magnitude.
The GLONASS system was adopted for trial operation in 3) A basis was laid for R&D on further GLONASS develop-
1993 with 12 satellites in orbit [2]. In 1995, the full orbital ment (new satellites, new capabilities, new signals,
constellation (24 satellites) was deployed‚ and its full increased navigation accuracy).

Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
88 4 GLONASS

4) The GLONASS system achieved international recogni-
tion. Almost every navigation equipment manufacturer
incorporates GLONASS in their products.
Today, GLONASS is open to international cooperation.
GLONASS transmits open service navigation radio signals
available to all civil users without any restrictions [10]. The
use of civil signals is free of charge, and their technical char-
acteristics are available to users and receiver manufac-
turers; there is no selective availability for open service
signals.
The organization responsible for the development and
use of GLONASS is Roscosmos [11], which was reorganized
into the State Corporation for Space Activities in 2015 as
part of a comprehensive reform of the Russian rocket
and space industry and to ensure the unification and utili-
zation of unique expertise in space activities. Table 4.1 sum-
marizes the main stages of GLONASS development.
4.1.2 Space Segment Development
Glonass satellites are the core element of the GLONASS
system [14], and they perform the following functions:
1) They generate and broadcast navigation signals, which
form a continuous global radio navigation field.
2) They facilitate operation of onboard mission equipment,
command and control of onboard systems, including
service systems (propulsion, attitude control, power,
thermal control) and the satellite platform. The compo-
sition of onboard equipment and the technical baseline
design depend on the satellite type.
GLONASS employs the following types of satellites: Glo-
nass, Glonass-M, Glonass-K, Glonass-K2, and Etalon.
These satellites differ in functional capabilities, hardware,
performance‚ and lifetime. General information on space
segment development as well as on Glonass satellites can
be found in [15, 16]. Figure 4.1 shows the general view of
these satellites. A brief summary of Glonass satellites is pre-
sented below.
4.1.2.1 Glonass Satellite
Glonass satellites were used from 1982 to 2009. Glonass sat-
ellite characteristics are shown in Table 4.2. There are no
Glonass satellites left in the current OC. The last Glonass
satellite was decommissioned from the orbital slot 4
in 2009.
4.1.2.2 Glonass-M Satellite
In comparison with the Glonass satellite, Glonass-M has
better performance and a longer operational lifetime. The
onboard mission equipment has been modernized. Most
important, the navigation radio signal has been improved:
1) Frequency bands shifted to the left: L1 = (1598.0625 to
1605.375) ± 5.11MHz, L2 = (1242.9375 to 1248.625) ±
5.11MHz.
2) Transmission power increased twofold in the L2 fre-
quency band.
3) Rejector filters were installed that reduced out-of-band
emission in frequency bands (1610.6–1613.8) MHz and
(1660.0–1670.0) MHz up to the level specified in the
recommendations of 769 CCIR (ITU-R).

Table 4.1 Main stages of GLONASS development

1976 Resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers “On Deployment of the Single National Navigation Satellite System” adopted.
1978 GLONASS CDR conducted with Scientific and Production Association of Applied Mechanics or NPO PM (“Nauchno-
proizvodstvennoe objedinenie prikladnoi mechaniki” in Russian) [12] as the prime contractor.
1982 Launch of the first Glonass satellite No. 11L and two mass-dimensional evaluation models Glonass-MDE (mass-
dimensional equivalent). The next six launches included two operational satellites and a mass-dimensional equivalent
each.
1986 Three operational satellites launched at a time.
1989 Etalon passive geodetic satellites used for validating Earth’s gravitational field parameters and their impact on GLONASS
orbits launched together with two Glonass satellites.
1993 First phase of GLONASS deployment completed with 12 operational satellites (IOC). Satellite lifetime – 3 years.
1995 Deployment of the operational system constellation completed with the 27th launch of Proton-K with three Glonass
satellites. Constellation included 24 operational satellites and 1 spare satellite.
2003 Launch of a new generation Glonass-M satellite with a 7-year lifetime, start of in-orbit validation (IOV).
2011 Recovery of the full constellation (24 satellites).
2011 Launch and IOV of the Glonass-K new generation satellite.
2012 – Further development and modernization of GLONASS under the Federal Program “GLONASS Sustainment, Development
2020 and Use 2012-2020” approved by the Government Resolution No 189 of March 3, 2012 [13].
 4.1 GLONASS Overview 89

Glonass Glonass-M Glonass-K Glonass-K2 Etalon

Figure 4.1 General views of Glonass, Glonass-M, Glonass-K, Glonass-K2, and Etalon satellites.

Table 4.2 Glonass satellite characteristics

Parameter Value

Design lifetime (year) 3

Mass (kg) 1,415
System power (W) 1,000
Orientation error (degree) ±0.5 (Earth)
±5 (Sun)
Solar array (m2) 24
Onboard clock stability 5×10−13
Signals FDMA: L1OF; L1SF; L2SF
Effective isotropic radiated power of navigation signal (dBW) in ±15 angles 27 (F1), 19 (F2)
in 0 angles 25 (F1), 19 (F2)
Frequency standard thermal control range ( С) (15…30)±5
Thrust (N) 5 (correction)
0.1 (orientation)
Total pulse for correction (N) 90,000
Solar array power (W) 1,600
Ni-H batteries capacity (W/hour) 1,800
Thermal control range ( С) Onboard clocks (15–30)±5
Gas in thermal container 0–40
Power consumption (W) 1,000

4) At L1 and L2 frequencies, two-component signals
(standard positioning and precise positioning signals)
are transmitted containing digital data and ranging
codes for range measurements. Also, navigation radio
signal information capability has been improved due
to additional data broadcast in spare bits of frames,
including
Through the use of cesium atomic beam tubes with high-
precision thermal stabilization, the relative frequency insta-
bility of navigation signals is reduced to 1×10−13. By improv-
ing the orientation accuracy of the solar panels, the level of
unaccounted active forces affecting the satellite is lowered
(the Sun orientation error can be reduced from ±2 to ±1 ).
Onboard control and command equipment is based on

•• GPS and GLONASS time scale offset

Frame validity attribute (transmitted with a resolu-
the onboard digital computer providing a data link with
the equipment, enabling command, diagnostics, crosslink
tion of 4 s) data processing, and generating orbit and clock data.

• Attribute of scheduled second correction of UTC-UT1

scale (8 weeks prior to the correction)
The principles of construction and operation of support
systems are retained, but the instrument composition,

• Orbit and clock data age design‚ and specifications have been changed. This led to
90 4 GLONASS

a significant change in the design layout scheme of the Glo-
nass-M satellite in comparison with the Glonass satellite.
A magnetometer is excluded from the satellite composition;
electromagnets are initiated through the algorithm gener-
ated by the onboard digital computer. The volume of pro-
pellant for orbit correction has been halved based on the
results of the Glonass satellite in-orbit operation. The num-
ber of thrusters has also been halved due to the transition
from a two-thruster to a single-thruster control moment
scheme. The resulting disturbance force on the satellite’s
center of mass is accounted for during the orbit correction
maneuver.
Glonass-M satellites are launched using either a triple
profile – three satellites at a time onboard a Proton-M
launch vehicle with DM and Briz-M upper stages from Bai-
konur, or using a single profile – onboard a Soyuz-2.1b
launch vehicle with a Fregat upper stage from Plesetsk.
The first flight model of Glonass-M was launched together
with two Glonass satellites in 2003. With subsequent
launches of Glonass-M satellites in 2004 (one satellite)
and 2005 (two satellites), in-orbit validation (IOV) of the
modernized satellite was completed, and they were com-
missioned into trial operation. With the launch of three
Glonass-M satellites in 2006, intensive restoration of the
national navigation constellation started.
Glonass-М satellite No. 55 transmits the L3OC (CDMA)
signal at 1202.25 MHz.
In 2011, the full OC of 24 Glonass-M satellites was
deployed, and for the first time L1 and L2 signals could
be used by civil users. The use of two signals allowed
users to exclude ionospheric delay. The technical charac-
teristics of the Glonass-M satellite are presented in
Table 4.3.
Currently, the intersatellite radio link is being validated
on Glonass-M satellites. Moreover‚ an experimental inter-
satellite laser navigation and communication system has
been installed and is being validated onboard two satellites
in one of the orbital planes [17]. Intersatellite links will pri-
marily be used for the elimination of pseudorange errors
caused by onboard time offsets through the exchange of
measurements (collected with the onboard intersatellite
measurement equipment) between satellites. As two pseu-
doranges measured simultaneously between two satellites
are characteristic of errors identical in value but opposite
in sign (determined by onboard time scales offset), the
sum of those pseudoranges has no errors. The onboard

Table 4.3 Glonass-M satellite characteristics

Parameter Value

Design lifetime (year) 7

Mass (kg) 1415
System power (W) 1450
Orientation error (degree) ±0.5 (Earth)
±2 (Sun) with possibility of reducing to ±1
2
Solar array (m ) 32
Effective isotropic radiated power of navigation signal (dBW) in ±19 angles 26(F1), 21(F2)
in ±15 angles 30(F1), 23(F2)
in 0 angle 28(F1), 21(F2)
Onboard clock stability 1×10−13
Navigation radio signals FDMA: L1OF; L1SF; L2OF; L2SF
CDMA: ( No. 55 on): L3OС
Frequency Standard Thermal control range ( С) (15–30)±1
Thrust (N) 5 (correction)
0.1 (orientation)
Total pulse for correction (N) 45000
Solar array power (W) 2200
NiH2 batteries capacity (W/hour) 2300
Thermal control range ( С) Onboard clock (15–30)±1
Gas in thermal container 0–40
Power consumption (W) 1270

intersatellite measurement equipment will also be used for
other purposes, such as
• Achieving and maintaining the required accuracy of the
GLONASS orbits and clocks
• Setting up mutual measurements and data exchange
between all the satellites in the constellation to update
ephemeris and clock corrections
The intersatellite laser navigation and communication
system was developed to improve orbit determination
and clock synchronization of GLONASS in autonomous
mode. This will precondition the substantial improvement
of GLONASS performance during operation to enhance the
system’s competitiveness. The intersatellite laser naviga-
tion and communication will start operating on the next-
generation GLONASS [18].
4.1.2.3 Glonass-K satellite
The Glonass-K satellite has the following distinctive fea-
tures in comparison with the Glonass-M satellite:
• A third frequency in the L band for testing new CDMA
navigation signals
•• Increased operational lifetime (up to 10 years)
Reduced mass (up to 1000 kg)
•• Intersatellite link in the radio-frequency region
Search and rescue payload
•• Measures to mitigate the impact of unmodeled forces
Unpressurized instrument section
The Glonass-K satellite bus is based on a box-like,
unpressurized instrument section made of honeycomb
panels. All instruments are located on the inner sides of
the honeycomb panels which at the same time are thermal
radiators. The thermal regime of the instruments is sup-
ported in a passive way – by direct discharge to the sur-
rounding space of the heat from the instruments through
the honeycomb panels. To mitigate overcooling, insulation,
electric heaters, and heat pipes are used. For atomic fre-
quency standards, the local thermal precision stabilization
of the radiators is maintained with controlled heaters in the
range of ±0.5 С.
In nominal mode‚ the continuous orientation of the sat-
ellite to Earth (the longitudinal axis of the satellite with
antennas) and to the Sun (solar panels), and the periodic
orientation along the velocity vector are maintained. How-
ever, at the time of orientation along the velocity vector, ori-
entation to the Sun stops. Orientation is provided by electric
reaction wheels, periodically discharged by electromagnets.
The attitude control system of Glonass-K is similar to that
of Glonass-M and is used to generate control moments for
implementation of initial orientation regimes and output-
ting correction pulses to bring the satellite into a slot, to
4.1 GLONASS Overview 91
maintain the slot, and to transfer the satellite to a different
slot. The propulsion tank is mounted close to the center of
mass of the satellite inside the unpressurized instrument
section. High accuracy of correction pulses in the course
of bringing the satellite to a given slot allows the satellite
to be maintained in the prescribed position in terms of lat-
itude, without corrections during the whole operation
period.
The power system based on NiH2 batteries and GaAs
solar arrays constantly supplies power for onboard equip-
ment with a constant stable voltage of 27 V and power of
1600 W on both shaded and solar orbits. The onboard con-
trol and command equipment is based on the onboard dig-
ital computer providing a data link with the equipment,
enabling command, diagnostics, crosslink data processing,
and generating orbit and clock data. The first launch of Glo-
nass-K was a single launch from Plesetsk with a Soyuz-2.1b
launcher with a Fregat upper stage on 26 February 2011.
The technical characteristics of Glonass-K are presented
in Table 4.4.
4.1.2.4 Glonass-K2 Satellite
The next family of satellites under development is Glonass-
K2. In comparison with Glonass-K, Glonass-K2 has been
modernized with four new signals. The technical character-
istics of Glonass-K2 are presented in Table 4.5. The Glo-
nass-K2 satellite, which is being created in the second
phase of GLONASS system modernization, will have the
following distinctive features compared to the Glonass-K1
satellite:
• Additional onboard mission equipment for CDMA signal
in L band for separate additional antenna
• More space is provided for various additional payloads
The Glonass-K2 satellite bus is based on a box-like,
unpressurized instrument section made of honeycomb
panels that differs fundamentally from the one used for
Glonass-K1 in terms of the antenna system. Onboard
equipment buildup principles used are similar to Glo-
nass-K1. In the next phase, a single antenna is planned
for FDMA and CDMA signals with corresponding changes
of the satellite bus, but leaving the mass and system power
values the same.
4.1.2.5 Etalon Passive Satellite
Etalon satellites were designed to validate the geopotential
model for GLONASS orbits. It implements only optical
(laser) ranging. The Etalon satellite is a heavy, ball-shaped
body. Its outer surface is covered with prismatic reflectors
(used to reflect laser beams) with light-diffusing surface
material between them so that they can be observed
through a telescope from the reflected rays of the Sun.
92 4 GLONASS

Table 4.4 Technical characteristics of Glonass-K satellite

Parameter Value

Design lifetime (years) 10

Mass (kg) 935
System power (W) 1600
Orientation error (degree) ±0.5 (Earth)
±1 (Sun)
Solar array (m2) 17
Onboard clock stability At least 5×10−14
Navigation radio signals FDMA: L1OF; L1SF; L2OF; L2SF
CDMA: L3OС
Effective isotropic radiated power of navigation signal (dBW) in ±19 angles 26 (F1), 21 (F2, F3)
in ±15 angles 30 (F1), 23 (F2, F3)
in 0 angle 28 (F1), 21 (F2, F3)
Total pulse for correction (N) 45,000
Solar array power (W) 2,750
NiH2 batteries capacity (W/hour) 2,800
Frequency Standard Thermal control range ( С) Onboard clock (15–20)±0.5
Gas in thermal container −20 to 50
Power consumption (W) 1400

Table 4.5 Technical baseline of Glonass-K2 satellite satellites and one Etalon satellite per launch) on 10 January
1989 (Etalon-1) and on 31 May 1989 (Etalon-2). Thanks to
Parameter Value their design features and selected orbital parameters, Eta-
lon satellites will be active for hundreds of years. Nowa-
Design lifetime (year) 10 days, they are used by the international community to
Mass (kg) 1645 perform fundamental tasks of geodesy and Earth dynamics.
System power (W) 4370 The technical specifications of the Etalon satellite are pre-
Orientation error (degree) ±0.25 (Earth) sented in Table 4.6.
±1 (Sun)
2 4.1.2.6 Launch Vehicles
Solar array (m ) 33.84
Three launch vehicles have been used to launch Glonass
Onboard clock stability 1×10−14–5×10−15
satellites. Their general views are shown in Figure 4.2.

•
Frequency standard thermal (15–20)±0,1
control range ( С) Proton-М
Navigation radio signals FDMA: L1OF; L1SF;
L2OF; L2SF The Proton-M launcher consists of three stages
CDMA: L1OC; L1SC; connected to each other by a tandem scheme with lateral
L2SC; L3OС graduation. Two-component liquid-propellant nitrogen
tetroxide + UDMH rocket engines operating through a
closed-loop scheme are installed at all stages of launch
The shape of the satellite reduces the effects of unaccounted vehicles (LVs). DM and Briz-M upper stages are used
active forces of a non-gravitational nature, which enables a to bring payloads to high orbits.
fairly accurate examination of all the harmonics of the grav-
itational field.
Etalon satellites were placed in GLONASS orbits (circu-
• Soyuz-2

Currently, Soyuz 2.1b is undergoing flight tests. To

lar orbit of 20,000 km and 65 inclination) together with expanding the range of target orbits in terms of altitudes
Glonass satellites as part of combined units (two Glonass and inclinations, the Fregat upper stage was developed by
 4.1 GLONASS Overview 93

Table 4.6 Specifications of Etalon satellite
Specification
Effective area (m)
Angular divergence of the pattern
(at the level 0.5) (angular sec)
Distance from geometric left to
surface of maximum reflection (mm)
Satellite mass (kg)
Satellite diameter (mm)
Center of mass offset from geometric
left of sphere (mm)
Maximum visual magnitude
projections are that the LV Angara-A5 together with
upper stage DM-03A could ensure a launch into orbit
Value of a Glonass payload weighing 6.9 tonnes and with an
upper stage KVTK, an 8.3 tonne payload. Table 4.7
0.010 ±0.0016
demonstrates the capabilities of existing and future LVs
8.6 for the SV of the GLONASS system. Angara-А5 is a future
heavy class launcher.
558 ± 44
1344.5 ±0.8 4.1.3 Development of Ground Segment
1294 Ground Control Segment (GCS) Development plans before
1.2 2020 involve all basic GCS elements for the purpose of their
performance improvement, including modernization of
+11.5 passive measuring and computing stations, main master
clock, inserting measurement stations, and network exten-
sion of laser ranging stations. The modernized GCS will
additionally include the following:

•
Angara-A5
Onboard Intersatellite Measurement Equipment (OIME)
Ground Control Loop providing orbit and clock data
insertion to navigation satellite

Soyuz-2.1b • Passive Measurement Stations Network (PMS) for oper-

ational orbit and clock data as a part of GCS for increas-
ing accuracy and integrity

Proton-M

Figure 4.2 General views of Glonass satellite launch vehicles.
Lavochkin Research and Production Association. The
Fregat upper stage is undergoing flight tests presently.
The Soyuz 2.1b with the Fregat upper stage will be used
to launch 1.7 tonne payloads from Plesetsk and 1.8 tonne
payloads from Baykonur to GLONASS orbit.
4.1.4 Development of User Equipment Segment
User equipment performs passive measurements of pseu-
doranges and pseudorange rate of four (three) GLONASS
satellites as well as receives and processes navigation mes-
sages contained within navigation signals of the satellites.
The navigation message describes the position of the satel-
lites both in space and in time. Combined processing of the
measurements and the navigation messages of the four

• Angara-А5 (three) GLONASS satellites allows the user to determine

The Angara-A5 is a future heavy class launcher. It is
intended for launching payloads into high orbits together
with upper stage DM-03A, Briz-M, and KVTK. The first
launch of LV Angara-A5 took place in 2014. Current
three (two) position coordinates, three (two) velocity vector
constituents, and to reference the user time scale to the
National Reference of Coordinated Universal Time UTC
(SU). A more detailed user equipment description is outside
the scope of this chapter.

Table 4.7 Capabilities of existing and future LVs

Payload (ton) on GLONASS orbit

LV Upper stage rocket (Нкр=19,100 km, i=64.8º) Launch complex Operational period

Soyuz-2.1b Fregat 1.7 / 1.8 Plesetsk/Baikonur 2011–2030

Proton-М DМ-03 5.0–5.6 Baikonur 2005–2020
Angara-А5 DМ-03-II а 6.9 Plesetsk 2015–2030
KVTK 8.3
94 4 GLONASS

4.2 GLONASS Reference Frames and UTC: from Glonass satellite time to system time, then from
Time Reference system time to UTC. These two steps are summar-
ized below.
4.2.1 Reference Frames
On 28 December 2012, the Russian Federation Government 4.2.2.1 Glonass Satellite Time to System Time
Regulation No. 1463 “About National Reference Frames” Corrections to transform Glonass satellite time into the sys-
was passed declaring the following reference frames as tem time scale are included:
national:
• As part of L1, L2 FDMA signals, τn(tb) and γ n(tb) on

• Geodetic Reference Frame 2011 (GSK-2011 [19]) for geo-

detic and map-making purposes •
30 min range of the predicted interval
As part of L1, L3 CDMA signals, τ j(tb), γ j(tb) and β j(tb) on

• Geocentric Reference Frame “Earth parameters 1990”

(PZ-90.11 [20, 21]) for orbital flights and geodetic provi-
the predicted interval range multiple of 90 s

Types of corrections, including relativistic correction:

sion of navigation tasks

Table 4.8 contains fundamental geodetic constants and

Earth ellipsoid parameters that are used in the national ref-
•• Linear model parameters for L1, L2 FDMA signals
Quadratic model parameters for L1, L3 CDMA signals
erence frames [22]. The influence of relativistic effects is considered when
making corrections to transform satellite time to system
4.2.2 Time Scales time scale. The root-mean-square error of the satellite time
reference to the system time scale is 5.6 ns. The following
A GLONASS time scale description is available in [23–27]. corrections are included in the transmitted navigation
GLONASS Central Synchronizers (CSs) generate a system message:
time scale. The system time scale is based on the UTC ref-
erence time scale (national time scale UTC(SU)). The differ-
ence in integer seconds against the Glonass reference time
• For L1, L2 FDMA signals: τn(tb) – 4th string of navigation
frame, bits 59–80; γ n(tb) – 3rd string of navigation frame,
scale is a constant 3 h difference: tGLONASS = UTC bits 69–79
(SU) + 10800 (s). The maximum difference in seconds
(modulo 1 s) against the reference time scale is 1 ms. There
• For L1 CDMA signals: τ j(tb) – digital data (DD) Type
10 string, bits 116–147; β j(tb) – DD string Type 10, bits
are two steps involved in converting GLONASS time to 148–166; β j(tb) – DD string Type 10, bits 167–181

Table 4.8 Fundamental geodetic constants and Earth ellipsoid parameters used in national reference frames

Parameter Notation Unit Value

I. Geodetic Reference Frame 2011 (GSK-2011)

1. Fundamental geodetic constants
Earth’ geocentric gravity constant (taking atmosphere into account) fM km3/s2 398600.4415
Earth angular velocity ω rad/s 7.292115×10−5
2. Terrestrial ellipsoid parameters (with geoleft as datum point). Terrestrial ellipsoid with rotation axis coinciding with Z axis of a
Geodetic Reference Frame (GSK-2011) is taken as the reference ellipsoid.
Major equatorial axis a m 6378136.5
Flattering factor α — 1/298.2564151
II. Geocentric Reference Frame «Earth parameters 1990» (PZ-90.11)
3. Fundamental geodetic constants
Earth’s geocentric gravity constant (taking atmosphere into account) fM km3/s2 398600.4418
Earth angular velocity ω rad/s 7.292115×10−5
4. Terrestrial ellipsoid parameters (with geoleft as datum point). Terrestrial ellipsoid with rotation axis coinciding with the Z axis of a
Geocentric Reference Frame “Earth parameters 1990” (PZ-90.11) is taken as the reference ellipsoid.
Major equatorial axis а m 6378136
Flattering factor α — 1/298.25784

• For L3 CDMA signals: τ j(tb) – DD Type 10 string, bits
123–154; γ j(tb) – DD string Type 10, bits 155–173;
β j(tb) – DD string Type 10, bits 174–188
Equations to correct the satellite time scale by the system
time scale:
• By L1, L2 FDMA signals: tGLONASS = t + τn(tb) −
γ n(tb)(t − tb)
• By L1, L3 CDMA signals:
tGLONASS = mod86400[tj + τj(tb) − γ j(tb) (tj − tb) −
βj(tb) (tj − tb)2]
The symbols used in the above equations:
t: signal broadcast time on satellite time scale
τn(tb): difference of SV number n time scale against GLO-
NASS system time scale at tb
γ n(tb): relative difference between SV n transmitted carrier
frequency and nominal value at tb
t j: signal emission time on satellite time scale
τ j(tb): difference of SV j time scale against GLONASS sys-
tem time scale at tb
γ j(tb): relative difference between SV j transmitted carrier
frequency and nominal value at tb
β j(tb): half-drift of relative difference between SV j transmit-
ted carrier frequency and nominal value at tb
4.2.2.2 GLONASS System Time to UTC
Corrections to transform GLONASS system time to
UTC(SU) reference time are included:
• As part of L1, L2 FDMA signals – τc on 30 min predictive
interval range
• As part of L1, L3 CDMA signals – τc(tb), τc t b on predic-
tive interval range multiple of 90 s
Type of the given corrections:
••
For L1, L2 FDMA signals – constant
For L1, L3 CDMA signals – linear model parameters
The error of GLONASS system scale reference to
UTC(SU) is less than 1 ms. Corrections in transmitted
messages:
• For L1, L2 FDMA signals: τc– 5th string of navigation
frame, bits 38–69
• For L1 CDMA signals: τc(tb) – DD string Type 10, bits
182–221; τc t b – DD string Type 10, bits 222–234
• For L3 CDMA signals: τc(tb) – DD string Type 10, bits
189–228; τc t b – DD string Type 10, bits 229–241
Equations for transition from system time scale to refer-
ence time scale:
4.2 GLONASS Reference Frames and Time Reference 95
• By L1, L2 FDMA signals: tUTC(SU) = tGLONASS −
03h00m + τc
• By L1, L3 CDMA signals: t UTC SU = mod86400 t GLONASS
+ τc t b + τc t b × t − t b 10800s
The symbols used in the above equations:
τc: correction to GLONASS system time scale
against UTC(SU)
τc(tb):correction to GLONASS system time scale against
UTC(SU) at tb
τc t b : correction time rate to GLONASS system time scale
against UTC(SU) at tb
4.2.2.3 GLONASS System Time Stability and Time
Scale Difference with Other Global Navigation Satellite
Systems (GNSSs)
The required stability of the system time scale is determined
by the CS characteristics. The required stability of the
reference time scale is determined by characteristics of
the Main Time and Frequency Standard. The required sta-
bility of the satellite clock is 1×10−13 with a time measure of
24 h (σy(τ), τ =24 h).
It is possible to transmit corrections pertaining to the dif-
ference between the GLONASS system time scale and the
other GNSS time scales (GGTO corrections):
• Systems where GGTO corrections are transmitted: GPS –
correction τGPS is transmitted as part of SV signals.
• Type of given corrections: The correction τGPS is the frac-
tional part of the difference of the GPS system time scale
against the GLONASS system time scale. The user deter-
mines the integer part of the difference from GPS naviga-
•
tion messages.
The given accuracy of correction (if such data is availa-
ble): Better than 30 ns (root-mean-square).
• Correction position (if such data is available): better than
30 ns (root-mean-square).
• Correction position in the transmitted messages: for L1,
L2 FDMA signals (τGPS – 5th string of navigation frame,
bits 10–31); for L1 CDMA signals (τGPS– DD string Type
12, bits 197–226); for L3 CDMA signals (τGPS– DD string
Type 12, bits 195–224).
•
Equations to use the corrections transmitted in naviga-
tion messages: TGPS − TGL = ΔT + τGPS, where ΔT is
the integer part of the difference of GPS system time scale
against GLONASS.
GLONASS CSs are located on two points of a monitor and
control subsystem. Each CS contains the set of hydrogen fre-
quency standards with a daily stability of no more than
2×10−15. One CS is the main unit, and the other one is the
backup unit. The system time scale is generated based on
96 4 GLONASS
the CS time scale. Time scale of the backup CS reference to
the main CS time scale is made in accordance with their
inter-comparison by GNSS signals in the “all-in-view” mode.
The GLONASS reference time scale UTC(SU) is generated
by the Main Time and Frequency Standard, which includes
the primary Cesium Time and Frequency Standard, the set
of hydrogen frequency standards, and the UTC comparison
channels: TWSTFT and GNSS. The difference of the main
CS time scale against the UTC(SU) reference time scale is
controlled based on their comparison by GNSS signals in
the “all-in-view” mode. The data is transmitted to the GLO-
NASS system control center, where the GLONASS system
time scale is generated and where corrections to the system
time scale against the reference time scale are made. Correc-
tions are calculated and uploaded on board once a day.
Corrections to the GLONASS system time scale are made
simultaneously with UTC corrections according to Bulletin
C of International Earth Rotation Service (IERS). It results
in a constant 10,800 s difference between the GLONASS
system time and UTC(SU).
4.3 GLONASS Services
Today the main direction of GLONASS development is
increasing service quality and new service creation rather
than improvement of system characteristics. The current
GLONASS provides the following navigation services:
• Basic authorized access service (absolute navigation
mode by secured CDMA measurements)
• Basic open access service (absolute navigation by open
CDMA measurements)
Characteristics of basic open access services for dual-
frequency service (at the approval stage) are defined in
GLONASS Open Service Performance Standard [28, 29].
Table 4.9 lists the main characteristics.
The system of global precise positioning in real-time
(GPPS) for civil users implementing Precise Point Position-
ing (PPP) is currently being developed. Accuracy character-
istics of the provided service should ensure user positioning
accuracy of 0.1 m and 0.02 m in the post-processing mode.
The development of a national positioning, navigation, and
timing (PNT) system of the Russian Federation which com-
bines different means of navigation has been underway
since 2004 [30]. It will help to solve potential problems
when using only GNSS.
4.4 OC Configuration
In accordance with its mission, GLONASS comprises a
spacecraft (navigation satellites) subsystem, which is basi-
cally an OC of 24 satellites. The satellites emit radio
navigation signals to form a continuous radio navigation
field on Earth’s surface and in circumterrestrial space,
which is used for navigation by different groups of users.
GLONASS’ nominal constellation’ scheme is shown on
Figure 4.3.
The GLONASS OC structure is selected so that for any
place on Earth’s surface and in circumterrestrial space at
least four satellites are visible to the user‚ and their rel-
ative position and signals performance provide the pos-
sibility of PNT measurements with the required
characteristics.
GLONASS satellites are placed on near-circular orbits at
a height of 18,840 to 19,440 km (the nominal orbital height
is 19,100 km). That qualifies GLONASS as a medium-
altitude (MEO) GNSS. The nominal values of other orbital
parameters are listed in Table 4.11.
For best coverage, GLONASS adopts a Walker 24/3/1
constellation geometry [31]. The ascending node
between each orbital plane is 120 . The full nominal
constellation includes eight equally spaced satellites in
each plane (each with a true anomaly shifted by 45 ).
Satellites in adjacent planes are each shifted from
the true anomaly by 15 . Orbital planes are numbered
in the direction of Earth’s rotation, and the satellites’
orbit positions for point-in-time (the so-called orbit
operating points or orbital slots) are numbered
opposite to the direction of satellites’ motion. Satellites
in orbital slots are often marked with corresponding
system numbers that are aligned with their correspond-
ing position numbers despite the known uncertainty of
this term. Satellites with system numbers from 1 to 8
are located in the first, from 9 to 16 in the second,
and from 17 to 24 in the third orbital plane. The
GLONASS OC status on 26 July 2019 is shown in
Table 4.10 [32]. Figure 4.4 shows the satellites’
distribution by orbital planes and orbital slots on 26 July
2019.
With the full OC, the repetition interval of satellite
ground tracks and radio coverage zones for ground users
is 17 orbit passes (7 days 23 h 27 min 28 s). Therefore, GLO-
NASS satellites have no resonance with the rotation of
Earth. The orbital period is selected so that satellites make
17 full orbital passes around Earth for eight equinoctial
days (approximately eight constituent days). Furthermore,
the beginning of each orbit is shifting in reference to the
Earth surface. Every eight days a satellite is passing over
the same point on Earth’s surface. Due to shifting in orbital
planes, all the satellites are moving relatively to Earth’s sur-
face practically along the same ground tracks. This design
provides a precise determination of satellite orbits and
Earth’s rotation parameters with the use of the
regional GCS.
 4.4 OC Configuration 97

Table 4.9 Main characteristics of GLONASS Open Service Performance Standard

No Characteristic Value

1 Constellation coverage 100% up to 2000 km

2 Per-slot coverage 100% in cone up to 2000 km
3 95% Global Average SIS URE of any satellite on 30-day interval 11.7 m
4 95% Global Average SIS URE over all satellites on 24-h interval 7.8 m
7 Global average reliability for each SV on 1-year interval with daily averaging 99.37% 18 m level
8 Worst-case single point reliability for each SV on 1-year interval with daily averaging 99.14%18 m kevel
9 95% Global Average SIS URRE for each SV on ergodic interval 0.014 m/s
10 95% Global Average SIS URAE for each SV on ergodic interval 0.005 m/s2
11 95% Global Average UTCOE for each SV on ergodic interval 40 ns
12 Major Service Failure due to single independent failure (Psat), 1-year interval 1×10−4 70 m level
13 Major Service Failure of two or more satellites (Pconst) , 1-year interval 1×10−4 70 m level
14 SIS continuity average on OC within an hour on 1-year interval 0.998
15 Per-slot availability average on OC on 1-year interval 0.95
16 Constellation availability on 1-year interval 0.98
17 Global position dilution of precision (PDOP) availability 0.98
18 Worst site PDOP availability 0.88
19 Global average 95% horizontal positioning error 5m
20 Global average 95% vertical positioning error 9m
21 Worst site 95% horizontal positioning error 12 m
22 Worst site 95% vertical positioning error 25 m
23 Global average 95% time transfer error 40 ns
24 Horizontal service availability, average location 99%, 12 m level (95%)
25 Vertical service availability, average location 99%, 25 m level (95%)
26 Horizontal service availability, average location 90%, 12 m level (95%)
27 Vertical service availability, average location 90%, 25 m level (95%)
Source: From [29] https://www.glonass-iac.ru/GLONASS/documents.php

Table 4.10 GLONASS OC status as of 26 July 2019

Satellites in constellation, in total 27

Operational 24
In commissioning phase —
In maintenance —
Under check by the Satellite Prime Contractor —
Spares 2
In flight tests phase 1
SV Glonass-M 24
SV Glonass-K 1

Figure 4.3 GLONASS nominal constellation scheme.

98 4 GLONASS

730 702
1 +01 9 17 751
–02
+04

743 8 736 16 735 24

+06 –01 +02

747 717
2 –04 10 –07 18 754
−03
716 15
745
+05 7 757 732 23
15
+00 +03
I II 753 III
744 +00 720
3 11 19 +03
+05

733
–04 6 752 14 731 22
–07 12 −03 701
723 20
−05
4 742 12 758 20
719
+06 –01
+02
756 5 721 13 755 21
+01 –02 +04

Figure 4.4 Satellites’ distribution by orbital planes and orbital slots on 26 July 2019.

The GLONASS OC is highly stable and does not demand
additional corrections during a satellite’s life cycle. The
maximum satellite drift of the ideal satellite orbital position
does not exceed ±5 over a 5-year interval, while the aver-
age orbital plane’s precession rate is 0.59251×10−3 rad/s.
The OC is sustained by the launch of new satellites if the
number of satellites in any plane drops below eight [4].
The launch profile includes the insertion of a head part into
the intermediate circular orbit of 200 km; then transfer to
an elliptical orbit with a perigee of 200 km, an apogee of
19100 km, and an inclination of 64.3 ; then transfer to a cir-
cular MEO with 19,100 km altitude. In general, satellite
operation includes the following mission phases:
4.5 GCS Configuration
The GCS performs the functions of operation control of
SVs, correction of continuous orbit and clock parameters,
and delivery of temporal programs, control commands,
and navigation data to SVs. Major components of the GLO-
NASS GCS are the GLONASS System Control Center
(SCC), CS, commanding measurement stations (CMSs),
inserting measurement stations (IMSs), passive measuring
and computing stations (PMCSs), laser ranging stations
(LRSs), and Ground Optical Laser Ranging Sys-
tem (GOLRS).
The GLONASS SCC conducts the planning and coordina-

• Insertion of a satellite into orbit after separation from the

upper stage with a duration of 5 to 12 orbits; onboard sys-
tion of all GCS elements. The CS forms the GLONASS time
scale used for synchronization of the GLONASS system
processes. It includes a group of hydrogen frequency stan-
tems checkup

• Bringing and placing a satellite into a system slot with a

predetermined orbital period and angular position in a
dards. CMS performs some control functions in addition to
SV control and telemetry data receiving. The PMCS collects
measurement data and provides a navigation solution.
system plane (the phase duration is from one week to
PMCSs are generally collocated with IMSs. The LRSs are
one month and depends on the angular position of a sat-
designed for periodic tuning of radio-technical range mea-
ellite at the insertion point and the system slot)

•• Nominal satellite operation

Temporal decommissioning (for instance‚ during main-
tenance or recovery operations initiated by ground con-
trol commands)
The main GLONASS system parameters are listed in
Table 4.11.
suring links with a laser ranging device. Special laser reflec-
tors are mounted on each satellite for that purpose. The LRS
implementation provides precise orbit determination of
GLONASS SVs.
The following actions are taken for GLONASS perfor-
mance evaluation: onboard equipment testing, navigation
solution accuracy, and data evaluation of SVs’ navigation
 4.6 Signals 99

Table 4.11 Main GLONASS system parameters 4.6 Signals

Parameter Value 4.6.1 Current GLONASS Signals
Number of navigation 24 The existing GLONASS constellation comprises Glonass-M
satellites and Glonass-K satellites broadcasting five navigation sig-
Orbital planes 3 nals (their spectral characteristics are presented in
Navigation satellites in each 8 Figure 4.5):

••
orbital plane
Orbit type Near-circular (ε=0±0.01) L1OF open FDMA signal in L1
L2OF open FDMA signal in L2

••
Orbital height (km) 19100
L1SF secured FDMA signal in L1
Orbital inclination (degree) 64.8±0.3
L2SF secured FDMA signal in L2
Navigation satellites orbital
period
Signals division type
11 h 15 min 44 s ±5 s

Frequency, code
• L3OC open CDMA signal in L3

The signal’s ICDs are officially available in [33–37].

Navigation signal L1 1598.0625 to 1609.3125
carrier frequencies L2 1242.9375 to 1251.6875
(MHz) 4.6.2 Broadcast Signals’ Characteristics
L3 1202.25
L1OF and L2OF signals are generated onboard the Glonass
Range-measurement code 1 ms
(or its piece) repetition satellites on 17 reconfigurable carrier frequencies marked
interval by numbers k= −7, −6, …, 0, …, +6 (with the possibility
Range-measurement code 0.511 of marking up to k = +9 for secured signals). Nominal car-
clock frequency (MHz) rier frequencies on L1 and L2 are defined by the following
Digit rate (bit/s) 50 correlation: f L1 k = 1602 0 + k × 0 5625 (MHz) and
L2 7 L1
Superframe duration (min) 2.5 f k = 9 f k = 1246 0 + k × 0 4375 (MHz).
Number of frames in a 5 The L3OC signal is transmitted at 1202.25 MHz using
superframe BPSK(10) modulation for the pilot and data signal: its pseu-
Frame strings 15 dorange code is broadcast at the rate of 10.23 million chips
Time scale UTC (SU) per second and modulated using QPSK. The data compo-
Coordinate system GSK-2011: for geodetic and nent is additionally modulated by a 5-bit Barker code, while
map-making purposes the pilot component is modulated by a 10-bit Neuman–
PZ-90.11: for orbital flights and Hoffman code.
navigation tasks geodetic
Each 1,500-bit frame is transmitted for 15 s and includes
provision
five text lines of 300 bits (3 s) each; each frame includes the
Ephemeris type Geocentric coordinates and
their derivatives current satellite’s ephemeris and a part of the system alma-
nac for three satellites. Every 12,000-bit superframe com-
prises 8 frames; so getting an almanac takes 120 s
(2 min); in the future the superframe may be extended to
messages. The GOLRS is used for trajectory and photomet- include 10 frames or 15,000 bits (150 s or 2.5 min for trans-
ric control of a new satellite’s launch and insertion to its mission) in order to support a 30-satellite constellation. The
final orbit phase (including geostationary orbits), and also system time is included in each line; the UTC coordination
for SVs’ deployment and operational control. second is taken either with an extension (filled with

CT CT
L3 1202.025 L2 1247.3125

ΓЛOHACC

ΠT ΠT
L1 1603.6875

Figure 4.5 Current GLONASS signals’ spectral characteristics.

100 4 GLONASS

Table 4.12 Main characteristics of the existing GLONASS signals

Received Carrier
Signal Description power frequency Modulating signal Modulation Bandwidth Data rate

L1OF open, FDMA −161 1598.0625 to Modulated by the Modulo-2 180 BPSK ~1 MHz 50 bps
dBW 1605.375 MHz addition of the following
L2OF 1242.9375 to binary signals:
1248.625 MHz pseudorandom (PR) ranging code,
digital data (DD) of navigation
message
L3OC open, CDMA −158 1202.25 MHz ~20 MHz 100 bps
dBW

ciphers), or with shortening the last month’s line for 1 s
(100 bit); and the shortened lines are discarded by the
receiver.
The FDMA L1SF and L2SF signals are used by authorized
users; therefore, their characteristics are not disclosed here.
The main characteristics of the existing GLONASS signals
are given in Table 4.12.
4.6.3 Navigation Message Structure
The current structure of the navigation message for FDMA
signals is shown in Figure 4.6.
At the moment, an experiment on studying the possibility
of including 30 satellites in the almanac is being carried out.
Based on the results of the experiment, the decision on
modernization of the existing structure of the navigation
message will be taken.
A general approach to the navigation message structure
is also being reviewed. The current FDMA signal naviga-
tion message has a very inflexible frame structure [38]. Tak-
ing into account this structure, all bits of a navigation
message are predetermined, and the only way to modify
the message is to add data to spare bits. The new approach
is based on defining the number of line types, including
data fields, corresponding to a particular type. The

2s

Frame number String number 1.7 s 0.3 s

1 0 Immediate data KX MB
2 0 for KX MB
3 0 transmitting KX MB 30 s
30s × 5 = 2.5 minutes

I 4 0 satellite KX MB
Non-immediate data
(almanac) for
15 0 five satellites KX MB

1 0 Immediate data KX MB
2 0 for KX MB
3 0 transmitting KX MB
4 0 satellite KX MB
V Non-immediate data
(almanac) for four satellites
14 0 Reserved bits KX MB
15 0 Reserved bits KX MB
85 84 9 8 1

bit number Hamming code

within data bits bits
string in relative in relative
bi-binary code bi-binary code

Figure 4.6 Navigation message structure for FDMA signals.

 References 101

Table 4.13 Main characteristics of new GLONASS CDMA signals

Signal Description Received power Carrier frequency (MHz) Bandwidth (MHz)

L1OC Open, CDMA −158 dBW 1600.9995 2.046 (D)

4.092 (P)
L1OCM 1575.42 ~16
L2OC 1248.06 4.092
L3OC 1204 ~26
L5OC 1176.45 ~20
L1SC Secured, CDMA Undisclosed 1599.972 Undisclosed
L2SC 1248.06
L3SC 1202.025

sequence of lines may change, and new types of lines may
be added. The receiver processes the lines of the known
type marked with the corresponding identifier. This new
approach opens up the possibility of introducing these types
of lines without degrading the operation of the existing
bunch of receivers. The digital data structure allows for
using 64 types of lines. A similar approach of flexible mes-
saging is implemented in GPS L2C and L5 signals.
4.6.4 Signal Development
Development of GLONASS radio navigation signals is
underway to meet future users’ needs, including, first of
all, self-control robotic technology. Since 2011, GLONASS
satellites have been emitting new CDMA signals apart from
the usual signals. The optimum ensemble of navigation sig-
nals, including FDMA and CDMA signals, will be available
after the OC is upgraded [39].
The existing and anticipated civil and authorized user
requirements of GNSS services, GNSS modernization and
integration trends, the set of signals currently broadcast
by GLONASS, and the existing ITU GNSS frequency filings
allow for the consideration of the feasibility of implement-
ing the following new signals:
broadband L1SC and L2SC signals use BOC(5,2.5) for both
pilot and data components and are transmitted in quadra-
ture to open signals. When using such modulation‚ the
power peak is shifted toward the ends of the band; there-
fore‚ the signal does not interfere with the narrowband
open signal transmitted on the carrier frequency. The main
characteristics of new CDMA signals are shown in
Table 4.13.
The L1SC, L2SC, and L3SC CDMA signals are for author-
ized users; therefore‚ their characteristics are not disclosed
in this chapter.
4.7 Additional GLONASS Applications
Starting from Glonass-K, GLONASS satellites employ sig-
nal relay equipment of “COSPAS-SARSAT” for interna-
tional search and rescue service. Starting from Glonass-
K2, a two-way relay system is planned with the capability
of delivering a downlink ticket.
4.8 Conclusion

•• L1SC secured CDMA signal in L1

L1OC open CDMA signal in L1
GLONASS is a fully deployed and operational global navi-

••
gation satellite system. The procedures for maintenance of
L1OCM open CDMA in L1
the GLONASS system and improvement of its technical
L2SC secured CDMA signal in L2

••
characteristics are realized under normal conditions
L2OC open CDMA signal in L2
[40, 41].
L3OC open CDMA in L3

•• L3SC secured CDMA signal in L3

L5OCM open CDMA signal in L5
References
Open L1OC and L2OC signals use multiplexed time divi-
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data and BOC(1.1) for pilot signal components. ICD for Finkel’shtein A.M., “The Russian global navigation
L1OC, L2OC, and L3OC are already published. The satellite program,” Her. Russ. Acad. Sci. 79(1), 7–13 (2009).
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3 Federal Target Program, Global Navigation System, JSC
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7 Karutin, S., SDCM development program status, 25th
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Russia, July 25, 2013.
8 Stupak G., “SDCM status and plans,” Proc. 7th Meet. Int.
Comm. GNSS (ICG), pp.1–5, Beijing, 2012
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navigation satellite systems,” Meas. Tech. 54(5), 517–
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10 Putin, V., “On Use of GLONASS (Global Navigation
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roscosmos.ru.
12 JSC “Information Satellite Systems”: http://www.iss-
reshetnev.com.
13 GLONASS System Maintaining, Development and Usage
in 2012-2020, Federal Target Program, Roscosmos: http://
www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=24.
14 GLONASS Development and Operation Basics, 4th Ed.,
revised and corrected in Radiotehnika (eds. A. Perov and V.
Kharisov) Radiotehnika, Moscow, 2010.
15 Kosenko V., “The GLONASS System Space Complex in
2020,” 17th International Conference on System Analysis,
Control and Navigation, Evpatoria, July 1–8, 2012.
16 Fatkulin, R., Kossenko, V., Storozhev, S., Zvonar, V.,
Chebotarev, V., “GLONASS Space Segment: Satellite
Constellation,” GLONASS-M and GLONASS-K Spacecraft,
Main Features, ION GNSS 2012, pp. 3912–3930, Nashville,
TN 17–21 Sep 2012.
17 Chubykin, A., Dmitriev, S., Shargorodskiy, V., Sumerin, V.,
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Chubykin, A.A., “Laser GLONASS: Era of extended
precision,” GLONASS Herald 14, 22–26, 2013.
19 Vdovin, V. and Dorofeeva, A., “Global geocentric
coordinate system of the Russian federation,” Proc. 7th
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Model PZ-90.11; In Russian). Military Topography Agency
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Federation (Moscow 2014) http://structure.mil.ru/files/pz-
90.pdf
21 Zueva, A.N., Novikov, E.V., Pleshakov, D.I., and Gusev, I.
V., “System of geodetic parameters parametry zemli 1990
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Working Group D, Prague, 2014.
22 Global Navigation Satellite System and Global Positioning
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for Determinated Points Coordinate; STB GOST Standard
51794-2008 (in Russian), Federalnoje agentstwo po
technitscheskomu regulirowaniju i metrologii,
Moscow, 2008.
23 GLONASS time scale description, http://www.unoosa.org/
pdf/icg/2014/GLONASSTime.pdf.
24 Shchipunov, A., “Generating and Transferring the
National Time Scale in GLONASS,” ION GNSS 2012,
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25 Domnin, Y., Gaigerov, B., Koshelyaevsky, N., Poushkin, S.,
Rusin, F., Tatarenkov, V., Yolkin, G., “Fifty years of atomic
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S63, 2005.
26 Blinov, I., Domnin, Y., Donchenko, S., Koshelyaevsky, N.,
Kostromin, V., “Progress at the State Time and Frequency
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Gothenburg 2012.
27 Druzhin, A.V. and Palchikov, V., ‘Current state and
perspectives of UTC(SU) broadcast by GLONASS,”
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28 Bolkunov, A., “GLONASS open service performance
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29 GLONASS System Documents https://www.glonass-iac.
ru/GLONASS/documents.php
30 Anfimov N., Revnivykh S., Pochukaev V., Kaznovskiy N.,
Serdyukov A., Klimov V., Davydov V., Dvorkin V.,
Flegontov A., and Korotonoshko A., Basics of national PNT
system, All-Russian Conference on Fundamental and
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Petersburg, April 11–15, 2005.
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33 GLONASS Interface Control Document (Edition 5.1). JSC
“Russian Space Systems”: http://russianspacesystems.ru/
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ICD_GLONASS_eng_v5.1.pdf
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russianspacesystems.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/
IKD-L1-s-kod.-razd.-Red-1.0-2016.pdf
35 GLONASS Interface Control Document for L2 CDMA
signals (Edition 1.0). JSC “Russian Space Systems”: http://
russianspacesystems.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/
IKD-L2-s-kod.-razd.-Red-1.0-2016.pdf
36 GLONASS Interface Control Document for L3 CDMA
signals (Edition 1.0). JSC “Russian Space Systems”: http://
russianspacesystems.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/
IKD-L3-s-kod.-razd.-Red-1.0-2016.pdf
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description of CDMA signal system (Edition 1.0). JSC
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2016.pdf
38 Povalyaev, A.A., “GLONASS Navigation Message Format
for Flexible Row Structure,” ION GNSS 2013, pp. 972–974,
Nashville, TN, 16–20 Sep 2013.
39 GLONASS navigation signals development concept, 2nd
edition, refined. Approved by the orders of Armed Forces of
Russian Federation General Staff’ Head and Russian
Federation Federal Space Agency’ Head, 2010.
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icg/2015/icg10/02.pdf.
41 Polischuk, G.M., Kozlov, V.I., Ilitchov, V.V., Kozlov, A.G.,
Bartenev, V.A., Kossenko, V.E., Anphimov, N.A.,
Revnivykh, S.G., Pisarev, S.B., Tyulyakov, A.E., “The global
navigation satellite system GLONASS: Development and
usage in the 21st century,” Proc. 34th PTTI Meeting 2002,
pp. 39–50, Reston, Virginia, 2002.
 105

GALILEO
José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez1, Jörg Hahn1, Miguel Manteiga Bautista1, and Eric Chatre2
1
European Space Agency, the Netherlands
2
European Commission, Belgium

5.1 History of the Galileo Program 5.1.1 Key Elements of System History: Timeline
Summary
The success of GPS and the ever-increasing role of satellite
Galileo was officially started in late 2003, triggered by the
navigation in our lives moved the European Space Agency
European ambition to develop a purely European naviga-
(ESA) and the European Commission (EC) back in 2003 to
tion system that should be independent of GPS but fully
develop and deploy the Galileo system, the European con-
interoperable with it. However, preliminary work started
tribution to global satellite navigation.
earlier around 2000, when the Galileo Project Office was
Galileo has been designed to provide independent satel-
established at ESA.
lite-based positioning worldwide and increased accuracy,
The first steps toward the definition of Galileo were made
availability‚ and continuity. Galileo is not only compatible
in 2002 under the Galileo System Test Bed (GSTB) Defini-
with all other navigation systems such as GPS, GLONASS‚
tion Study. The outcome of that work was the prototyping
and BeiDou, but it is also interoperable with them to differ-
and experimentation of the first Galileo ground segment
ent levels. In particular, Galileo achieves the highest degree
algorithms, developed under the GSTB v1, as well as the
of synergy with GPS, to the benefit of all worldwide users.
definition of the mission for the yet-to-come first Galileo
The European satellite navigation system began with its
experimental satellites, which happened under GSTB v2.
stepping stone EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navi-
Work on the GSTB v1 experimentation activities contin-
gation Overlay Service, which has provided civil comple-
ued throughout 2004‚ allowing the definition of the naviga-
ments to GPS since 2005, when it started operations.
tion and timing performance of today’s Galileo system.
From the very beginning, EGNOS was meant to be the
These studies ultimately allowed mitigating future risks
bridge to Europe’s own full-fledged global navigation satel-
in the development of the operational processing facilities
lite system (GNSS).
of the Galileo Ground Mission Segment. Equally important,
Galileo shares with other GNSSs the physical principle of
these preliminary results helped in building the necessary
using radio signals to determine the user’s position based
confidence in the design, allowing the consolidation of pre-
on passive RF trilateration. To achieve this, time plays a
vious work and accelerating the schedule toward the
fundamental role‚ and high-precision clocks are flown on
deployment of the actual system.
board each of the Galileo satellites. In fact, already the First
A major step in the brief history of Galileo happened in
Generation of Galileo (G1G) carries, on top of rubidium
2005 when Europe’s first navigation satellite, the Galileo
clocks, the most accurate atomic clock ever flown into
In-Orbit Validation Element GIOVE-A, was launched on
space and based on passive maser clock technology.
28 December. Two weeks later, on 12 January 2006, the first
Galileo’s signal plan is in line with the planned and ongo-
Galileo signals were transmitted and on 3 March 2016, the
ing modernization of other navigation systems. This ulti-
frequency filings of Galileo were secured in line with
mately results in a clear benefit for the users in terms of
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) rules.
improved navigation performance and robustness, as more
GIOVE-A was fundamental for the validation of Galileo
signals – and from independent systems – are available,
key payload technologies such as the rubidium clocks
enhancing thus accuracy and resilience against common
and the navigation signal generation and also helped in
modes of failure.

Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

0004815226.3D 105 13/12/2020 10:19:48 AM

 106 5 GALILEO
gaining crucial knowledge about the MEO environment
that future operational satellites would encounter, by
means of two different radiation monitoring instruments.
Around the same time that the GIOVE-A satellite was
brought into service, the GIOVE mission core infrastructure
completed its development. This was necessary to perform
all routine operations necessary for the generation of the first
Galileo navigation message, which contains the information
needed by user receivers to calculate their position. This hap-
pened for the very first time on 4 May 2007. In this period, a
worldwide network of Galileo Experimental Sensor Stations
was set up in cooperation with the European Space Opera-
tions Centre (ESOC), Germany’s National Research Centre
for Geosciences (GeoForschungsZentrum – GFZ), and the
United States Naval Observatory to collect Galileo and
GPS observables and send them to the GIOVE Processing
Centre, located at ESA’s European Space Research and
Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
This center was in charge of generating the navigation mes-
sage that would be broadcast by GIOVE-A at the beginning
and later on by GIOVE-B. This long experimentation and
hands-on experience provided Europe with extremely valu-
able know-how that was used to further consolidate the
design of the system.
On 27 April 2008, GIOVE-A’s brother satellite, GIOVE-B,
was launched carrying the most accurate atomic clock ever
flown into space. Unlike GIOVE-A, which only transmitted
two frequencies (E1 and E5), GIOVE-B improved consider-
ably its signal transmission capabilities‚ being capable of
using the E1, E5, and E6 frequencies in parallel. This
allowed expanded signal experimentation. The details
and definition of the signals and frequencies are provided
in Section 5.7 of this chapter, where the Galileo spectrum
and frequency plan are discussed.
The GIOVE satellites launched in 2005 and 2008 used a
representative ground segment for concept validation and
are today no longer active. Although they were moved to
a higher graveyard orbit, away from the nominal Galileo
orbit, their radiation monitors are still in use today.
In 2011, the development of the in-orbit testing (IOT) sta-
tion at the ESA Centre in Redu, Belgium, was completed.
Redu is equipped with a 20-m-diameter L-band antenna
used for characterization of navigation signals, a C-band
transmit antenna that allows testing the on-board mission
receiver, and a UHF antenna used for transmitting test
search and rescue signals to the satellites. Redu has become
a center of excellence for Galileo IOT, and successfully
managed the characterization of the first four Galileo In-
Orbit Validation (IOV) satellites and so far 14 Full Opera-
tional Capability (FOC) satellites demonstrating to the
world the good quality of the broadcast Galileo Navigation
and Search and Rescue Signal in Space.
0004815226.3D 106
Following the launch of the GIOVE experimental satel-
lites, the program started the IOV phase. The major objec-
tive of this phase was to perform the initial validation of the
system using a reduced constellation of four Galileo satel-
lites (GSAT010x) – the bare minimum number for inde-
pendent position and timing solutions at test locations –
and a reduced network of Galileo ground stations. The four
IOV satellites were launched through dual Soyuz launches
on 21 October 2011 and 12 October 2012, and have not only
served for the purpose of completing the IOV phase, but are
indeed part of the operational Galileo constellation. To dif-
ferentiate them from the other family of Galileo operational
satellites, the IOV satellites are referred to under the
nomenclature GSAT01xx, while the others fall under the
nomenclature GSAT02xx.
In 2013, Europe’s new age of satellite navigation passed
a historic milestone – the very first determination of a
ground location using the four Galileo satellites in orbit
together with their ground facilities. This fundamental
step confirmed that the Galileo system worked as planned.
This first position fix of longitude, latitude, and altitude
took place at the Navigation Laboratory at ESA’s technical
heart in ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands on the
morning of 12 March, and demonstrated an accuracy of
approximately 10 to 15 m. This fix relied on an entirely
new European infrastructure, comprising purely
European satellites in space and two control centers in
Italy and Germany, linked to a global network of ground
stations on European territory. The IOV phase was suc-
cessfully completed by end 2013 with more than
10,000 km driven by test vehicles in the process of picking
up signals, along with pedestrian and fixed receiver test-
ing. Many terabytes of IOV data were gathered in this
lengthy process and used as a reference to predict the
expected performance of the completed Galileo constella-
tion. From this moment, Galileo has been continuously
broadcasting navigation messages.
The long journey toward setting up Galileo has been hard
from the beginning‚ and adversity has been the companion
of European engineers with every step. One of the most sig-
nificant events in the history of Galileo was after the anom-
alous orbit injection of the first two FOC Galileo satellites in
August 2014. Galileo’s mission control team worked
around the clock to ensure that the satellites were brought
into a more favorable orbit that would allow users to still
benefit from their services. The perigee was raised more
than 3500 km and its elliptical orbit circularized as much
as possible. Finally, on 29 November 2014, the first naviga-
tion signal in space was transmitted from these satellites.
The quality of the signals was such that these satellites
have been used since then by the scientific community
to support relativistic theory experimentation. Eventually,
13/12/2020 10:19:48 AM

on 5 August 2016, the two satellites also started broadcast-
ing navigation messages.
In spite of the difficulties, Europe’s transparency in deal-
ing with adversity and the successful aftermath of this event
have ultimately created a sense of trust and belief in Galileo
all over the world. These two satellites are today transmit-
ting high-quality signals and are soon expected to become
part of the final Galileo constellation. This has also proved
Europe’s capability to withstand the difficult moments.
On 17 November 2016, Europe achieved another world
first by launching four Galileo satellites into orbit with
an Ariane 5. Up to now, Galileo has launched seven dual
Soyuz launches and one quadruple Ariane-5 launch, hav-
ing currently a total of 18 satellites in orbit.
On 15 December 2016, a historic milestone in the Galileo
program was achieved. On that day, the European Com-
mission declared the start of Galileo Initial Services at an
official ceremony held in Brussels in the presence of EC,
European GNSS Agency (GSA), and ESA high-level repre-
sentatives, national space agencies, space industry, Galileo
chip manufacturers, and international media. It was the
result of a successful initial services validation campaign
that had started in March 2016 and the culmination of
the intensive work of previous years.
The incremental approach followed by Galileo and
described above is illustrated in Figure 5.1.
All the deployments discussed above have been accompa-
nied by a continuous system verification and consolidation
of the system. This process culminated at the end of 2016
when the early Galileo services were declared with
Full Services
Exploitation Phase
Initial Services
2014-2016
In-Orbit Validation
2011-2013
Development
GIOVE A & B
2008
2005
Figure 5.1 Galileo incremental deployment and exploitation plan. Source: © ESA – P. Carril and J. Huart. Reproduced with
permission of P. Carril and J. Huart.
0004815226.3D 107
5.1 History of the Galileo Program 107
18 operational satellites, 16 of them nominal and 2 in
non-nominal orbits. The successful validation of this sys-
tem configuration allowed the start of the exploitation
phase at the end of 2016. This phase will last until 2020,
when Galileo will become officially available. By then,
the deployment of the full system will have been completed,
allowing engineers to focus on routine operations as well as
ground segment maintenance and replenishment of the
satellite constellation. This phase is planned to last over
the design lifetime of the system, nominally 20 years
(Figure 5.2).
5.1.2 Signal Evolution
The history of the Galileo signal plan toward the current
baseline very nicely reflects the evolution in the design
and maturation of Galileo toward an independent Euro-
pean navigation system that should be independent and
at the same time interoperable with GPS.
The Square-Root Raised Cosine (SRRC) was the first
option considered for the Galileo Signal and Frequency
Plan [1]. At the time when the first analyses of the future
Galileo signals were performed, the current frequency band
assignments had not yet been made. This did not, however,
hinder the identification of seven candidate signals based
on an in-phase binary phase shift keying (BPSK)-
modulated spread-spectrum signal and a quadrature
spread-spectrum pilot, each of them independently
assigned to a separate carrier frequency [1, 3]. It is remark-
able that in spite of the many changes that would yet come,
2020
2017-2019
13/12/2020 10:19:48 AM
 108 5 GALILEO

The first solid alternative frequency and signal plan was

presented in [2], and it slowly became the signal baseline
for the development of Europe’s satellite navigation system.
The Galileo carrier frequency, modulation scheme, and
data rate of all the 10 Galileo navigation signals had, as
of September 2002, undergone very important changes with
respect to the first proposals. Moreover, the band frequency
assignment was not an unknown anymore, and Galileo was
developing similar concepts with regard to signal modula-
tion as GPS, in line with the guidelines from the Transport
Council of the European Union in its meeting on 25–26
March 2002, where it was decided that Galileo should have
compatibility and interoperability with GPS. Consequently,
the SRRC concept was abandoned. From that moment and
until the final signal plan, the Galileo signal plan would not
undergo substantial changes. Figure 5.4 summarizes the
most relevant signal characteristics of the 2002 baseline sig-
nal plan.
The signal plan of 2002 greatly resembles that of today’s
baseline, but further modifications were still needed in the
Figure 5.2 Galileo Full Operations Capability (FOC)
constellation. Source: © ESA – P. Carril. Reproduced with E1 and E6 bands. Still, the evolution process was not
permission of ESA. straightforward at all as [3] clearly evidences. The main
changes until 2004 were as follows:

the presence of a pilot component to achieve robust carrier

• E6: The PRS changed the phasing of the BOC(10,5) signal
from sine to cosine.
phase tracking would remain until the final baseline of
Galileo.
• E1: The Open Service (OS) signals changed from BOC(2,2)
to BOC(1,1) and the PRS moved from BOCsin(14,2)
Moreover, the proposed signals allowed a strict occu- to BOCcos(15,2.5) in order to fulfill the GPS/Galileo com-
pancy for the narrowband and wideband cases‚ respec- patibility requirements of the EU/US Agreement on the
tively‚ and interestingly the Public Regulated Service Promotion, Provision, and Use of Galileo and GPS Satel-
(PRS) was not yet contemplated (Figure 5.3). lite-Based Navigation Systems and Related Applications,
1250.406 MHz
1240.899 MHz

1259.313 MHz

1608.156 MHz
1598.949 MHz
1589.742 MHz
1561.098 MHz
1563.42 MHz

1587.42 MHz
1559.0 MHz
1256.244 MHz

G2 G1

GPS GLONASS-M E4 E2 GPS E1 GLONASS-M

1215.6 MHz

1559.257 MHz
1237.827 MHz

1258.085 MHz
1260.0 MHz

1562.939 MHz
1215.0 MHz

1610.0 MHz
1587.901 MHz

1591.583 MHz
1254.403 MHz

1592.952 MHz
1252.222 MHz
1239.6 MHz

Figure 5.3 Galileo first frequency plan for L-band. Source: From De Gaudenzi et al. [1].

0004815226.3D 108 13/12/2020 10:19:49 AM

 5.2 Galileo Management Structure: Organizations, Roles, Relationships 109

E5a E5b E6 E2 L1 E1

1164 1189 1214 1260 1278.75 1300 1544 1559 1575.42 1591
MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz

1176.45 MHz 1207.14 MHz 1544.2 1563 1587

MHz MHz MHz
OS Data OS/SoL/CS Data CS Data SAR OS/SoL/CS Data
10 Mcps 10 Mcps BPSK(5) BOC(2,2)
Data 50 sps Data 250 sps Data 1000 sps Data 250 sps
Pilot Channel Pilot Channel Pilot Channel Pilot Channel
PRS Data
PRS Data BOC(m,n)
BOCsin(10,5)

Pilot Pilot Pilot Pilot

Galileo Assigned Frequency Band

GPS L5 Band

GPS L1 Band

Glonass L3 Band

SAR Downlink
Carrier Frequencies

Signals accesible to all users, with data partly encrypted

Signals to which access is controlled through the use of encryption for ranging codes and data

Signals to which access is restricted through the use of encryption for ranging codes and data

Figure 5.4 Galileo frequency plan of September 2002. See Figure 5.16 for comparison with the current Galileo frequency plan.

signed in Ireland on 26 June 2004 by EC Vice Present The final frequency plan of Galileo is described in detail
Loyola de Palacio and US Secretary of State Collin Powell. in Section 5.7. Figure 5.5 shows E1/L1 in detail.

While the 2004 Agreement between GPS and Galileo

already ensured a high level of interoperability [4], experts
from both sides of the Atlantic started to work together
shortly after the signature to find possible alternatives to
the common BOC(1,1) modulation. It should clearly out-
perform the OS and Civil signals of the baseline and fulfill
at the same time the requirements of the agreement.
The number of assessed solutions was large‚ but in the
end experts from GPS and Galileo developed an optimized
spreading modulation for the GPS L1C signal and the
Galileo E1 OS signal based on the common MBOC
modulation [5, 6].
5.2 Galileo Management Structure:
Organizations, Roles, Relationships
Regulation (EU) 1285/2013 of the European Parliament and
of the Council of 11 December 2013 lays down the rules on
the implementation and exploitation of Galileo. The regula-
tion became applicable on 1 January 2014 and defines Gal-
ileo as a civil system under civil control and an autonomous
GNSS infrastructure consisting of a constellation of satel-
lites and a global network of ground stations (Figure 5.6).

0004815226.3D 109 13/12/2020 10:19:50 AM

 110 5 GALILEO

E2 Band
L1 Band
Galileo E1 OS Data & Pilot E1 Band
Galileo PRS

–60
In-Phase PSD [dBW/Hz]

−70

−80

−90
−100
z]
−100 −90 /H
W
−20 [dB
−80 SD
−10
Freque seP
ncy Offs 0 −70 ha
e t with re 10 -P
spect to ra
the ca −60 ad
rrier [M Qu
Hz]

Figure 5.5 Spectra of Galileo signals in E1.

Figure 5.6 Galileo’s triumvirate: European Commission (EC), European GNSS Agency (GSA), and European Space Agency (ESA).

The aim of the Galileo program is to establish and operate level mission requirements. Its role is the management of
the first global satellite navigation and positioning infra- the GNSS programs and the funding, ensuring coordina-
structure specifically designed for civilian purposes, which tion among stakeholders, establishing delegation agree-
can be used by a variety of public and private actors in ments, monitoring risks and defining the key decision
Europe and worldwide. The system established under the stages for the implementation of the programs.
Galileo program functions independently of other existing
or potential systems, thus contributing among other things
• GSA: GSA is an agency of the EU in charge of preparing
the successful operation, commercialization, and exploita-
to the strategic autonomy of the European Union. tion of Galileo. GSA’s objective is to guarantee Galileo’s
According to the EU GNSS Regulation 1285/2013[7], EC seamless service provision, smooth functioning‚ and high
retains overall responsibility for the program, delegating to market penetration. Moreover, GSA is responsible for the
ESA the technical development and deployment of Galileo, security accreditation of the system and the establishment
and to the GSA its operational management. The roles of and operation of the Galileo Security Monitoring Centres
the three Galileo key actors are briefly introduced next: (GSMCs). In addition, the GSA also manages the applica-

•
EC: The EC represents the general interest of the EU and is
the driving force in proposing legislation (to European
Parliament and Council), administering and implement-
ing EU policies, enforcing EU law (jointly with the Court
of Justice), and negotiating in the international arena. The
EC is responsible for the political dimension and the high-
tion and research funds on behalf of the EU, promoting
satellite navigation applications and services.
• ESA: ESA is the design authority and procurement agent
of the Galileo program, responsible for the technical
development and its deployment. The definition phase
and the development and IOV phase of the Galileo pro-
gram were carried out by ESA and co-funded by ESA and

0004815226.3D 110 13/12/2020 10:19:50 AM


the EU. The FOC phase of the Galileo program is fully
funded by the EU and managed by the EC. The EC
and ESA have signed a delegation agreement according
to which ESA acts as the design and procurement agent
on behalf of the EC.
Over the last years, ESA has maintained and continu-
ously improved Europe’s competence in satellite navigation
through its European GNSS Evolution Programme (EGEP).
This is an optional program of ESA, initiated in 2007 and
focusing on R&D for infrastructure technology and system
development activities covering the initial definition phases
A and B. In addition, ESA is responsible for managing the
H2020 budget on Galileo Evolutions on behalf of EC
until 2020.
5.3 Galileo Geodetic and Time
Reference System
The most important data that any Galileo satellite provides
are its own orbit and clock corrections. These are used by
receivers to enable the estimation of the distance between
the actual satellite and itself and properly estimate its loca-
tion after RF trilateration of several such measurements.
The ephemeris and clock corrections are referred to the
apparent Centre of Phase (CoP), which is geometrically
close to the center of phase of the navigation transmit
antenna (at the corresponding downlink frequencies,
namely‚ E1, E5‚ or E6). The user computes the position
of this common reference point as a function of the Galileo
System Time (GST) [5]. Furthermore, the orbit and data
corrections are aligned to international reference standards
such as the International Terrestrial Reference Frame
(ITRF) and the UTC (Universal Time Coordinated), in
order to enhance interoperability at the system level. This
also permits the use of Galileo data with other navigation
systems to ultimately improve the timing and location
accuracy and robustness of users.
5.3.1 Galileo Geodetic Reference System
and Relationship to ITRF
Galileo’s Terrestrial Reference Frame (GTRF) is the inde-
pendent realization of the International Terrestrial Refer-
ence System (ITRS) and is based on a core of 16 Galileo
sensor stations (GSSs). In order to ensure compatibility
with the latest ITRF, Galileo’s Galileo Terrestrial Reference
Frame (GRTF) guarantees that the three-dimensional dif-
ference between any given position referred to GTRF and
the same position referred to the most recent ITRF does
not exceed 3 cm at 2-sigma. This is fundamental for the pro-
vision of high-accuracy Galileo products and related ser-
vices when long-term stability and high reliability are
0004815226.3D 111
5.3 Galileo Geodetic and Time Reference System 111
required. To this effect, each GSS is equipped with redun-
dant chains and continuously processes Galileo signals to
identify the tiniest clock error or satellite drift.
In practical terms, this implies that the operational GTRF
does not only include all GSSs but also a number of selected
stations including the legacy International GNSS Service
(IGS) tracking network, Galileo Experimental Sensor Sta-
tions (GESSs), and the MGEX-tracking network. These
are necessary for the alignment to ITRF and to further
enhance the accuracy of the realization.
The Galileo Geodetic Reference Service Provider (GRSP)
is responsible for the realization of GTRF, based on a num-
ber of parameters estimated by the Orbit Validation Facility
(OVF). These include the ground tracking station coordi-
nates, precise satellite orbit and clocks data, tropospheric
and ionospheric delay parameters, and signal bias para-
meters. Equally important in the process are the data/pro-
ducts exchange and archiving as well as the Earth rotation
parameter (ERP) estimation and prediction and the com-
bined procedures for station coordinates (CFSNX), satellite
orbits, clocks and code biases (CF-ORBs), troposphere (CF-
TRO), and ionosphere (CF-ION).
Until 2017, the Galileo Geodetic Service Provider (GGSP)
generated the OVF service products and provided them to
the Time and Geodesy Validation Facility (TGVF), a sup-
port facility of the Galileo infrastructure. Beginning 2018,
the Galileo Service Operator (GSOp) took responsibility
for all former OVF tasks under its GRSP.
Highly robust solutions are achieved thanks to the inde-
pendent processing of the same GNSS data set with fully
independent software packages (PF1, PF2, PF3). Every
week, the solutions provided by the three PFs are combined
to obtain minimally constrained solutions of weekly GTRF
station positions and daily ERP. This allows the generation
of a precise GTRF long-term solution in terms of station
positions and velocities by accumulating the weekly GTRF
combination results.
5.3.2 Galileo Time Reference System:
Relationship to UTC and Other Systems
The GST is the internally generated reference time of the
whole Galileo system. It is a continuous coordinate time
scale in a geocentric reference frame that is realized using
exclusively atomic clocks from the Galileo system to ensure
independence. GST is steered toward UTC within 50 ns 95%
modulo 1 s to allow interoperability with other UTC timing
products, in accordance to ITU Recommendation TF.460-6
[9]. In fact, the Galileo’s broadcast navigation message is
time-tagged with GST and provides GST within a 32-bit
field that contains the Galileo Week Number (WN) and
the Time of Week (ToW) [6]. The initial epoch of GST is
defined to be 00:00 UTC on Sunday, 22 August 1999, which
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 112 5 GALILEO

corresponds to the last rollover of the GPS Week Number
(WN). GST and UTC were defined at the initial epoch with
an offset that was originally 13 s, but has changed over the
past years since UTC introduced new leap seconds and
Galileo does not apply leap-second corrections. Nonethe-
less, the offset to GPS time has remained zero integer
seconds, as a contribution to GPS–Galileo interoperability.
GST is generated by the Galileo Precise Time Facility
(PTF), an element of the Galileo Ground Mission Segment.
The PTF today is equipped with two active hydrogen
masers in hot redundant configuration, and with four
high-performance cesium clocks. For robustness, Galileo
counts with two PTFs, one in each of the two Galileo Con-
trol Centres (GCCs). In addition, the Galileo Time Service
Provider (GTSP) links GST to UTC by providing every day
the GST-UTC conversion parameters that are later broad-
cast as part of the Galileo navigation message. These para-
meters are produced based on the inputs from selected
European timing laboratories, and consist of frequency
steering correction parameters as well as leap-second
announcements, fractional GST-UTC offset, and slope.
These are the parameters that Galileo users later use to esti-
mate UTC from the broadcast navigation signals.
Figure 5.7 shows an example measurement covering the
period from 1 September 2016 to 31 August 2017. During
this period, the accuracy of the UTC provided through
the SIS and the rapid realization of the UTC (UTCr) com-
puted by the International Bureau of Weights and Mea-
sures (BIPM) remained well within 10 ns, except for two
events in November/ December 2016 and January 2017.
The first relates to a failure in the timing infrastructure
and the resulting recovery activities‚ while the second
was due to a re-calibration. Both events affected the GPS
to Galileo Time Offset (GGTO).
A further degree of interoperability is achieved with the
GPS system thanks to the provision of the measured GPS–
Galileo Time Offset (GGTO), which allows positioning,
velocity‚ and timing (PVT) of any GPS/Galileo receiver as
long as at least four satellites of any of the two constellations
are visible. The GGTO is provided via Galileo’s navigation
message [5] and facilitates the internal calibration of Gali-
leo-equipped receivers. The GGTO represents the difference
between the Galileo and GPS time scales ([9–11]) and is
measured with calibrated Galileo-GPS receivers available
at the Galileo PTF. It is important to stress at this point
the fact that although interoperability with other time refer-
ences, such as GPS time and UTC, has been a driver for Gal-
ileo since the beginning, the need to avoid common mode
failures requires at least one independent generation of time
for the Galileo system.
Figure 5.8 shows actual measurements of the difference
between the broadcast GGTO and a-posteriori-measured
GGTO over the period September 2016–August 2017.
5.4 Galileo Services
Galileo provides three navigation services as well as a Search
And Rescue (SAR) service. The positioning and timing per-
formance targets of the different services can be found in [12]
and are briefly summarized in Tables 5.1 and 5.2:

Galileo UTC Dissemination Accuracy

UTC(SIS) - UTCr
September 2016 - August 2017
40

20

0
Difference in [ns]

–20

–40

–60

–80

–100
01

01
1

01

01

01

01

01
17 1
16 1

01
16 1
/0

0
0

3/

8/
2/

4/

5/

6/

7/
2/
0/

1/
1/
09

/1

/0

/0
/0
/1

/1

/0

/0

/0

/0

/0
/

17

17
16
16

17

17

17

17

17
20

20

20
20
20

20
20

20

20

20

20

20

Figure 5.7 GST offset to UTC as disseminated by Galileo – UTC(SIS) – versus the rapid UTC solution.

0004815226.3D 112 13/12/2020 10:19:51 AM

 5.4 Galileo Services 113

Galileo GPS Time Offset

GGTO(SIS) - GGTO
September 2016 - August 2017
100

80

60
Offset in [ns]

40

20

–20

–40
1

1
1

1
17 1
16 1

01
20 1/01
20 9/0

/0

/0
20 1/0

/0

/0

/0

/0
20 2/0
/0

8/
6

7
2

5
0

/0
/1
/0

/0

/0
/1

/1

/0

/0

/0

/0

/0
16

17

17
16

16

17

17

17

17

17
20
20

20

20
20

20

20

20
Figure 5.8 Deviation of broadcast GGTO from measured GGTO.

Table 5.1 FOC performance indicators of Galileo navigation services

Galileo global services OS CS PRS

Signal E1B&C E5a/E5b E6 B&C E1A E6A

Positioning accuracy 15 m H-35 m 24 m H-50 m 24 m H-50 m V (single- 16 m H-38 m V (single- 30 m H-45 m V (single-
(horizontal 2dRMS V (single- V (single- frequency) frequency) frequency)
95%, vertical 95%) frequency) frequency)
4 m H-8 m V (dual- 6.5 m H-12 m V (dual-frequency)
frequency: E1B&C – E5a or
E1B&C – E5b)
Timing accuracy wrt. 30 ns (dual-frequency) 30 ns 30 ns (dual-frequency)
UTC/TAI (95%)
Service availability 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% 99.5%
Access control Free open access Controlled access of Controlled access of Controlled access of
ranging codes and ranging codes and ranging codes and
navigation data message navigation data message navigation data
message

Table 5.2 Performance of Galileo Search and Rescue Service

Galileo Support to Search and Rescue Service (SAR/Galileo)

Capacity Each satellite relays signals from up to 150 simultaneous active beacons
Time to localization Detection and localization of a distress transmission in less than 10 min; latency time is from the
beacon first activation to distress localization
Localization accuracy (km) 5
Acknowledgment data rate 6 messages of 100 bits per minute
Quality of service Bit error rate < 10−7 from beacon to SAR ground stations
Availability (%) >99.8

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 114 5 GALILEO
• OS: This is a free timing and positioning service that can
be used by anyone. In the E1/L1 frequency band, the E1
OS signals are highly interoperable with the GPS L1
Civil signal (L1C) thanks to the common MBOC
modulation that allows users to profit from the
enhanced geometry and availability that results from
the combined use of Galileo and GPS constellations.
The timing service is synchronized to UTC, as seen in
Section 5.3.
• PRS: This is a robust and access-controlled positioning
and timing service that is only available through the
Competent PRS Authorities (CPAs) of users authorized
by Member States of the EU, the Council, the EC, the
EEAS, and duly authorized Union agencies in accord-
ance with Decision No 1104/2011/EU. PRS provides
encrypted signals with protection against jamming and
spoofing, and is intended to support critical transport
and emergency services, law enforcement, border
control, peace missions, and other governmental opera-
tions. The PRS provides users with enhanced protection
against diverse threats, thus ensuring high continuous
availability.
• Commercial Service (CS): This service addresses high-
performance or liability-critical applications. The access
to added-value data is controlled by an encryption mech-
anism that grants access only to those users that have
paid a fee. A Precise Point Positioning (PPP) service is
included as well as strong authentication feature offering
additional robustness over Open Service Navigation Mes-
sage Authentication.
In addition to the navigation services described above,
Galileo also provides an additional service that supports
the COSPAS-SARSAT system, the SAR service.
•
SAR: Galileo relays the signals coming from emergency
beacons down to the ground, where the SAR ground
segment calculates the actual location of the transmit-
ter. It represents Europe’s contribution to COSPAS-
SARSAT, the international satellite-based search and
rescue distress alert detection system. Galileo further
enhances the system with the additional feature of
informing receivers equipped with Galileo through
the so-called return link that the distress alert was well
received.
The SAR distress signals are detected by the Galileo
satellites in the UHF band of 406-406.1 MHz and then
relayed to the Medium Earth Orbit Local User Terminal
(MEOLUT) in the L6 band (1544-1545 MHz). The alert
acknowledgment of distress alerts and coordination of
rescue teams is embedded as part of the OS data trans-
mitted in the E1 carrier frequency.
0004815226.3D 114
5.5 Galileo Space Segment
This section provides details on the two fundamental ele-
ments of the Galileo space segment:
••
Launch vehicles and constellation
Spacecraft (platform and payload)
5.5.1 Launch Vehicles and Constellation
This section introduces first the family of Galileo launchers
and continues with an overview of the planned Galileo
constellation.
5.5.1.1 Galileo Launchers
Europe currently employs Soyuz and Ariane launchers to
place the Galileo satellites into space from the Guiana
Space Centre, which is Europe’s Spaceport and is located
in French Guiana. The first 14 satellites were placed using
Soyuz launchers, in a series of dual launches in October
2011, October 2012, August 2014, March, September and
December 2015, and May 2016. The latest launch from
November 2016 (Figure 5.9) employed for the very first time
an Ariane 5 launcher and placed four satellites at a time. In
total, Galileo has already 18 fully operational satellites as
of today.
The Soyuz launcher is the jewel of the Russian space pro-
gram. It was introduced in 1966, and is derived from the
Vostok launcher, which in turn was based on the 8K74
or R-7a intercontinental ballistic missile that launched
Sputnik 1 in 1957 in a modified form. Soyuz has performed
more than 1000 manned and unmanned missions and is
designed to achieve extremely high reliability levels for
its use in manned missions.
For the particular case of Galileo, a special version of the
Soyuz launcher is employed. It is the more powerful Soyuz
ST-B version, which includes a Fregat-MT upper stage that
can be ignited again. This stage was used for the first time to
deliver the GIOVE-A and -B experimental satellites and
carries an additional 900 kg of propellant. For launches
from French Guiana, which is the standard for Galileo,
the Soyuz three-stage rocket plus Fregat upper stage is
assembled horizontally following the traditional Russian
approach. Then it is erected vertically before the payload
mates with the launcher from above in the standard Euro-
pean way. Given the particular approach that combines
European and Russian procedures, a new mobile launch
gantry was built to facilitate this process. The dedicated
gantry also helps protect the satellites and the launcher
from the humid tropical environment that reigns in French
Guiana.
13/12/2020 10:19:51 AM

Figure 5.9 First Galileo launch with Ariane 5 carrying four satellites on 17 November 2017. Source: © ESA – S. Corvaja.
In addition to Soyuz, Galileo also has Ariane rockets to
place satellites into space. Galileo uses a re-qualified version
of the Ariane 5 ES that can deploy up to four Galileo satel-
lites into MEO orbit at a time. Ariane 5 ES is an evolution of
the initial Ariane 5 generic launcher that was upgraded to
allow re-ignition and long coast phases as those required in
Galileo to inject the four Galileo satellites into their opera-
tional orbits. Furthermore, re-ignition is required to allow
the last launcher stage to vacate the injection orbit once
the payload has been released so that the last stage is placed
at the graveyard orbit, far away from the nominal Galileo
orbit. The first such fourfold launch occurred on 17 November
2016 and another two Ariane 5 launches followed end of 2017
and in 2018 to complete the Galileo constellation.
Figure 5.10 shows Galileo’s baseline launch plan to
achieve Full Operations in 2020.
5.5.1.2 Galileo Constellation
The fully deployed Galileo system consists of 30 satellites
(24 operational + 6 in-orbit spares), positioned in three cir-
cular MEO planes at a nominal average orbit semi-major
axis of 29,599.801 km, and at an inclination of the orbital
planes of 56 with reference to the equatorial plane. Once
0004815226.3D 115
5.5 Galileo Space Segment 115
FOC is achieved, the Galileo navigation signals will provide
good coverage even at latitudes up to 75 north and
75 south.
The Galileo constellation was the result of detailed
studies and optimization efforts conducted toward the
objectives of achieving good accuracy and availability per-
formance at high latitudes also [3]. An additional factor
taken into consideration at the moment of the selection
of the Galileo constellation geometry was the capability
to deploy it fast and reduce the costs related to constellation
maintenance. In fact, the finally retained three-plane con-
figuration is consistent with the European launch capabil-
ities, which can place multiple satellites in orbit at a time: as
said, Ariane 5 can launch up to four Galileo satellites and
Soyuz one pair of them.
Table 5.3 summarizes the finally selected basic Galileo
reference constellation parameters [13, 14].
The Galileo constellation slots are depicted in
Figure 5.11. The position of the spare satellites is indicative,
as their actual position is decided at the time of deployment.
Furthermore, we can recognize the pair of satellites from
the launch anomaly of Launch 3 (L3) and their relative
location with respect to the rest of the constellation. Due
13/12/2020 10:19:51 AM
 116 5 GALILEO

IOV FOC

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 18 22 26

Figure 5.10 Galileo launch plan toward FOC.

more than 8 satellites above 5 of elevation. This reference

Table 5.3 Galileo reference constellation parameters
Parameter
Constellation type
Semi-major axis (km)
Inclination
Period
Ground track repeat cycle 10 sidereal days/17 orbits
to the different plane inclination, this relative location
evolves with time, so the figure is only indicative.
The Galileo selected reference constellation of 24 satel-
lites allows users worldwide to have between 6 to 11 Galileo
satellites in view at any time, being the average visibility of
constellation is complemented with another six spare satel-
lites, resulting in worldwide geometries with typical verti-
Value
cal dilution of precision (VDOP) and horizontal dilution
Walker 24/3/1 + 6 in-orbit spares of precision (HDOP) values of approximately 2.3 and 1.3,
29,599.801
respectively [15].
Finally, another important aspect to which Galileo has
56
paid particular attention is the disposal of the satellites after
14h04m42s
the end of their operational life. This is important not only
in terms of international agreements on control of space
debris, but also because debris avoidance maneuvers have
an impact on the availability of operational satellites, and
ultimately on the provision of the service. Galileo satellites
are designed to be removed from the nominal Galileo orbits
after they have reached the end of their operational life. At
that point in time‚ they are moved to a graveyard orbit
which is at least 300 km higher than the operational Galileo

A5 C5
°

B5
0
18

C4
°

A4
5

B4
13

C3
A3
°
90

B3
aly

C2
om

A2 B2
45
An
an

C1
Me

A1
0°

B1
e
tiv

0° 120° 240° Relative RAAn

la

C8
Re

5°

A8
31

B8
C7
0°

A7
27

B7

C6
5°

A6
22

B6
Galileo FOC Reference Geometry Slot
FOC L3 Satellites
(Snapshot–Relative Location will evolve over time)

Figure 5.11 Galileo FOC constellation slots.

0004815226.3D 116 13/12/2020 10:19:52 AM


orbit. The same logic applies to the launcher stages that
remain after injection of the satellite into orbit.
5.5.2 Galileo Spacecraft
The Galileo operational constellation consists of a mix of
two families of satellites:
•
The first four Galileo satellites were manufactured by
EADS Astrium GmbH as prime contractor and launched
with two Soyuz rockets. This family of satellites is still
operational today and was used for system validation
in the IOV phase. The first dual launch occurred on
21 October 2011 and placed satellites GSAT0101 and
GSAT0102 into orbital plane A. The second launch fol-
lowed on 12 October and placed satellites GSAT0103
and GSAT0104 in orbital plane B. Due to a permanent
on-board failure, GSAT0104 does not transmit in E5/
E6 nor broadcast navigation messages in E1 (only
dummy data). However, the Search and Rescue Tran-
sponder (SART) is fully in use, using TGVF processing
for ephemeris determination.
•
The second family of Galileo satellites is manufactured by
OHB System AG as prime contractor [16]. To differenti-
ate these satellites from those of the other family, its
numbering follows the sequence GSAT02xx. A total of
22 satellites have been produced under this order. The
first dual launch of this family took place in August
2014 and was impaired by a malfunction in the Fregat
• Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS): Galileo uses
stage of the Soyuz launcher that led to the so-called injec-
tion anomaly of Launch 3. Once GSAT0201 and
GSAT0202 reached the new corrected target orbit, the
navigation payloads were activated and subject to IOT.
This allowed the technology and performance of the
new family of satellites to be validated, confirming their
Figure 5.12 Artist’s impression of Galileo satellites in orbit (left GSAT010x and right GSAT02xx). Source: © ESA – P. Carril.
0004815226.3D 117
5.5 Galileo Space Segment 117
good health. In spite of the non-nominal orbit, the perfor-
mance was fully in line with the expectations and, in fact,
these satellites have since then broadcast navigation sig-
nals and been used for clock technology validation.
Unfortunately, and due to the fact that the new orbit
could not be fully fit into the nominal navigation mes-
sage, the other satellites cannot yet transmit almanac
details on these two satellites. GSAT0201 and GSAT0202
are, however, healthy‚ and currently efforts are running
to fully incorporate them into the ground processing.
After the initial mishap, the following dual launches in
March 2015, September 2015, December 2015‚ and
May 2016 were fully successful with injection in the
planned orbits, the satellites thus becoming part of the
nominal constellation.
Figure 5.12 provides with details of the two families of
Galileo satellites‚ and further details on platform and pay-
load are provided separately in Table 5.4, according to the
standard separation applied in space system engineering.
5.5.2.1 Galileo Platform
The Galileo platform comprises all subsystems for on-board
data handling and control, attitude and orbit control
including propulsion, power generation and distribution,
thermal control, telemetry, and a laser retro reflector:
3-axis attitude control during all phases and for all man-
euvers [17]. Depending on the actual mission status, sev-
eral modes of operation are applicable:
– Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) as well as in
contingency situations and safe modes: For this mode,
dedicated acquisition modes are used for Earth or Sun
acquisition.
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 118 5 GALILEO

Table 5.4 Overview of main Galileo satellite characteristics [16] (Doppler) measurements are possible. The S-band Telem-
etry, Telecommand and Control (TT&C) hemispherical-
GSAT010x GSAT02xx coverage helix antennas are located on opposite sides of
the satellite, providing omnidirectional coverage for recep-
S/C Prime contractor EADS Astrium OHB System AG
tion and transmission. Ranging operation is performed
GmbH
simultaneously with telemetry transmission.
Number of satellites
Mass at launch (kg)
4
700
22
733 • Laser Retro Reflector (LRR): Galileo’s cat eye reflector
array is located on the nadir panels close to the naviga-
Size with solar array 2.7 m × 1.6 m × 2.5 m × 1.1 m × tion transmit antenna and allows the measurement of
deployed 14.5 m 14.7 m
the satellite’s distance to within a few centimeters. Laser
Design lifetime (years) 12 12 ranging campaigns using Galileo’s LRR are planned on
Available power (kW) 1.420 1.900 average once a year, with altitude measurements via
Source: Pauly, K., “Galileo FOC–Design, Production, Early Operations S-band telemetry and telecommand link in between.
after 1st Launch, and Project Status,” Proc. IAC-14-B2.2.1, 65th
International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2014), Toronto, Canada,
September 2014. 5.5.2.2 Galileo Payload
Galileo’s payload comprises a fully redundant triple-band
navigation payload and a SAR repeater [20]. Functionally,
– Orbit acquisition, station-keeping maneuvers, and end- the navigation payload can be split into the mission uplink
of-life (EOL) decommissioning: This mode is expected data handling system, the timing subsystem, and the signal
to require very few station-keeping maneuvers [18, 19]. generation and transmitter subsystem:
– Nominal operational mode: This mode uses yaw steer-
ing to orient the solar panels toward the Sun with full
nadir pointing performance and to support the ther-
• Mission uplink data handling system: It receives the nav-
igation message data and all related support data by
means of a dedicated CDMA C-band uplink from the
mal control of the satellite. In this mode, the AOCS
uplink stations (ULSs) of the Galileo ground segment.
sensor/actuator configuration is based on Earth and
Sun sensors that continuously keep the satellite
pointed toward Earth.
• Timing subsystem: It generates the on-board frequency
reference based on two different clock technologies: the

•
Rubidium Atomic Frequency Standard (RAFS) and the
Propulsion subsystem: Galileo is typically equipped with
passive hydrogen maser (PHM) (Figure 5.13). Every
eight monopropellant hydrazine thrusters, each of which
Galileo satellite flies two units of each; thus, there are
provides a nominal thrust of 1 N at the beginning of life
four clocks in all. The Clock Monitoring and Control
(BOL). Since both families of satellites (GSAT010x and
Unit (CMCU) provides the interface between these four
GSAT02xx) are designed for direct injection into the final
clocks and the Navigation Signal Generation Unit
MEO orbit, their propulsion subsystems only need to pro-
(NSGU), guaranteeing synchronization between the
vide the delta-velocity required for orbit correction man-
master clock and the active spare clock that operates
euvers during the operational life.

•
as hot redundant spare (the other two clocks remain
Power Subsystem: It is based on a classical regulated 50 V
as cold spares) [21, 22]. This ultimately allows the
bus architecture that consists of
ground segment to command one spare clock to take
– A power conditioning and distribution unit (PCDU)
over seamlessly should the master clock fail or simply
that provides electrical power to all units on-board
in case of maintenance operations.
the spacecraft
– Two solar array wings that supply electrical power to The stability of the on-board reference frequency is one of
the spacecraft during Sun exposition and in parallel the core performance parameters for the quality of the
charge the battery after the eclipse phases navigation payload. Example Allan Deviation (ADEV)
– A Li-Ion battery that stores the power provided by the measurements from September 2017 are shown in
solar arrays during the Sun phases and feeds it back Figure 5.14, covering exemplary RAFS and PHM results
during the eclipse phases

•
TT&C Subsystem: Galileo satellites use redundant com-
mand reception and telemetry transmission at S band,
with two modes of operation: ESA standard TT&C mode
and spread-spectrum mode. When the S-band transpon-
der is operated in coherent mode, accurate range-rate
from different Galileo satellites (except those of Launch
L3). The superior performance of the PHM clock technol-
ogy can also be appreciated. Indeed, at the moment of
the measurement most of the operating clocks were PHM
except for E11-GSAT0101 and E22-GSAT0204, which were
run under RAFS.

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 5.5 Galileo Space Segment 119

Figure 5.13 Galileo passive hydrogen maser clock (left) and Rubidium Atomic Frequency Standard (right). Source: © Spectratime.

From 2017/09/06 19:00:00 FREQUENCY STABILITY

to 2017/09/20 19:00:00 Allan Deviation
10−10
PHM ground specs
RAFS ground specs
E01– GSAT0210
E02– GSAT0211
10−11 E03– GSAT0213
E04– GSAT0213
E05– GSAT0214
E07– GSAT0207
E08– GSAT0208
10−12 E09– GSAT0209
ADEV, σ(τ)

E11– GSAT0101
E12– GSAT0102
E14– GSAT0202
E18– GSAT0201
10−13 E19– GSAT0203
E22– GSAT0204
E24– GSAT0205
E26– GSAT0203
E30– GSAT0206
10−14

10−15
102 103 104 105
τ(s)

Figure 5.14 Galileo PHM and RAFS frequency stability.

• Navigation payload: It provides navigation signals that
are coherent to the common frequency reference gener-
ated by the timing subsystem. Galileo transmits on three
L-band carriers – E1, E6, and E5 – and is the first naviga-
tion system that provides a wideband signal of more than
50 MHz bandwidth, namely‚ AltBOC, which is emitted
on the E5 band. All navigation signals are radiated
through a dual-band transmit antenna that uses a com-
mon antenna subsystem for E5 and E6 [23, 24].
• SAR: Galileo provides an enhanced distress localization
functionality as part of the COSPAS-SARSAT MEOSAR
System and is interoperable with other MEOSAR repea-
ters from GLONASS and future GPS satellites [25]. Gali-
leo’s SAR transponder is able to receive distress alerts
coming from COSPAS-SARSAT beacons operating in
the 406.0–406.1 MHz band and further downlinks them
at 1544 MHz to dedicated ground stations, the so-called
MEOLUT. These perform the beacon localization in near
real time based on difference of arrival (DOA)

0004815226.3D 119 13/12/2020 10:19:53 AM

 120 5 GALILEO
measurements of time and frequency [26]. In addition, Gal-
ileo also provides a so-called SAR return link service, which
confirms the alerting beacon that the distress message
has been received by the COSPAS-SARSAT system.
This acknowledgment is embedded in the navigation
message [27].
The Council of COSPAS-SARSAT declared MEOSAR
services on 9 December 2016. With this declaration, Galileo
has become the largest worldwide contributor to this
unique international SAR infrastructure‚ supporting on
average over 2000 rescue operations every year and even-
tually saving many human lives.
5.6 Galileo Ground Segment
The Galileo Ground Segment is composed of two func-
tional parts:
•
Ground Control Segment (GCS): It performs all functions
related to command and control of the satellite constella-
tion and provides global coverage. It comprises a world-
wide network of S-band TT&C stations hosted on Galileo
remote sites.
•
Ground Mission Segment (GMS): It is responsible for
service-related tasks. It measures and monitors the Gali-
leo navigation signals and uses them to estimate, predict,
and build the navigation message. The navigation mes-
sage is further uplinked to the satellites for later relay
to the users via the L-band downlink signals. The basic
content of the navigation message is composed of satellite
specific orbit and clock corrections, which are estimated
in batches by the Orbit Determination and Time Syn-
chronization (ODTS) process every 10 min based on
E1-E5a observables for F/NAV products, E1-E5b obser-
vables for I/NAV products‚ and E1-E6 observables for
PRS products. To successfully perform this task, the
GMS counts with two worldwide networks of stations:
– L-band GSS: In charge of collecting ranging measure-
ments of the Galileo navigation signals, for ODTS and
monitoring of the signal in space.
– C-band ULSs: Five stations are in charge of up-linking
mission data to the satellites (e.g. ephemerides and
clock prediction, SAR return link‚ and commercial
service data). Each station can operate up to four
uplink antennas in order to provide the whole constel-
lation with timely navigation message updates.
Further, the Galileo ground segment is the interface to
the satellites and provides a large number of functions ran-
ging from on-board software maintenance, to operations
support and telemetry analysis as well as support to
0004815226.3D 120
eventual troubleshooting of the satellite platform and pay-
load units.
Galileo has two GCCs in Oberpfaffenhofen (Germany)
and Fucino (Italy) that hold the core facilities of the GCS
and the GMS. These are further connected to all ground
facilities through a global data dissemination network that
is equipped with redundant links to guarantee service and
operations continuity.
The LEOP Control Centres (LOCCs) located in Toulouse
(French Space Agency, CNES) and Darmstadt (ESA Opera-
tions Centre, ESOC) are in charge of taking control of the
satellites after their separation from the launch vehicle
and until they have reached their position within the
assigned orbital slots.
Once the satellites achieve their final orbital position,
IOT of the new satellites starts. During this phase, the Redu
station in Belgium performs all necessary tests required to
verify that the satellite payload survived the launch and
that it is in good health. Redu counts with a calibrated
high-gain antenna, an L-band measurement system for
navigation signals, and testing equipment and transmitters
for the C-band and SAR UHF RF links.
In addition to system-specific tasks such as those briefly
mentioned above, the GCS is also responsible of interfacing
with several external entities involved in the provision of
Galileo services. These service providers are procured, coor-
dinated‚ and operated by the GSA. They are listed next and
briefly introduced:
•
GNSS Service Centre (GSC): This center interfaces with
the Galileo OS users and the Galileo CS external
data providers. The GSC facility is located near Madrid,
Spain.
•
GSMC: This center provides system security monitoring
and management of the PRS user segment. It interfaces
with national CPAs. Given its critical nature, the GSMC
relies on two hot redundant facilities.
•
Time Service Provider (TSP) and Geodetic Reference
Service Providers (GRSP): These centers monitor and
steer the GST and the GTRF in order to align it to
international meteorological standards.
• SAR Galileo Data Service Provider (SAR GDSP): This
center determines the position of the distress alert
emitted by the SAR beacons and generates the SAR
Return Link Messages to be later disseminated through
the Galileo navigation signals. The SAR GDSP premises
are located in Toulouse, France.
• Galileo Reference Centre (GRC): This center provides
independent performance monitoring of the Galileo ser-
vices. The GRC facility is located in Noordwijk, the
Netherlands.
13/12/2020 10:19:54 AM

Figure 5.15 Galileo ground segment overview.
Figure 5.15 provides an overview of the Galileo ground
segment and gives a good feeling for the long list of assets
required to provide the service.
5.7 Galileo Signal Plan
5.7.1 Galileo Spectrum and Frequency Plan
As introduced in Section 5.1, the signal plan of Galileo has
been the product of many years of technical discussions and
optimization trade-offs that culminated in the frequencies
and signals that Galileo transmits today. Galileo’s signal
plan in general and the waveform and message structure
in particular are also a consequence of the political efforts
of Europe to promote the combined interoperable use of
GPS and Galileo, a result of the agreement between the
United States and the European Union on the promotion,
provision, and use of both systems and their related appli-
cations [28]. The agreement also paved the way for the very
final modification in the open signals of E1, and introduced
what de facto has become the new standard waveform for
GNSS open signals at 1575.42 MHz: MBOC.
Interoperability between Galileo and GPS ultimately
aims at easing the efforts at the receiver level to use signals
from both constellations and profit from their combined
geometry. The fact that Galileo and GPS share the
0004815226.3D 121
5.7 Galileo Signal Plan 121
frequency carriers E5a/L5 and E1/L1 with equivalent mod-
ulations and that both ensure a guaranteed link to UTC and
the ITRF are indeed a proof of that. But the concept goes far
beyond this and also includes the comparable definition of
message concepts such as ephemeris, almanac, clock cor-
rection, GST- UTC, bias group delay, common receiver
algorithms, and even software.
Galileo satellites transmit coherent signals on three dif-
ferent navigation carriers, namely‚ E1, E5‚ and E6, and
each of these signals contains several components, with
at least one pair of pilot and data streams. As shown in
Figure 5.16, the E1 band refers to the carrier frequency in
the upper L band of 1575.42 MHz, and is also denoted as
E2-L1-E1 in other books. It is the same L1 carrier frequency
used by GPS. E6 is in the upper part of the lower L band and
has a carrier frequency of 1278.75 MHz. E5 designates the
lower part of the lower L band and is subdivided into E5b
and E5a. The E5 carrier frequency is 1191.795 MHz, while
the E5b and E5a carrier frequencies are respectively
1207.14 MHz and 1176.45 MHz. E5a coincides with the
L5 frequency of GPS.
All Galileo signals use RHCP‚ and according to the Gal-
ileo SIS ICD [5], the minimum received power is specified
for satellite signals received at 5 of elevation at an output of
a 0 dBic circularly polarized antenna situated around the
surface of Earth. The definition does not include excess
atmospheric attenuation. The power spectral densities of
13/12/2020 10:19:54 AM
 122 5 GALILEO

E5a E5b E6 E1

1164 1189 1214 1260 1278.75 1300 1544 1559 1575.42 1591
MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz

1176.45 MHz 1207.14 MHz 1544.2 1563 1587

MHz MHz MHz

SAR OS/SoL/CS Data

OS Data OS/SoL/CS Data CS Data MBOC(6,1,1/11)
AltBOC(15,10) AltBOC(15,10) BPSK(5) Data 250 sps
Data 50 sps Data 250 sps Data 1000 sps Pilot Channel

PRS Data
PRS Data BOCcos(15,2.5)
BOCcos(10,5)

OS Pilot
AltBOC(15,10)

BPSK(10) BPSK(10) CS Pilot

BPSK(5)

Galileo Assigned Frequency Band

GPS L5 Band

GPS L1 Band

Glonass L3 Band

SAR Downlink

Carrier Frequencies

Signals accesible to all users, with data partly encrypted

Signals to which access is controlled through the use of encryption for ranging codes and data

Signals to which access is restricted through the use of encryption for ranging codes and data

Figure 5.16 Galileo frequency plan, signals‚ and components.

the Galileo signals and the respective carriers introduced
above are shown in Figure 5.16:
Each of the signals in E1 and E5 provides at least one free
open access pair of pilot and data components. In particu-
lar, E5 is composed of two pilot–data pairs at ±15.345 MHz
around the E5 carrier frequency (E5b at +15.345 and E5a at
−15.345). The sidebands of E5 fulfill a dual purpose. On the
one hand, they serve users that track each of the sidebands
individually due to bandwidth limitations‚ while on the
other hand they allow more sophisticated receivers to profit

0004815226.3D 122 13/12/2020 10:19:54 AM

 5.7 Galileo Signal Plan 123

from the coherent generation of the two sidebands and
achieve an excellent performance, equivalent to that of
using one single and very large bandwidth, namely‚ that
of the whole E5 with at least 51.15 MHz (50 × 1.023
MHz). The coherent generation of the E5 sidebands is
achieved by means of the AltBOC multiplex [5], which
we describe in further detail next.
Table 5.5 summarizes the mapping between Galileo nav-
igation services and signals [3].
All Galileo signals are coherently derived from a common
reference time. The signal definitions in the next few sub-
sections are specified without the effect of band-limiting fil-
ters and payload imperfections. Furthermore, although the
actual values vary from application to application, some
recommendations for receiver bandwidths are provided.

5.7.2 Galileo Signals and Services

Section 5.4 introduced the Galileo services and planned
user communities. In this section, we provide further
details on the main signal characteristics of Galileo in each
frequency band and the mapping between signals and
services:
5.7.3 Galileo E1 Band
Galileo provides two services on the E1 band: the E1 OS and
the E1 PRS. E1 OS is served by two signal components, E1B
and E1C, while PRS uses the third signal component,
namely‚ E1A.

•
OS: OS is provided in two modes: single-frequency and
dual-frequency. The single-frequency (SF) OS is provided
by each of the three OS signals transmitted in E1B&C, E5a‚
and E5b. The dual-frequency (DF) OS is provided by the
dual-frequency signal combinations E1B&C-E5a and
E1B&C-E5b.
The E1 OS modulation is called CBOC (Composite
Binary Offset Carrier) and is a particular implementation
of MBOC (Multiplexed BOC) [3]. MBOC(6,1,1/11) is the
result of multiplexing a wideband signal – BOC(6,1) – with
a narrowband signal – BOC(1,1) – in such a way that 1/11 of
the power is allocated, on average, to the high-frequency

•
CS: CS is provided by the E6B&C signal in combination
with the OS signals of E1B&C, E5a, and E5b. The E6B&C
signal contains value-added data transmitted at a high
data rate, and it is combined with OS signals for improved
performance.
component. This signal was finalized in 2007 in collabora-
tion with GPS and was the last signal to be completely
defined in the Galileo frequency plan.
The normalized (unit power) power spectral density is
given by

• PRS: PRS is provided by the E1A and E6A signals, which

have been specially designed to be resistant to intentional
GMBOC 6,1,1 11 f =
10
11
GBOC 1,1 f +
1
11
GBOC 6,1 f
51
and non-intentional interference.

Table 5.5 Galileo navigation services mapped to signals

Service Open Commercial Public Regulated

Signal Service Service Service

E5a OS

E5b IM

E5

E6A

E6B,C

E1A

E1B,C

0004815226.3D 123 13/12/2020 10:19:55 AM

 124 5 GALILEO

CBOC is a particular case of the more general Composite Another interesting property of CBOC becomes evident if
Binary Coded Symbols (CBCS) [3] modulation and can be we rearrange the terms in Eq. (5.2) above and express the
expressed as follows: combined signal as a pseudorandom time-multiplexed
alternation of BOC(1,1) and BOC(6,1) chips that are modu-
cD t
cos θ1 sBOC 1,1 t + cos θ2 sBOC 6,1 t + lated by the non-binary code that results from adding the
2
cP t data and pilot ranging codes:
s t =A + cos θ1 sBOC 1,1 t − cos θ2 sBOC 6,1 t +
2
sin θ1 + sin θ2 cD t + cP t
+ j sPRS t + sIM t cos θ1 sBOC 1,1 t +
2 2
cD t − cP t
52 s t =A + cos θ2 sBOC 6,1 t +
2
sin θ1 − sin θ2 sin θ1 + sin θ2
sIM t = − j cD t cP t sPRS t + j sPRS t + sIM t
2 2
53 54
where
If we carefully look at the expression above, we can

• A is the amplitude of the modulation envelope, which is

the sum of the OS data (D) and pilot (P), PRS and inter-
observe the following:
if cD(t) = + 1 and cP(t) = + 1, then cD(t) + cP(t)
modulation product IM.A = 2PT , where PT is the total = 2 and cD(t) − cP(t) = 0
power of the multiplexed signal.

•
if cD(t) = + 1 and cP(t) = − 1, then cD(t) + cP(t)
θ1 and θ2 describe the angular distance of points of the 8- = 0 and cD(t) − cP(t) = 2
PSK modulation. This depends on the percentage of if cD(t) = − 1 and cP(t) = + 1, then cD(t) + cP(t) (5.5)
power that is placed on the BOC(6,1) component.

•
= 0 and cD(t) − cP(t) = − 2
sBOC(1, 1)(t) represents the BOC(1,1) modulation with a if cD(t) = − 1 and cP(t) = − 1, then cD(t) + cP(t)
chip rate of 1.023 MHz.

•
= − 2 and cD(t) − cP(t) = 0
sBOC(6, 1)(t) represents the BOC(6,1) modulation with a
chip rate of 6 × 1.023 MHz. Accordingly, whatever the value of cD(t) and cP(t), the

• sPRS(t) is the PRS modulation with a chip rate of 2.5 ×

1.023 MHz.
coefficients of sBOC(1, 1)(t) and sBOC(6, 1)(t) will always be
nonzero at different but complementary slots in time. This

• sIM(t) is the IM product signal, which is added to the use-

ful signals above to guarantee that their sum produces a
proves the time-multiplex nature of this equation since the
BOC(1,1) subcarrier is transmitted at different but comple-
constant envelope. mentary time slots to those of the BOC(6,1) subcarrier.

• cD(t) and cP(t) are the data and pilot codes‚ respectively. It
is important to note that cD(t) accounts for the effect of
the data bits.
The high-frequency BOC(6,1) component is placed on
both the data and pilot components‚ and both data and pilot
have equal power following a 1:1 data to pilot power ratio.
Moreover, each of the data and pilot streams is spread by a
linear combination of BOC(1,1) and BOC(6,1) spreading
symbols, with coefficients such that 10/11 of the power falls
on BOC(6,1) and 1/11 on BOC(6,1). It is also important in
the definition of CBOC that data and pilot components are
in anti-phase, since the subcarriers add with opposite sign
for the data and the pilot component. This results in a four-
level time domain signal that differs slightly for the CBOC
data and pilot components and consequently also differs
Another interesting effect from the introduction of the
low-power BOC(6,1) component is that the number of
phase points increases to eight from the original six that
were necessary when only BOC(1,1) was transmitted [3].
For the same reason, the power spent in the IM product sig-
nal sIM(t) is considerably reduced, thus improving the effi-
ciency of the multiplex. It is also important to note that the
quadrature component (the PRS signal) is left unaffected by
this new scheme, except for its relative amplitude.
A detailed description of the public Galileo modulations
is available in the Galileo public Open Service Signal in
Space Interface Control Document [5].
A generic view of the E1 OS signal generation is depicted
in Figure 5.17 [3].
The whole transmitted Galileo E1 signal consists of the
multiplexing of the following three components:

•
slightly for the autocorrelation functions of data and pilot.
The pilot CBOC signal has indeed a narrower peak and con-
sequently a better tracking and multipath mitigation
performance.
The E1 OS data component eE1−B(t) is generated from
the I/NAV navigation data stream DE1−B(t) and the
ranging code CE1−B(t), which are then modulated with

0004815226.3D 124 13/12/2020 10:19:55 AM


10/ 11scE1–BOC(1,1)(t)
+ of ±
1/ 11scE1–BOC(6,1)(t)
DE1–B(t)
X X 1 could instead, at the cost of a suboptimum implementation,
CE1–B(t) eE1–B(t)
2 use a two-bit representation. For low-cost applications,
Primary
CE1–C + X
– sE1(t)
X X
CE1–C(t) eE1–C(t)
Secondary 10/ 11scE1–BOC(1,1)(t)
CE1–C
– for the BOC(6,1) and BOC(1,1) parts [29–31], demonstrat-
1/ 11scE1–BOC(6,1)(t)
Figure 5.17 CBOC modulation block diagram.
the subcarriers scE1−BOC(1, 1)(t) and scE1−BOC(6, 1)(t) of
BOC(1,1) and BOC(6,1), respectively.
•
The E1 OS pilot component eE1−C(t) is generated
from the ranging code CE1−C(t), including its secondary
code, which is then modulated with the subcarriers
scE1−BOC(1, 1)(t) and scE1−BOC(6, 1)(t) in anti-phase.
•
The E1 PRS signal, also denoted as E1-A, which results
from the modulo-two addition (product if we consider
the physical bipolar representation of the signal) of the
PRS data stream DPRS(t), the PRS code sequence CPRS(t),
and the subcarrier scPRS(t). This subcarrier consists of a
BOC(15,2.5) in cosine phasing.
Figure 5.5 shows the power spectral density of all Galileo
E1 signals.
It is important to note that the E1 band is the notation
used by Galileo to refer to the L1 band of GPS or B1 of
BeiDou.
The E1 OS codes are, as well as the E6 CS codes that we
will see later, also random memory codes. The plain num-
ber of choices to set the 0s and 1s for the whole code family
is enormous‚ and thus special algorithms have to be applied
to generate random codes efficiently [3, 32, 33]. The codes
can be driven to fulfill special properties such as balance
and weakened balance, where the probability of 0s and
1s must not be identical but within a well-defined range,
or to realize the autocorrelation sidelobe zero (ASZ) prop-
erty. This latter property guarantees that the autocorrela-
tion values of every code correlate to zero with a delayed
version of itself, shifted by one chip.
The technical characteristics of all the Galileo signals in
E1 are summarized in Table 5.6.
In the same manner as the CBOC expression admits many
different interpretations of its nature, it does also offer a wide
range of possible tracking strategies to exploit its intrinsic
properties. Ideal direct CBOC tracking would require
0004815226.3D 125
5.7 Galileo Signal Plan 125
four-level correlators at the receiver with amplitude values
10 11 + 1 11 and ± 10 11 − 1 11 to
be optimum. Some applications‚ however‚ do not need to
achieve maximum possible performance of the signal and
receivers of limited bandwidth might also consider using
a conventional binary BOC(1,1) de-spreading at the cost
of a negligible 0.4 dB loss (the actual value will be a function
of the selected receiver bandwidth). Other techniques sug-
gest the possibility of combining separate binary correlators
ing the feasibility of efficient and simplified CBOC tracking
architectures.
The E1B,C CBOC signal was designed to permit receivers
to explore different tracking strategies depending on the
envisaged complexity and performance. For receivers tar-
geting to minimize the receiver bandwidth, it is expected
that only the BOC(1,1) component of CBOC is processed.
In this case, the minimum necessary receiver (double-
sided) bandwidth to capture the main lobes of BOC(1,1)
would be approximately 4.0 MHz, although narrower band-
width are possible as long as enough power falls within it.
The recommended bandwidth is between approximately
2.0 MHz and 24.552 MHz, and the maximum receiver band-
width is suggested to not be larger than 31 MHz. Interme-
diate values are possible in steps of 2.046 MHz to capture
full secondary lobes.
Another category of receivers processing CBOC is
expected to target the best tracking performance and multi-
path robustness by exploiting the BOC(6,1) component.
These receivers would require a minimum of approxi-
mately 14.3 MHz to capture the BOC(6,1) main lobe.
5.7.4 Galileo E6 Band
As shown in [5], the transmitted Galileo E6 signal consists
of the following three components:
•
E6 CS data component: This modulating signal is the
modulo-two addition of the E6 CS navigation data stream
DCS(t) with the CS data component code sequence C DCS t .
This last one is already modulated by a BPSK(5) at
5.115 MHz.
•
E6 CS pilot component: This modulating signal is the
modulo-two addition of the E6 CS pilot component code
CPCS t with a BPSK(5) at 5.115 MHz.
• E6 PRS signal component: It is the modulo-two addition
of the E6 PRS navigation data stream DPRS(t) with the
PRS code sequence CPRS(t) at 5.115 MHz. This signal is
further modulated by a subcarrier of 10.23 MHz in cosine
phasing.
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 126 5 GALILEO

Table 5.6 Galileo E1 signal technical characteristics

Frequency band E1
Carrier frequency 1575.42 MHz
Access technique CDMA
Multiplexing Interplex
Component name E1-A E1-B E1-C
Service PRS OS/SAR OS
Spreading modulation BOCc(15,2.5) CBOC(6,1,1/11) CBOC(6,1,1/11)
Data/pilot Data+PilotTime Mux Data Pilot
Subcarrier rate (MHz) 15.345 1.023 1.023
Primary code type Encrypted Memory code Memory code
Primary PRN code duration (ms) 4 4
Primary PRN code 2.5575 1.023 1.023
rate (Mcps)
Primary PRN code length (chips) 4092 4092
Secondary PRN code type Memory code Memory code
Secondary PRN code rate (cps) 250
Secondary PRN code length 25
(chips)
PRN code repetition (ms) 4 100
Spectral line spacing (Hz) 250 10
Data fraction of power (%) 50
Data symbol duration (ms) 4
Data rate (sps) 250
Data rate (bps) 125
Interleaver Block 30 × 8
Error correction Convolutional codes
r = 1/2, k = 7
Error detection CRC-24
Keying Binary
Message G/NAV I/NAV
30 s subframes, divided into 2 s pages (even + odd
parts).
Each page part:
10 sync + 2∗ (114 bits+ 6 tail bits)
Min Power (at 5 el.) (dBW) −157.25 −160.25 −160.25
Max power (dBW) −152.00 −157.00 −157.00

This is graphically shown in Figure 5.18.
Moreover, the spectrum of the different E6 signals is as
shown in Figure 5.19.
The E6 CS codes are also random codes like E1OS codes
[32, 33]. The signal characteristics of E6 are summarized in
Table 5.7.
For the processing of the E6B,C signal, a minimum
receiver (double-sided) bandwidth of 10.2 MHz is
required, while the recommended bandwidth ranges
between approximately 10.2 MHz and 20.5 MHz. The max-
imum receiver bandwidth is suggested to not be larger than
41 MHz. Intermediate values are possible in steps of 10.23
MHz to capture full secondary lobes.

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 5.7 Galileo Signal Plan 127

DCS(t) AltBOC is conceptually similar to the well-known BOC

modulation but with the remarkable advantage that it also
SD(t) provides high spectral isolation between the two upper
X 1
D main lobes and the two lower main lobes (considering
CCS (t)
2 the I and Q phases separately). This is accomplished by
+ X using differentiated codes for each of the main lobes. This
CS
– SE6 (t) interesting property allows keeping the same implementa-
tion principles of a typical BOC receiver while at the same
P SP (t) time allowing the lobes to be differentiated [34]. The Alt-
CCS (t)
BOC modulation is generally denoted as AltBOC(m, n)
Figure 5.18 Modulation scheme for the Galileo E6 signals. for simplicity, which is technically equivalent to an Alt-
BOC(fs, fc) with fs = m 1.023 and fc = n 1.023.
Conceptually, the AltBOC modulation is inspired by the
idea of using a complex subcarrier to shift the power from
the carrier to higher and lower frequencies so that the
Galileo E6 CS Data & Pilot
resulting spectrum does not split up and carry the same
–60
Galileo E6 PRS information on both main sides. The resulting wideband
In-Phase PSD [dBW/Hz]

complex modulation can be then represented in baseband

–70
as the sum of coherently generated and individually quad-
–80 rature modulated complex upper (E5b) and lower (E5a)
–90 subcarriers. However, as [3] discusses in detail, if no other
–100 additional terms were introduced, the resulting composite
z]
–100 –90 /H
W signal would not guarantee a constant envelope in the end.
–20 –80 [dB
–10 D
Frequen
cy Offse 0 –70 PS The technical solution to this problem came from [35–37],
t with re 10 a se
spect to 20 Ph where a new signal term called the Inter Modulation (IM)
the carr
ier [MH ra-
z] ad
Qu product was proposed. This term does not contain any use-
Figure 5.19 Spectra of Galileo signals in E6. ful navigation information but ensures that the AltBOC
modulation keeps all the phase points of the constellation
diagram within the circle and with a non-constant alloca-
5.7.5 Galileo E5 Band tion of the eight phase states as in a classical 8-PSK modu-
The different Galileo E5 signal components are generated lation, which obviously is an ideally constant envelope [38].
according to the following [5]: The final selected modified constant envelope AltBOC was
proposed around 2002/2003 in [37]. Applied to the Galileo

• The E5a data component: This component is the modulo-

two addition of the E5a navigation data stream DE5a(t)
particular case of AltBOC in E5 and following the
Galileo ICD notation, the previous expressions simplify
with the E5a data PRN code sequence C DE5a t of the chip- to the following:
ping rate 10.23 MHz.

•
Ts
The E5a pilot component: This component is the E5a cDE5a + j cPE5a scd t − j scd t − +
4
Signal
pilot PRN code sequence C PE5a t of the chipping rate Ts
cDE5b + j cPE5b scd t + j scd t − +
10.23 MHz.

•
1 4
sAltBOC t =
The E5b data component: This component is the modulo- 8 Ts
cDE5a + j cPE5a scp t − j scp t− +
two addition of the E5b navigation data stream DE5b(t) 4
IM
with the E5b data PRN code sequence C DE5b t of the chip- cDE5b + j cPE5b scp t + j scp t −
Ts
ping rate 10.23 MHz. 4

• The E5b pilot component: This component is the E5b

pilot PRN code sequence C PE5b t of the chipping rate where Ts is the period of the AltBOC subcarrier. Moreover,
56

10.23 MHz.

The E5 modulation is AltBOC. It is a wideband modified cDE5a = cPE5b cDE5b cPE5a cPE5a = cDE5b cPE5b cDE5a
version of the BOC, transmitted at 1191.795 MHz with a
cDE5b = cDE5a cPE5b cPE5a cPE5b = cDE5b cDE5a cPE5a
code rate of 10.23 MHz and a subcarrier frequency of
15.345 MHz. 57

0004815226.3D 127 13/12/2020 10:19:56 AM

 128 5 GALILEO

Table 5.7 Galileo E6 signal technical characteristics

Frequency band E6
Carrier frequency 1278.750 MHz
Access technique CDMA
Multiplexing Interplex
Component name E6-A E6-B E6-C
Service PRS CS CS
Spreading modulation BOCc(10,5) BPSK(5) BPSK(5)
Data/pilot Data+Pilot Time Data Pilot
Mux
Subcarrier rate 10.230 MHz
Primary code type Encrypted Encrypted Encrypted
Primary PRN code duration (ms) 1 1
Primary PRN code rate (Mcps) 2.5575 1.023 1.023
Primary PRN code length
Secondary PRN code type
Secondary PRN code rate (cps) 1000
Secondary PRN code length (chips) 100
PRN code repetition (ms) 1 100
Spectral line spacing (Hz) 1000 10
Data fraction of power (%) 50
Data symbol duration (ms) 1
Data rate (sps) 1000
Data rate (bps) 500
Interleaver Block 123 × 8
Error correction Convolutional codes
r = 1/2, k = 7
Error detection CRC-24
Keying Binary
Message G/NAV C/NAV
15 s subframes divided into 15 pages. Each page made
of:
16 sync + 2∗ (486 bits + 6 tail bits)
Min power (at 5 el.) (dBW) −155.25 −158.25 −158.25
Max power (dBW) −152.00 −155.00 −155.00

and the data and pilot subcarriers can be expressed as 2 π 1

follows: scp t = − sign cos 2π f s t − + sign cos 2 π f s t
4 4 2
2 π 1 2 π
scd t = sign cos 2 π f s t − + sign cos 2 π f s t − sign cos 2 π f s t + 59
4 4 2 4 4
As we can observe, all the IM terms are the result of triple
2 π products of the nominal spreading sequences. Since the IM
+ sign cos 2 π f s t + 58
4 4 power is ultimately wasted power, it is important to note

0004815226.3D 128 13/12/2020 10:19:56 AM

 5.7 Galileo Signal Plan 129

also that most of the power of the IM is located around and Taking the terms of the previous lines, one can show that
beyond the 3fs MHz offset from the E5 carrier, which is far the power spectral density for the constant envelope Alt-
outside the recommended AltBOC receiver bandwidth. BOC modulation is as follows:
Moreover, the IM terms are uncorrelated with any single
signal or component of interest and their power within 2 πf
Φ 4 f c cos fc πf
the receiver bandwidth is much lower than the total noise odd,c
GAltBOC f = cos 2
power. Thus, the IM can safely be neglected for the purpose π 2 f 2 cos 2 πf 2fs
2 fs
of AltBOC tracking.
Furthermore, while in the original conception the com- πf πf πf
plex subcarrier was composed of a cosine-phased rectangu- − cos − 2 cos cos +2
2fs 2fs 4fs
lar signal for the real part and a sine-phased rectangular
signal for the complex part, now both the real and complex 5 10
part are a mixture of both sine and cosine delayed and early
rectangular waveforms. The time representation of the data This expression actually corresponds to the odd variant of
and pilot AltBOC subcarriers is depicted in Figure 5.20. As AltBOC, where (2fs/fc) is odd in the case of Galileo’s
we can recognize, they are discrete multi-level signals with AltBOC(15,10) constant envelope modulation. The result-
period Ts= (15.345 MHz)−1. ing spectrum of the E5 signal modulation is shown in
Figure 5.21 shows the generic generation of the Galileo Figure 5.22.
E5 signal modulation. As shown in the figure above, the spectrum of the
AltBOC(15,10) modulation is very similar to that of two
QPSK(10) signals shifted by 15 MHz to the left and right
of the carrier frequency. Indeed, since to acquire all the
AltBOC Subcarriers main lobes of the modulation a very wide bandwidth is nec-
2+1 essary, many receivers are expected to correlate the AltBOC
2 signal with two shifted QPSK(10) replicas, allowing acqui-
sition and tracking of each of the data and pilot of both E5a
1
2
and E5b individually, with a minimum receiver (double-
2–1
2
sided) bandwidth of approximately 20.5 MHz and centred
on the E5a and/or E5b carriers. Larger bandwidths are pos-
sible, but values beyond approximately 41 MHz – which
–1 –
2–1
2 2 corresponds to the main lobe plus the secondary lobe at
SCd
SCp
each side – will not bring significant improvements. Fur-
2+1 thermore, intermediate values for receiver bandwidth
–
2
should capture full main and secondary lobes.
0 Ts Ts Ts Ts Ts Ts Ts Ts
2 3 4 5 6 7 For the full processing of the whole AltBOC signal, a min-
8 8 8 8 8 8 8
imum receiver (double-sided) bandwidth of 51.2 MHz and
Figure 5.20 Galileo E5 data and pilot subcarriers. centred at 1191.795 MHz is recommended. For bandwidths
beyond this value, the benefits do not seem to compensate
for the increased complexity and power consumption. Also,
it is important to recall that E5a and E5b are generated fully
X coherently within AltBOC.
D
CE5a (t) Other tracking concepts have been proposed for wide-
band AltBOC processing‚ and all basically require AltBOC
F/NAV DE5a (t)
replica generation. To mention one that is considered as a
P
CE5a (t) AltBOC(15,10) sE5(t)
benchmarking baseline, [6] suggests the possibility of gen-
erating the replica using a lookup table and accounts for
X aspects of receiver implementation. Nevertheless, new con-
D
CE5b (t)
cepts are expected to be proposed in the coming years as the
I/NAV
DE5b (t) use of Galileo becomes more widespread.
P The E5 primary codes can be generated with shift regis-
CE5b (t)
ters. Indeed, the outputs of two parallel registers are
Figure 5.21 Galileo E5 modulation scheme. modulo-two added to generate the primary codes. For more

0004815226.3D 129 13/12/2020 10:19:56 AM

 130 5 GALILEO
Galileo E5a Band
Galileo E5 I E5a I
Galileo E5 Q
–70
In-Phase PSD [dBW/Hz]
–75
–80
–85
–90
–95
E5a Q
–100
–45 –35 –25 –15
0 15
Frequency Offset with respect
to the carrier [MHz]
Figure 5.22 Power spectral densities of Galileo signals in E5.
details on the start values of the primary codes and the cor-
responding secondary codes of each satellite, refer to [5].
Finally, some details on the technical characteristics of
the E5 signal are presented in Table 5.8.
One final remark to make on the AltBOC signal is that
while Galileo transmits content in the navigation message
for E5a and E5b individually, it does not provide a dedi-
cated message for the whole AltBOC signal (composed of
both E5a and E5b). This is relevant for the clock correction
of the E5 carrier if the whole E5 band is exploited, since the
clock correction values transmitted in the navigation mes-
sage are optimized for the dual-frequency reception of E1
and E5a (F/NAV message) and for the dual-frequency
reception of E1 and E5b (I/NAV message). As a good
approximation, the average of the I/NAV and the F/NAV
clock corrections could be used instead. In addition, for
the sole reception of the E5 signal, the I/NAV and F/
NAV Bias Group Delays (BGDs) would be necessary too.
5.7.6 Galileo Spreading Codes and Sequences
Every Galileo signal component is spread with unique
sequences called pseudorandom noise (PRN) codes that
are specific to every satellite. As a general rule:
• The length of the spreading sequences for the Galileo
data components was selected so as to exactly fit within
one symbol of the data component. However, if the
resulting length was larger than 10,230 chips, a two-
tiered code structure was chosen. The tiered code is based
on the construction of a primary spreading sequence
0004815226.3D 130
Galileo E5b Band
E5b I
–100
]
Hz
W/
–90
dB
D[
PS
–80
ase
E5b Q
Ph
ra-
25 35 45
ad
Qu
overlaid with a slower secondary code. The primary
code length was the result of many trade-offs‚ but
essentially the selected length of 10,230 chips is a
good compromise between the correlation properties of
families in that length range and reasonable complexity
during acquisition.
• The spreading sequences of the Galileo pilot component
are also based on the two-tiered construction. In this
case, the length of the primary code is equal to that of
its associated data component while the length of the sec-
ondary code is chosen so as to produce a non-repetitive
pilot spreading (tiered-code) sequence of 100 ms in total.
This pilot code period was selected to allow receivers to
resolve the code phase relative to the GST within an ini-
tial uncertainty of 100 ms, which is approximately the
delay between any visible satellite of the nominal Galileo
constellation and a terrestrial user and more than four
times the difference between the propagation delays of
that same satellite to the closest and the farthest user
on Earth. Thus, the selected Galileo codes allow users
on the surface of Earth to derive time-free position solu-
tions using only code phase measurements, provided the
receiver already had the ephemeris and clock correction
available in memory.
The effect of modulating the spreading waveforms of data
and pilot components with the PRN sequences that result
from the two-tiered code construction mechanism is simi-
lar to that of modulating with pseudodata. In this case, the
secondary code plays the role of the a priori known symbol
modulation and is clocked to have a duration equal to the
13/12/2020 10:19:56 AM
 5.7 Galileo Signal Plan 131

Table 5.8 Galileo E5 signal technical characteristics

Frequency band E5
Carrier frequency 1191.795 MHz
Access technique CDMA
Multiplexing AltBOC
Component name E5a-I E5a-Q E5b-I E5b-Q
Service OS OS OS OS
Spreading modulation BPSK(10) BPSK BPSK(10) BPSK(10)
(10)
Data/pilot Data Pilot Data Pilot
Subcarrier rate
Primary code type Memory code Memory Memory code Memory
code code
Primary PRN code duration (ms) 1 1 1 1
Primary PRN code rate (Mcps) 10.23 10.23 10.23 10.23
Primary PRN code length (chips) 10,230 10,230 10,230 10,230
Secondary PRN code type Memory code Memory Memory code Memory
code code
Secondary PRN code rate (cps) 1000 1000 250 1000
Secondary PRN code length (chips) 20 100 4 100
PRN Code repetition (ms) 20 100 4 100
Spectral line spacing (Hz) 50 10 250 10
Data fraction of power (%) 50 50
Data symbol duration (ms) 20 4
Data rate (sps) 50 250
Data rate (bps) 25 125
Interleaver Block 61 × 8 Block 30 × 8
Error correction Convolutional codes Convolutional codes
r = 1/2, k = 7 r = 1/2, k = 7
Error detection CRC-24 CRC-24
Keying Binary Binary
Message F/NAV I/NAV
50 s subframes 30 s subframes, divided into 2 s
Divided into 10 s pages. pages (even + odd parts).
Each page made of Each page part:
12 sync + 2∗ (238 bits + 6 10 sync + 2∗ (114 bits+ 6 tail bits)
tail bits)
Min. power (at 5 el.) (dBW) −158.25 −158.25 −158.25 −158.25
Max. power (dBW) −153.00 −153.00 −153.00 −153.00

period of the primary code to which it is modulo-2 added.
Figure 5.23 illustrates the principle. Receiver designers
intending to extend the coherent integration time beyond
the duration of one primary code length will need to bear
this in mind in order to account for the behavior of the sec-
ondary code during the acquisition process, conducting
appropriate hypothesis tests to identify the correct second-
ary code phase. The retained Galileo primary spreading
sequences were the result of a long optimization process
in the Phase C0 of Galileo, around 2003 [39].
Different candidate primary code families were analyzed
or traded off in terms of their autocorrelation and cross-
correlation properties, receiver performance during acqui-
sition and tracking, and robustness against interfering nar-
rowband signals. The same optimization efforts were
invested on the secondary codes. In this case, however,

0004815226.3D 131 13/12/2020 10:19:57 AM

 132 5 GALILEO

Chip Rate:Rp

Np Chips
Primary code
Generator

Period 1 Period 2 Period Ns Period 1

Secondary code

Np *Ns Chips
Generator

NsChips

Chip Rate:Rs = Rp/Np Np: Primary Code Length XOR Modulo-2- Addition
Ns: Secondary Code Length

Figure 5.23 Principle of the tiered-code construction.

G1

Input q–1 q–1 q–1 q–1 q–1 q–1

Output

G2

Figure 5.24 Galileo convolutional coding scheme [5]. Source: Reproduced with permission of European Union.

the driving figure of merit was to achieve low autocorrela-
tion sidelobes.
Further details on the Galileo primary and secondary
spreading codes can be found in the OS SIS ICD [5].
In the near future, Galileo plans to introduce additional
FEC capabilities based on Reed Solomon (RS) codes for
some parts of its navigation message. The additional FEC
is expected to enhance the time reception and sensitivity
performance.

5.7.7 Galileo Forward Error Coding (FEC) and 5.7.8 Galileo Data Message
Block Interleaving
Galileo provides users with three different types of public
In order to provide robust transmission of the data message, navigation messages through the Galileo navigation
Galileo uses Viterbi Forward Error Correcting Coding of signals:

•
rate 1/2 and constraint length 7. The encoder polynomials
I/NAV Type: This message type is a legacy of the old
are identical to those of the GPS L5 CNAV data encoder, but
Integrity NAVigation message and provides a low latency
Galileo data components apply in addition an inversion to
and high data rate with a short page length navigation
the output of the G2 polynomial. This ensures that contin-
message. It carries navigation information on E1B and
uous zero inputs do not create a constant symbol output
E5b-I as well as content for the SAR service in E1B only.

•
(Figure 5.24). Encoding is applied to full or half pages of
F/NAV Type: This message type provides a low-data-rate
the navigation message‚ and all data blocks are treated
Free NAVigation message and is transmitted on the E5a-I
independently without overlaps with earlier or later blocks.
component. It carries navigation content.

In the next step, a list of predefined tails is applied to pro-
vide FEC protection for the complete information content
of each navigation page.
Finally, interleaving is applied on blocks of eight rows
and the number of columns that corresponds to the page
size in symbols, as detailed in [5]. This allows the FEC
decoder to correct burst errors up to a distance of at least
eight symbols.
•
C/NAV Type: This message type provides a low-latency
and near-real-time Commercial NAVigation message
and is transmitted on the E6B component.
The content of the navigation message can be roughly
divided into pure navigation content (time of transmission,
clock correction, ephemeris, etc.), which is mostly repeti-
tive, and other non-repetitive low-latency message

0004815226.3D 132 13/12/2020 10:19:57 AM


elements. All these low-latency data components, regard-
less of their type, are provided by satellites that are directly
in contact with the Galileo ground segment‚ and the data
content can vary from one satellite to another.
The OS SIS ICD [5], its annexes‚ and all its associated sup-
port documents provide all the details on the three types of
messages above. This section will thus focus on the aspects
that are relevant for receiver manufacturers and users, stres-
sing the differences from other systems and its specificities.
5.7.8.1 Relevant Aspects of I/NAV Message
The I/NAV message provides users with navigation content
to support users in PVT determination. Apart from other
details that are less relevant for the present discussion,
the I/NAV fields contain the following information:
••
GST through a WN and Time of Week (TOW)
Ephemeris and clock correction for the transmitting
satellite
•
Ionosphere model parameters and bias group delay for
single-frequency users
••
Data validity and signal health flags
Almanac and other supplementary information
The definitions used by Galileo for the representation of
ephemeris, clock corrections, GST-UTC, almanacs, and
usage algorithms are based on GPS legacy formats but filled
up with Galileo content. For the ionosphere correction
message, however, Galileo uses an adapted version of the
NeQuick model. Details on the performance can be found
in Section 5.8.
In addition to the navigation content, the I/NAV message
does also include in E1B a return link channel to support
the SAR service [25]. This channel is near real time and pro-
vides Galileo-equipped SAR beacons with a short acknowl-
edgment that the distress signal was correctly received. The
I/NAV channel does also contain other low-latency channels.
A particular feature of the I/NAV message is that it is
defined to be flexible to modify the nominal order of the
pages and also has the capability to replace nominal trans-
missions by low-latency short message pages which, in the
extreme case, might only be transmitted a single time. This
capability is on a per-second basis [5], and receivers are
required to be designed for these events.
The I/NAV message is structured in pages, which repre-
sent the smallest unit of interpretable data. A full I/NAV
page itself consists of two consecutive data blocks of 1 s
duration each known as the “odd” and “even” words. Every
word starts with the I/NAV synchronization symbols fol-
lowed by a block-encoded data field. A full I/NAV page thus
requires 2 s to be transmitted and provides an effective
capacity of 245 bits, excluding synchronization and tail
symbols.
0004815226.3D 133
5.7 Galileo Signal Plan 133
5.7.8.2 Relevant Aspects of F/NAV Message
The F/NAV message is compatible with the I/NAV message
and provides users with the same navigation content listed
in the previous section in order to support the PVT determi-
nation. However, certain parameters such as the clock cor-
rection are specific for every message type, and thus can be
potentially different. Having said this, it is expected that the
F/NAV and I/NAV clock corrections will be very similar in
most occasions‚ but this is not guaranteed in the most gen-
eral case. This is the consequence of the multi-frequency
nature of Galileo and the fact that the I/NAV and F/
NAV messages are optimized for different pairs of frequen-
cies: while the I/NAV message, especially its clock correc-
tion, is estimated based on the frequency pair formed by
E1B and E5b, the F/NAV parameters are optimized based
on the reception of E1B and E5a. Consequently, the ephem-
eris and clock corrections transmitted by F/NAV and I/
NAV are, strictly speaking, only valid for those receivers
tracking the respective frequency pairs. For the case of sin-
gle-frequency receivers in particular, the bias group delay
correction of the respective message type also needs to be
applied to correct the clock and ephemeris parameters.
Figure 5.25 illustrates the principle.
Similar to the I/NAV message, the F/NAV message
streams are also structured in pages. Every F/NAV page
contains a predefined sequence of synchronization symbols
followed by the rate-1/2 convolutional-encoded and CRC-
protected block of information. It lasts 10 s and provides
238 bits of effective information, excluding synchronization
and tail symbols.
5.7.8.3 Relevant Aspects of C/NAV Message
At the time of this writing, C/NAV applications are under
development‚ and no content has yet been published.
Moreover, neither the C/NAV message nor the I/NAV or
F/NAV message types yet support PVT using E6 measure-
ments or triple-carrier measurements. This type of content
could be envisaged to be provided in the C/NAV message or
through external sources and communication channels.
The C/NAV data stream is also structured in pages, and
similar to the F/NAV, each C/NAV page consists of prede-
fined synchronization sequence of symbols followed by the
rate-1/2 convolutional-encoded and CRC-protected block
of information.
5.7.8.4 Data Message Planning and Uplink
Data message planning targets the objective of disseminat-
ing the PVT information from each satellite within a well-
defined interval of time while other information contents of
less relevance for the PVT determination and with longer
validity, such as‚ for example‚ the almanac, are transmitted
13/12/2020 10:19:57 AM
 134 5 GALILEO

E5a single E5b single E6 single frequency: E1 single frequency:

frequency: frequency: Use External Use I/NAV, may use
Use F/NAV Use I/NAV Navigation Message F/NAV if available

E5a E5b E6 E1
Navigation Signals
F/NAV I/NAV C/NAV I/NAV

E1/E5b dual frequency: Use I/NAV

E1/E5a dual frequency:

• Can use F/NAV or I/NAV Ephemeris
• Nominal performance with F/NAV clock correction
• Approximation with I/NAV clock correction

Figure 5.25 Rules of use of Galileo message types for PVT.

FNAV Message

Frame
600s (12480 bits)
1 Frame = 12 Subframes

Subframe
50s (1040 bits)
1 Subframe = 5 pages

Page
10s (208 bits eff.)

Figure 5.26 F/NAV page transmission planning.

within longer intervals of time. Figure 5.26 illustrates the
concept for F/NAV.
The current version of the OS SIS ICD [5] provides mes-
sage timelines and structures for the message types
addressed above. However, they are only for information
and with a number of caveats so as to allow room for pos-
sible changes and evolutions in the future. Receivers are
explicitly reminded in the OS SIS ICD that flexibility needs
to be inherent in any Galileo receiver.
It is expected that new features will be gradually intro-
duced as the system matures and the acceptance of Galileo
increases. These new features could target improvements
and/or extensions of the navigation message, making use
of the existing degrees of freedom and of the spare room
available for, as an example, introducing new page types.
Such a change would not impact the PVT quality of the leg-
acy data content‚ but it would require legacy receivers to
properly deal with page types not known to them yet. In

0004815226.3D 134 13/12/2020 10:19:57 AM


a similar way, new data content could be defined outside
the currently defined ranges by making use of the existing
spare space in identifier value ranges.
Another example of flexibility can be directly extracted
from the OS SIS ICD [5], where the nominal sequence of
pages is described, but it is explicitly indicated that there
is no guarantee that the same order will remain in the
future. This implies that the current sequence of pages
may vary in the future for all active satellites and that,
instead of assuming a frozen and static order, receiver
designers will need to identify the received pages by their
actual page identifier. Another of the far-reaching conse-
quences of this built-in flexibility is that the relative timing
between I/NAV pages in E1B and in E5b may change
one day.
Galileo provides a high level of flexibility in the design of
its message but this flexibility is not unlimited, in order to
ensure backward compatibility for legacy receivers in the
future. Certain features such as the modulation up to sym-
bol level or the definition of existing pages will remain unal-
tered. Equally unquestionable is the fact that existing
message content will continue to be provided even if new
capabilities are introduced. As one can expect, the trade-
off between reserving enough headroom for potential and
surely unknown future needs and optimizing a system
for the well-known needs is anything but easy‚ and the dis-
cussion will remain in future generations of Galileo.
So far, we have addressed the planning of the message
and discussed the specificities and flexibility of the Galileo
design. The next step is the generation of the message, its
uplink, and dissemination to the users.
The navigation message information is continuously gen-
erated every 10 min by the Orbitography and Synchroniza-
tion Processing Facility (OSPF), its validity being a
maximum of 100 min. In order to reduce the parameteriza-
tion and quantization errors, the navigation message is gen-
erated in sets of eight batches with a different Issue of Data
(IOD) value for each batch. The latest available sets of
batches are always uploaded by the mission ULSs and
stored on board the satellite as soon as the contact is estab-
lished. Thus, during the time when a satellite has a contin-
uous link with the ground segment, the message
information broadcasted by this satellite will also be
updated approximately every 10 minutes, and the user will
receive the latest and most up-to-date navigation informa-
tion. If the connection with the mission uplink is not pos-
sible for whatever reason and until the next contact occurs,
the satellite transmits the set of batches that were previ-
ously uploaded on board and broadcasts each message
batch one after the other until the very last one is sent.
At that point, if no contact was yet possible, the last batch
will be continuously transmitted regardless of its age. It is
0004815226.3D 135
5.8 Galileo Ionospheric Model 135
important, however, to stress that the mission uplinks are
scheduled such as to ensure that the on-board message is
not older than 100 min, which allows the system to operate
on a RAFS – and thus less demanding – configuration. Hav-
ing said this, if the ground segment changes the PHM to
become the master clock on board the satellite, the time
between uplinks could be extended beyond this time.
Usually, only the first four out of the eight generated
batches are uploaded during the contact with the mission
uplink station. However, the TTC stations are also able to
upload the navigation messages if required, and then dis-
tribute all the generated eight batches during that contact,
which allows the satellite to operate longer on stored
batches.
5.8 Galileo Ionospheric Model
The Galileo single-frequency correction algorithm [41] is
based on the three-dimensional representation of the iono-
sphere. Compared to other thin-layer models, the iono-
spheric group delay is obtained through the integration
of the electron density along the path between satellite
and receiver. The background electron density model used
is the NeQuick G, which is an adaptation of the original
ITU-R NeQuick ionospheric electron density model [42,
43]. It is based on an empirical climatological representa-
tion of the ionosphere, which generates the electron density
from empirically derived analytical profiles and depending
on the input values: solar parameter (e.g. solar radio flux at
10.7 cm (F10.7), sun spot number, etc.), month, geographic
latitude and longitude, height‚ and time. The adaptation for
Galileo (NeQuick G) is driven by an effective ionization
level Az (a solar-related parameter), calculated with three
broadcast ionospheric coefficients ai0, ai1, and ai2. The
three coefficients are used in a second-degree polynomial
as a function of the modified dip latitude (MODIP) of the
receiver, in order to determine Az.
The performance of the NeQuick G Model is regularly
evaluated [44]. The global daily RMS ionospheric residual
error (meters of L1) after correction with Galileo NeQuick
G (red) and GPS ICA (blue) from April 2013 until December
2017 is presented in Figure 5.27. The achieved residual
error as measured is already reaching expectations for
the full operational constellation of Galileo.
Similar to other GNSS, the Galileo clock corrections
are generated for dual-frequency users, and single-
frequency users will need to use the Broadcast Group
Delay BGD(f1, f2) provided through the Galileo navigation
message as additional correction. BGD(f1, f2) is defined as
follows:
13/12/2020 10:19:58 AM
 136 5 GALILEO

5
NeQuick G
4.5 GPS ICA

3.5
RMS (mL1)

2.5

1.5

0.5
2013.5 2014 2014.5 2015 2015.5 2016 2016.5 2017 2017.5 2018
Time (years)

Figure 5.27 Global daily RMS ionospheric residual error in meters of L1 after correction with Galileo NeQuick G (red) and GPS ICA (blue)
from April 2013 to December 2017. Source: © ESA – R. Orus.

BGD f 1 , f 2 =
TR1 − TR2
5 11
1− f1 f2 2
where f1 and f2 are the carrier frequencies of the involved
Galileo signals “1” and “2,” while TR1 − TR2 is the delay
difference of the signals as contributed by the satellite pay-
load. This formulation allows for easy translation of the
dual-frequency clock correction information from the nav-
igation message when using only a single-frequency
receiver [5]. BGD accuracy was characterized, for example,
during the IOV campaign, and was found as expected
around 30 cm. It is noted that BGD does not distinguish
between pilot and data components. The ground segment
measures BGD on the pilot components of the associated
dual-frequency combination. The data components are
nearly identical to their pilot counterparts, in spectrum
and modulation, and the method of signal generation on
board ensures that tracking offsets between a data compo-
nent and its pilot counterpart remain within a few centi-
meters, an order of magnitude smaller than the BGD
accuracy.
5.9 Galileo Navigation Performance
The navigation performance in general and that of Galileo
in particular is intimately related to the ranging perfor-
mance, and mainly driven by three main sources of
degradation:
• Error contributions from the Galileo system itself, mainly
due to the inaccurate modeling of the reference system
data provided in the ephemeris and clock corrections
of the navigation message for the estimation at the user
level of orbits, time synchronization‚ and broadcast
group delays between carrier frequencies (this one only
relevant for single-frequency users)
• Environment errors, mainly driven by the contribution of
the ionosphere in first place and then the troposphere
• User receiver errors caused by local interference, multi-
path, and receiver thermal noise
All of these errors are captured under the so-called User
Equivalent Ranging Error (UERE) budget, discussed in
Chapter 2, Section 2.8, which accounts for the most impor-
tant sources of error as a function of the satellite elevation.
Indicative RMS values for the Galileo UERE contribu-
tions are presented in Table 5.9. These are the error contri-
butions expected to be achieved for the Galileo OS in
nominal operations. The values correspond to the case that
the satellites are received at medium elevations around 45
and at the maximum operational Age Of Data (AOD). The
AOD corresponds to the difference between the moment at
which the navigation message was generated by the GMS
and the maximum valid prediction interval of the clock
and orbit estimation (100 min). Thus, the ranging perfor-
mance at the AOD will be mainly determined by the devi-
ation of the ODTS estimation from the actual clock and
orbit parameters, which are the most critical contents of
the navigation message from the ranging performance
point of view.

0004815226.3D 136 13/12/2020 10:19:58 AM


Table 5.9 Typical range of elevation-dependent error sources
UERE budget [m]
Signal in space ranging error (SISE)
Residual ionosphere error
Residual troposphere error
Thermal noise, interference, multipath
Multipath bias error
Satellite BGD error
Code-carrier ionospheric divergence error
Total (1-sigma error)
Note: The two typical error budgets are based on different environmental assumptions and dynamics that explain the different values in the
tables [45].
Source: European GNSS (Galileo) Initial Services—Open Service—Service Definition Document, European Commission, Issue 1.0, December 2016.
Note that the actual positioning accuracy is derived from
the total UERE for a specific user and its environment, once
the reception geometry is accounted for through, for exam-
ple, the Dilution of Precision (DOP).
For the OS dual-frequency (E1/E5) user, the required
ranging accuracy amounts to approximately 130 cm. This
value is indeed the threshold figure used to determine
the expected availability of the service accuracy.
Figures 5.28a and 5.28b depict the expected performance
for an OS dual-frequency Galileo-only user in the vertical
and horizontal position domain with 99.5% availability
worldwide. The results are based on extensive simulations.
The OS ranging error of the Galileo satellites is monitored
regularly at different locations. The ranging error describes
the performance of the system per signal, and does not
account for the geometry of the user with respect to the con-
stellation. Figure 5.29 shows the actual average (user loca-
tion) measured ranging errors for the Galileo operational
satellites between June and August 2017. As we can recog-
nize, the measured error budgets are well within the
expected performance. For the interpretation of the satellite
number (Exx) in the caption and the translation into
GSATxx notation, refer to Figure 5.14.
One of the most important system contributions to the
ranging error is the SISE, which accounts for the clock
and orbit errors as seen in the user direction. Given
the importance of the on-board clock system on the SISE
performance, the quality of the clock and orbit estima-
tions is validated systematically. A particularly valuable
moment to perform such measurements is during the
IOT following each satellite launch. During these peri-
ods, all clocks on board are operated at least for some
time and tested so as to gather statistics on the perfor-
mance of all of them.
0004815226.3D 137
5.10 Building the Future: Galileo Evolutions 137
Single-frequency user Dual-frequency user
0.67 0.67
6 (5 )–3 (90 ) 0.08 (5 )–0.03 (90 )
1.35 (5 )–0.14 (90 ) 1.35 (5 )–0.14 (90 )
0.35 (5 )–0.23 (90 ) 0.46 (5 )–0.13 (90 )
0.59 0.19
0.30 0.0
0.30 0.0
6.26 (5 )–3.10 (90 ) 1.59 (5 )–0.72 (90 )
It is worth recalling the improvement in the ranging error
along the deployment of Galileo. During IOV, when only
four satellites were available and the ground segment
was limited to a subset of sensor stations, the achieved SISE
was around 1.3 m 67%. In 2014, the SISE performance
improved to approximately 1.0 m 67%, while in 2015, fol-
lowing the update of the ground segment, a typical SISE
of 0.69 m 67% could be reached.
To complement the picture on the actual performance of
Galileo, Figure 5.30 shows results of the measured position-
ing accuracy obtained in Torino in October 2017. The posi-
tion fixes were achieved through a dual-frequency E1b-E5a
receiver. The measured horizontal accuracy shown in this
example is well within expectations, exhibiting here less
than 5 m 95% (dotted light gray line in Figure 5.30). These
position results include the effect of DOP, and thus the
actual nominal performance will improve as soon as Gali-
leo becomes fully operational.
Public quarterly reports on performance are available
under the Galileo Service Centre website [46].
5.10 Building the Future: Galileo
Evolutions
While the Galileo First Generation approaches its FOC,
Europe is already paving the way for its modernization.
The first work on Galileo’s future started around 2007
under ESA’s EGEP, and between 2013 and 2017 Galileo
conducted phase A activities in the frame of Galileo next
generation.
Since early 2016, these R&D and preparatory activities
have progressively transitioned into the EU Horizon 2020
Framework Programme for Research and Innovation in
13/12/2020 10:19:58 AM
 Expected Positioning Performance for Galileo Dual Frequency Open Service (Reference Constellation Geometry)
90 8

75
7
60

Vertical Positioning Accuracy in Meter (95th percentile)

45 6

30
5

15
Latitude

0 4

–15
3

–30

–45 2

–60
1

–75

–90 0
–180–165–150–135–120–105 –90 –75 –60 –45 –30 –15 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Longitude

Figure 5.28a Expected vertical positioning error for an OS dual-frequency Galileo-only user with 99.5% availability.

Expected Positioning Performance for Galileo Dual Frequency Open Service (Reference Constellation Geometry)
90 4

75
3.5

60
Horizontal Positioning Accuracy in Meter (95th percentile)

45 3

30
2.5

15
Latitude

0 2

–15
1.5

–30

–45 1

–60
0.5

–75

–90 0
–180–165–150–135–120–105 –90 –75 –60 –45 –30 –15 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Longitude

Figure 5.28b Expected horizontal positioning error for an OS dual-frequency Galileo-only user with 99.5% availability.

0004815226.3D 138 13/12/2020 10:19:58 AM

 5.10 Building the Future: Galileo Evolutions 139

E01 E07 E19

E02 E08 E22
E03 E09 E24
E04 E11 E26 Galileo F/NAV SIS Ranging Error
E05 E12 E30 June 2017 - August 2017
3.0
SIS Ranging Error in [m]

2.0

1.0

0.0
2017/06/01 2017/06/11 2017/06/21 2017/07/01 2017/07/11 2017/07/21 2017/07/31 2017/08/10 2017/08/20 2017/08/30

Figure 5.29 Galileo F/NAV SIS ranging error at average user location.

Galileo F/NAV Dual Frequency Horizontal Position

Errors - 01-03/10/2017
10
Horizontal Position Accuracy (50%): 0.91 m
8
Horizontal Position Accuracy (95%): 2.4 m

6
South - North Error in [m]

–2

–4

–6

–8

–10
–10 –5 0 5 10
West - East Error in [m]
Figure 5.30 Horizontal position accuracy at end user level in Torino, October 2017.

Satellite Navigation in accordance with the Delegation
Agreement between the EC and the ESA.
In 2014, the EC drew the first Galileo Evolutions lines at
mission level and put them together in the so-called Euro-
pean GNSS Mission Evolution Roadmap (EGMER). This
document dealt with the evolution of the GNSS Mission
beyond GALILEO FOC‚ and it also addressed the evolution
of EGNOS toward its version V3.
Later in 2016, EGMER evolved into the Evolutions High
Level Document (eHLD). It identifies the preliminary
objectives and performance requirements that Galileo tar-
gets to fulfill around the horizon of 2030-2040, and
addresses both unclassified and classified aspects.
The eHLD condenses at mission level the user evolution
needs gathered by the EC and the European GSA and the
system architectures and technical analyses performed by

0004815226.3D 139 13/12/2020 10:20:00 AM

 140 5 GALILEO
Figure 5.31 GNSS evolutions R&D examples.
ESA in the previous years, leading to the identification of
several increasingly demanding evolution scenarios.
These scenarios were the outcome of a cycle of discus-
sions between the EC and the Member States of the Euro-
pean Union, in the frame of the so-called Working Group
EGNSS Evolution (WGEE).
Three mission evolution scenarios were consolidated
between end 2016 and early 2017 in the frame of the Phase
A Activities that lead to the System PRR, and will be further
studied in a Phase B0/B1 that will later to the System
Requirements Review (SRR). After this‚ and based on the
feedback at mission and system level, the final evolution
scenario will be selected (Figure 5.31).
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BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
Mingquan Lu and Zheng Yao
Tsinghua University, China
6.1 Introduction
The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is China’s
space-based navigation system, designed to be compatible
and interoperable with other global navigation satellite
systems (GNSSs) [1–3]. The name “BeiDou” (“北斗” in
Chinese) means the Big Dipper, an asterism consisting of
seven bright stars in the constellation Ursa Major. As one
of the most familiar celestial objects in the northern sky,
it served as a useful navigation tool in ancient China and
was, therefore, selected to be the name of the Chinese sat-
ellite navigation system [4, 5].
Similar to other GNSSs, BDS comprises three segments:
the space segment, the ground segment, and the user seg-
ment. The space segment is a hybrid constellation consist-
ing of geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites, inclined
geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites, and medium Earth
orbit (MEO) satellites. The ground segment is a distributed
ground control network consisting of one master control
station (MSC), several time synchronization stations and
uploading stations, as well as many monitoring stations.
The user segment includes all BDS user terminals. Because
of this unique hybrid constellation structure, BDS is a mul-
tifunction system that integrates many services. It not only
provides basic radio navigation satellite services (RNSSs),
namely, users’ position, velocity, and time (PVT) services,
as do other GNSSs, but BDS also provides radio deter-
mination satellite services (RDSSs), satellite-based aug-
mentation services (SBASs), and search and rescue (SAR)
services [6, 7]. The hybrid constellation and multifunction-
ality are the main differentiation characteristics of BDS
from other GNSSs.
China’s BDS program began in the 1990s. In order to
overcome various difficulties such as limited funds, insuffi-
cient technological resources‚ and lack of construction
and management experience in large-scale space-based
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
c06.3d 143
143
information systems, China formulated the following
three-step development plan for BDS [2, 3]:
Step 1: Start the development of the BDS Experimental Sys-
tem (BDS I, also known as BD-1 in earlier times) in 1994
to achieve regional active positioning PNT capability
by 2000.
Step 2: Start the development of the BDS Regional System
(BDS II, also known as BD-2 in earlier times) in 2004 to
achieve regional passive PNT service capability by 2012.
Step 3: Steadily push forward the development of the BDS
and start the development of the BDS Global System
(BDS III) in 2013 to achieve global passive PNT service
capability by approximately 2020.
The three-step development plan of BDS is illustrated in
Figure 6.1 [5, 7].
After more than two decades of steady progress, China
has completed the first two steps of the development plan.
BDS I was established in 2000 as the first generation of
China’s navigation satellite system. With three satellites
(2+1 GEO), BDS I adopted a two-way active ranging
scheme to provide RDSSs for China and surrounding areas.
Since then, China has been operating its own independent
navigation satellite system and developed its own satellite
navigation industry [2, 6, 7]. After more than a decade of
continuous operation, BDS I terminated its services at the
end of 2012.
The second generation of China’s navigation satellite sys-
tem, BDS II, with a space segment of 14 operational satel-
lites (5 GEO+5 IGSO+4 MEO), was established and began
to provide services for the Asia-Pacific region at the end of
2012. In addition to providing RNSS services, BDS II also
inherited the RDSS services from its predecessor, BDS I.
The completion of BDS II greatly expanded the applications
of satellite navigation in China and further promoted the
development of its satellite navigation industry [2, 6, 7].
15/12/2020 11:29:57 PM
 144 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
BDS I BDS II
Experimental System Regional System
2000 IOC, 2003 FOC 2010 IOC, 2012 FOC
3GEO 5GEO/5IGSO/4 MEO
Regional Coverage Regional Coverage
RDSS Service RDSS/RNSS Service
First Step Second Step
Figure 6.1 The three-step development plan of BDS.
After the completion of BDS II deployment, China imme-
diately started developing BDS III in 2013. The BeiDou Nav-
igation Satellite System Signal in Space Interface Control
Document Open Service Signals B1C, B2a (Beta) was
released on 5 September 2017 [8]. The first two BDS III
satellites were launched on 5 November 2017. It is expected
that BDS III will complete its deployment and provide
global services by approximately 2020 [6, 7]. The unique
and successful GNSS development path “from regional to
global and from active to passive” implemented by the Chi-
nese offers a different approach from Global Positioning
System (GPS), GLONASS, and Galileo [3].
This chapter provides a comprehensive and in-depth
introduction to BDS. Section 6.2 outlines the evolution of
BDS. Section 6.3 introduces the geodesy and time systems
employed by BDS. Sections 6.4 and 6.5 describe BDS
I and BDS II, respectively. Section 6.6 presents the latest
progress of the emerging BDS III. Finally, Section 6.7 offers
a brief summary of BDS.
6.2 BDS Evolution
6.2.1 The Beginning
Research in China for a satellite navigation system can be
traced back to the late 1960s [5, 9]. In January 1969, an
exploratory project named 691 was established as a Doppler
navigation system analogous to Transit. This effort lasted
for about 10 years [9]. In the late 1970s, China continued
to search for a suitable solution to provide regional or global
services for China. Several regional satellite navigation sys-
tems with single satellite, twin satellites, and three to five
c06.3d 144
BDS III
Global System
2018 IOC, 2020 FOC
3GEO/3IGSO/24MEO
Global Coverage
RDSS/RNSS/SBAS Service
Third Step
satellites were considered. GNSSs with more satellites were
also proposed. None of those ideas or proposals, however,
materialized.
In 1983, Mr. Fangyun Chen from the Chinese Academy
of Sciences proposed the idea of a regional positioning and
communication system with two GEO satellites, called the
Dual-Star Positioning System. At that time, GPS had
already achieved great success. However, the Dual-Star sys-
tem using only two satellites was more attractive to China
because it was relatively simple, low cost, and had the capa-
bility of both positioning and communication. In 1986, the
Dual-Star Positioning System project received support from
the Chinese government. In 1987, Chen et al. published a
paper in which the system architecture, operating princi-
ples and mechanisms, and the expected performance of
the Dual-Star Positioning System were discussed in detail
[10]. In 1989, preliminary demonstration and verification
experiments were carried out by using two on-orbit com-
munication satellites. These experiments successfully vali-
dated the technical feasibility of the Dual-Star Positioning
System [11].
After eight years of research, demonstration‚ and verifi-
cation, China started developing the complete Dual-Star
Positioning System in 1994. This system was officially
named BeiDou One, or BD-1 for short. In October and
December 2000, two GEO satellites, BD-1 01 and BD-1
02, were successfully launched into geosynchronous orbit
from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Shortly after-
ward, BD-1 was declared to have initial operational capabil-
ity. In May 2003, a third GEO satellite, BD-1 03, was
launched as a spare for the previous two. In December
2003, BD-1 was declared to have full operational capability.
At the same time, a large number of different types of BD-1
15/12/2020 11:29:58 PM

terminal products had been successfully developed. After
the United States and Russia, China became the third coun-
try to own an independently developed satellite navigation
system.
BD-1 adopted a two-way active ranging scheme with two
GEO satellites to provide two-dimensional (2D) position,
timing, and short message communication services, known
as RDSS. Two signals, one outbound in the S band and one
inbound in the L band, are employed for two-way active
ranging and message transmission in this system [3, 5,
11]. Since 2003, BD-1 has been applied in a large variety
of applications, including mapping, telecommunication,
water conservancy, marine fisheries, transportation, forest
fire prevention, disaster mitigation and relief, public safety,
etc. BD-1 played a critical role in the 2008 Wenchuan earth-
quake rescue effort and in support of the 2008 Beijing
Olympics [1].
Short message communication service is a unique advan-
tage and the most successful application of BD-1. However,
BD-1 also has notable disadvantages due to constraints in
its technical design and system scale. It only provides a
small service coverage area with limited user capacity,
low 2-D positioning accuracy, inability to provide velocity
measurement, etc. In addition, BD-1 user terminals must
include a transmitter, leading to limitations in size, weight,
power consumption, and cost [1].
Overall, BD-1 was a successful, practical, and economical
navigation satellite system that provided regional PNT for
China. Even after BD-1 was decommissioned in December
2012, the RDSS continues to be provided by the new-
generation BDS.
6.2.2 From Active to Passive
After completing the deployment of BD-1, China started
the second step of the BDS development plan in 2004.
The goal was to build a regional navigation satellite system
with the capability of continuous, real-time, passive three-
dimensional (3D) PVT services for the Asia-Pacific region
[2, 4]. This system at the time was named BeiDou Two,
or BD-2 for short.
In April 2007, the first BD-2 MEO satellite was success-
fully launched. Meanwhile, many technical experiments
involving domestically produced space-borne atomic
clocks, precise orbit determination and time synchroniza-
tion, signal transmission schemes, etc., were conducted.
In April 2009 and August 2010, the first BD-2 GEO satellite
and the first BD-2 IGSO satellite were launched respec-
tively. With these satellites in different orbits, more critical
technologies relating to GEO and IGSO satellite operations
were validated. By April 2011, a preliminary constellation
with three GEO and three IGSO satellites was built. With
c06.3d 145
6.2 BDS Evolution 145
the release of the BD-2 interface control document (test ver-
sion in Chinese) in December 2011, BD-2 began its trial
operation. After more satellites were successively launched,
the construction of the BD-2 space segment with five GEO
satellites, five IGSO satellites, and four MEO satellites, was
completed in 2012. During the deployment of the BD-2
space segment, the BD-2 ground control segment and var-
ious BD-2 and BD-2/GNSS-compatible terminals were also
developed.
Similar to GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo, BD-2 uses one-
way passive ranging (passive trilateration) to determine a
user’s position. This system transmits six navigation signals
at three frequencies (B1, B2, and B3) in the L band to provide
continuous, real-time RNSS [12]. With 14 operational satel-
lites in orbit, users can track at least 4 BD-2 satellites any-
where, anytime in the Asia-Pacific region. The position
and time performance of BD-2 in its coverage area is compat-
ible with that of other GNSSs. In addition to providing RNSS,
the new system also provides RDSS via its GEO satellites [13].
In December 2012, the China Satellite Navigation Office
(CSNO) formally declared that BD-2 had begun to provide
PNT services for China and most of the Asia-Pacific region.
The official English name of BD-2, the BeiDou Navigation
Satellite System, or BDS for short, was also announced. An
interface control document was also released [7]. The three-
step development plan mentioned above was also officially
announced at that time.
In December 2013, at a press conference held on the one-
year anniversary of the BDS full operation declaration,
CSNO announced that BDS performance fully met its
design specifications based on signal monitoring and
assessment over the Asia-Pacific region. Two additional
documents, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Signal in
Space Interface Control Document Open Service Signal
(Version 2.0) and BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Open
Service Performance Standard (Version 1.0), were also pub-
lished [13].
It is noteworthy that during the five-year period since
BDS II became operational in 2012, CSNO has only released
one ICD for its two open service signals B1I and B2I. The
latest BDS II ICD for the two open service signals is version
2.1 [12]. However, the detailed format of its third open serv-
ice signal, B3I, has already become an open secret. Not only
many Chinese domestic companies, but also some interna-
tional companies have developed triple-frequency BDS II
receivers that are capable of utilizing B1I, B2I, and B3I sig-
nals. BDS is actually ahead of GPS and Galileo in providing
high-performance triple-frequency open civil service. In
January 2018, the ICD for the B3I signal was officially
released by CSNO [14], making BDS II the first navigation
satellite system in the world to provide triple-frequency
open service.
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 146 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
6.2.3 From Regional to Global
The third step in the BDS development plan is to extend the
current regional BDS II system to a global system BDS III
[2–5]. The BDS III plan envisions a global constellation of
30 satellites, including 3 GEO, 3 IGSO, and 24 MEO satellites
to provide worldwide services by approximately 2020. In addi-
tion to retaining RDSS, SBAS and SAR will also be integrated
into the system [6]. The most anticipated feature is that, by
sharing two frequencies in the L band and adopting advanced
signal structures, BDS III will be compatible and interopera-
ble with other GNSSs, especially with GPS and Galileo. This
implies that BDS III will be further integrated into the inter-
national GNSS family to provide worldwide users with better
services by jointly using BDS III and other GNSSs [3, 6].
The research for development of BDS III commenced in
2009. The implementation of BDS III started in 2013. From
March 2015 to February 2016, five experimental satellites in
various orbits were sequentially launched into space for
BDS III. In the following years, various technical validation
tasks have been performed with the focus on space-borne
atomic clocks, inter-satellite links, and new navigation
signals. The successful launch of the five experimental
satellites has laid the groundwork for the global deploy-
ment of BDS III [6].
At the time of this writing, the third step of the BDS devel-
opment plan is in the deployment stage. The first draft ICD
of BDS III was released in September 2017 [7]. This docu-
ment for the first time clearly identified the BDS III cons-
tellation configuration and some of the new navigation
signals. At a minimum, two new open service signals,
B1C and B2a, which are compatible and interoperable with
other GNSS signals, will be broadcast by the MEO and
IGSO satellites of BDS III. Following the release of the draft
ICD, the first pair of the BDS III satellites was launched in
November 2017. They broadcast the B1C and B2a signals
and are also equipped with higher-performance rubidium
clocks with a stability of 10−14 and a hydrogen atomic clock
with a stability of 10−15. By utilizing these state-of-the-art
technologies, the signal-in-space (SIS) accuracy will be bet-
ter than 0.5 m. The successful launch of the first pair of the
BDS III satellites marked the beginning of BDS expansion
from regional to global coverage [6].
Most recently, the Joint Statement on Civil Signal Com-
patibility and Interoperability Between the Global Positioning
System (GPS) and the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
(BDS) was signed in December 2017 [15]. Two formal ICDs
for B1C and B2a were released in late December 2017 [16,
17]. In addition to the first pair of MEO satellites, three
more pairs of MEO satellites have been successfully
launched into their scheduled orbits in January, February
‚ and March 2018, respectively.
c06.3d 146
BDS is rapidly expanding from a regional system to a
global system. The plan is to deploy 18 MEO satellites
and provide initial services by the end of 2018 [1, 3, 5].
By 2020, all 30 planned satellites will join the global con-
stellation to complete BDS III as a multifunctional GNSS
system compatible and interoperable with other GNSSs.
At the end of this section, we want to clarify that BDS has
assumed different Chinese and English names at different
times and in the open literature. For example, BD-2, BDS-2,
Compass, BeiDou Phase II, BDS II, BeiDou, and Beidou
all refer to the current BDS regional system constructed
in the second step of the three-step development plan. To
ensure consistency, in the remainder of this chapter, BDS
I, BDS II, and BDS III will be used to refer to the experimen-
tal system, the regional system, and the global system of
BDS, respectively.
6.3 Geodesy and Time Systems
6.3.1 The BDS Geodesy System
The Beijing Geodetic Coordinate System 1954 and the
National Vertical Datum 1985 were once used as the coor-
dinate system for BDS I [4]. With the development of BDS,
these legacy coordinate systems no longer satisfy the needs
of a modern navigation satellite system. Currently, the Bei-
Dou Coordinate System (BDCS) is used in BDS II and the
emerging BDS III [14, 16, 17]. BDCS is a new term that
has appeared in the most recent ICDs for B1C, B2a‚ and
B3I. It is based on the China Geodetic Coordinate System
2000 (CGCS2000) [18] that appeared in the previous ver-
sions of the ICDs [12].
The definition of BDCS is in accordance with the specifi-
cations of the International Earth Rotation and Reference
System Service (IERS) and is consistent with CGCS2000.
BDCS and CGCS2000 have the same ellipsoid parameters.
The definition of BDCS is as follows [14, 16, 17]:
1) Definition of origin, axis and scale
The BDCS origin is located at Earth’s center of mass.
The Z-Axis is the direction of the IERS Reference Pole
(IRP). The X-Axis is the intersection of the IERS Ref-
erence Meridian (IRM) and the plane passing through
the origin and normal to the Z-Axis. The Y-Axis,
together with Z-Axis and X-Axis, constitute a right-
handed orthogonal coordinate system.
The length unit is the International System of Units
(SI) meter.
2) Definition of the BDCS Ellipsoid
The geometric center of the BDCS Ellipsoid coincides
with Earth’s center of mass, and the rotation axis of
15/12/2020 11:29:59 PM

Table 6.1 Parameters of the BDCS ellipsoid
Parameter Definition
Semi-major axis a = 6378137.0 m
Geocentric gravitational μ = 3.986004418 × 10 m /
14
constant s2
Flattening f = 1/298.257222101
Earth’s rotation rate Ω = 7.2921150 × 10−5rad/s
the BDCS Ellipsoid is the Z-Axis. The parameters
of the BDCS Ellipsoid are shown in Table 6.1.
6.3.2 The BDS Time System
The time system of BDS is BeiDou Time (BDT) [14, 16, 17].
BDT adopts the International System of Units (SI) second as
the base unit and accumulates continuously without leap
seconds. The start epoch of BDT is 00:00:00 on January 1,
2006 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). BDT aligns with
UTC via UTC (NTSC), and the deviation of BDT to UTC is
maintained within 50 nanoseconds (modulo 1 second). The
leap second information is broadcast in the navigation
message.
6.4 BDS I: The BDS Experimental
System
6.4.1 Overview
The BDS experimental system, BDS I, was the first genera-
tion of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. Unlike
other GNSSs, it was a two-way active positioning system
designed to provide regional RDSS service, including
two-dimensional position, timing, and short message com-
munication. It also consisted of three segments: the space
segment with three GEO satellites (including one in-orbit
spare), the control segment with one MSC and several cal-
ibration stations, and the user segment with various types
of user terminals [1, 4, 5, 11]. It was established in 2000 after
the successful launch of two operational GEO satellites. In
addition, a spare GEO satellite was launched in 2003. BDS
I was declared operational soon afterward. A fourth GEO
satellite, the final BDS I satellite, was launched in 2007.
The service coverage of BDS I included China and sur-
rounding areas (70 E–140 E, 5 N–55 N). The horizontal
positioning accuracy of BDS I was 20 m (with calibration)
or 100 m (without calibration) [1]. After 10 years’ continu-
ous operation, this experimental system reached mission
end in December 2012.
c06.3d 147
6.4 BDS I: The BDS Experimental System 147
6.4.2 System Configuration and Positioning
Principle
6.4.2.1 The System Configuration of BDS I
The BDS I space segment consisted of two operational and
3 one in-orbit spare GEO satellites, orbiting at 80 E, 140 E,
and 110.5 E, respectively. The satellites’ orbit altitudes
were about 36,000 km. Each satellite had two outbound
and two inbound transponders. While the outbound trans-
ponders forwarded the signals transmitted from the MSC to
the user terminals, the inbound transponders relayed the
signals transmitted from the user terminals to the MSC
(Figure 6.2).
The control segment of BDS I included one MSC in Bei-
jing and more than 20 calibration stations distributed inside
China. The main tasks of the MSC included the following:
transmitting the outbound signals and receiving the
inbound signals, performing satellite orbit determination
and ionosphere correction, calculating users’ location,
and exchanging short messages for users. The calibration
stations provided the basic measurements for orbit determi-
nation, differential position, and user elevation computa-
tion from barometric altimeter data.
The user segment of BDS I consisted of various types of
user terminals. The main functions of the BDS I user term-
inals included the following: transmitting the inbound sig-
nal to send the positioning request to the MSC or a short
message to other users and receiving the outbound signal
to receive location information from the MSC. These user
terminals can be classified into two types: one is the basic
terminal to provide position, timing, and short message ser-
vices for personal, vehicular, and ship users; the other is the
command terminal, which can control and manage a group
of up to 100 individual basic terminals. Although the RDSS
service is free of charge, each BDS I user was registered and
obtained a unique subscriber number to use the RDSS serv-
ice. Hence, the RDSS service belonged to the authorized
service category.
6.4.2.2 BDS I Position Method
BDS I relied on a pair of two-way radio links between the
MSC and a user terminal through the two different trans-
ponders on two GEO satellites. Based on the measured
transmission time of each two-way radio link, the total
distance from the MSC through one GEO satellite to the
user terminal could be determined. Because the distance
between the MSC and the GEO satellite is known, the dis-
tance between this GEO satellite and the user terminal
could be extracted from the total distance. Using each of
the two-way radio links with the two different satellites,
two distance measurements from the user terminal to the
15/12/2020 11:29:59 PM
 148 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
Space Segment
Control Segment
Calibration System Control Center
User Segment Users
Ships
Aircrafts
Individuals Commanders
Vehicles
Figure 6.2 Schematic diagram of BDS I.
two satellites were obtained. In this way, the so-called two-
way ranging was achieved [1, 10, 11].
By using the two distance measurements between the
user terminal and the two satellites, as well as the known
positions of the two satellites, the 2-D position of the user
terminal was calculated. The detailed position procedure
is as follows [4, 19]. By using the known position coordi-
nates of the two GEO satellites as two different sphere cen-
ters, and using the measured distances from the satellites to
the user terminal as radii, respectively, two spheres can be
formed. The user terminal must be on the intersection of
the two spheres. Using an elevation map provided by
the ground control segment, a non-homogeneous Earth-
centered curved surface can be established with the Earth
center as the origin and the distance from the Earth center
to the user terminal as its radius. The exact position of the
user terminal is the intersection of the spherical arc and
the non-homogeneous curved surface. The MSC calculated
the user terminal’s position following this procedure and
sent the position to the user terminal via the outbound
signal [1, 10, 11].
6.4.3 Outbound and Inbound Signal
Each BDS I user terminal was a transceiver with the capa-
bility of transmitting outbound signals and receiving
inbound signals. From the user’s point of view, the BDS
I signal included an outbound signal transmitted from
the satellite to the user terminal and an inbound signal
transmitted from the user terminal to the satellite. Accord-
ing to the ITU frequency allocation for RDSS, the outbound
c06.3d 148
Networks
and inbound signals of BDS I used the S band (2483.5–2500
MHz) and the L band (1610–1626.5 MHz), respectively.
6.4.3.1 Outbound Signal
The outbound signal was a direct sequence spread spec-
trum (DSSS) signal with a carrier frequency of 2491.75
MHz and a bandwidth of 8.16 MHz. This signal adopted off-
set quadrature phase-shift-keying (OQPSK) modulation
with a continuous frame structure. Its minimum power
was −157.0 dBW on the ground.
The outbound signal model is [19, 20]
soutbound t = A d1 t − Δ 2 c1 t − Δ 2 sin ωc t
+ d2 t c2 t cos ωc t 61
where A is the signal amplitude; d1(t) and d2(t) are the data
streams of the I and Q components, respectively; c1(t) is the
spreading code of I component, using a Kasami small set
sequence with a code length of 255. c2(t) is the spreading
code of the Q component, using a Gold code sequence with
a code length of 221 − 1. The rate of both spread-spectrum
codes is 4.08 Mcps. The I and Q components are in carrier
quadrature with each other to constitute an OQPSK signal,
with a symbol rate 16 ksps. Δ is the half code chip length
[20]. d1(t) is used to transmit position, communication, cal-
ibration, and other public information, and d2(t) is used to
transmit location and communication information.
The outbound signal generation diagram is shown in
Figure 6.3. Figure 6.4 shows the data frame structure. Each
frame consists of 250 bits with its own frame number.
The information bit rate is 8 kbps, and the symbol rate
becomes 16 ksps after convolution coding. Therefore, the
transmission time of a single frame is 31.25 ms. 1920
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 6.4 BDS I: The BDS Experimental System 149

I-Channel Data Frame

Frame 1920 Frame 1919 ··· Frame K ··· Frame 1

I Branch

Small Set of Kasami Sequence (L = 255) Carrier

Outbound Signal
8KHz 4.08MHz Σ
Gold Sequence (L = 221–1) 90°

Delay (Δ/2)
Q-Channel Data Frame

Frame 1920 Frame 1919 ··· Frame K ··· Frame 1 Q Branch

Figure 6.3 Generation diagram of outbound signal.

A superframe
Frame
Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 3 ... Frame k ... Frame 1 Frame 2 ...
1920

250 bits
Frame Public Broadcase Suppression
Label ID1 ID2 Type Frame k Data CRC Tail Label
No. Frame Frame Frame
I branch 7
11 12 4 2
21 21 8 142 16 6 7

Tail Type Frame k–1 Data CRC Tail

Q branch 6 8 220 16 6

250 bits

Figure 6.4 Frame structure of outbound signal.

frames form a super frame. Sending a super frame took
1 min [21].
6.4.3.2 Inbound Signal
The inbound signal was a DSSS signal with a carrier fre-
quency of 1615.68 MHz and a bandwidth of 8.16 MHz.
The transmit power was not less than 10 W. This signal
adopted BPSK modulation with a variable burst frame
structure. The burst frame consisted of three segments:
synchronization header, service segment, and data seg-
ment. Each segment was spread with three different
pseudorandom noise (PRN) codes with a code rate of
4.08 Mcps. The symbol rate was 8 kbps [20]. The inbound
signal model is
sinbound t = Ac t d t cos ωc t
where A is the signal amplitude, and c(t) and d(t) are the
spreading code and the user data stream, respectively.
For user data, the synchronization header was a truncated
m-sequence with length 12240. The spreading code of the
service segment was a truncated sequence from an
m-sequence with period 221 − 1, and the length of the trun-
cated sequence was determined by the length of the corre-
sponding service section information. The spreading code
of the data segment was a Gold code with register length
21, and the spreading code rate was 4.08 MHz. In the
inbound signal, since the segment length was variable, the
burst frame length was also variable [20]. The variable frame
structure of the inbound signal is shown in Figure 6.5.
6.4.4 Service and Performance
As mentioned earlier, BDS I provided unique RDSS services
62 including rapid positioning, precision timing, and short
message communication for users in China and surround-
ing areas. The BDS-1 service area is illustrated in Figure 6.6
and was determined by the location of its geostationary

c06.3d 149 15/12/2020 11:30:00 PM

 150 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

I-Channel Data Frame

8KHz Tail CRC Data Segment

16KHz Data Symbol after convolution coding Service Segment Synchronization Header

Inbound Signal

4.08MHz Gold Sequence M Sequence Truncated M Sequence Carrier

Figure 6.5 Frame structure of inbound signal.

Figure 6.6 Service coverage of BDS I [4]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature.

c06.3d 150 15/12/2020 11:30:00 PM

 6.5 BDS II: The BDS Regional System 151

satellites as well as the distribution of the calibration sta-

tions. The service performance specification of BDS I is
summarized as follows [1, 4, 5]:

1) Positioning accuracy: 20 m (with calibration) or 100 m

(without calibration)
2) Timing accuracy: 100 ns (one-way), 20 ns (two-way)
3) Short message: 1680 bits/message (120 Chinese charac-
ters / message)
4) User capacity: 54 million times/hour (150 times/second)
5) Service area: China and surrounding areas (70 E–145 E,
5 N–55 N)
6) User dynamic range: User speed less than 1000 km/h

6.5 BDS II: The BDS Regional System

6.5.1 Overview
BDS II was developed starting in 2004. It utilizes the one- Figure 6.7 BDS-II constellation with 5 GEO + 5 IGSO + 4 MEO
way time-of-arrival (TOA) ranging scheme to provide satellites [5]. Source: Reproduced with permission of
Artech House.
regional RNSS service, including continuous 3-D PVT. This
system also consists of three segments: the space segment
with 14 operational satellites, the control segment with sev-
coincide with an equatorial-crossing longitude of 118 E.
eral MSCs, uploading stations and monitoring stations, and
The satellite tracks for the other two IGSO satellites coin-
the user segment with various BDS II and BDS II/GNSS-
cide with an equatorial-crossing longitude of 95 E.

compatible receivers. After the first BDS II MEO satellite
was launched in April 2007, 15 more satellites were sequen-
tially launched within the next five years. A hybrid constel-
lation of 14 operational satellites was eventually built by
2012. In December 2012, CSNO declared the full opera-
tional capability (FOC) for BDS II with coverage for China
and the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to RNSS services,
BDS II also provides RDSS services inherited from BDS I.
BDS II has now been operating continuously for more than
five years.
6.5.2 Space Segment
6.5.2.1 Constellation
From April 2007 to October 2012, BDS II launched a total of
16 navigation satellites. Among them are 14 operational
satellites (5 GEO + 5 IGSO + 4 MEO) as depicted in
Figure 6.7 [3, 5, 13, 14]:
•
Four MEO satellites at 21,528 km altitude with an orbit
inclination of 55 with respect to the equatorial plane.
The satellite revisit period is 13 rotations within 7 days.
The phases are selected from the Walker 24/3/1 constel-
lation. The right ascension of ascending node of the satel-
lites in the first orbital plane is 0 . The four MEO
satellites are positioned at the seventh, eighth phases of
the first orbital plane and the third, fourth phases of
the second orbital plane, respectively.
The orbital information for the current BDS II constella-
tion is provided in Table 6.2 [22]. The IGSO, MEO‚ and
GEO satellites are labeled as I, M, and G in the table,
respectively.
The orbital periods of the IGSO and MEO satellites are
about one and seven days, respectively; thus the revisit
period of the entire constellation is seven days. Figure 6.8
show the ground tracks of BDS satellites over a seven-day

• Five GEO satellites in equatorial orbit with an altitude of

35,786 km and positioned at 58.75 E, 80 E, 110.5 E,
period from 25 January 2015 to 31 January 2015 (BDT).
Figure 6.9 shows the average number of visible BDS II satel-
140 E, and 160 E, respectively. lites over a one-week period, showing that seven to nine

• Five IGSO satellites at 35,786 km altitude with an orbit

inclination of 55 with respect to the equatorial plane,
and distributed in three inclined orbital planes with a
right ascension of ascending node difference of 120 .
The satellite ground tracks for three of the IGSO satellites
BDS II satellites are visible in China and the surrounding
areas during this period.
The above discussion highlights the difference between
BDS II and GPS constellation designs: BDS II consists
mostly of GEO and IGSO satellites, while GPS has all

c06.3d 151 15/12/2020 11:30:02 PM

 152 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

Table 6.2 Orbital information for the current BDS II constellationa

Semi-major Argument of Longitude of ascending True

No. Satellite axis (km) Eccentricity Orbit inclination (deg) perigee (deg) node (deg) anomaly (deg)

1 I01 42166.2 0.0029 54.5 174.9 209.3 220.3

2 I02 42159.3 0.0021 54.7 187.8 329.6 87.0
3 I03 42158.9 0.0023 56.1 187.7 89.6 326.1
4 I04 42167.2 0.0021 54.8 167.1 211.4 201.3
5 I05 42157.1 0.0020 54.9 183.3 329.0 65.5
6 M01 27904.9 0.0026 55.4 182.4 108.1 118.2
7 M02 27907.5 0.0028 55.3 180.0 107.6 167.5
8 M03 27905.9 0.0023 54.9 170.0 227.8 325.7
9 M04 27907.6 0.0015 55.0 190.0 227.4 351.3
10 G01 140.0E deg (orbit altitude = 35,786.0 km)
11 G02 80.0E deg (orbit altitude = 35,786.0 km)
12 G03 110.5E deg (orbit altitude = 35,786.0 km)
13 G04 160.0E deg (orbit altitude = 35,786.0 km)
14 G05 58.E6 deg (orbit altitude = 35,786.0 km)
a
25 January 2013, 00:00:00 GPST

60°N

30°N

0°N

–30°

–60°S

–30°W 0° 30°E 60°E 90°E 120°E 150°E 180° 150°W 120°W

Figure 6.8 Satellite ground tracks for the current BDS II constellation [5]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Artech House.

c06.3d 152 15/12/2020 11:30:03 PM

 6.5 BDS II: The BDS Regional System 153

N Access (95%, 5G+5I+4M)

11

10
60°N
9

8
30°N
7

6
Latitude

0°
5

4
30°S
3

2
60°S
1

0
60°W 30°W 0° 30°E 60°E 90°E 120°E 150°E 180° 150°W 120°W 90°W 60°W

Longitude

Figure 6.9 Number of visible BDS satellites over the ground-track repetition period [data collection period: 2015/01/25 0:00–2015/01/
31 24:00 (BDT) mask angle of 10 ].

MEO satellites; GPS satellites are distributed more evenly
across the Earth than BDS II. The unevenly distributed
BDS II constellation, however, provides better coverage
for China and the surrounding areas [5, 22].
6.5.2.2 Satellites
All BDS II satellites utilize the DFH-3A satellite bus [23],
which includes the structure, power, thermal, control,
tracking and telemetry (the IGSO/MEO satellites also have
a built-in data management subsystem), propulsion subsys-
tems, etc. The payload includes navigation and antenna
subsystems. The GEO payload has the additional compo-
nents needed for the provision of RDSS services, time
and position data transmission, data uploading and precise
ranging, and RNSS services. The MEO payload has
components for uploads and precise ranging and RNSS
services [1, 5].
Figure 6.10 illustrates the BDS GEO and IGSO/MEO
satellites in space [24, 25].
6.5.3 Control Segment
The control segment of BDS II is responsible for the oper-
ation and control of the entire system, including precise
orbit determination and orbital parameter prediction, satel-
lite clock error measurement and prediction, ionosphere
monitoring and forecasting, and integrity monitoring and
processing [25]. At the time of this writing, the BDS II con-
trol segment consists of 1 MSC, 7 Class-A monitor stations,
22 Class-B monitor stations, and 2 time synchronization/
upload stations [1, 4, 25]. The main control segment tasks
are as follows [4, 5]:
1) MSC: Collect observation data of every time synchroni-
zation/upload station and monitor station, processing
data, generating satellite navigation messages, upload-
ing navigation message parameters to satellites, moni-
toring satellite payloads, accomplishing task planning
and scheduling, implementing system operation control
and management, etc. It is located in Beijing.
2) Time synchronization/upload stations: Satellite naviga-
tion message parameter upload, data exchange with the
MSC, and time synchronization measurement under the
unified management of the MSC. To achieve the greatest
extent of satellite tracking within the Chinese territory,
the two stations are located in Kashgar in western China
and Sanya in southern China, respectively.
3) Monitor stations: Monitor the navigation satellites
continuously, receive the navigation signals, and then
send them to the MSC to provide the observation data
for the navigation message generation. Class-A monitor
stations are for the satellite orbit determination and the
satellite clock error measurement and are therefore
distributed within the territory with the largest spatial

c06.3d 153 15/12/2020 11:30:04 PM

 154 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
(a)
(b) GEO Satellite
MEO Satellite
Figure 6.10 BDS II GEO (up) and IGSO/MEO (below) Satellites [1]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature.
span. The Class-B monitor stations are for the integrity
monitoring of the state for the satellite system and are
distributed across the country as evenly as possible.
Figure 6.11 shows the configuration of the BDS II con-
trol segment [4].
At present, the BDS II control segment is significantly
constrained by having all of the stations located within
China [4]. As a result, it is a challenge to perform orbit
determination with the precision required for the high-
performance operation and control of BDS II.
6.5.4 User Segment
The BDS II user segment refers to all the BDS II- and BDS
II/GNSS-compatible receivers for RNSS services, as well as
BDS II RDSS/RNSS combined terminals for users’ position
reports and short message communication [5]. The main
function of the BDS II receiver is to receive BDS II naviga-
tion signals to calculate the user’s PVT. The BDS II/GNSS
can simultaneously receive BDS II and other GNSS naviga-
tion signals to calculate the user’s PVT by using pseudor-
anges from different constellations. The integrated
terminal is a special device that integrates both RDSS
and RNSS services, providing not only RDSS and RNSS ser-
vices, but also new services that result from the
c06.3d 154
convergence of these two services, such as the users’ posi-
tion report.
6.5.5 Signal Characteristics
BDS II broadcasts six signals at B1, B2, and B3 frequencies
in the L band, which can provide both open and authorized
services. The carrier frequencies of B1, B2, and B3 are
1561.098 MHz, 1207.140 MHz, and 1268.520 MHz, respec-
tively. All three signals use a DSSS/QPSK modulation
scheme. Each signal consists of two orthogonal compo-
nents with BPSK modulation. For example, the B1 signal
has an in-phase component B1I and quadrature component
B1Q providing public and authorized service, respectively.
The main characteristics of the B1, B2, and B3 signals are
shown in the Table 6.3. It can be seen from the table that the
BDS II signals broadcast by the GEO satellites and IGSO/
MEO satellites have different navigation message rates,
500 bps and 50 bps, respectively. The following discussions
of this subsection mainly focus on the B1I, B2I, and B3I sig-
nals that provide open services.
6.5.5.1 Signal Structures
B1, B2, and B3 are QPSK signals with I and Q components
that are in phase quadrature with each other. The ranging
codes and navigation messages are modulated on these
15/12/2020 11:30:04 PM
 Figure 6.11 Configuration of the BDS II control segment [4]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature.

Table 6.3 Signal characteristics of BDS II

Signal type B1I B1Q B2I B2Q B3I B3Q

Service type Open Authorized Open Authorized Open Authorized

Carrier frequency 1561.098 MHz 1207.140 MHz 1268.520 MHz
Bandwidth (1dB) 4.092 MHz 4.092 MHz 4.092 MHz 20.460 20.460 MHz 20.460
MHz MHz
Multi-access scheme CDMA CDMA CDMA CDMA CDMA CDMA
Modulation BPSK BPSK BPSK BPSK BPSK BPSK
Pseudocode Length 2046 N/A 2046 N/A 10230 N/A
Code rate 2.046 Mcps N/A 2.046 Mcps N/A 20.46 Mcps N/A
Code class Truncated N/A Truncated N/A Truncated N/A
Gold Gold Gold
Message code rate GEO 500 bps N/A 500 bps N/A 500 bps N/A
IGSO/MEO 50 bps N/A 50 bps N/A 50 bps N/A
Error-correction code BCH(15,11,1) N/A BCH(15,11,1) N/A BCH(15,11,1) N/A
Secondary coding Code type NH N/A NH N/A NH N/A
Code rate 1 kbps N/A 1 kbps N/A 1 kbps N/A
Length 20 bits N/A 20 bits N/A 20 bits N/A
Polarization RHCP N/A RHCP N/A RHCP N/A
Minimum received power −163.0 dBW N/A −163.0 dBW N/A −163.0 dBW N/A
Elevation 5o N/A 5o N/A 5o N/A

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 156 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

carriers. The nominal carrier frequencies of B1, B2, and B3
are 1561.098, 1207.140, and 1268.520 MHz, respectively. All
three signals are right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP).
Only the signal details of the I components are released
publicly. The minimum user-received signal power level
is −163 dBW for the I channel measured at the output of
a 0 dB RHCP receiving antenna located near the ground,
for a satellite elevation angle above 5 [12, 14].
The signal model for B1, B2 and B3 signals is [12, 14]
Sij t = AiI CiIj t DiIj t cos 2π f i t + φiIj
j j
+ AiQ C iQ t DiQ t sin 2π f i t + φiQ
where i refers to B1, B2, or B3, while j is the satellite num-
ber; AiI and AiQ, CiI and CiQ, DiI and DiQ, φiI and φiQ, are the
amplitudes, ranging code, navigation data, and initial car-
rier phase for the i-th signal in the I and Q channels, respec-
tively; fi is the corresponding signal carrier frequency.
The signal generation block diagrams for GEO and MEO/
IGSO satellites are given in Figure 6.12.
6.5.5.2 Ranging Codes
B1I and B2I use the same ranging codes (denoted as CB1I
and CB2I) with a 2.046 Mcps chip rate and a 2046 chip
length [12]. The ranging code for B3I (denote as CB1I)
has a chip rate of 10.23 Mcps and a chip length of
10230 [14].
CB1I and CB2I both use a balanced Gold code with the
last one chip truncated. The Gold code is generated by
Modulo-2 addition of G1 and G2 sequences which are
derived from the following 11-bit linear shift regis-
ters [12]:
j
G1 X = 1 + X + X 7 + X 8 + X 9 + X 10 + X 11
63 G2 X = 1 + X + X 2 + X 3 + X 4 + X 5 + X 8 + X 9 + X 11
64
The initial phases of G1 and G2 are
G1 01010101010
65
G2 01010101010
The generator of CB1I and CB2I is shown in Figure
6.13 [12].

CB1ICode B1Q Signal

2.046MHz generator

BPSK B1 Signal
1561.098MHz modulator Σ 1561.098MHz

CB2ICode B2Q Signal

2.046MHz
generator

BPSK B2 Signal
1207.14MHz modulator Σ 1207.14MHz

NH CB3ICode B3Q Signal

20.46MHz
encoder generator

BPSK B3 Signal
1268.52MHz modulator Σ 1268.52MHz
BCH
encoder
f0

Data Data
information Note: NH encoder is used only in MEO/IGSO satellite signal generation
generator

Figure 6.12 Block diagram of GEO and MEO/IGSO satellite signal generation.

c06.3d 156 15/12/2020 11:30:07 PM


1 2 3 4 5 6
Reset control clock
Set to initial phases
Shift control clock
1 2 3 4 5 6
Figure 6.13 The generator of CB1I and CB2I.
The G2 sequence phase is determined by the selection of
its shift register taps. Currently, 37 phase assignments are
defined for 37 ranging codes, of which the first 5 are for
GEO satellites and the remaining 32 are for IGSO/MEO
satellites [12].
CB3I is generated by truncating a Gold code which is the
result of truncating and XORing two linear sequences G1
and G2, which are derived from two 13-bit linear shift reg-
isters [14]:
G1 X = 1 + X + X 3 + X 4 + X 13
G2 X = 1 + X + X 5 + X 6 + X 7 + X 9 + X 10 + X 12 + X 13
66
The generator of CB3I is shown in Figure 6.14.
The code sequence generated by G1 is truncated with the
last one chip, making it into a CA sequence with a period of
8190 chips. The CB sequence with a period of 8191 chips is
generated by G2. The CB3I with a period of 10230 chips is
generated by means of Modulo-2 addition of CA and CB
sequences.
The G1 sequence is set to an initial phase at the starting
point of each ranging code cycle (1ms) or when the phase of
the G1 sequence register is “1111111111100”. The G2
sequence is set to its initial phase at the starting point of
each ranging code cycle (1 ms). The initial phase of the
The G1 sequence is “1111111111111”. The initial phase
of the G2 sequence is formed by shifting different times
from status “1111111111111”, and different initial phases
c06.3d 157
6.5 BDS II: The BDS Regional System 157
G1 sequence
7 8 9 10 11
Phase selection logic
Ranging code
G2 sequence
7 8 9 10 11
correspond to different satellites. The phase assignments
of the G2 sequence are given in [14].
Currently, 63 phase assignments are defined for 63 ran-
ging codes. To ensure backward compatibility with existing
BDS II receivers, the first 37 phase assignments, corre-
sponding to those defined for B1I and B2I, are preferred
for use. Consistent with the previous definition, the first
5 are for GEO satellites and the other 32 are for IGSO/
MEO satellites. Of the 26 new defined phase assignments,
the last 5 are for GEO satellites and the remaining 21 are for
IGSO/MEO satellites [14].
6.5.5.3 Navigation Messages
The BDS II system has two types of navigation messages.
The B1I, B2I, and B3I signals of MEO/IGSO satellites
broadcast a D1 navigation message with a 50 bps informa-
tion rate and contain basic navigation information only. In
addition to basic navigation information, the D2 navigation
message is broadcast by GEO satellites with a 500 bps infor-
mation rate that also contains augmentation service infor-
mation. The basic navigation information comprises the
preamble (Pre), subframe ID (FraID), seconds of week
(SOW), fundamental navigation information of the satellite
(ephemeris), page number (Pnum), almanac information,
time offset information from the other GNSS (GPS, Galileo
and GLONASS), user range accuracy index, satellite health
flag, ionospheric delay model parameters, satellite clock
correction parameters and their age, and equipment group
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 158 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
Shift control clock
1 2 3 4 5 6
Reset control clock
Set to initial phases ( ‘1’ in total)
Set to initial phases (different satellites correspond to
different initial phases)
1 5 6 7
Figure 6.14 The generator of CB3I.
delay differential, etc. The augmentation service informa-
tion contains the BDS integrity, and differential and iono-
spheric grid information [12].
The navigation message encoding involves both error
control of Bose–Chaudhuri– Hocquenghem (BCH) code
BCH(15,11,1) and interleaving. BCH(15, 11, 1) indicates
that the code length is 15 bits with 11 information bits
and 1 error correction bit. The generator polynomial is g
(X) = X4 + X + 1. The navigation message bits are first
grouped sequentially every 11 bits. The serial-parallel
conversion is then applied to the sequence, and the
BCH(15,11,1) error correction encoding is performed in
parallel. Parallel-serial conversion is then performed for
every two parallel blocks of BCH codes to form a 30-bit
interleaved code [12].
6.5.5.3.1 Navigation Messages of Type D1
The type D1 navigation message is partitioned into super-
frame, frame, and subframe. Every superframe has 36,000
bits, lasts 12 min, and is composed of 24 frames. Every
frame has 1,500 bits, lasts 30 s, and is composed of 5 sub-
frames. Every subframe has 300 bits, lasts 6 s, and is com-
posed of 10 words. Every word has 30 bits, lasts 0.6 s, and
consists of navigation message data and parity bits. In the
first word of every subframe, the first 15 bits are not
encoded, and the following 11 bits are encoded in
BCH(15,11,1) for error correction. Therefore, only one
group of BCH code and 26 information bits are contained
in this word. For all the following 9 words in the subframe,
both BCH(15,11,1) encoding for error control and
c06.3d 158
CA sequence
7 8 9 10 ... 13
Register phase is
1111111111100
(from left to right)
Ranging code
CB sequence
8 9 10 11 12 13
interleaving are performed. Each of the 9 words of 30 bits
contains two blocks of BCH codes and 22 information
bits. The frame structure in format D1 is shown in
Figure 6.15 [14].
A secondary code in Neumann–Hoffman (NH) format is
modulated onto the ranging code for the Type D1 message.
The period of the NH code is selected to be the duration of a
navigation message bit and is the same as one period of the
ranging code. The duration of one navigation message bit is
20 ms, and the ranging code period is 1 ms, as shown in
Figure 6.16. Thus, the NH code (0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1,
0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0) with length 20 bits, rate 1 kbps,
and bit duration 1 ms is adopted. It is modulated onto
the ranging code synchronously with navigation message
bits [12].
The D1 frame structure and information content are
shown in Figure 6.17. The fundamental navigation infor-
mation of the broadcasting satellite is in subframes 1, 2,
and, 3. The information content in subframes 4 and 5 is sub-
commutated 24 times each via 24 pages. Pages 1–24 of sub-
frame 4 and pages 1–10 of subframe 5 shall be used to
broadcast almanac and time offsets from other systems.
Pages 11–24 of subframe 5 are reserved [12].
6.5.5.3.2 The Navigation Messages of Type D2
Type D2 messages are also structured with superframe,
frame, and subframe. Every superframe is 180,000 bits long,
lasting 6 min. Every superframe lasts 3 s and is composed of
120 frames each with 1,500 bits. Every frame lasts 0.6 s and
is composed of 5 subframes, each with 300 bits. Every
15/12/2020 11:30:08 PM
 6.5 BDS II: The BDS Regional System 159

Superframe 36000 bits, 12 min

Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame n Frame 24

Frame 1500 bits, 30 sec

Subframe 1 Subframe 2 Subframe 3 Subframe 4 Subframe 5

Subframe 300 bits, 6 sec

Word 1 Word 2 Word 10

Word 1, 30 bits, 0.6 sec Word 2~10, 30 bits, 0.6 sec

26 information bits 4 parity bits 22 information bits 8 parity bits

Figure 6.15 Frame structure of Type D1 navigation message.

NH code NAV message

Ranging
code

NAV 0 1 0 0 1
message
20 ms

Period (1 bit duration of NAV message)

NH 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0
code
1 ms

Ranging
Ranging code period (1 bit duration of NH code)
code

Figure 6.16 Secondary code in Format D1.

Subframe 1 Subframe 2 Subframe 3

Subframe 4 Subframe 5

Fundamental NAV information

of the broadcasting satellite
Almanac and
time offsets from other systems

Figure 6.17 Frame structure and information content of Type D1 navigation.

subframe lasts 0.06 s and is composed of 10 words, each
with 30 bits.
Every word is composed of navigation message data and
parity bits. The first 15 bits in word 1 of every subframe are
not encoded, and the last 11 bits are encoded in
BCH(15,11,1) for error correction. For the remaining 9
words of the subframe, both BCH(15,11,1) encoding and
interleaving are involved, resulting in 22 information bits
and 8 parity bits in each word. See Figure 6.18 for the
detailed structures [12].

c06.3d 159 15/12/2020 11:30:08 PM

 160 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

Superframe of 180000 bits, 6 min

Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame n Frame 120

Frame of 1500 bits, 3 sec

Subframe 1 Subframe 2 Subframe 3 Subframe 4 Subframe 5

Subframe of 300 bits, 0.6 sec

Word 1 Word 2 Word 10

Word 1, 30 bits, 0.06 sec Word 2~10, 30 bits, 0.06 sec

NAV message data, 26 bits 4 Parity bits NAV message data, 22 bits 8 Parity bits

Figure 6.18 Structure of navigation message in Type D2.

Subframe 2 Subframe 3 Subframe 4

Subframe 1
Subframe 5

Basic NAV information Integrity and differential correction Almanac, ionospheric grid points and
of the broadcasting satellite information of BDS time offsets from other systems

Figure 6.19 Frame structure and information content of type D2 navigation.

The frame structure and information content are shown
in Figure 6.19. Subframe 1 broadcasts basic navigation
information and is subcommutated 10 times via 10 pages.
Subframes 2–4 are subcommutated 6 times each via 6
pages. Subframe 5 is subcommutated 120 times via 120
pages. See [4] for the detailed bit allocation of each sub-
frame in Type D2 format.
6.5.6 Service and Performance
6.5.6.1 Services Types
BDS provides two types of services, namely‚ RDSS and
RNSS, for the Asia-Pacific area. The RNSS service also
includes open service and an authorized service.
6.5.6.1.1 RNSS Service
The RNSS service is the basic navigation service providing
PVT information. BDS II broadcasts six signals on three car-
rier frequencies (B1, B2, and B3) to provide users with both
public and authorized services. The in-phase components
of the B1, B2‚ and B3 signals, B1I, B2I, and B3I, are used
for the open service, while the quadrature components
B1Q, B2Q, and B3Q are used for the authorized service
[13]. The open service is available to global users free of
charge‚ and the authorized service is available only to spe-
cific users.
6.5.6.1.2 RDSS Service
The RDSS service is a unique BDS service inherited from
and further improving upon the BDS I RDSS service and
provides positioning, precision timing, and short message
communication to the users of China and surrounding
areas via the GEO satellites. However, since the RNSS serv-
ice of BDS II can provide passive positioning and timing
services with better performance, the focus of the RDSS
service at present lies on its short message communication,
which facilitates communication and location reports
between users. Because the RDSS users must have a unique
registered ID, the RDSS service can be seen as an author-
ized service of BDS II.
The RDSS service was introduced in detail in the previous
section; this section focuses on the RNSS service.

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 6.5 BDS II: The BDS Regional System 161

6.5.6.2 Service Performance Table 6.4 BDS II OS position/velocity/time accuracy standards

6.5.6.2.1 Service Area
The BDS II open service area is defined as the area where Standard
both the horizontal and vertical position accuracies are Service accuracy (95% probability) Constraints
within 10 m with a probability of 95%. At the current stage,
Positioning Horizontal ≤10 m Calculate the
the open service area includes most of the region from 55 S statistical PVT
Vertical ≤10 m
to 55 N, 70 E to 150 E, as shown in Figure 6.20 [13]. error for any
In China, the term “BDS-focused service area” often Velocity ≤0.2 m/s point in the
appears in the literature. However, this area has not been Timing (Multi-SISs) ≤50 ns service volume
over any 24-h
officially defined so far and is typically referred to as the interval.
BDS RDSS services coverage area, that is, China and sur-
rounding areas (70 E–145 E, 5 N–55 N), where the future
SBAS services will be provided [7].
Table 6.5 BDS OS PDOP availability standards [5]
6.5.6.2.2 Service Accuracy
The open service PVT accuracy standards are described in Service
Table 6.4 [13]. availability Standard Constraints

PDOP ≥0.98 PDOP≤6

6.5.6.2.3 PDOP Availability availability Calculate at any point within the
The BDS II Open Service position dilution of precision service volume over any 24-h interval.
(PDOP) availability standards within its service volume
Source: From Lu, M. and Shen, J., “BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
are shown in Table 6.5. (BDS),” in Understanding GPS/GNSS: Principles and Applications
(eds. C. H. a. E. D. Kaplan), 3rd Ed., Artech House, pp. 273–312, 2017.

6.5.6.2.4 Positioning Service Availability

The BDS OS positioning service availability standards
within its coverage area are shown in Table 6.6 [13].
Table 6.6 BDS OS position service availability standards
Since December 2012, BDS II has been providing FOC
services. The actual test results show that BDS II has good
Service
availability Standard Constraints
EAST 60° 90° 120° 150° 180°
Positioning ≥0.95 Horizontal positioning accuracy
availability ≤10 m (95% probability); Vertical
60° 60° position accuracy ≤ 10 m (95%
Europe probability); Calculate at any point
Asia within the coverage area over any
45° 45° 24-h interval

30° 30°
Pacific Ocean
15° 15°
geometric coverage for China and the Asia-Pacific region
0° Indian Ocean 0°
[26]. Within the region from 60 S to 60 N and 65 E to
15° 15° 150 E, with an elevation mask angle of 5 , the number
Oceania of the visible BDS satellites is greater than seven, and the
30° 30°
PDOP value is generally less than 5. The pseudorange
45° 45° and carrier phase measurement accuracies are 33 cm
and 2 mm, respectively [26]. The 95% horizontal and
vertical accuracies of the pseudorange single point position-
60° 60°
ing are better than 6 m and 10 m, respectively. Further-
Antarctica
more, the accuracy of the carrier phase differential
EAST 60° 90° 120° 150° 180° positioning is better than 1 cm in the case of an ultra-short
Figure 6.20 BDS-II service area [5]. Source: Reproduced with baseline, and better than 3 cm in the case of a short
permission of Artech House. baseline [22, 26].

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 162 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
6.6 BDS III: The Emerging BDS Global
System
6.6.1 Overview
BDS III will be a multifunctional global system with a
hybrid constellation of 30 satellites [6, 16, 17, 27]. Two
new navigation signals, B1C and B2a, will be transmitted
from the MEO satellites and IGSO satellites for global open
service. In particular, these two new signals will share two
frequencies with GPS and Galileo, and some modern nav-
igation signal features, such as BOC modulation, pilot data‚
and orthogonal structure, will be adopted. This implies that
BDS III will be highly compatible and interoperable with
GPS and Galileo. In fact, compatibility and interoperability
with other GNSS are the main goals of the third step in the
BDS development plan. In addition to continuing to pro-
vide its iconic RDSS service and to expand the regional
open service to the global open service by using new navi-
gation signals, the SBAS and SAR services will also be inte-
grated into the BDS III constellation [6].
While the B2I signal originated in BDS II will be replaced
by the new B2a signal, the B1I signal will continue to be
transmitted by all BDS III satellites (GEO/IGSO/MEO) to
provide open service. The newly released B3I signal also
will be transmitted by all BDS III satellites. The continued
broadcast of B1I and B3I signals not only ensures the
smooth transition from BDS II to BDS III, but also maxi-
mizes the benefits to receiver manufacturers and custo-
mers. As a result, BDS III will transmit at least four
signals, B1C, B2a, B1I, and B3I, for global open service.
After the new ICDs for B1C and B2a were released in Sep-
tember 2017, the first pair of BDS III MEO satellites was
successfully launched in November 2017. Currently, a total
of eight MEO satellites have been successfully launched.
According to the latest deployment plan at the time of this
writing, 18 MEO and 1 GEO satellites will be launched by
the end of 2018, while an additional 6 MEO, 3 IGSO, and 2
GEO satellites will be launched from 2019 to 2020. It is
expected that BDS III will provide initial service by the
end of 2018, and will provide full service worldwide around
by approximately 2020 [27].
6.6.2 Constellation
BDS III constellation consists of 3 GEO, 3 IGSO, 24 MEO
satellites, and possibly some spare satellites [16, 17]. The
three GEO satellites are positioned at 80 E, 110.5 E, and
140 E, respectively. The MEO satellites are evenly distri-
buted in three orbital planes at 21,528 km altitude, consti-
tuting a classic Walker 24/3/1 constellation. The IGSO
satellites are also evenly distributed in three orbital planes
c06.3d 162
Figure 6.21 BDS III constellation [5]. Source: Reproduced with
permission of Artech House.
at 35,786 km altitude with an orbital plane inclination of
55 . The 24 MEO satellites are distributed uniformly for
BDS global coverage. The GEO and IGSO satellites provide
enhanced coverage for China and the Asia-Pacific region.
The BDS III space constellation is shown in Figure 6.21.
The term BDS-focused service area has two meanings.
One is that for users in the “focused service area” better
service availability will be ensured with more visible satel-
lites. The other is that for users in this area, the GEO satel-
lites will provide more diversified services, at least
including RDSS, RNSS, SBAS‚ and SAR. The coverage of
the BDS III open service is depicted in Figure 6.22. This fig-
ure shows the geographical distribution of satellite signal
coverage in a revisit period. Spare satellites are not consid-
ered. Due to the GEO and IGSO satellites, 10 to 14 BDS III
satellites can be observed at the same time in the Asia-
Pacific region with a probability of 95%. For other regions,
the number of visible satellites is 8 to 10, while in some
mid-latitude areas, only 6 to 8 BDS satellites are visible
simultaneously.
6.6.3 Signal Characteristics
The two new navigation signals, B1C and B2a, will be trans-
mitted by BDS III MEO and IGSO satellites, and the two
legacy signals, B1I and B3I, will be transmitted by all
BDS III satellites. However, the open service signal B2I will
not be retained [6, 14, 16, 17]. The following discussions in
this subsection are mainly focused on the B1C and B2a
signals.
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 6.6 BDS III: The Emerging BDS Global System 163

N Access (95%, 3G+3I+24M)

13
12
60°N 11
10

30°N 9
8
Latitude

7
0°
6
5
30°S 4
3

60°S 2
1
0
60°W 30°W 0° 30°E 60°E 90°E 120°E 150°E 180° 150°W 120°W 90°W 60°W

Longitude

Figure 6.22 Simulation of the BDS-III global coverage.

6.6.3.1 Signal Structures 3

6.6.3.1.1 B1C
All BDS and global GNSS users will receive this signal. B1C
will become an important symbol of BDS III, similar to the
current GPS L1 C/A and the future L1C. Besides the com-
patibility and the interoperability with the GPS L1C and
Galileo E1 OS signals, it is necessary to meet a large range
of varied requirements, from location services and other
consumer users to high-precision measurement and other
professional users. Therefore, an advanced signal structure
needed to be developed for a variety of different require-
ments [28, 29].
The carrier frequency of B1C is 1575.42 MHz, which is
the same as the carrier frequency of the GPS L1 C/A and
L1C, and the Galileo E1 OS signals. A novel modulation
scheme, quadrature multiplexed binary offset carrier
(QMBOC) modulation, is adopted [16, 30].
B1C has a data and a pilot component:
sB1C t = sB1C_data t + jsB1C_pilot t 67
where the data component
1 complexity only have to deal with the BOC(1,1) compo-
sB1C_data t = DB1C_data t CB1C_data t scB1C_data t
2 nent, while the BOC (6,1) component offers more potential
68
is a sine-based BOC(1,1) subcarrier ScBIC_data t modulated
by the navigation message data stream DBIC_data t and the
ranging code CBIC_data t , while the pilot component
sB1C_pilot t = C B1C_pilot t scB1C_pilot t 69
2
is a QMBOC subcarrier ScBIC_pilot t modulated by the
ranging code CBIC_pilot t . The data to the pilot component
signal power ratio is 1:3.
QMBOC modulation, first proposed in [30], is a time-
domain implementation of multiplexed binary offset car-
rier modulation (MBOC). It consists of two quadrature
phase BOC modulations, BOC(1,1) and BOC(6,1), to avoid
cross-correlation between the two components. QMBOC
has the same power spectrum as other MBOC implementa-
tions such as time-multiplexed BOC (TMBOC), which is
used in the GPS L1C signal, and composite BOC (CBOC),
which is used in the Galileo E1 OS signal. The QMBOC sig-
nal supports both a low-complexity receiving mode and a
high-performance receiving mode, and hence offers good
compatibility and interoperability with GPS and Galileo
signals in the same frequency band. Because the QMBOC
signal contains a narrowband component with a larger por-
tion of the power and a wideband component with a smal-
ler power allocation, receivers limited by processing
for high-precision ranging performance applications.
Since a QMBOC subcarrier consists of two bipolar sub-
carriers, the entire B1C signal actually contains three bipo-
lar components [16]:

c06.3d 163 15/12/2020 11:30:11 PM

 164 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

1 MHz) are multiplexed into a constant envelope signal before

SB1C t = DB1C_data t C B1C_data t sign sin 2π f SC_B1C_a t
2 transmission in order to reduce payload and multiplexing
SB1C data t loss [32]. Moreover, since BDS III has three different types
1
+ C B1C_pilot t sign sin 2π f SC_B1C_b t
11
SB1C pilot b t
29
+j C B1C_pilot t sign sin 2π f SC_B1C_a t
44
SB1C pilot a t its low-complexity implementation form [32] meets this
6 10
where fsc_a = 1.023 MHz and fsc_b = 6.138 MHz. Table 6.7
shows the other elements of the B1C signal, as well as
the modulation, phase relationship, and power ratio of each
component.
On BDS III MEO and IGSO satellites, both B1C and B1I
signals are broadcast. The central frequencies of these two
signals are 14.322 MHz apart. In the payload implementa-
tion, a multicarrier constant envelope multiplexing tech-
nique [31] is used to combine these two signals, as well
as the authorization service signal in the same band, into
a composite signal, while sharing a common transmitter
chain. This implementation not only reduces the volume
and weight of the payload transmitter, but also enables
joint processing of these two signals in wideband receivers.
6.6.3.1.2 B2a
The design of the BDS III open service signal in the B2 band
also took into consideration interoperability with GPS and
Galileo. In order to interoperate with GPS L5 and Galileo
E5, BDS III broadcasts broadband signals at two frequen-
cies in the B2 band with center frequencies at 1176.45
MHz and 1207.14 MHz, respectively [17].
Both B2a and B2b signals are composed of two phase quad-
rature components. Their spreading codes (the rate is 10.23
of satellites in three different types of orbits, some B2 signal
components may be used to support different services.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a flexible power configura-
tion when multiplexing the B2 components.
The asymmetric constant envelope binary offset carrier
(ACE-BOC) modulation and multiplexing technique with
design requirement well. Therefore, ACE-BOC marries
multi-carrier spread-spectrum modulation with constant
envelope multiplexing. It can combine four or fewer signals
of arbitrary power ratio in phase quadrature onto two side-
bands of a split-spectrum composite signal. Moreover, the
composite signals can either be received as two sets of
QPSK signals located on two different bands respectively,
or as a wideband signal.
The current ICD only describes the signal structure
of B2a [17]. Therefore, the signal is presented as a QPSK
(10) modulation signal, as shown in Table 6.8. The base-
band complex envelope of B2a signal model is
sB2a t = sB2a_data t + jsB2a_pilot t 6 11
where
1
sB2a_data t = DB2a_data t C B2a_data t 6 12
2
1
sB2a_pilot t = C B2a_pilot t 6 13
2
DB2a_data(t), CB2a_data(t), and CB2a_pilot(t) are the data and
ranging codes for the data and pilot channel‚ respectively.
Both sB2a_data(t) and sB2a_pilot(t) are modulated in BPSK
mode. The power ratio between the data component and
the pilot component is 1:1.

Table 6.7 Modulation characteristics of B1C signal

Signal Carrier (MHz) Component Modulation Symbol Rate (sps) Phase relationship Power ratio

B1C 1575.42 SBIC_data t BOC(1,1) 100 0 1/4

SBIC_pilot_a t QMBOC BOC (1,1) 0 90 29/44
(6,1,4/33)
SBIC_pilot_b t BOC (6,1) 0 1/11

Table 6.8 Modulation characteristics of B2a signal

Signal Carrier (MHz) Component Modulation Symbol rate (sps) Phase (deg) Power ratio

B2a 1176.45 B2a_data QPSK 200 0 1

B2a_pilot 0 90 1

c06.3d 164 15/12/2020 11:30:12 PM

 6.6 BDS III: The Emerging BDS Global System 165

First main code cycle Second main code cycle NSth main code cycle
(N chips) (N chips) (N chips)
Ranging
code

Overlay
First chip Second chip NSth chip
code

Complex
code

Total chips N*NS

Figure 6.23 Timing relationships of the ranging code and overlay code.

6.6.3.2 Ranging Codes
The PRN codes for B1C and B2a have a hierarchical code
structure with a modulo-2 addition of a ranging code and
an overlay code. The symbol width of the overlay code is
the same as the period of the ranging code. The start of
each overlay code chip is aligned with the first chip of
the ranging code. The timing relationship is shown in
Figure 6.23 [16, 17].
6.6.3.2.1 B1C
The B1C ranging codes chipping rate is 1.023 Mbps. It is
obtained by truncating the Weil code with a length of
10,243 chips. The Weil code sequence with length N is
defined as follows:
W k; w = L k L k + w , k = 0, …, N − 1 6 14
where L(k) is a Legendre sequence of length N, and w,
which ranges from 1 to 5121, is the phase difference
between the two Legendre sequences. A Legendre sequence
L(k) (k = 0,1,2, …, N-1) of length N is defined as
0, k=0
Lk = 1, k 0, intx, k = x 2 modN 6 15
0, else
where “mod” represents the modulo operation.
The B1C ranging code is obtained through a circular
truncation of the Weil code:
c k; w; p = W k + p − 1 mod10243; w , k = 0, …, 10229
6 16
where p is the truncation point indicating that the trunca-
tion starts at the p-th Weil code chip, and its value ranges
from 1 to 10,243.
Since a B1C signal includes a data component and a pilot
component, which use different PRN codes, there are 126
ranging codes for the BDS III B1C signals, 63 of which
are for the data components and the remaining are for
the pilot components.
The length of a B1C pilot component overlay code is
1800, which is obtained by truncating the Weil code with
a length of 3607. The generation method is the same as
for the ranging code, and w ranges from 1 to 1803.
6.6.3.2.2 B2a
Similar to B1C, B2a also has 126 ranging codes, 63 of which
are allocated to the data component, and the rest are allo-
cated to the pilot component. The B2a ranging code chip-
ping rate is 10.23 Mcps‚ and the code length is 10230
chips. A B2a ranging code is obtained by a modulo-2 addi-
tion of two 10230-bit expanded Gold codes, g1(x) and g2(x).
g1(x) and g2(x) are 13-stage linear feedback shift registers,
whose polynomials for the data component are
g1 x = 1 + x + x 5 + x 11 + x 13
6 17
g2 x = 1 + x 3 + x 5 + x 9 + x 11 + x 12 + x 13
and for the pilot component are
g1 x = 1 + x 3 + x 6 + x 7 + x 13
6 18
g2 x = 1 + x + x 5 + x 7 + x 8 + x 12 + x 13
The implementations of the ranging code generators for
the B2a data component and B2a pilot component are
shown in Figures 6.24 and 6.25, respectively.
The polynomials for the two B2a ranging code compo-
nents of a specific satellite are different, but they have
the same initialization vector. The initial state of Register
1 is “1111111111111”, while that of register 2 is different
for different satellites and is specified in [17]. Registers 1
and 2 are synchronized at the start of a period. At the
end of the 8190th chip of a ranging code period, Register

c06.3d 165 15/12/2020 11:30:12 PM

 166 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

Clock (code rate)

C1,1 C1,2 C1,3 C1,4 C1,5 C1,6 C1,7 C1,8 C1,9 C1,10 C1,11 C1,12 C1,13 Register 1

Register 1 reset control

C
S1,1 C
S1,2 C
S1,3 C1,4
S 1,4 C1,5
S C
S1,6 C
S1,7 C
S1,8 C
S1,9
1,9 C
S1,10 C
S1,11 CS1,12
1,12 C
S1,13 Register 1 initial value
Output

S2,1 S2,2 S2,3 S2,4 S2,5 S2,6 S2,7 S2,8 S2,9 S2,10 S2,11 S2,12 S2,13
Register 2 initial value

C2,1 C2,2 C2,3 C2,4 C2,5 C2,6 C2,7 C2,8 C2,9 C2,10 C2,11 C2,12 C2,13
Register 2 reset control Register 2

XOR gate

Figure 6.24 BDS III B2a data component ranging code generator.

Clock(code rate)
C1,1 C1,2 C1,3 C1,4 C1,5 C1,6 C1,7 C1,8 C1,9 C1,10 C1,11 C1,12 C1,13 Register 1

Register 1 reset
control

S1,1 S1,2 S1,3 S1,4 S1,5 S1,6 S1,7 S1,8 S1,9 S1,10 S1,11 S1,12 S1,13 Register 1 initial value
Output

S2,1 S2,2 S2,3 S2,4 S2,5 S2,6 S2,7 S2,8 S2,9 S2,10 S2,11 S2,12 S2,13 Register 1 initial value

C2,1 C2,2 C2,3 C2,4 C2,5 C2,6 C2,7 C2,8 C2,9 C2,10 C2,11 C2,12 C2,13
Register 2 reset Register 2
control

XOR gate

Figure 6.25 B2a pilot component ranging code generator.

1 is reset to 1. Repeating this process, a ranging code with a 6.6.3.3 Navigation Messages
length of 10,230 is obtained. The navigation message broadcast by the BDS B1C and
The overlay codes of the B2a data component are the B2a signals are the B-CNAV1 and B-CNAV2 messages,
same for all satellites. The code is a fixed five-bit code respectively.
sequence with value “00010”, whereas the overlay codes,
of length 100 for the B2a pilot component, are different, 6.6.3.3.1 B-CNAV1 Data Structure
and are obtained by truncating the Weil code to a length The B-CNAV1 message is broadcast on the B1C signal and
of 1021. modulates the B1C data component. Each frame contains

c06.3d 166 15/12/2020 11:30:12 PM


After Error correction coding:
1800 symbols 18s
Subframe1 Subframe2
72 symbols 1200 symbols
BCH(21,6)+ Sixty-four
BCH(51,8) systemLDPC(200,100)
Before Error correcting code:
878 bits
MSB
Subframe1 Subframe2
14 bits 600 bits
Figure 6.26 Basic frame structure of B-CNAV1.
1800 symbols at a 100 sps rate and lasts 18 s. Each frame has
three subframes, with the basic frame structure as shown in
Figure 6.26.
Before error correction coding, subframe1 uses 14 bits to
represent the PRN number and second of hour count
(SOH). Subframe2 has 600 bits for system time, navigation
message version, ephemeris information, satellite clock
correction information, and group delay corrections. Sub-
frame3 has 264 bits, which are divided into several pages
for ionospheric delay correction model parameters, Earth
Orientation Parameters, BDT-UTC time synchronization
information, BDS-GNSS time synchronization informa-
tion, medium precision ephemeris, simplified almanac,
SV health status, satellite integrity status identification‚
and SIS monitoring accuracy indications.
Subframe1 has its most significant six bits encoded in
BCH(21,6), and the least significant eight bits are encoded
in BCH (51,8). Subframe2 and subframe3 are encoded
using 64-ary low-density parity check (LDPC)(200, 100)
and LDPC(88,44), respectively. After application of the
encoding, subframe1, subframe2, and subframe3 have 72,
1200, and 528 symbols. respectively.
6.6.3.3.2 B-CNAV2 Data Structure
The B-CNAV2 message is broadcast on the B2a signal
modulated on the B2a data component. Each frame con-
tains 600 symbols at 200 sps rate and lasts 3 s. Each frame
has three subframes, with the basic frame structure as
shown in Figure 6.27.
Each frame begins with a frame synchronization header
that occupies 24 symbols and is 0xE24DE8 or 111000
100100110111101000. The MSB is transmitted first.
c06.3d 167
6.7 Summary and Future Prospects 167
Subframe3
528 symbols
Sixty-four
systemLDPC(88,44)
LSB
Subframe3
264 bits
Each frame contains 288 bits prior to error correction
coding, including a 6-bit PRN number, a 6-bit information
type, an 18-bit data message, and 24 bits of CRC parity
check information. All of these data are used in the CRC
parity check calculation. After being encoded in 64-ary
LDPC (96,48), each frame contains 576 symbols.
6.7 Summary and Future Prospects
The BDS program started as a regional, active positioning
system, evolved into a regional passive ranging system,
and is being rapidly expanded into a global, multifunctional
satellite navigation system. This chapter presents the evolu-
tion of China’s satellite navigation system following its orig-
inal three-step development plan. With the completion of
the first and second steps, BDS I and BDS II have been
widely used in China and the Asia-Pacific region. Cur-
rently, BDS III, the product of the third step of the BDS
development plan, is expected to offer global and multi-
functional services by approximately 2020.
As a member of the world’s GNSS family, BDS has many
similarities with other GNSSs. However, BDS also possesses
many unique features. Its uniqueness is not only reflected
in the constellation structure, the control segment configu-
ration‚ and the user terminals, but also in its signal struc-
tures, ranging and positioning methods, various services,
and applications. BDS even created a completely different
development model from other GNSSs. These differences
make BDS a unique and distinctive GNSS.
As a summary of this chapter, Table 6.9 presents the
launch record of BDS satellites as of March 2018. So far,
a total of 31 satellites in three types of orbits have been
15/12/2020 11:30:14 PM
 168 6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

After Error correction coding:

600 symbols 3s

synchronous
Message symbol
head(Pre)
576 symbols
24 symbols
Sixty-four
systemLDPC(96,48)

Before Error correction coding:

288 bits
MSB LSB

PRN MesType SOW Navigation Message CRC

6 bits 6 bits 18 bits 234 bits 24 bits

Figure 6.27 B-CNAV2 basic frame structure.

Table 6.9 Launch record of BDS satellites by March 2018

Satellite Date of launch Carrier rocket Orbit

1st experimental satellite 2000.10.31 CZ-3A GEO

2nd experimental satellite 2000.12.21 CZ-3A GEO
3rd experimental satellite 2003.05.25 CZ-3A GEO
4th experimental satellite 2007.02.03 CZ-3A GEO
1st satellite 2007.04.14 CZ-3A MEO
2nd satellite 2009.04.15 CZ-3C GEO
3rd satellite 2010.01.17 CZ-3C GEO
4th satellite 2010.06.02 CZ-3C GEO
5th satellite 2010.08.01 CZ-3A IGSO
6th satellite 2010.11.01 CZ-3C GEO
7th satellite 2010.12.18 CZ-3A IGSO
8th satellite 2011.04.10 CZ-3A IGSO
9th satellite 2011.07.27 CZ-3A IGSO
10th satellite 2011.12.02 CZ-3A IGSO
11th satellite 2012.02.25 CZ-3C GEO
12th and 13th satellites 2012.04.30 CZ-3B MEO
14th and 15th satellite 2012.09.19 CZ-3B MEO
16th satellite 2012.10.25 CZ-3C GEO
17th satellite 2015.03.30 CZ-3C IGSO
18th and 19th satellite 2015.07.25 CZ-3B MEO
20th satellite 2015.09.30 CZ-3B IGSO
21st satellite 2016.02.01 CZ-3C MEO
22nd satellite 2016.03.30 CZ-3A IGSO
23rd satellite 2016.06.12 CZ-3C GEO
24th and 25th satellite 2017.11.05 CZ-3B MEO
26th and 27th satellite 2018.01.12 CZ-3B MEO
28th and 29th satellite 2018.02.12 CZ-3B MEO
30th and 31st satellite 2018.03.30 CZ-3B MEO

c06.3d 168 15/12/2020 11:30:15 PM


BDS I
B2I B3I B1I
BDS II
1207.14 MHz 1268.52 MHz
B2a B3I B1I
BDS III
1176.45 MHz 1268.52 MHz 1561.098 MHz 1575.42 MHz
Figure 6.28 Spectrum evolution diagram of BDS signals (RDSS-related signals are enclosed with dotted lines).
successfully launched. As BDS further develops into its full
constellation, this list will continue to grow.
Finally, Figure 6.28 captures the evolution and future
prospects of the BDS open signal spectrum from BDS I,
BDS II, to BDS III.
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1615.68 MHz
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15/12/2020 11:30:16 PM

IRNSS
Vyasaraj Rao
Accord Software and Systems, India
7.1 History and Genesis
••
During the days of Kargil war in 1999, the Indian military
was dependent on GPS data in the war zone for positioning
and timing applications. With the selective availability (SA)
off on-board GPS satellites, accurate positioning was not
possible. This and the thought of a GNSS owned by a for-
eign country, denied regionally at crucial times, motivated
the need for an indigenous satellite-based navigation sys-
tem. Both military- and consumer-grade applications that
use navigation and timing information primarily based
on GNSSs would be greatly benefited by this regional nav-
igation system.
Indian space programs are conceptualized, designed,
developed‚ and deployed by the Indian Space Research
Organization (ISRO). From a navigation perspective, the sat-
ellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) and regional nav-
igation system were set up by ISRO in the last decade. The
results of this are GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation
(GAGAN), an operational system, and the Indian Regional
Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). The latter program
was approved by the Indian government in May 2006, with
a plan to have the system fully operational by 2016. Recently,
IRNSS was renamed as NAVIC (Navigation with Indian
Constellation); see Figure 7.1 [1].
NAVIC is an autonomous regional navigation system
planned to provide accurate real-time positioning and tim-
ing services over India and regions extending to 1500 km
(930 mi) around it, referred to as the primary service area
[3]. The main objective was to achieve position accuracy
of 20 m (2σ) for dual-frequency users in the primary service
volume. The extended service area lies between the primary
service area and the area enclosed by the rectangle from
30 S to 50 N latitude, 30 E to 130 E longitude as shown
in Figure 7.2. NAVIC, like any other GNSS system, is
expected to support applications such as the following [4]:
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume ,1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
171
Terrestrial, aerial‚ and marine navigation
Disaster management
•• Vehicle tracking and fleet management
Integration with mobile phones
•• Precise timing
Mapping and geodetic data capture
•• Terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travelers
Visual and voice navigation for drivers
The NAVIC system architecture consists of three compo-
nents: space, control‚ and user segments. The space
segment, as with any other GNSS, consists of navigation
satellites. The upkeep and maintenance of the space
segment is performed by the control segment. Signals from
satellites are acquired, tracked‚ and processed by the
receivers to provide navigation solutions for the user
segment [5].
7.1.1 Space Segment
The NAVIC space segment consists of seven satellites in its
full configuration, with three satellites in geostationary and
four in geosynchronous orbits. Currently, seven satellites
have been deployed and are in the final stages of testing.
In addition, there is a proposal to extend NAVIC to an
11-satellite [7] constellation to improve availability and
enhanced navigational accuracy in the primary service
volume [8].
7.1.1.1 Development
The first satellite (IRNSS-1A) was launched on 1 July 2013
on-board India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-
C22) [9] from the First Launch Pad (FLP) of the Satish Dha-
wan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota. The ‘XL’ version of
PSLV was used, which is the same launch vehicle used in
the Chandrayaan-1 (lunar) mission of India. The second
IRNSS satellite was launched on 4 April 2014 aboard
172 7 IRNSS

Figure 7.1 NAVIC satellite distribution [2]. Source: https://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files/article-files/node/4470/banner_1.jpg.

Reproduced with permission of ISRO.

IRNSS Space Segment

GSO at 55°E GSO at 111.75°E

GEO at 32.5°E GEO at 83°E GSO at 131.5°E

GSO at 111.75°E
GSO at 55°E

ILSR IRIMS IRCDR IRNSS User

IRTTC &
Nav uplink

IRNWT INC

IRNSS Ground Segment

Figure 7.2 NAVIC system architecture. Source: From I.S.R.O. [6].

PSLV-C24 [10]. Both IRNSS-1A and IRNSS-1B (shown in
Figure 7.3) were placed in geostationary orbits. The third
satellite (IRNSS-1C) was launched in the same year on
October 15 aboard PSLV-C26, and was placed in a geosyn-
chronous orbit [11]. This was followed by the successful
launch of the fourth satellite (IRNSS-1D) on 28 March
2015 [12]. The fourth satellite was placed in a geosynchro-
nous orbit. The last three satellites (IRNSS 1E, 1F, and 1G)
were launched in 2016 to complete the seven-satellite con-
stellation [13–15]. The details are summarized in Table 7.1.
Certain on-board features of the NAVIC satellites include
two solar panels consisting of ultra-triple junction solar
cells that generate approximately 1660 W of power, and
Sun and star sensors along with gyroscopes to provide
the orientation reference to the satellite. Specially designed
thermal control schemes have been implemented for criti-
cal elements like atomic clocks. The propulsion system con-
sists of a liquid apogee motor (LAM) and thrusters [16, 17].
7.1.1.2 NAVIC Payload Overview
All the seven NAVIC satellites carry a navigation and ran-
ging payload onboard. The navigation payload transmits
signals supporting dual use, which is Standard Positioning
Service (SPS) for civilians and Restricted Service (RS) for
military purposes. In addition, the payload operates in
the L5 (1176.42 MHz) and S (2492.028 MHz) bands. Multi-
ple highly accurate rubidium atomic clocks are part of the
navigation payload on the satellite. The ranging payload
consists of a C-band transponder (uplink: 6700–6725
MHz, right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP); downlink:
 7.1 History and Genesis 173

Figure 7.3 IRNSS 1B satellite in the launch pad [18, 19]. Source: http://www.isro.gov.in/irnss-programme/pslv-c22-irnss-1a-gallery;
http://www.isro.gov.in/irnss-programme/pslv-c24-irnss-1b-gallery. Reproduced with permission of ISRO.

Table 7.1 NAVIC satellite launch details

Satellite Launch vehicle Launch date Orbit

IRNSS-1A PSLV-C22 1 July 2013 Geosynchronous

(55 E longitude, 29 elevation)
IRNSS-1B PSLV-C24 4 April 2014 Geosynchronous
(55 E longitude, 29 elevation)
IRNSS-1C PSLV-C26 15 October 2014 Geostationary
(83 E longitude)
IRNSS-1D PSLV-C27 28 March 2015 Geosynchronous
(111.75 E longitude, 30.5 elevation)
IRNSS-1E PSLV-C31 20 January 2016 Geosynchronous
(111.75 E longitude, 28.1 elevation)
IRNSS-1F PSLV-C32 10 March 2016 Geostationary
(32.5 E longitude)
IRNSS-1G PSLV-C33 28 April 2016 Geostationary
(131.5 E longitude)

3400–3425 MHz, LHCP), which facilitates accurate deter- and time keeping. The ground segment comprises the
mination of the range to the satellite, along with corner following [4]:
cube retro reflectors for laser ranging. Figure 7.4 shows a
blown-up view of the NAVIC spacecraft [16].
•• IRNSS Range and Integrity Monitoring Stations (IRIMSs)
ISRO Navigation Centre (INC)
7.1.2 Ground Segment •• IRNSS TTC and Unlinking Station (IRTTC)
IRNSS Spacecraft Control Facility (IRSCF)
The IRNSS Ground Segment is responsible for the main-
tenance and operation of the constellation. This includes
•• IRNSS Network Timing Centre (IRNWT)
IRNSS CDMA Ranging Stations (IRCDRs)
the generation of the navigation parameters and transmis-
sion, satellite control, ranging, and integrity monitoring
•• Laser Ranging Stations (ILRSs)
Data Communication Network (IRDCN)
174 7 IRNSS

Propellant Tanks

Solar Panel
Star Sensors

Global Horn Solar Panel

Dual Helix Antenna

Corner Cube Retro Reflector

C-band Horn
Liquid Apogee Motor

Figure 7.4 IRNSS spacecraft constituents [9]. Source: Reproduced with permission of ISRO.

Seventeen IRIMS sites will be distributed across the 7.2 IRNSS Reference System
country for orbit determination and ionospheric modeling
[3]. Four ranging stations, separated by wide and long base-
7.2.1 IRNSS Geodetic Reference
lines, will provide two-way CDMA ranging [20].
IRNSS uses the WGS-84 coordinate system for the compu-
tation of navigation solutions.
7.1.3 User Segment
The User segment mainly consists of the following: 7.2.2 IRNSS Time Reference

• A single-frequency IRNSS receiver capable of processing

SPS signal at L5 or S band frequency
IRNSS system time is represented as the week number
(WN) and time of week count (TOWC), similar to other

• A dual-frequency IRNSS receiver capable of receiving

both L5 and S band frequencies
global constellations. Since each navigation data subframe
is 12 s long, the TOWC is multiplied by 12 to obtain the time

• A multi-constellation GNSS receiver compatible with

IRNSS and other GNSS constellations
For illustration, a multi-constellation IRNSS (dual-fre-
quency) + GPS + SBAS developed by Accord Software
and Systems Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India‚ is as shown in
Figure 7.5.
Figure 7.5 IRNSS user receiver.
of week (TOW) in seconds. The IRNSS system time starting
epoch is 00:00 UT on 22 August 1999 (midnight between
August 21 and 22). At the starting epoch, the IRNSS system
time was ahead of UTC by 13 s. Subsequently, the UTC cor-
rections to the IRNSS system time were applied commensu-
rate to the GPS system time. The epoch denoted in the
navigation messages by TOWC and WN will be measured
relative to the leading edge of the first chip of the first code
sequence of the first subframe symbol. The transmission
timing of the navigation message provided through the
TOWC is synchronized to IRNSS system time [6].
IRNSS system time is maintained by INC ground stations.
It is determined from a clock ensemble composed of cesium
and hydrogen maser atomic standards at the INC ground
stations. Similar to UTC, the IRNSS system time is also a
weighted mean average time, but with two substantial dif-
ferences: it will be made available in real time, which is con-
tinuous without leap seconds. The IRNSS satellites carry an
on-board rubidium atomic frequency standard, which is
monitored and controlled by the INC ground station. The
deviation between the IRNSS system time and the satellite’s

on-board clock is modeled, which is a quadratic function of
time. The parameters of this model are calculated and
transmitted as a part of the IRNSS broadcast navigation
messages [21].
7.3 IRNSS Satellite Constellation
The primary concern for any satellite constellation design is
the availability of satellites in the service volume and the
impact of its geometry on the navigation accuracy. The
geometry is measured by the parameter, position dilution
of precision (PDOP). Since IRNSS is a regional navigation
system, it is necessary to guarantee the visibility of all the
satellites in the primary service area. The satellite constel-
lation with geostationary and geosynchronous satellites
was designed according to the primary requirement of
availability and the best possible navigation accuracy.
Another design consideration is the line-of-sight observa-
bility of all the satellites to the ground station. The constel-
lation design of geostationary and geosynchronous orbits
paves the way to provide continuous all time line-of-sight
observability to all satellites. This ensures constant ranging
and integrity monitoring. A summary of nominal constella-
tion parameters is listed in Table 7.2.
The space segment can be broadly categorized on the
basis of its contribution as system or subsystem. System-
level traits include availability, accuracy, reliability, and
integrity. However, the subsystem segment mainly focuses
on satellite-specific features such as those depicted in
Figure 7.4. On the basis of open source literature on IRNSS,
the availability and subsystem parameters are explained
with necessary assumptions. Among the various design
parameters, availability is a paramount requirement in
any GNSS, more so in a regional navigation system. With
the announcement of any new constellation, an initial
assessment of the signal characteristics, stand-alone avail-
ability, and achievable accuracies is of main interest.
Table 7.2 Summary of nominal constellation characteristics
Total number of 7 (will be extended to 11)
satellites
Orbital Altitude 35,000
(km)
Number of orbital Geostationary orbit (GEO) and
planes 2 geosynchronous orbit (GSO) planes
Number of 2 satellites each in GSO planes and
satellites per plane 3 satellites in GEO plane
Inclination ( ) 5 (for GEO satellites) 29 (for GSO
satellites)
7.4 Ground Segment Configuration 175
Availability is defined as the period of time a system is usa-
ble, or alternatively, it is the ability of the system to provide
solutions over a specified region. IRNSS being a regional
system, availability has to be highly optimized from an
operational perspective. Availability‚ as illustrated in
Figure 7.6, assures visibility to a user from all seven satel-
lites over the Indian subcontinent [22, 23].
In the case of IRNSS, assuming clear sky conditions,
satellites in a geostationary orbit will always be visible to
users on the Indian subcontinent. An advantage of geosta-
tionary satellites is that a larger signal coverage footprint is
achieved with a minimum number of satellites. However,
one needs to estimate the visibility of the satellites in geo-
synchronous orbits to assess the overall availability.
A detailed statistical reliability analysis for the IRNSS con-
stellation is presented in [22].
7.4 Ground Segment Configuration
An integral component of any ground segment is to contin-
uously track the satellites and estimate the integrity of each
signal component (for example, code, carrier‚ and data),
discretely in real time. In case of any abnormality, alert is
announced. IRIMS facilitates this by performing one-way
ranging to satellites employing high-end reference station
receivers. It receives data from the IRNSS satellites, and
processes and transmits the necessary information to the
INC. The objectives of the INC are the following [24]:
•
Compute the primary and secondary navigation para-
meters that include estimation and prediction of the
ephemeris and SV clock corrections
•
Initialize on-board time (clock) and monitor its
performance
•
Monitor the broadcast parameters in the range domain
(in terms of user equivalent range error or UERE) and
position domain (through user position computation at
the reference stations)
• Estimate ionospheric corrections and integrity
information.
The SV clock and ephemeris corrections are then trans-
mitted to the IRTTC stations, which receive and command
IRNSS telemetry data. These stations are used for up-
linking the navigation data to the IRNSS satellites. The
IRCDR stations facilitate accurate two-way ranging of
IRNSS satellites and transmit data to the INC. The primary
function of the SCF is to manage and maintain the satellite
constellation. The details of the various elements of the
IRNSS ground segment are shown in Figure 7.7.
 Number of IRNSS Satellites Visible

80

60

40

20
Latitude (Deg.)

–20

–40

–60

–80

–40 –20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Longitude (Deg.)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
No. of satellites

Figure 7.6 IRNSS satellite availability over Indian subcontinent.

The constituent elements of the IRNSS ground segment are:

ISRO Navigation Centre (INC) at Byalalu, is the nerve center of the IRNSS Ground Segment. INC primarily generates
navigation parameters
200 nm
IRNSS Range and Integrity Monitoring Stations
(IRIMS) perform continuous one way ranging of the IRNSS
satellites and are also used for integrity determination of the
IRNSS constellation.
Gaggal

Dehradun
IRNSS CDMA Ranging Stations (IRCDR) carry
out precise two way ranging of IRNSS satellites.
Lucknow
Jodhpur
IRNSS Network Timing Centre (IRNWT) at
Byalalu generates, maintains and distributes IRNSS Shillong
Network Time. Udaipur
Bhopal

Kolkata
Spacecraft Control Facility (SCF) controls the
space segment through Telemetry Tracking & Command
networks. In addition to the regular TT&C operations,
Pune
IRSCF also uplinks the navigation parameters generated
by the INC.

Goa

Byalalu
Bangalore
IRNSS Data Communication Network (IRDCN) provides
Hassan
the required digital communication backbone to IRNSS PortBlair
network. Kavaratti

Mahendragiri
International Laser Ranging Stations (ILRS) is being used
periodically to calibrate the IRNSS orbit determined by the
other techniques.

Figure 7.7 IRNSS Ground Segment distribution and definitions of each functional component [9]. Source: Reproduced with permission
of ISRO.
 7.5 IRNSS Signal Configuration 177

The estimation of satellite orbit and clock parameters are
done using high-accuracy measurements from the IRIMS
stations after removing the atmospheric errors, possible
outliers, cycle slips, and carrier phase ambiguity. One of
the IRIMSs is driven by IRNWT, which serves as the refer-
ence time for precise orbit and clock estimation [17, 25].
A batch filter processes three-day measurements to ensure
the stability of the orbital arc. Prior to the generation of nav-
igation parameters, orbits as determined employing two-
way ranging measurements are used for validation.
7.5 IRNSS Signal Configuration
subframe symbols. This is called Forward error correction
(FEC) encoding. The FEC-encoded subframe symbols are
then interleaved using a block interleaver before appending
with 16 bits of SYNC CODE (0xEB90). The synchronization
code is not encoded, which allows the receiver to achieve
subframe synchronization. The FEC encoding scheme with
interleaving is shown in Figure 7.8 and Table 7.3, respec-
tively. There are also tail bits in each subframe, which
are a series of six zero bits allowing the completion of
FEC decoding of each subframe in the user receiver.
A 24-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) parity provides
protection against burst errors in navigation data as well
as random errors with a probability of undetected error

IRNSS signal consists of an SPS signal and RS signal in two

frequency bands, namely, L5 and S. The frequency band in
L5 was chosen from the allocated spectrum (post frequency Table 7.3 FEC encoding and block interleaver configuration
filing) for Radio Navigation Satellite Services (RNSSs). The
signal configuration of both SPS and RS signals consists of Parameter Value
the following:
FEC Coding rate 1/2

•• Navigation data stream

Pseudorandom noise (PRN) code
encoder Coding scheme Convolution

•
Constraint length 7
Carrier signals in the L5 and S bands Generator polynomial G1 = (171)o
G2 = (133)o
Encoding sequence G1 then G2
7.5.1 Navigation Message
Block Interleaver size 584
The IRNSS navigation message is structured into four sub- interleaver Interleaver dimensions 73 × 8
frames [6]. The navigation data in each subframe consists of (n columns × m rows)
292 bits that are rate ½ convolution encoded to obtain 584

IRNSS Navigation data (292 Bits)

FEC Encoder

G1

Input q–1 q–1 q–1 q–1 q–1 q–1 Output

G2

584 symbols

Block Interleaver

0xEB90 Interleaved data (584 symbols)

SYNC CODE

Figure 7.8 IRNSS navigation data generation methodology. Source: From I. S. R. O. [6].
178 7 IRNSS

≤ 2−24 = 5.96 e−8 for all channel bit error probabilities satellite almanac, ionospheric grid parameters, ionospheric
≤ 0.5 [6]. delay correction coefficients, UTC and GNSS time offsets,
The generator polynomial used for the CRC computation differential corrections, Earth orientation parameters, and
in each subframe given as text messages, are transmitted in subframes three and four.
24
The contents of subframes 1 and 2 are fixed to transmit
gX = gi X i the primary navigation parameters.

i−0
gi = 1 for i = 0, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 17, 18, 23, 24 and 0
otherwise; Xi is the bit stream for which the CRC need to be
computed.
7.5.1.1 Frame Structure
The IRNSS master frame is 2400 symbols long and made up
of four subframes. Each subframe is 600 symbols long, as
explained earlier. Subframes 1 and 2 transmit fixed primary
navigation parameters. Subframes 3 and 4 transmit second-
ary navigation parameters in the form of messages. The
master frame structure is shown in Figure 7.9. All sub-
frames transmit TLM, TOWC, alert, AutoNav, subframe
ID, spare bit, navigation data, CRC, and tail bits. Subframes
3 and 4 also transmit message ID and PRN ID. Figure 7.9
also shows the subframe structure for the IRNSS navigation
data. The most significant bit/byte is transmitted first [6].
The primary navigation parameters consisting of the sat-
ellite ephemeris, clock information, signal health status,
group delay, and user range accuracy (URA) are transmitted
in the first two subframes and are repeated once every 48 s.
The secondary navigation parameters, which include
•
Subframe 1: Satellite ephemeris and clock parameters
(Broadcast interval = as needed but repeats once every
48 s).
• Subframe 2: Satellite ephemeris (Broadcast interval = as
needed but repeats once every 48 s).
The contents of the secondary navigation parameters are
transmitted as message types with specific broadcast inter-
vals. The following are the different message types that are
defined to be transmitted in subframes 3 and 4:
• Message Type 0: Null message, which is broadcast when
there is no other message waiting for broadcast (Broadcast
interval = as needed).
• Message Type 5: Ionospheric grid parameters for one
region ID (Broadcast interval = 5 min).
• Message Type 7: Almanac parameters for one satellite
(Broadcast interval = 60 min).
• Message Type 9: IRNSS time correction parameters with
respect to UTC and GPS (Broadcast interval = 20 min).
• Message Type 11: Earth orientation parameters and
ionospheric coefficients for Klobuchar model (Broadcast
interval = 10 min).

600 Symbols
SUBFRAME DATA-FEC encoded (584 Symbols)
SYNC
CODE Navigation data (292 Bits)
16 bits SUBFRAME SPARE
TLM TOWC ALERT AUTONAV DATA CRC TAIL
ID

Subframe One • Primary navigation parameters

Subframe Two • Primary navigation parameters

48 s

Subframe Three • Secondary navigation parameters

Subframe Four • Secondary navigation parameters

600 Symbols
SUBFRAME DATA-FEC encoded (584 Symbols)
SYNC
CODE Navigation data (292 Bits)
16 bits SUBFRAME SPARE MESSAGE
TLM TOWC ALERT AUTONAV DATA CRC TAIL
ID ID

Figure 7.9 IRNSS navigation data subframe structuring details.

 7.5 IRNSS Signal Configuration 179

• Message Type 14: Differential correction parameters

(Broadcast interval = as needed).
Figure 7.10 shows the block diagram of the SPS code gen-
erator. Polynomials G1 and G2 are the same as the GPS C/A

• Message Type 18: Text messages (Broadcast interval = as

needed). Disaster management service could be initiated
code generator. The G1 and G2 generators are realized by
using 10-bit maximum length feedback shift registers
with the assistance of these messages. (MLFSRs). Each satellite is assigned to a different initial

• Message Type 26: IRNSS time correction parameters with

respect to UTC and other GNSS (Broadcast interval
G2 register state to generate a unique PRN code using dif-
ferent chip delays as shown in Table 7.4 [8].
= 20 min).

7.5.3 Composite Signal Generation

7.5.2 PRN Codes
IRNSS uses Gold codes for the SPS signal that are generated
using linear feedback shift registers (LFSRs). The time
period of the PRN sequence generated for the SPS signal
is 1 ms with a chipping rate 1.023 Mcps. The two generator
polynomials for the G1 and G2 shift registers are given by
G1 X10 + X3 + X1 and
G2 X10 + X9 + X8 + X6 + X3 + X2 + 1
The IRNSS system provides two types of services, namely,
SPS and RS. SPS is primarily meant for civilian and com-
mercial applications and is available to all users. The IRNSS
signal-in-space (SIS) Interface Control Document (ICD) for
the SPS signal was released in the official ISRO website
http://irnss.isro.gov.in in October 2014.
The carrier frequencies and bandwidth of transmission
for the SPS and RS signals are shown in Table 7.5. The mod-
ulation scheme employed for the SPS signal is binary phase
shift keying (BPSK (1)) on both frequency bands and binary

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Set SPS
1.023 Mcps initial PRN
Clock bits code

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Figure 7.10 SPS code generator mechanism. Source: From I. S. R. O. [6].

Table 7.4 Code phase assignment for SPS signals

L5-SPS S-SPS

Initial condition First 10 chips Initial condition First 10 chips

PRN ID Satellite for G2 register in octal2 for G2 register in octal2

1 IRNSS-1A 1110100111 130 0011101111 1420

2 IRNSS-1B 0000100110 1731 0101111101 1202
3 IRNSS-1C 1000110100 0713 1000110001 0716
4 IRNSS-1D 0101110010 1215 0010101011 1524
5 IRNSS-1E 1110110000 0117 1010010001 0556
6 IRNSS-1F 0001101011 1624 0100101100 1323
7 IRNSS-1G 0000010100 1753 0010001110 1561
180 7 IRNSS

Table 7.5 IRNSS services and description of various signal components

Service type Code (Mcps) Frequency band Carrier(MHz) Bandwidth(MHz) Modulation

SPS 1.023 L5 1176.45 24 BPSK

S 2492.028 16.5 BPSK
RS 2.046 L5 1176.45 24 BOC (5,2)
S 2492.028 16.5 BOC (5,2)

offset carrier (BOC (5, 2)) for RS signals. The IRNSS RS The RS BOC data signal srs_d is represented as
signal consists of a data channel and a pilot channel. The ∞

composite IRNSS signal is then generated using interplex srs_d t = crs_d i Lrs_d
i = −∞
modulation technique by adding a fourth signal in order
to maintain a constant envelope at the output of the power drs_d i CDrs_d rect T c,rs_d t − iT c,rs_d scrs_d t, 0
amplifier [6]. 73
The SPS data signal ssps(t) is represented as [6]
In Eq. (7.4) scx represents the subcarrier signal‚ and it is
represented as
∞
ssps t = csps i Lsps dsps i CDsps rect T c,sps t − iT c,sps scx t, φ = sgn sin 2π f sc,x t + φ 74
i = −∞
The IRNSS RS data and pilot channels use sinBOC, and so
71 the subcarrier phase φ is 0. The composite signal s(t) along
with the interplex signal I(t) is then represented as
The RS BOC pilot signal srs_p is represented as 1
st = 2 ssps t + srs t + j 2 srsd t − I t
3
75
∞
srs_p t = crs_p i Lrs_p rect T c,rs_p t − iT c,rs_p scrs_p t, 0 In Eq. (7.5), I(t) is added to maintain the constant envel-
i = −∞ ope of the composite signal. Figure 7.11 shows the block
72 diagram of the IRNSS composite signal generation.

ssps(t)
dsps (Rd_sps)

Csps (Rc_sps)

srs_p(t) Constant
crs_p
Envelope s(t)
Mux

sc(t)

srs_d(t)
drs_p(Rd_rs)

Crs_d (Rc_rs) sc(t) (Rsc)

Figure 7.11 Figure 7.11 IRNSS composite signal generation.

 7.7 Ionospheric Model and Representation 181

The symbol definitions are as follows: in the navigation data, and is thus accounted for during
the user computation of system time.
cx(i)
dx(i)
fsc
i-th chip of the spreading code
i-th bit of the navigation data
Subcarrier frequency
• Differential group delay: Each IRNSS navigation signal
generator payload consists of a main path for the default
“ ‘i’ modulo x operation and a redundant path to operate during occur-
[i]x Integer part of x rence of any failure in the main path. The hardware is
CDx Number of chips per navigation data different for each path in terms of the data generator,
Lx Length of spreading code in chips modulator, up-converter, traveling wave tube amplifier
rectx Rectangular pulse function with duration “x” (TWTA), cable, and integration components. This is
Tc,x Spreading code chip duration the delay difference between two navigation signals on
Rd,sps SPS data rate = 50 symbols per second the two RF paths. It consists of random plus bias
Rd,rs RS data rate = 50 symbols per second components. The mean differential is defined as the bias
Rc,sps SPS code chip rate = 1.023 Mcps
component and can be either positive or negative. For a
Rc,sps RS code chip rate = 2.046 Mcps
given navigation payload redundancy configuration, the
Rsc Subcarrier frequency = 5.115 Mcps
absolute value of the mean differential delay shall not
exceed a few nanoseconds (ns), that is, on the order of
15 to 30 ns [21]. The random variations about the mean
7.6 IRNSS Performance Specifications will be in the range of 3 ns (2σ). In order to correct the
bias component of the group delay, the TGD parameter
is broadcast to the user in the navigation message [16].

•
The following section lists the performance parameters of
IRNSS [6]. Group delay uncertainty in bias and differential value:
The group delay uncertainty shows the variability in

• Signal phase noise: A second-order phase lock loop with

10 Hz bandwidth is guaranteed to be able to track the
unmodulated carrier with an accuracy of 0.1
radians (RMS).
the path delay due to operational environment uncer-
tainty and other factors. The effective uncertainty of
the group delay will be in the range of 3 ns (2σ).

• Correlation loss: Correlation loss is defined as the differ-

ence between the transmitted power received in the spe-
cified signal bandwidth and the signal power recovered 7.7 Ionospheric Model and
in the ideal receiver of the same bandwidth, which per- Representation
fectly correlates using an exact replica of the waveform
within an ideal band-pass filter with linear phase. For The ionospheric effect on signal propagation is the largest
IRNSS signals, the value is 0.6 dB.

•
error source for single-frequency IRNSS users. To help sin-
Spurious characteristics: For IRNSS signals, −50 dB is the gle-frequency users achieve relatively better accuracy per-
in -band spurious level.

•
Received signal power levels: It is assured that a mini-
mum of −159 dBW is guaranteed on ground for L5 and
−162.3 dBW for the S band signal, with user elevation
above 5 .
formance, IRNSS has adopted a grid-based model for
ionospheric delay estimation, thereby providing compara-
ble user position accuracies as dual-frequency receivers.
A 5 × 5 grid was formulated over the Indian region

•
Polarization characteristics: As with any other GNSS con-
stellation, IRNSS signals are also RHCP.
7.6.1 Channel Group Delay
Channel group delay is defined as a time difference
between transmitted RF signal (measured at the phase cen-
ter of the transmitting antenna) and the signal at the output
of the on-board frequency source. There are three different
delay parameters [6, 21]:
350 km above Earth’s surface as shown in Figure 7.12.
The ionospheric correction parameters are broadcast as a
part of the navigation data (Message Type 5) at 5 min inter-
vals. The correction parameters include the vertical delay
estimates at specified ionospheric grid points (IGPs), and
are applicable to a signal on L5 for the single-frequency
users. There are 90 IGPs defined in total, which cannot
be transmitted in a single message. Hence, the entire grid
is divided into six regions and each message type broadcasts
ionospheric correction parameters for a particular region.
The grid parameters include the following:

• Fixed/bias group delay: This is a bias term that is

included in the clock correction parameters transmitted
•• Region ID
Grid Ionosphere Vertical Delay (GIVD)
182 7 IRNSS

45

40

35

30

25
Latitude (deg.)

20

15

10

–5
55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110
Longitude (deg.)

Figure 7.12 Ionospheric grid for IRNSS system [6]. Source: https://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files/irnss_sps_icd_version1.1-2017.pdf.

• Grid Ionosphere Vertical Error Indicator (GIVEI): 99.9%

accuracy of the GIVD
receiver antenna design. The incoming signal being RHCP,
the first element should be compliant with it and a beam-

• Regions Masked (10 bits): The total number of regions for

which the corrections are provided
width (signal capture range) adequate to source satellites
from zenith to 5 elevation. Typically, two antenna topolo-

• Issue of Data Ionosphere (IODI): This indicates the

change in the region masked and ranges from 0 to 7
In addition to this, ionospheric error for single-frequency
L5 users for the entire IRNSS service volume is broadcast as
a set of eight coefficients, which is valid over a day.
For dual-frequency receivers, the carrier frequency diver-
sity between L5 and S signals is used to correct for the group
delay due to first-order ionospheric effects [6]. The correc-
tion to pseudorange is ρ, which is a function of the L5-
derived pseudorange (ρL5), S-derived pseudorange (ρS), car-
rier frequencies of L5 (fL5), and S (fS5), and can expressed as
ρ = ρL5 − f 2s f 2L5 ρS 1− f 2s f 2L5
7.8 IRNSS Receiver Architecture
7.8.1 Antenna
One of the major challenges in designing a multi-frequency
and multi-constellation receiver‚ including IRNSS‚ is the
gies are used in practice: passive and active. The passive
antenna requires that the processing section be very close
to the physical antenna. An example is a handheld GNSS
receiver. In practice, many applications require the receiver
unit to be at a certain distance from the antenna. The cable
inter-connecting antenna to the receiver introduces atten-
uation to the signal. To compensate for this, a low noise
amplifier (LNA) of appropriate gain is used closest to the
antenna. The power feed to the LNA is typically from the
receiver, which makes the configuration active. To protect
the receivers from undesired interference, most antennas
have a band-pass filter (BPF) following the LNA. This com-
75 ponent allows the intended signal and attenuates interfer-
ing components outside the desired band, ensuring that
subsequent stages operate linearly. Finally, the satellites
are spatially distributed and are at different elevations with
respect to the user antenna. Typically, an antenna has max-
imum attenuation for the horizon satellites to suppress
ground reflected multipath, which is often high for low-
elevation satellites.
Unlike other GNSS constellations where around eight
satellites are typically guaranteed above 25 elevation, for

GPS-IRNSS Wideband Antenna Frequency Range
Passive Gain @
Figure 7.13 Integrated GPS-IRNSS wide-band antenna.
IRNSS the elevation mask should go all the way until 15 .
This ensures that in the desired service volume, all the
seven satellites are available and good PDOP is guaranteed.
Also, given the wide separation between the L5 and
S bands, realization of a compact antenna is a challenge.
Alternatively, two antennas – one covering L5 to L1 and
the second covering only the S band – can be combined
and used. This would call for additional real estate on the
platforms and might pose a challenge for retrofit applica-
tions. Figure 7.13 is an example of an integrated IRNSS
and GPS antenna developed by Thiagarajar Telekom Solu-
tions Limited (TTSL), Madurai [26].
7.8.2 Receiver
The IRNSS receiver architecture is similar to any multi-
frequency GNSS receiver that is capable of acquiring and
tracking multi-frequency GNSS signals.
A typical IRNSS/GPS/SBAS receiver developed by
Accord Software and Systems Pvt. Ltd. (shown in
Figure 7.5) is configurable to operate in various modes:
1) Single-frequency IRNSS: IRNSS-L5 or S
2) Dual-frequency IRNSS: IRNSS-L5 and S
3) Dual-frequency Hybrid: Dual-frequency IRNSS and
GPS-L1
7.8.3 IRNSS System Performance
7.8.3.1 Single-Frequency IRNSS-L5 or IRNSS-S
The first mode of operation presented is the single-
frequency IRNSS mode, where the receiver uses only the
7.8 IRNSS Receiver Architecture 183
• 1176 ± 12 MHz
• 1575 ± 12 MHz
• 2492 ± 8.5 MHz
VSWR • < 1.5:1
Polarization • RHCP
• > 2 dBiC@ L1 & L5 band
Zenith • > 3 dBiC@ S band
Gain @ 15° • > –3 dBi@ L1 & L5 band
Elevation • > –2 dBi@ S band
• 20 ± 3 dB @ L1 & L5 band
LNA Gain
• 17 ± 3 dB @ S band
Noise Figure • < 2.0 dB
measurements from the IRNSS-L5 signal. The IRNSS
grid-based ionospheric model is used to compensate for
the ionospheric errors. Figure 7.14 shows the 3D position
error plot (raw measurements were used for position esti-
mation, without any smoothing) from the IRNSS receiver
in single-frequency IRNSS-L5/S modes, respectively. The
test was performed at the Accord Software and Systems
Pvt. Ltd. head office in Bangalore, India with a static user
antenna on 26 October 2017.
7.8.3.2 Dual-Frequency IRNSS
The second mode of operation is dual-frequency IRNSS,
where the receiver employs measurements from both L5
and S signals. The errors due to the ionosphere can be elimi-
nated using the frequency diversity of the two signals with-
out any dependence on grid or ionospheric coefficients
from navigation data. Unlike the model-based approach,
which requires time to collect ionosphere data and then
apply corrections, it is instantaneous in dual-frequency
mode. Figure 7.15 shows the 3D position error plots from
the IRNSS receiver in dual-frequency IRNSS mode.
7.8.3.3 Dual-Frequency Hybrid
The final mode of operation is to use a combined dual-
frequency IRNSS with GPS-L1 and SBAS. Figure 7.15
shows the 3D position error plots from the IRNSS receiver
in dual-frequency IRNSS mode. The performance is better
with the additional GPS measurements, which improves
the geometry. Overall, the IRNSS system accuracy is well
within the desired limits of 20 m (2-sigma) even in stand-
alone mode of operation.
184 7 IRNSS

RSS Error
18
3Drms(IRNSS-L5) – 2.6 m
3Drms(IRNSS-S) – 5.1 m
16

14

12
RSS Error(m)

10

5
3.5 3.52 3.54 3.56 3.58 3.6 × 10
01:13 01:46 02:20 02:53 03:27 04:00
TOWC(s)
UTC (HH:MM)

Figure 7.14 3D Position error of Accord’s IRNSS receiver in L5-only and S-only mode using IRNSS grid-based model
for ionospheric error compensation.

RSS Error
11 3Drms(HYBRID) – 1.5 m
3Drms(IRNSS-DUAL) – 4.6 m
10

7
RSS Error(m)

3.5 3.52 3.54 3.56 3.58 3.6 × 105

01:13 01:46 02:20 02:53 03:27 04:00
TOWC(s)
UTC (HH:MM)

Figure 7.15 3D- Position error of Accord’s IRNSS receiver in dual-frequency IRNSS mode and dual-frequency IRNSS+GPS-L1
mode using IRNSS grid-based model for ionospheric error computation.

7.9 Conclusion
With IRNSS, India will have the distinct advantage of
having its own navigation constellation, which would be
crucial during militarily disturbed conditions. This constel-
lation is the first of its kind with complete regional position-
ing and satellites always visible in the primary service
volume, and will provide several research possibilities in
the receiver algorithm design. Regionally, the IRNSS
receiver could be integrated with other constellation recei-
vers and used in end applications, with IRNSS primarily
used in the basic service volume.
References
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2 I. S. R. Organization, “Indian Regional Navigation Satellite
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irnss-programme/towards-self-reliance-navigation-irnss.
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4 ISRO “IRNSS—Indian Regional Navigation Satellite
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isac.gov.in/navigation/irnss.jsp. [Accessed
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5 Gowrisankar D. and Kibe S.V.“India’s Satellite Navigation
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Positioning Service,” Indian Space Research Organization
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science/navigation-satellite-clocks-ticking-system-to-be-
expanded-says-isro-4697621/.
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System (IRNSS) : NavIC,” 2016. [Online]. Available: http://
www.isro.gov.in/irnss-programme. [Accessed 2016].
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pslv-brochures/PSLVC22.pdf. [Accessed October 2016].
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Available: http://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files/pslv-
c24-brochure.pdf. [Accessed October 2016].
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11 ISRO “Brochure of PSLC-C26/IRNSS-1C,” 2014. [Online].
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pslv-brochures/PSLV-C26%20IRNSS-1C%20Mission.pdf.
[Accessed October 2016].
12 ISRO “Brochure of PSLV-C27/IRNSS-1D,” 2015. [Online].
Available: www.isro.gov.in/irnss-programme/pslv-c27-
irnss-1d-brochure. [Accessed October 2016].
13 ISRO “Brochure of PSLV-C31/IRNSS-1E,” 2016. [Online].
Available: www.isro.gov.in/irnss-programme/pslv-c31-
irnss-1e-brochure. [Accessed October 2016].
14 ISRO “Brochure of PSLV-C32/IRNSS-1F,” 2016. [Online].
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pslv_c32_final.pdf. [Accessed October 2016].
15 ISRO “Brochure of PSLV-C33/IRNSS-1G,” 2016. [Online].
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irnss-1g-brochure. [Accessed October 2016].
16 e. Directory “IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigational
Satellite System),” [Online]. Available: https://directory.
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17 Ganeshan, A.S., Ratnakara, S.C., Srinivasan, N., Raja Ram,
B., Tirmal, N., and Anbalagan, K., “Successful Proof-of-
Concept Demnostration First Position Fix with IRNSS,”
Inside GNSS, pp. 49-52, July/August 2015.
18 ISRO, “PSLV-C22/IRNSS-1A Gallery,” 2014. [Online].
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galleries/PSLV-%20C22%20Gallery/sat3.jpg.
19 ISRO, “PSLV-C24/IRNSS-1B Gallery,” [Online]. Available:
http://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files/PSLV-C24%
20Gallery/pslv-c24-13.jpg.
20 Ganeshan, A.S., “Overview of GNSS and Indian navigation
program,” ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, 2012.
21 Majithiya, P., Khatri, K., and Hota, J., “Indian Regional
Navigation Satellite System - Correction Paramers and
Timing Group Delays,” Inside GNSS, pp. 40–46, January/
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22 Guru Rao, V., Lachapelle, G., and Bellad, S.V, “Analysis of
IRNSS over Indian Subcontinent,” in ION ITM 2011, San
Diego, CA, 2011.
23 Guru Rao, V., “Proposed LOS Fast TTFF Signal Design for
IRNSS,” PhD thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, 2012.
24 Saikiran, B. and Vikram, V., “IRNSS architecture and
applications,” KIET International Journal of
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28 March 2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.quora.
com/profile/Kumar-Harshit-1/Posts/IRNSS-Indias-own-
Navigation-System. [Accessed November 2016].
26 Thiagarajar Telecom Solutions Limited (TTSL) “IRNSS &
GPS Navigational Antenna,” Madurai, 2015.

Quasi-Zenith Satellite System
Satoshi Kogure1, Yasuhiko Kawazu1, and Takeyasu Sakai2
1
National Space Policy Secretariat, Japan
2
National Institute of Maritime, Port and Aviation Technology, Japan
The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) is a regional,
space-based positioning, navigation, timing (PNT) system
developed by the Japanese government. The main purpose
of the system is to enhance PNT capability and performance
even in severe environments by using satellite orbit charac-
teristics which can provide PNT signal transmission from
high elevation angles. This chapter describes QZSS in a
summary form. Section 8.1 outlines the history and back-
ground of the QZSS program and why QZSS is needed in
Japan. Section 8.2 describes the current management struc-
ture of QZSS. Section 8.3 introduces the geodetic and time
reference systems employed by QZSS and their alignments
with international standards. Section 8.4 discusses the ser-
vices provided by QZSS, including comprehensive services
that not only provide PNT and augmentation, but also short
messaging services with content related to non-PNT
services relevant to the main satellite positioning focus of
this book. Sections 8.5, 8.6, and 8.7 summarize the key
characteristics of the QZSS constellation and space seg-
ment, ground segment, and signals, respectively. Finally,
Section 8.8 is a brief summary of this chapter.
8.1 History and Background of QZSS
Development
8.1.1 Background
In the earlier stage of GPS utilization before many GPS
satellites had been deployed in orbit, Japan was one of
the leading countries in GPS utilization. In the scientific
fields, the Japanese University Consortium for GPS
Research (JUNCO) was established and started nationwide
crustal deformation observations and research using dual-
frequency GPS geodetic receivers in 1987, followed by
establishing the Japanese national Continuously Operating
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
187
Reference Station (CORS) network and GPS Earth Obser-
vation Network (GEONET) in 1996. In the civil commercial
market, the world’s first GPS-based car navigation product
was released to the market in 1990. Through the progress in
both scientific research and practical utilization, the excel-
lent benefits of GPS have been recognized, where users can
obtain uniform service globally on a 24/7 basis, regardless
of weather, and access a wide variety of applications, but
with some drawbacks, such as a strong dependency on
the environment surrounding the users.
Japan has four major islands and several thousand small
islands. Approximately 70% of the territory is mountainous
terrain. However, most of the 120 million Japanese people
live in cities located in narrow coastal flat lands. These
geographical characteristics lead to challenging conditions
for satellite navigation. Dense, closely spaced buildings
and narrow streets in urban areas block direct signals
from satellites, causing non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and
multipath-dominated signals, which lead to degraded
users’ PNT performance.
The figure-eight satellite orbit was a concept based on the
inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellite applications
for mid-latitude regions, which was proposed by the Com-
munications Research Laboratory (CRL, currently the
National Institute of Information and Communications
Technology (NICT)) [1]. In the late 1990s to early 2000s,
some Japanese industries planned to use the concept for
mobile communication systems, a GPS augmentation serv-
ice platform, as well as regional positioning system investi-
gation [2]. The National Space Development Agency
(NASDA: currently Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA)) applied the combined geosynchronous orbit
(GSO) and IGSO satellite constellations to their regional
satellite navigation system study. The original QZSS
program was launched as a result of a public private
partnership project integrating commercial mobile
188 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System
communications, broadcast satellite services, and Japa-
nese-government-funded R&D programs on satellite navi-
gation technologies in 2003. The Advanced Satellite
Business Corporation (ASBC) was established to study their
business plan and was funded by 59 companies including
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Hitachi Ltd, ITOCHU
Corporation, NEC Toshiba Space System, Mitsubishi Cor-
poration, and Toyota Motor Corporation in 2002 prior to
launching the public private partnership project.
In 2006, after the ASBC decided to cancel the public pri-
vate partnership project and to withdraw their participation
from the program, the project was reduced to a technical
demonstration with one test satellite. JAXA took the role
of the integrator for the entire system construction and
technical validation after the launch of the test satellite
in collaboration with other Japanese research institutes,
including NICT; Electronic Navigation Research Institute
(ENRI), which is currently the National Institute of Mari-
time, Port and Aviation Technology (MPAT)); Geospatial
Information Authority in Japan (GSI); National Institute
of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST);
and Satellite Positioning Applications Center (SPAC).
NICT developed onboard test equipment for Two-Way Sat-
ellite Time and Frequency Transfer (TWSTFT) [3] as well as
an active hydrogen maser clock [4]. Due to a logistical lim-
itation, the hydrogen maser clock was not implemented in
space. ENRI [5] and GSI [6] developed ground test systems
to generate augmentation messages and conducted their
validations. AIST was involved in verifying the proof-of-
concept study for time synchronization between an
onboard crystal oscillator and an atomic clock on the
ground. SPAC conducted an application demonstration
for Japanese industries using their augmentation system
platform [7].
The first QZSS satellite was launched on 11 September
2010. The nickname “Michibiki,” which means “guiding
light,” was selected after an open call by the public. The
technical verification and application demonstrations were
conducted successfully by the JAXA [8] and other research
institutes. Because of the successful results, the Japanese
government announced on 30 September 2011 that it would
establish a four-satellite QZSS constellation as a national
infrastructure by the late 2010s, as well as set the future goal
of a seven-satellite constellation by around 2023 to main-
tain an independent PNT capability.
The second, third, and fourth QZSS satellites were
launched successfully in 2017 on June 1, August 19, and
October 10, respectively. Each satellite in-orbit test (IOT)
has been conducted. Signal transmission testing and precise
orbit determination (POD) software tuning have been per-
formed subsequently. Operational service provisions began
on November 1, 2018.
8.2 QZSS Management Structure
The Cabinet Office plays the lead role of coordination and
enabling collaborative work across multiple ministries
within the Japanese government. The establishment of
space policy, strategy, and implementation plan requires
discussions and coordination across multiple ministries.
Therefore, the National Space Policy Secretariat (NSPS)
under the Cabinet Office was established in 2016 after mer-
ging the Secretariat of the Strategic Headquarters for Space
Policy under the Cabinet Secretariat and the Office of
National Space Policy under the Cabinet Office. The
deployment, operation of QZSS, and service provision are
major tasks of NSPS. Figure 8.1 depicts the current QZSS
management organization structure.
NSPS manages the QZSS program including the planned
future expansion to a seven-satellite constellation. The Civil
Aviation Bureau of Japan (JCAB) is currently operating the
MTSAT Space-based Augmentation System (MSAS). JCAB
is also involved in joint projects with QZSS, and QZSS will
be utilized as a MSAS platform in 2020 after the MTSAT-2
operation is terminated. The framework for the QZSS service
provision is through a private financial initiative (PFI) from
2018 to 2033. The QZSS Service Incorporation (QSS) was
established to implement the ground control segment and
service provision for 15 years. It was awarded the contract with
NSPS as the QZSS operator, as well as service provider in 2013.
8.3 QZSS Geodetic and Time
Reference Systems
For QZSS, interoperability with GPS and other GNSSs is an
important feature. Its geodetic and time references are
aligned with international standards, that is, the Interna-
tional Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) and Universal
Time (UTC), respectively. Section 8.3.1 describes the geo-
detic reference system used by QZSS, while Section 8.3.2
addresses the time reference system.
8.3.1 QZSS Geodetic Reference System
The coordinate system used by QZSS is defined in IS-QZSS-
PNT [9]. Its coordinate origin is located at Earth’s center of
mass, and its coordinate axes are the same as those of the
International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS). It is
maintained with centimeter-level accuracy with respect
to the ITRF08.
8.3.2 QZSS Time Reference System
QZSS reference time (QZSSRT) is defined according to the
ensemble clock generated by four ground reference

Figure 8.1 QZSS management structure.
hydrogen maser clocks located in four monitoring stations.
In order to maintain interoperability with GPS, QZSS uses
the same time scale, origin, and other definitions related to
the time system as that of the US GPS. Thus, the epoch is
midnight UT on 6 January 1980, with no adjustment for
leap seconds, and with “roll-overs” occurring every
1024 weeks after the epoch, as with GPS time.
The QZSS ground control segment estimates each satel-
lite orbit and clock offset for both QZSS and GPS. GPST
is also estimated based on SV clock offsets from QZSSRT
and GPS navigation data. This is achieved by treating
QZSST as the estimated GPST. Each QZSS SV clock offset
is calculated based on this QZSST and then broadcast as
clock offset and quadratic term coefficients in the naviga-
tion message. In other words, the system time difference
between QZSS and GPS is included in the clock offset para-
meters broadcast from QZSS. Therefore, the GNSS time off-
set in CNAV and CNAV2 messages for QZSS L2C, L5, and
L1C is set to “Zero” value. The current control segment
does not have the capability to generate other GNSS time
offsets, though CNAV and CNAV2 messages reserve sev-
eral bits for other satnav systems.
QZSS satellites transmit conversion parameters from
QZSST to UTC(NICT) as UTC offset parameters. The
UTC offset error is maintained within 40 ns (95%).
8.4 QZSS Services
QZSS provides three main types of functional capabilities to
users: (1) GPS complementary, (2) GNSS augmentation,
and (3) messaging capabilities. Eight services are provided
by QZSS, and Table 8.1 lists the QZSS signals and services.
8.4 QZSS Services 189
QZSS Performance Standard (PS-QZSS) defines the perfor-
mance of the entire civil open services related to satellite-
based PNT, such as accuracy, availability, continuity, and
integrity [10]. These services are described in detail in the
following sections.
8.4.1 GPS Complementary Capability
(PNT Service)
The GPS Complementary function is a fundamental capa-
bility of a space-based PNT system that provides a ranging
signal with a navigation message. To implement this capa-
bility, QZSS provides satellite PNT Service using L1, L2, and
L5 band signals. Users can track QZSS signals, measure the
range between a QZSS satellite and their receiver antenna
phase center, and calculate their position, velocity‚ and
time together with other GNSS satellites’ range measure-
ments as well as their navigation messages, especially in
combination with GPS satellites. In order to maximize
the performance improvement of using QZSS with GPS
and make it easier to use them together on user receiving
equipment, the highest level of interoperability with GPS
signals is adopted for QZSS. Not only are current GPS Block
IIF civil navigation signals, L1C/A, L2C, and L5, provided,
but also L1C, which will be transmitted from Block III as
the fourth civil signal.
Some major fundamental specifications of QZSS PNT
services in PS-QZSS are summarized in Table 8.2. It should
be noted that QZSS does not have stand-alone PNT capabil-
ity. Thus, the performance standard defines a limited set of
performance parameters.
The PNT service coverage is defined as the area where at
least one QZSS satellite is visible above 10 elevation angle,
and users can track QZSS satellite signals with the
190 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

Table 8.1 QZSS signals and services

Transmitting satellites

Signals Center freq. [MHz] Services QZS-1 QZS-2, 4 QZS-3

L1C/A 1575.42 PNT X X X

L1C PNT X X X
L1S SLAS X X X
DC-Report X X X
L1Sb SBAS X
L2C 1227.60 PNT X X X
L5 1176.45 PNT X X X
L5S PTV X X
L6D 1278.75 CLAS X X X
L6E PTV X X
S band RTN:2002.50 Q-ANPI X
FWD:2192.50

PNT: Positioning, Navigation, and Timing

SLAS: Sub-meter Level Augmentation Service
CLAS: Centimeter Level Augmentation Service
DC-Report: Report for Disaster and Crisis Management
PTV: Positioning Technology Verification Service
Q-ANPI: QZSS Safety Confirmation Service

Table 8.2 Fundamental QZSS performance specifications

Characteristics Technical specifications SPS value

Constellation service Time ratio of the simultaneous transmission of healthy signals from at ≥0.99
availability least three of four QZSS satellites
Service availability Percentage of time when the signal is healthy for IGSO satellites ≥0.95
by each SV Same as above, but for GSO satellites ≥0.80
Accuracy SIS URE ≤2.6 m (95%)
Integrity Probability of the RF degradation, TOW failure, SIS URE or UTC errors ≤1 × 10−5[/h] (when integrity
exceeding criteria without timely alert status flag (ISF) is “0”)
≤ 1 × 10−8[/h] (when ISF is “1”)
Time to alert Alarm or warning when signal should not be used due to the following
causes:

•• RF error (Switch to non-standard code)

8s
8s

••
TOW error (Switch to non-standard code) 5.2 s
SIS URE error (Switch to non-standard code) 30 s
UTC error (Alert flag in the NAV message)

Continuity Probability over any hour of not losing signal availability without 48 h 0.9998
advanced notifications
Time Accuracy UTC offset error with regard to UTC(NICT) 40 ns (95%)

8.4.2 GNSS Augmentation Services

minimum user receiving power defined in IS-QZSS-PNT for
each signal. Figure 8.2 shows the coverage of PNT services As described in the previous sections, the unique feature of
from QZSS. The contour lines indicate elevation angles QZSS is that one of the satellites in the constellation can
above which at least one satellite is observed. provide services from high elevation angles over the service

coverage area between Japan and Australia along with the
satellite ground track. Unlike other satellite-based augmen-
tation systems such as SBAS, which utilizes geosynchro-
nous satellites, this unique property of QZSS can benefit
users by providing an error correction data stream that
can be received even in an urban canyon. QZSS has pro-
vided two operational services within this category from
the beginning of its service provision in 2018. One is the
Sub-meter Level Augmentation Service (SLAS) for code
phase positioning users [11], and the other is the Centime-
ter Level Augmentation Service (CLAS) for carrier phase
positioning users [12]. These two augmentation services
are described in the following subsections. Once the
MTSAT-2 (Multi-functional Transport Satellite -2) opera-
tion is terminated at its end of lifetime in 2020, the MSAS
service will continue through QZS-3. SBAS service provided
via QZSS will be introduced in Section 8.4.6.
8.4.2.1 SLAS
SLAS provides differential error correction, that is, Pseudo
Range Correction (PRC) for pseudorange measurements of
L1 C/A signal for each GPS and QZSS satellite. PRC is gen-
erated based on 13 Japanese domestic reference stations
and transmitted through the QZSS L1S signal. The SLAS
service area is shown in Figure 8.2 along with the locations
of 13 monitoring stations. The ionosphere above the south-
western area in Japan is typically more active than the
northern area because the former area’s geomagnetic lati-
tudes are lower and near the geomagnetic equator. Densely
90
60
30
Latitude[deg]
–30
–60
–90
0 30 60 90 120 150
Longitude[deg]
Figure 8.2 QZSS PNT service coverage.
8.4 QZSS Services 191
distributed monitoring stations are required in such areas
to satisfy the user PVT accuracy requirement. SLAS pro-
vides user position accuracy with better than 1.0 m (95%)
in the horizontal direction, and 2.0 m (95%) in the vertical
direction within the area surrounded by red lines in
Figure 8.3. Note that the user range error due to receiver
noise and environment effects, such as multipath error, is
less than 0.87 m (95%). User position accuracy less than
2.0 m (95%) in the horizontal direction, and 3.0 m (95%)
in the vertical direction are expected in the area surrounded
by black lines.
8.4.2.2 CLAS
CLAS provides error corrections for carrier phase position-
ing with the State Space Representative (SSR) format,
which was standardized in RTCM SC104 as RTCM
10403.2 with the proposed Compact SSR format for future
updates of the RTCM standard. [13, 14] Each error compo-
nent, such as the satellite orbit, clock, code and carrier
phase bias, ionospheric delay and tropospheric delay, in
the SSR description can be transformed into range correc-
tion data in the Observation Space Representative (OSR) for
calculating range measurements to obtain a single point
positioning result. A user can resolve carrier phase ambigu-
ity by double-differencing measurements between the raw
measurements at the receiver and the calculated measure-
ment values, similar to RTK processing, to get centimeter-
level accuracy.
180 210 240 270 300 330 360
192 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

50°N ground control system detects anomalies on a satellite sig-

nal, the error corrections for the detected abnormal satellite
are set to an invalid value and the invalid satellite is
excluded from the mask message in MT4073,1. In addition,
45°N
correction message quality indicators can be accessed by
users to judge if the error correction for the specific satellite
could be directly applied or used after weighting with
40°N
regard to the indicators.
Figure 8.4 indicates the CLAS service coverage area. Ion-
35°N ospheric delay and tropospheric delay error corrections are
distributed over 12 areas in Japan and updated every 30 s.
Considering the limitation on the data transmission rate of
30°N L6D (2.0 Kbps) and the number of satellites, error correc-
tions provided by CLAS are limited. The slant TEC for ion-
25°N
ospheric delay corrections for 17 satellites from GPS, QZSS
and Galileo are available for each of the 12 local areas,
while orbit, clock, and code/phase bias corrections are
20°N available for the entire service coverage in Japan. CLAS
can provide centimeter-level accuracy as defined in
15°N PS-QZSS: 6 cm (95%) in the horizontal direction and
120°E 125°E 130°E 135°E 140°E 145°E 150°E 155°E 12 cm (95%) in the vertical direction for the static mode
Figure 8.3 SLAS service coverage and distribution of reference
at a fixed point, and 12 cm (95%) horizontally and 24 cm
stations. (95%) vertically for the kinematic mode on a moving plat-
form within Japan and the surrounding terrestrial waters.

Approximately 300 CORS observation stations in the

8.4.3 Messaging Service
GEONET operated by GSI are utilized to generate an SSR
error correction message via the QZSS L6D signal in real As a national infrastructure, QZSS is expected to support
time. CLAS provides integrity information. When the disaster mitigation and relief operations, especially since

Current Service Area

50 Service Area (After CORS are put in place)

Grid distribution
45
Network 1
Network 2

40 Network 3
Network 4
Network 5
35
Network 6
Network 7

30 Network 8

Network 9
Network 10
25 Network 11
Network 12

20
120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155

Figure 8.4 CLAS service coverage.


the Japanese government decided to build the system just
after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Two mes-
saging services, DC-Report service [15] and Q-ANPI serv-
ice, are provided through QZSS. These two messaging
services are described briefly in the following subsections.
8.4.3.1 DC-Report Service (Satellite Report for
Disaster and Crisis Management)
DC-Report provides short messages related to disaster
warnings such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic erup-
tions, floods, and crisis management information using
212 bits in the L1S message once every 4 s. In the beginning
of the service operation, a weather alert issued by the Japan
Meteorological Agency (JMA) is relayed, depending on the
priority rank of the type of disaster, by means of a dedicated
format using Message Type 43 for Japanese domestic users.
DC-Report service is available in the same area as the PNT
service shown in Figure 8.2. An early warning message for
the Asia-Pacific region is being investigated using Message
Type 44, which has not been defined yet.
8.4.3.2 Q-ANPI Service
The QZSS Safety Confirmation Service (Q-ANPI) provides
data communication service for information on the state of
evacuation shelters, number of evacuees in shelters, and
evacuee condition during a disaster. This information
transmitted from evacuation shelters will be received and
acquired at the control station via QZS during a disaster.
Q-ANPI provides these data communication services via
the QZS-3 satellite in a geostationary orbit (GEO). This
service is available on S-band devices that support Q-ANPI.
This service can only be used in Japan and surrounding
coastal areas.
8.4.4 Positioning Technology Verification (PVT)
Service
QZSS has two test signals and/or data channels, L5S [16] and
L6E [12, 17], for future service validation. Section 8.4.4.1
describes the Dual Frequency Multi-Constellation
(DFMC) SBAS experiment through the L5S signal, whereas
Section 4.4.2 introduces the Precise Point Positioning (PPP)/
PPP-Ambiguity Resolution (PPP-AR) experiment through
the L6E signal, respectively.
8.4.4.1 DFMC SBAS Experiment Through L5S
The DFMC SBAS is the second-generation SBAS, following
the current L5 SBAS, transmitted on the L5 frequency. The
DFMC SBAS, or the L5 SBAS, is free from ionospheric
effects thanks to the dual-frequency operation, and
therefore enables vertical guidance service everywhere
in the coverage area with reasonable availability. The
8.4 QZSS Services 193
standardization for the L5 SBAS is underway by the Inter-
national Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
The National Institute of Maritime, Port and Aviation
Technology (MPAT) has been conducting the L5 SBAS
experiment since August 2017 using the QZSS PTV Service
with the L5S signal. This is the first L5 SBAS experiment
with a live L5 signal from space. It is expected that this
experiment can demonstrate that DFMC SBAS enables ver-
tical navigation everywhere in the coverage area, and
achieves reasonable availability, contributing to populari-
zation of the PBN operations.
8.4.4.1.1 Configuration of the Experiments
Figure 8.5 shows the configuration for this experiment. The
prototype DFMC SBAS [18] developed by the ENRI of
MPAT has been used for the experiment. The prototype
receives GNSS measurements from the GEONET observa-
tion network and generates the L5 SBAS message stream in
real time. The message is immediately sent to the QZSS
master control station (MCS) and transmitted by the QZSS
L5S signal.
The test involves 13 ground monitoring stations (GMSs)
at the same locations as the L1S reference stations, as
shown in Figure 8.5. These GMSs output GNSS measure-
ments at 1 Hz. The prototype DFMC SBAS is capable of pro-
cessing GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo signals. It generates
the L5 SBAS message stream compliant with the draft stan-
dards of the DFMC SBAS being discussed by the ICAO
[19, 20].
8.4.4.1.2 Static Test Results of the Prototype
DFMC SBAS
The static test of the prototype DFMC SBAS was performed
for 24 h on 15 December 2016 in GPST. For the test, calcu-
lations of position and protection levels were performed at
160 test stations within Japanese territory. Note that, for
this static test, GPS and GLONASS with L1 and L2 signals
were used due to the limited number of GPS satellites with
L5 transmissions.
Figures 8.6 shows the result for station Wakayama‚
which is located at the center of Japan. It compares
the horizontal position error with and without SBAS cor-
rections, both in dual-frequency operation. The position
accuracy is clearly improved by applying SBAS
corrections.
Figure 8.7 shows the protection levels at the test station.
The first hour of the day is excluded since the estimation
filter of the prototype system has not yet converged. Hori-
zontal broken lines denote 95% of the protection levels. This
result indicates that there is no trend due to any ionospheric
activities throughout the day, even at the local time of 14:00
194 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

QZSS
GLONASS #2, #3, and #4
GPS
Galileo

Ra
n GEO (QZS-3)

nal
gi

l
na
ng +

Up
Sig
g
Si
Si IGSO (QZS-2/4)

li
nk
gn

S
BeiDou

L5S
L5
al

Measured L5 SBAS
OBS ENRI L5 SBAS Message
GEONET QZSS C&C
Prototype
GSI ENRI, MPAT QZSS MCS
(Shinjuku, Tokyo) (Chofu, Tokyo) (Hitachi-Ota, Ibaraki)
• Supports DFMC • Operates in real time • Uplink L5 SBAS
• Provides observation in • Dual-Frequency message stream
real time • Supports GPS, GLONASS, for transmission
Galileo, and QZSS

Figure 8.5 Configuration of the experiment using QZSS PTV service.

4
4
2 None corrected Corrected
3
Eastward
error (m)

0
–2
2
–4
0 4 8 12 16 20 24
Northward error (m)

1 4
2
Northward
error (m)

0 0
–2
–1 –4
0 4 8 12 16 20 24

–2 8
4
error (m)
Vertical

–3 0
Non-corrected
–4
Corrected
–4 –8
–3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
Eastward error (m) GPS time (hour)

Figure 8.6 Horizontal error (left) and ENU components of position error (right) at Wakayama.

(equivalent to 5:00 GPST), and the results are promising for central area because there are fewer augmented satellites,
serving LPV and LPV200 operations. and the associate DOP index increases in remote areas.
Next, the performance is evaluated at 160 test stations Figure 8.10 uses triangle charts containing all epochs at
distributed throughout Japan. Figure 8.8 illustrates 95% all 160 test stations from the south to the north of Japan
errors at these test stations. It seems that position errors to describe the relationships between protection level and
tend to be worse when moving away from the center; the position error. The results are promising. The actual error
worst 95% accuracies are 1.2 m and 2.4 m for the horizontal never exceeds the associated protection level, thus indicat-
and vertical, respectively. ing that there are no MI (Misleading Information) condi-
Figure 8.9 shows 95% protection levels at 160 test stations. tions. For LPV200 flight mode with a HAL of 40 m and a
Protection levels in remote areas are worse than in the VAL of 35 m, the corresponding availability is 99.986%.
 8.4 QZSS Services 195

20 Finally, ENRI began the L5 SBAS experiment on

95% VPL 23 August 2017 with the L5S signal transmitted by the
= 16.93 (m)
QZS-2. The message transmitted by the L5S signal is com-
16
pliant with the ICAO draft standards of DFMC SBAS. The
Protection Level (m)

DFMC prototype is now upgraded to process GPS, GLO-

12 NASS (L1 and L2 only), and Galileo satellites (L1 and L5
95% HPL only) with L1, L2, and L5 signals. For the real-time exper-
= 8.84 (m)
iment with the L5S signal, the prototype usually augments
8
the L1 and L5 signals of GPS and Galileo satellites.

Horizontal Protection Level

Vertical Protection Level
0
0 4 8 12
GPS time (hour)
Figure 8.7 Protection levels at Wakayama.
Clearly, the performance of the prototype system meets the
requirements of the LPV200 flight mode with enough avail-
ability over all of Japan.
8.4.4.1.3 Experiment Using QZSS TV Service
The first satellite with the capability of transmitting the L5S
signal, QZS-2, was launched in June 2017. In parallel with
the IOT of QZS-2, a communication line between ENRI in
Tokyo and the QZSS MCS in Hitachi-Ota, Ibaraki, was set
up, and the interface test was conducted. Some interface
software connecting the prototype DFMC SBAS with the
QZSS TV Service was developed and tested.
8.4.4.2 PPP/PPP-AR Experiment Through L6E
CLAS on the L6D signal is a domestic service using the Jap-
16 20 24 anese network GEONET. Densely spaced CORS stations
with 50 to 60 km baseline separations are required if CLAS
has to extend its service coverage to outside Japan. Even if
such a condition is met in some countries or regions, CLAS
cannot cover the entire QZSS visible area due to the L6 sig-
nal bandwidth. To complement its coverage outside of
Japan, including the oceans far away from the CORS sta-
tions, error corrections for satellite orbit, clock offset, and
code/carrier phase bias can be estimated with globally col-
lected observation data and transmitted via the L6E signal
as an experimental signal. Users can apply these error cor-
rection messages to PPP as well as PPP-AR to obtain deci-
meter to centimeter position accuracy if the ambiguity can
be resolved with the transmitted initial phase bias on L6E.
Since local ionospheric and tropospheric errors are not pro-
vided through L6E, users have to estimate these values in
their computation process. This leads to a longer conver-
gence time, normally 20 to 40 min, to resolve carrier phase

(a) Horizontal positioning error (b) Vertical positioning error

2.4
1.2

1.1 2.2
95% Horizontal Positioning Error (m)

95% Vertical Positioning Error (m)

1 2

0.9 1.8

0.8 1.6

0.7 1.4

0.6 1.2

Figure 8.8 Position accuracy at all 160 stations.

196 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

(a) Horizontal protection level (b) Vertical protection level

12 23

11.5 22

95% Horizontal Protection Level (m)

95% Vertical Protection Level (m)

11 21

10.5 20

10 19

9.5 18

9 17

Figure 8.9 Protection levels at all 160 stations.

(a) Horizontal stanford chart

(b) Vertical stanford chart
45 105 45 105
Unavailable
95% Error
1.73 (m)

[0.000%]
40 40 Unavailable
Available [0.014%]
[100.000%] 104 104
35 35
Available
Horizontal Protection Level (m)

Vertical Protection Level (m)

[99.986%]
30 30
103 103
95% Error
0.86 (m)

25 25

20 20
102 95% VPL 102
15 18.97 (m)
15

10 10
95% HPL 101 101
MI 9.97 (m) MI
5 [0.000%] 5 [0.000%]

0 100 0 100
0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40
Horizontal Errors (m) Vertical Errors (m)

Figure 8.10 Triangle charts for all 160 stations.

ambiguity or PPP float solutions. The error corrections for start-up company, GPAS (Global Positioning Augmenta-
QZSS, GPS‚ and GLONASS are available in the beginning tion Service) [17], with the goal of investigating future prac-
of the operation, while for Galileo and BeiDou, error correc- tical service provision.
tions are planned to be added in future updates. During the
experimental phase, the Multi-GNSS Advanced Demon-
8.4.5 Public Regulated Service (PRS)
stration tool for Orbit and Clock Analysis (MADOCA)
[21–23] developed by JAXA is used for generating such The service can be utilized by a limited number of users
error corrections. The message format is defined by a authorized by the Japanese government. PRS provides both

ranging capability and error correction messages with an
encrypted spreading code and a different frequency band
away from those of GPS civil signals.
8.4.6 SBAS Service
SBAS is the international standard navigation service with
a continental service coverage [24–26]. It provides an RNP
(required navigation performance) integrity-assured navi-
gation service primarily for civil aviation use by augment-
ing the GPS constellation. In Japan, the development of its
own SBAS, MSAS, was officially decided in 1993. MSAS was
originally planned to begin its operation in 2000. After the
failure of the launch of the geostationary satellite in 1999,
MSAS finally began its operation in 2007 with two geosta-
tionary satellites. Since then, MSAS has been in continuous
operation up to the present [27–30].
After 10 years of operation, MSAS has recently needed to
replace its geostationary satellites. The first satellite for
MSAS, MTSAT-1R, launched in 2005 terminated its opera-
tion and was decommissioned in December 2015. The other
satellite, MTSAT-2, launched in 2006 is still operational,
but its operation will terminate by 2020. It is also necessary
to update ground facilities built 20 years ago.
Recently the Japanese government has decided to replace
geostationary satellites for MSAS service as a part of the
QZSS regional satellite navigation program. The geosta-
tionary satellite of QZSS (QZS-3) has an additional signal
called L1Sb for the SBAS service. The ground facilities will
be completely replaced by the new system with an
increased number of GMSs. The MSAS processors will be
co-located with the QZSS MCS in Hitachi-Ota. Note that
the QZS-3 L1Sb transmitter for the MSAS service has
24 MHz bandwidth and works with an onboard atomic
clock, which is different from the bent-pipe transponder
employed by all other SBAS systems.
The contents of the SBAS message will be generated by
JCAB (Japan Civil Aviation Bureau) facility‚ and the SBAS
JCAB CAO
Provision of SBAS service QZSS (GEO)
SBAS Operation SBAS Equipment
SBAS Signal
GMS Data
Figure 8.11 SBAS configuration after 2020.
8.5 QZSS Space Segment Configuration 197
signal will be transmitted to aircraft via the QZSS system
(including both the space segment and the ground seg-
ment), which is owned by CAO (Cabinet Office of Japan)
(see Figure 8.11). The SBAS service area is limited to the
Fukuoka FIR (Japanese Flight Information Region) in its
initial stage. However, the SBAS signal can be received in
the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, a seven-QZSS satellite
constellation enables an upgrade of the MSAS service level
from NPA (Non-Precision Approach) to APV-I or LPV200.
This upgrade will improve navigation performance to a
level almost equivalent to PA (Precision Approach) and
provide significant benefits for not only aviation users,
but also various user communities.
8.5 QZSS Space Segment
Configuration
8.5.1 Constellation
QZSS currently has four satellites in the constellation.
Three of them are orbiting in three different orbital planes
of IGSO, in a so-called Quasi-Zenith Orbit (QZO), which
was designed and optimized to maximize the visibility from
Japan and surrounding areas. One satellite is the GSO sat-
ellite located at 127 east longitude. The IGSO has a mean
altitude of about 36000 km and is inclined around
43 degrees to the equator. The satellite in an IGSO is orbit-
ing around Earth with one sidereal day period, 23 h 56 min.
In addition, a slight eccentricity is added so as to allow the
satellite to stay for a longer time in the Northern Hemi-
sphere. The apogee is located over north Japan. At the
design phase of the four-satellite constellation, the future
composition for a seven-satellite constellation had not been
specified. The separation of the right ascension of the
ascending nodes (RAANs) is not 120 equally distributed
among the satellites in order to reserve a future option
for four IGSOs of a seven-satellite constellation. The second
GPS
GPS Signal
SBAS Signal
GMS
198 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System
Table 8.3 QZSS IGSO satellite orbital characteristics
Orbit parameter Value
Semi-major axis 42,165 km (average)
Eccentricity 0.075 ± 0.015
Inclination (deg.) 43 ± 4
Argument of perigee (deg.) 270 ± 2.5
Central longitude of ground track (deg.) 139 ± 5 East
RAAN (Ω)∗ QZS-1: 117
QZS-2: 247
QZS-3: 347
Note: aCalculated at the epoch on 1 September 2025, 00:00:00.
and fourth satellites have additional propellant for poten-
tial plane changing maneuvers. Table 8.3 summarizes the
orbit parameters for QZSS IGSO satellites.
8.5.2 Satellite Configuration
The first satellite of QZSS, QZS-1, was launched in 2010 as a
demonstration satellite developed by JAXA and collabora-
tive institutes as described in Section 8.1. The design life is
10 years for QZS-1. After the launch, the IOT phase, and
technical demonstrations, QZS-1 was operated by JAXA
for almost 6.5 years. On 28 February 2017, responsibility
of the QZS-1 operation and ownership was transferred to
the Cabinet Office from JAXA. The Navigation Onboard
Computer (NOC) was reprogramed‚ and transmitting mes-
sages were updated in accordance with current IS docu-
ments established by CAO.
Three additional satellites are defined as the Block II
series, while the first satellite is Block I. Design lives for
the three Block II satellites were extended to 15 years. They
were built based on the first satellite design; however, some
modifications are made in their designs. The adoption of
GaAs solar cells with higher efficiency rather than Si cells
for QZS-1 led to a reduction in the number of solar panels
from three to two on one side. With other mass reductions
such as battery size and simplification of the electrical
power and attitude control systems, the dry mass for these
three Block II satellites decreased to 1550 kg for QZS-2 and
-4 and 1690 kg for QZS-3, from 1800 kg for QZS-1. The dif-
ference between QZS-2, 4, and 3 is in the additional payload
on QZS-3. It has a 3.2 m dish and S-band communications
equipment for Q-ANPI service, and uses mobile communi-
cations when ground-based communications breaks down
or becomes congested immediately after major natural dis-
asters occur. An additional major change in the third satel-
lite design is that a patch array antenna is adopted as the
main transmission antenna, while other IGSO satellites
use a 19-element helical array antenna. Block II satellites
are categorized Block II-Q (Q is for QZO) and Block II-G
(G is for GSO) depending on the injected orbit. The one
more important difference between Block I and II-Q is
the change in the attitude control law. The Block
I satellite, QZS-1, has two attitude control modes, Yaw
Steering (YS) mode and Orbit Normal (ON) mode, in order
to point the satellite yaw axis to the center of Earth [31, 32].
The former is applied when the angle between the orbital
plane of the satellite and the vector to the Sun, defined as
the beta angle, is larger than 20 . When the beta angle is
close to the threshold, a switch from YS mode to ON mode
or an opposite direction change is planned so as to mini-
mize the required yaw-angle change during attitude transi-
tion. This attitude control mode change makes precise orbit
estimation difficult and degrades the orbit estimation accu-
racy. Block II-Q satellites were designed according to their
attitude control law, so as to avoid switching two modes
except for orbit maintenance maneuvers. When the beta
angle is close to zero, a so-called “pseudo yaw steering” is
adopted. The yaw rate is controlled at a maximum rate,
0.055 deg/s, so that the yaw angle at noon and midnight
are plus or minus 90 [33]. The major characteristics of each
category are summarized in Table 8.4, and their photo-
graphs are shown in Figure 8.12.
8.6 QZSS Ground Segment
Configuration
The QZSS ground segment consists of an MCS, tracking sta-
tions, and a monitoring stations network. Primary MCS at
Hitachi-Ota and secondary MCS at Kobe are separated
from each other by more than 500 km to ensure site diver-
sity, so as to provide continuous service even if a huge nat-
ural disaster such as mega-typhoon or earthquake occurs.
Tracking stations, which communicate with each satellite,
have a total of seven antennas in six locations. Unlike other
GNSSs, the augmentation function of QZSS requires con-
tinuous uplink to the satellites, most of which are located
in the southwestern region of Japan, where the antennas
can track and communicate with IGSO satellites flying over
Australia at their perigee in the orbit. In addition, the mon-
itoring stations network is one of the main contributors to
satnav system performance. It is important for obtaining
better POD performance to establish a widely distributed
monitoring station network with good geometry composed
of stations in the network and satellites of QZSS and GPS.
In the current configuration, 25 monitoring stations were
set up as the monitoring network.
 8.7 QZSS Signal Configuration 199

Table 8.4 QZSS satellite characteristics

Block I Block II-Q Block II-G

Satellite QZS-1 QZS-2 and 4 QZS-3

Launch date (UTC) 11 September 2010 QZS-2: 1 June 2017 10 August 2017
QZS-4: 9 October 2017
Orbit IGSO IGSO GSO (E127)
Dry mass (kg) 1800 1550 1690
Design life (years) 10 15 15
Span (m) 25 19 19
Power (W at EOL) 5300 6300 6300
Main antenna type Helical array Helical array Patch array
Attitude control mode Yaw steering and orbit normal mode Yaw steering mode except for Orbit normal mode
during beta angle less than 20 orbit maintenance maneuver
Signals L1C/A, L1C, L1S, L2C, L6, L5 L1C/A, L1C, L1S, L2C, L6, L5, L1C/A, L1C, L1S, L2C, L6, L5,
L5S, PRS L5S, L1Sb, PRS, S band

8.7 QZSS Signal Configuration
QZSS has four open PNT signals, four types of augmenta-
tion signals including experimental ones, and one author-
ized signal on four carrier frequencies, in L1, L2, L5, and
L6 bands, which are allocated for Radio Navigation Satellite
Service (RNSS) by ITU regulations as shown in Table 8.5.
Section 8.7.1 provides a summary of the signal characteris-
tics, and data messages are summarized in Section 8.7.2.
The characteristics of the signal for authorized users,
denoted as PRS, are not in the public domain and hence
are not described in this section.

Figure 8.12 QZSS Block I, GZS-1 (top left) Block II-Q, QZS-2 and 4 (top right) and Block II-G, QZS-3 (bottom).
200 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

Table 8.5 Frequency bands used by QZSS

Occupied bandwidth (MHz)

Frequency band name Center frequency (MHz) Block I Block II QZSS signals in band

L1 1575.42 24.0 30.69 L1C/A, L1C, L1S, L1Sb

L2 1227.60 24.0 30.69 L2C
L5 1176.45 24.9 24.9 L5, L5S
L6 1278.75 39.0 42.0 L6D, L6E

8.7.1 Signal Descriptions Table 8.6 The package of interface specifications document for
QZSS PNT and augmentation service
The detailed information on each QZSS signal is defined in
a set of interface specifications documents [9, 11, 12, 16]. Service name IS document Included QZSS signals
Four of six IS-QZSS documents provide PNT and augmen-
tation service as tabulated in Table 8.6. PNT IS-QZSS-PNT-003 L1C/A, L1C, L2C, L5
Except for the L6 signal, other signals of QZSS are defined SLAS IS-QZSS-L1S-004 L1S
based on the GPS specification and SBAS standard with CLAS IS-QZSS-L6-002 L6D, L6E
some modifications due to differences from these system PTV IS-QZSS-TV-003 L5S
designs and operations. It is especially worth noting that
signals for PNT service, L1C/A, L1C, L2C, and L5 have high
Table 8.7 provides a summary of the characteristics of
interoperability with GPS signals. Similar GPS signal RF
different QZSS signals.
properties such as center carrier frequency, spreading code
modulation scheme, series of PRN code, and message struc-
ture are used. A set of PRN codes from 193 to 202 defined by 8.7.2 Data Message Summary
GPS IS documentation is applied to QZSS. Originally the Tables 8.7 and 8.8 summarize each signal’s data message
codes for QZSS were assigned in the exact order from 193 characteristics.
when JAXA published the IS-QZSS. However, the current
IS-QZSS changed the PRN code allocation within QZSS
8.7.3 Ionosphere Model
satellites to two parts: IGSO starting from 193 to 197 and
GSO from 199 to 201. 198 and 202 are reserved for non- The Klobuchar model is applied to the QZSS PNT service.
standard code use. While the model applied for GPS uses a single set of para-
QZSS L1C has been transmitted since QZS-1 was meters for the entire Earth, QZSS transmits two sets of
launched in 2010. However, the Block I satellite, QZS-1, parameters for a wide area around Japan defined as the rec-
does not transmit TMBOC as GPS plans to do. Instead, it tangular area in the Figure 8.13. The QZSS control segment
transmits BOC(1,1) for the pilot component of the signal. uploads new ionospheric parameters at least every 24 h.
This is because the hardware design was fixed before the
conclusion of the L1C optimization study conducted by
the United States and European Union, which agreed to 8.8 Summary
change the L1C signal structure for higher interoperability
with the Galileo E1/OS signal in 2006 [34] The phase rela- QZSS is a regional satellite navigation system with four
tionship between L1C/A and L1C for QZS-1 is also different satellites and ground control segments deployed by Japan.
from that for GPS Block III as well as for QZSS Block II. For The first satellite, QZS-1, was launched in 2010, and three
QZS-1, the L1C/A and L1C data component has a 90 phase additional Block II satellites were launched in 2017; thus,
lag with the L1C pilot component, while the L1C data com- operational service provision began on 1 November 2018.
ponent and pilot component have the same phase with It provides PNT services that enhance GNSS availability
L1C/A with a 90 phase lag relative to other QZSS Block in Eastern Asia and the Western Pacific Rim region. It also
II satellites. The signal characteristics for L1Sb via QZS-3, offers augmentation services that strengthen GNSS perfor-
which will be utilized for MSAS service in 2020, are the mance as well as a messaging service that improves the
same as those of L1S. national capability to respond to major disasters in Japan.
Table 8.7 Summary of QZSS signal characteristics

Signal name C/A L1C L2C L5 L1S L6 L5S

Carrier frequency 1575.42 1575.42 1227.60 1176.45 1575.42 1278.75 1176.45

(MHz)
Transmit bandwidth, 30.69a/ 30.69a/ 30.69a/ 24.0b 24.9 30.69a/ 42.0a/ 39.0b 24.9
two-sided (MHz) 24.0b 24.0b 24.0b
Data and pilot N/A Code Time division Phase N/A Time division Phase
combining division division division
Correlation loss (dB) 0.3a/ 0.2a/ 0.6b 0.3a/ 0.6b 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6
0.6b
Specified minimum −158.5 −157.0 −158.5a/−160.0b −154.0a/ −158.5a/ −155.7a/ −157.0
received total power in −154.9b −161.0b −156.82b
all components (dBW)
Data component
Spreading modulation BPSK- BOC(1,1) BPSK-R(1) BPSK-R BPSK-R BPSK-R(5) BPSK-R
R(1) (10) (1) (10)
Spreading code chip 1.023 1.023 0.5115 10.23 1.023 2.5575 10.23
rate (Mcps)
Spreading code 0.9775 0.9775 0.9775 0.09775 0.9775 0.1955 0.09775
symbol duration
(microseconds)
Spreading code type Gold Weil-based L2CM: Short-cycled L5 Gold L61b/L62a: L5
m- sequencec Kasami-based
Spreading code 1 10 20 1 1 4 1
duration (ms)
Spreading code length 1,023 10,230 10,230 10,230 1,023 10,230 10,230
(bits)
Overlay code bit rate None 100 None 1000 None None None
(bps)
Overlay code None None None 0.01 None None None
duration (s)
Overlay code length None None None 10 None None None
(bits)
Data message bit rate 50 50 25 50 250 2000 250
(bps)
Data message symbol 50 100 50 100 500 250 500
rate (sps)
Data fraction of 100 25 50 50 100 50 50
power %
Pilot component None None Nonea
Spreading modulation MBOC BPSK-R(1) BPSK-R BPSK-R(5) BPSK-R
(6,1, 4/33)a/ (10) (10)
BOC(1,1)b
Spreading code chip 1.023 0.5115 10.23 2.5575 10.23
rate (Mcps)
Spreading code 0.9775 0.9775 0.09775 0.1955 0.09775
symbol duration
(microseconds)
Spreading code type Weil-based L2CL: Short-cycled L5 L61b:Kasami- L5
m- sequencec based
Spreading code 10 1500 1 410 1
duration (ms)
Spreading code length 10,230 76,7250 10,230 1,048,575 10,230
(bits)

(Continued)
202 8 Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

Table 8.7 (Continued)

Signal name C/A L1C L2C L5 L1S L6 L5S

Overlay code bit rate 100 None 1000 None N/A

(bps)
Overlay code length 1800 None 20 None N/A
(bits)
Overlay code 18 None 0.02 None N/A
duration (s)
Pilot fraction of 0 75 50 50 0 50 50
power %

Notes:
a
Block II satellites (QZS-2, 3 and 4).
b
Block I satellite (QZS-1).
c
Maximal-length sequence.
L5S signal is transmitted after Block II satellites.
L6 signal after Block II has two data components L1D and L1E, no pilot component.

Table 8.8 Characteristics of QZSS signal data messages

Signal name C/A L1C L2C L5 L1S L6 L5S

Data message name LNAV CNAV2 CNAV CNAV L1S L6D/L6E L5S
Message structure Fixed Flexible Flexible Flexible Flexible Flexible Flexible
(fixed/flexible)
Message length (bits) 1500 900 300 300 250 2000 250
Message duration (s) 30 18 6 6 1 1 1
Forward error None BCHa(51,8) for time of ½-rate, ½-rate, ½-rate, Reed- ½-rate,
correction day, ½-rate LDPCb for constraint constraint constraint Solomon constraint
other data length 7 length 7 length 7 (255,223) length 7
Error detection (32,26) 24 bit CRC 24 bit CRC 24 bit CRC 24 bit CRC 256 bit 24 bit CRC
Hamming RSC
Code
Repetition of clock 30 18 48 24 N/A N/A N/A
corrections and
ephemeris (s)
Maximum broadcast 750 Not specified 288 144 N/A N/A N/A
interval for ionospheric
model (minutes)
Maximum broadcast 750 Not Specified 288 144 N/A N/A N/A
interval for UTC
conversion
Time rollover (weeks) 1024 8192 8192 8192 N/A N/A N/A
Leap seconds Included No No No No N/A N/A N/A
(yes/no)
Clock correction and 120 120 120 120 30 s 30 s for N/A
ephemeris validity orbit
interval (min) 5 sec for
clock
Typical message upload 24 24 24 24 Every Every Every
rate (uploads/day) second second second

Notes:
a
Bose, Chaudhuri, and Hocquenghem.
b
Low Density Parity Check.
 References 203

70

North latitude 60°

60
North
latitude 50°
50
Japan area⤶

East longitude

East longitude
40

110°⤶

160°⤶
30

20 North
latitude 22°

10

East longitude
East longitude

180°⤶
90°⤶

–10

–20

Wide area⤶
–30

–40

–50

–60
South latitude 60°

–70
60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 60 210 220

Figure 8.13 Applicable area for QZSS ionospheric model parameters.

It is a new national space asset and highly prioritized in Jap-
anese Space Policy. It will be extended to a seven-satellite
constellation around 2023 to realize stand-alone PNT capa-
bility to enhance robustness and resiliency while maintain-
ing interoperability and compatibility with other GNSSs. It
is expected that the evolution of QZSS can contribute to the
stable and sustainable growth of the region.
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34 Joint Statement on Galileo and GPS Signal Optimization
By the European Commission (EC) and the United States
(US), Brussels 24 March 2006.

GNSS Interoperability
Thomas A. Stansell, Jr.
Stansell Consulting, United States
9.1 Introduction to Interoperability
The International Committee on Global Navigation Satel-
lite Systems (ICG) [1] is headquartered at the United
Nations Vienna International Center (VIC) in Austria. Part
of its Mission Statement, shown below, is to “encourage
coordination among providers of global navigation satellite
systems (GNSSs), regional systems, and augmentations in
order to ensure greater compatibility, interoperability, and
transparency.”
Working Group A (WG-A) of the ICG has the charter to
study and define GNSS Interoperability, and a 2007 report
[2] of WG-A defined Interoperability as follows:
• Interoperability refers to the ability of open global and
regional satellite navigation and timing services to be
used together to provide better capabilities at the user
level than would be achieved by relying solely on one
service or signal.
• Interoperability allows navigation with signals from at
least four different systems with minimal additional
receiver cost or complexity.
• For many applications, common center frequencies are
essential to interoperability, and commonality of other
signal characteristics is desirable.
• Multiple constellations broadcasting interoperable open
signals will result in improved observed geometry,
increasing end user accuracy everywhere and improving
service availability in environments where satellite visi-
bility is often obscured.
• Geodetic reference frame realization and system time
steerage should adhere to existing international stan-
dards to the maximum extent that is practical.
Note that WG-A is now known as WG-S, the Working
Group on Systems, Signals, and Services [3].
The main objective of Interoperability is illustrated by
the often-used cartoon in Figure 9.1. The user has a
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
205
handheld receiver in an urban canyon. The receiver
can “see” six navigation signals, but only one from each
global navigation satellite system: GPS from the United
States, GLONASS from Russia, Galileo from the Euro-
pean Union, and BeiDou from China. The GNSS
regional systems are QZSS from Japan and NAVIC from
India.
Because the receiver is handheld, it is important to
achieve this result, as stated above, “with minimal addi-
tional receiver cost or complexity.”
The third bullet under the preceding definition states:
“Multiple constellations broadcasting interoperable open
signals will result in improved observed geometry, increas-
ing end user accuracy everywhere, and improving service
availability in environments where satellite visibility is
often obscured.” In addition, interoperability also offers sig-
nificant value in enabling the use of Advanced RAIM
(ARAIM) [4] to maintain aviation integrity while lowering
the cost of providing differential correction and integrity
messages from Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems
(SBASs) [5], as transmitted from geosynchronous satellites
and supported by large networks of ground tracking sta-
tions, for example, the US Wide Area Augmentation Sys-
tem (WAAS) and the European Geostationary Navigation
Overlay Service (EGNOS).
Another important beneficiary of interoperability is
high-precision GNSS applications, for example, survey,
mapping, construction, infrastructure (buildings,
bridges, dams, etc.) monitoring, machine control, and
precision agriculture. These high-value applications
number in the hundreds of thousands and support many
billions of dollars of commercial investment as well as
aiding research and development activities, for example,
volcano monitoring, tracking of tectonic plate
drift. The ability to use alternatives to GPS signals
provides increased availability, accuracy, productivity,
and integrity.
206 9 GNSS Interoperability
Galileo NAVIC BeiDou
QZSS
GPS
GLONASS
Figure 9.1 Illustration of interoperability.
9.2 Elements of Interoperability
Every GNSS signal is characterized by many parameters,
including center frequency, waveform, signal spectrum,
number of chips in the spreading code, time duration of
the spreading code, number and relative power of the signal
components, overlay modulation, data modulation symbol
rate, data bit rate, type of message error correction, struc-
ture of messages, received signal power, satellite antenna
gain pattern, time base, geodesy, and geographic reference
frame.
Ideal interoperability would be for every GNSS signal to
be structured the same. Instead of there being four constel-
lations of 30 satellites each for GPS, GLONASS, Galileo,
and BeiDou, each constellation at a different orbit altitude,
better interoperability would be achieved if just one of the
systems were expanded to 120 satellites having the same
signal and orbit characteristics. For example, the ground
track of GPS satellites repeats every sidereal day (23 h
56 min 4.1 s), whereas the ground track of GLONASS satel-
lites repeats every 8 sidereal days, the ground track of Bei-
Dou satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO) repeats every 9
sidereal days, and Galileo ground tracks repeat every
10 sidereal days. Because of the constellation differences,
coverage and therefore dilution of precision (DOP) is
always changing. Fortunately, with lots of satellites in view,
the coverage and the DOP should be consistently excellent.
In spite of the constellation differences, a significant advan-
tage of having different system providers is that user
equipment can be designed to detect a system-wide prob-
lem in one of the systems and avoid use of those signals
until the problem is resolved.
With so many differences between signals and orbits, it is
valuable to distinguish between “signal-level” and “user-
level” interoperability. If the user equipment, including
its internal and post-processing software, is designed to
receive and process signals with different characteristics
from physically different satellites at different orbit heights
and yet give excellent results, the result is “user-level” inter-
operability. Users normally are not concerned about the
source of the signals – only about the results. This is well
illustrated in Figure 9.1.
Signal-level interoperability affects the difficulty and
therefore the cost of combining different signals and, to
some extent, the quality of the combined result. The cost
difference is primarily of concern for consumer devices.
The differences between the Galileo E1 OS and the GPS
L1C signals are instructive. Note that many documents and
presentations emphasize that these were designed to be
interoperable signals [6]. Table 9.1 is a comparison of their
characteristics.
Except for the most important interoperability parameter
of center frequency and the common use of BOC(1,1) mod-
ulation, it would be difficult to design two more distinctly
different signals than L1C and E1 OS. Signal interoperabil-
ity clearly was not the most important design objective. In
terms of signal-level interoperability, if BeiDou adopts the
presumed B1C signal structure of QMBOC [7], it will be
almost identical to L1C and thus more signal-level interop-
erable with GPS than Galileo’s E1 OS signal.
Differences in signal parameters that can be accommo-
dated by software are easier and less expensive to imple-
ment than differences that require hardware
modifications. If signals from different systems are received
with one antenna, employ the same radio frequency and/or
intermediate frequency (RF/IF) amplifiers and filters, and
are converted to digital form by a common analog-to-digital
(A/D) converter, all other differences usually can be accom-
modated by firmware in digital processing chips or by soft-
ware in subsequent signal processing steps.
9.3 GLONASS Transition Toward More
Interoperable CDMA
Next, we will begin evaluating the impact of center fre-
quency on interoperability, concentrating on signals in
the L1 band, which extends from 1559 to 1610 MHz. The
GPS, Galileo, and the expected BeiDou global system sig-
nals at L1, as well as the QZSS regional L1 signals, are all
 9.3 GLONASS Transition Toward More Interoperable CDMA 207

Table 9.1 L1C, E1 OS, and B12C signal characteristics

Characteristic GPS L1C Galileo E1 OS GPS/Galileo Comment BeiDou B1C

Center Frequency 1575.42 MHz 1575.42 MHz Identical 1575.42 MHz

Spreading Code Family Weil-based Memory Different Weil-based
Spreading Code Length 10,230 Chips 4,092 Chips Different 10,230 Chips
Spreading Code Duration 10 ms 4 ms Different 10 ms
Modulation TMBOC CBOC Different QMBOC
Channels with BOC(6,1) Pilot Pilot and Data Different Pilot
Channels with BOC(1,1) Pilot and Data Pilot and Data Identical Pilot and Data
Data Power Percent 25% 50% Different 25%
Pilot Power Percent 75% 50% Different 75%
Data Symbol Rate 100 SPS 250 SPS Different 100 SPS
Data Bit Rate 50 BPS 125 BPS Different 50 BPS
Error Correction LDPC Convolutional Different LDPC
Pilot Overlay Code 18 s 100 ms Different 18 s
Message Frame Length 18 s 720 s Different 18 s

centered at 1575.42 MHz. To date there are no L1 signals
from India’s NAVIC regional system. However, GLONASS
L1 signals have 14 different center frequencies from
1598.0625 to 1605.375 MHz spaced apart by 0.5625 MHz.
(Some references indicate there are two additional center
frequencies at 1605.9375 and 1606.5000 MHz.) The center
frequency of each “frequency channel” (F) is (1602 +
0.5625 × F) MHz. The lowest frequency is when F = −7.
The highest of the 14 center frequencies is when F = 6. Each
center frequency can be duplicated on antipodal (opposite
sides of Earth) satellites‚ which is how 14 frequencies can
be used for up to 28 satellites [8]. Antipodal satellites can
use the same channel number.
From the beginning, GLONASS has employed frequency
division multiple access (FDMA) to separate and distin-
guish the individual satellite signals while using identical
spreading codes on all common satellite signals. In con-
trast, GPS and all subsequent navigation satellite systems
have transmitted on the identical center frequency, for
example, L1 at 1575.42 MHz, while using different code
division multiple access (CDMA) codes on each satellite
to separate and distinguish the signals.
It is significant that GLONASS also is beginning to imple-
ment the CDMA method‚ and over time every GLONASS
satellite will transmit both FDMA and CDMA signals.
The choices made clearly indicate the new CDMA signals
are intended to improve interoperability with GPS and
the other GNSSs. The Glonass-K satellites have only
one CDMA signal, L3OC (meaning an open signal (O)
using CDMA (C) at the L3 frequency). The Enhanced
Glonass-K next provides three open CDMA signals at L1,
L2, and L3. That satellite uses two phased-array antennas,
one to transmit the FDMA signals and the other for the
CDMA signals. It is significant that the CDMA antenna
is in the preferred location, aligned with the satellite center
of mass, while the FDMA antenna is offset [8]. This differ-
ence is expected to end with the Glonass-K Evolution (K2)
satellites, which will transmit all navigation signals from
one antenna aligned with the center of mass.
The GLONASS CDMA signals will be transmitted at
three center frequencies of L1 at 1600.995, L2 at
1248.060, and L3 at 1202.025 MHz, as shown in
Figure 9.2 [9].
The top plot in Figure 9.2 shows the GLONASS L1 and L2
FDMA signals. The lower plot shows the GLONASS CDMA
signals. On the left‚ the GLONASS L3 signal is shown in red
superimposed over the Galileo E5 signals, which are com-
posed of two components: E5a, which is the large lower
lobe that overlays the GPS L5 signal, and E5b, which is
higher in frequency than E5a and L5. As shown in the table,
the L3 carrier is modulated by a 10.23 MHz spreading code.
In the GLONASS L2 band, the second plot shows that the
L2 CDMA signals overlap the GLONASS FDMA signals
and are modulated by two 1.023 MHz spreading codes,
one being a binary phase shift keyed (BPSK) signal and
the other which, in addition, is modulated by a 1.023
MHz square wave to form a split band Binary Offset Carrier
BOC(1,1) signal. The first “1” in the BOC(1,1) term denotes
a 1.023 MHz square wave‚ and the second “1” denotes a
spreading code rate of 1.023 MHz.
208 9 GNSS Interoperability

THE SPECTRUM OF NAVIGATION RADIO SIGNALS OF THE GLONASS SYSTEM

L3/L5 L2 L1
–160
–180
1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620

L3/L5 L2 L1
–160
–180
1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620

CHARACTERISTICS OF NAVIGATION RADIO SIGNALS OF THE GLONASS SYSTEM WITH CODE DIVISION

Range Carrier frequency, MHz Signal Clock frequency, MHz Modulation type Transmission speed CI,
Code length, symbols bit/s

L10Cd 1 023 1,023 BPSK (1) 125

L1 1 600,995
L10Cp 4 092 1,023 BOC (1,1) pilot signal
L2 CSI 1 023 1,023 BPSK (1) 250
L2 1 248.06
L20Cp 4 092 1,023 BOC (1,1) pilot signal

L30Cd 10 230 10.23 BPSK (10) 100

L3 1 202,025
L30Cp 10 230 10.23 BPSK (10) pilot

Figure 9.2 GLONASS FDMA and CDMA signal plans.

The second plot in Figure 9.2 shows that the GLONASS
L1 CDMA signals overlay the GLONASS L1 FDMA
signals. The L1 CDMA signals have the same structure
as the L2 CDMA signals, namely‚ a BPSK(1) component
and a BOC(1,1) component. To the left of the GLONASS
L1 plot is a plot of the GPS BOC(1,1) component of
the L1C signal, which is centered at 1575.42 MHz.
(Note that the GLONASS L2 CDMA plot is not scaled
properly. It should have the same width as the L1 CDMA
plot.)
There are significant differences between the new GLO-
NASS CDMA signals and the traditional FDMA signals.
The differences clearly are intended to encourage and ena-
ble interoperability with GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS.
The underlying clocks for GPS and the other systems are
based on multiples of a 1.023 MHz common frequency.
Like these signals and unlike GLONASS FDMA, the center
frequencies of each of the three GLONASS CDMA signals
are at multiples of 1.023 MHz, namely L1 at 1565 times
1.023 or 1600.995 MHz, L2 at 1220 times 1.023 or
1248.060 MHz, and L3 at 1175 times 1.023 or 1202.025
MHz. In addition, as shown in Figure 9.2, the code clock
frequencies are 1.023 or 10.23 MHz, and the code lengths
are 1023, 4092, or 10230 chips.
9.4 Interoperability Impact of Signal
Center Frequency
One of the very useful aspects of combining signals with a
common center frequency is that after each signal is captured
by the receiver’s antenna, the time delay through RF/IF fil-
ters, amplifiers, and cables is almost identical for each
received signal. If the signals are digitized by a single A/D
device using only one sampling clock, the time difference
between the digitized signals can be assumed to be zero.
For accurate navigation and positioning, it is not necessary
to calibrate the time delay between signals. For timing recei-
vers, depending on the needed accuracy, calibration from the
antenna to the time signal output may be needed, but not the
time difference between received signals (other than
accounting for the timing difference between system clocks).
There are two reasons for the minor exceptions to the
“zero difference” assumption. One is the Doppler shift of
each signal due to the relative velocity of the satellite and
the receiving antenna. Each signal typically will have a dif-
ferent Doppler frequency offset. At 1575.42 MHz‚ the Dop-
pler offset for an Earth-based receiver ranges from about −5
to +5 kHz. Figure 9.3 illustrates this by the width of the
lines representing the GPS L1 center frequency and the

14 lines representing the GLONASS FDMA center frequen-
cies. Superimposed in Figure 9.3 is the spectrum of the GPS
C/A signal, with the first nulls at ±1.023 MHz. The intent is
to show that the Doppler shift is a tiny fraction of the spread
spectrum bandwidth. The comparison is made because
even narrowband receivers must process most of the L1 sig-
nal bandwidth. Typical consumer receivers have band-
widths on the order of ±2 MHz or greater. Limitations of
the Excel plot do not necessarily show how small the Dop-
pler shift is compared to the spectral width of the C/A sig-
nal. Figure 9.4 shows this more clearly. The two lines
representing the GPS center frequency are at 1575.42
MHz + 5 kHz and 1575.42 MHz − 5 kHz.
Receiver components, especially filters and cables, have a
variable time delay as a function of frequency. For almost
every application, the time delay difference due to the rel-
atively tiny Doppler shifts can be ignored. There may be a
few applications in which even such tiny effects must be
measured and calibrated to achieve the utmost precision.
The second and more significant reason for small time
delay variations between signals is that the antenna itself
is not time delay isotropic. Signals arriving at different azi-
muth and elevation angles suffer small time delay differ-
ences. The received carrier phase varies over 360 as a
1570 1575 1580 1585 1590 1595
GPS and GLONASSL1 Center Frequencies (MHz), Line Width = ± 5 kHz
Figure 9.3 GPS L1 Center frequency and GLONASS center frequencies with ±5 kHz Doppler shifts. The GPS C/A signal spectrum is shown
at the GPS L1 center frequency.
1574 1575
Figure 9.4 GPS L1 center frequency with ±5 kHz Doppler shifts and GPS C/A signal spectrum.
9.4 Interoperability Impact of Signal Center Frequency 209
function of the satellite azimuth relative to the receiving
antenna position. For the highest-precision applications,
these variations are measured and mapped and corrections
are applied when processing the signals.
For consumer applications, such small variations are
negligible, especially when compared to the much larger
sources of error, including multipath and uncorrected ion-
ospheric and tropospheric refraction.
As illustrated in Figure 9.3, the center frequency offsets
between GLONASS FDMA signals are enormous, especially
as compared with Doppler frequency shifts. The frequency
offset between GPS L1 and any of the GLONASS FDMA
channels ranges from 22.6425 to 29.955 MHz. The frequency
offset between individual FDMA channels ranges from
0.5625 to 7.3125 MHz. These differences are large even com-
pared with the span of the C/A signal spectrum. In fact, the
spread between GPS and the FDMA channels is so large that
most if not all receivers employ different RF/IF hardware,
including different filters, for CDMA than for FDMA signals.
This violates a main interoperability objective of “allowing
navigation with signals from at least four different systems
with minimal additional receiver cost or complexity.”
To achieve accuracy with an FDMA-only receiver, the
filter(s) must be designed to minimize differences in time
1600 1605 1610
1576 1577
210 9 GNSS Interoperability
delay from one channel to another. A pre-calibration of these
delays should be provided to the processing software, and a
built-in test signal to calibrate the differences may be needed.
When GLONASS FDMA is used with GPS, Galileo, Bei-
Dou, and/or QZSS, a calibration of the individual FDMA
delays can be made with respect to a position solution that
is independent of GLONASS measurements. Although fil-
ter time delay variations can change over time and with
temperature, as long as the calibrations remain valid they
can be used to benefit from use of the FDMA signals.
Because the additional coverage and accuracy obtained
by adding GLONASS to GPS is so valuable, many receivers,
from consumer devices to high-precision survey and
machine control products are so equipped. Once many
more reliable CDMA signals become available from other
providers, the question will arise of whether the additional
complexity of using FDMA signals will be justified.
This is why the emerging GLONASS use of CDMA is so
significant. The frequency offset with GPS L1, L2, and L5
will not be eliminated. These differences will be 25.575,
20.46, and 25.575 MHz, respectively. (As factors of 1.023
MHz, the differences are factors of 25, 20, and 25, respec-
tively.) However, having 1.023 MHz as the base for all GLO-
NASS CDMA signals should simplify frequency synthesis
in every receiver processing both GLONASS CDMA and
other GNSS signals.
The frequency differences are large enough to warrant the
use of two filters at each band, one for most GNSS CDMA
signals and the other for the GLONASS CDMA signals. This
requires a larger product size and more cost, but the cumber-
some and suboptimal need to individually calibrate the time
delay of each FDMA channel will be eliminated. In fact, the
calibration can become one additional parameter in the
positioning solution. The relative time delay parameter
between filters will be very stable, changing only slowly.
In many applications‚ that parameter can be combined with
the very stable system clock difference parameter. Once a
solution is obtained, each one or the combination can be
heavily filtered so as not to “waste” even one satellite signal
in subsequent positioning solutions.
As shown in Figure 9.2, 1.023 MHz is the base not only for
the GLONASS CDMA center frequencies but also for the
spreading code clocks. The spreading code lengths also
are multiples of 1023 chips. Clearly the intent is to be as
interoperable as possible with most other GNSS signals
even if the center frequencies are not identical.
9.5 Missed Common Third Frequency
Opportunity
As shown by Figure 1.21 in Chapter 1 of this book [10],
many of the existing or planned signals are “orphans,”
meaning they are not provided by any of the other major
systems. For example, the GPS and QZSS L2 signals are
not provided by GLONASS, Galileo, or BeiDou. The Galileo
E5b and BeiDou B2b signals are not present on GPS. Per-
haps more important is that they will not be used by
FAA-certified avionics. Therefore, there is less incentive
for manufacturers to include orphan signals in future recei-
vers if the common signals provided by all major systems
are adequate for the supported applications. Only two sig-
nal frequencies are supported by all major systems: 1575.42
MHz (L1 for GPS) and 1176.45 MHz (L5 for GPS). These are
predicted to become the dominant frequencies in future
dual-frequency receivers and applications.
At the ION GNSS-2006 conference, Ron Hatch [11]
described a three-frequency, geometry-free technique for
carrier phase ambiguity resolution. With three common
frequencies from multiple satellites, a wide-area differential
system could allow receivers to provide approximately 10-
cm navigation accuracy over an entire continent. This
could be the basis for safety-of-life automobile lane keeping
services, better performance for precision agriculture, and
perhaps consumer-grade survey receivers. With respect to
Figure 1.21 in Chapter 1, the best location for a common
signal would be on top of the Galileo E6 signal. Ideally Gal-
ileo, BeiDou, and GPS should provide signals at this 1278.75
MHz frequency. Sadly, this is a missed opportunity for a
major step toward a wide-area, high-accuracy navigation
and positioning service.
9.6 Interoperability Impact of Signal
Waveform and Spectrum
It is often thought that signals with a different waveform
and therefore different spectra are inherently less interop-
erable than those with identical waveforms and spectra. In
particular, Figure 9.5 shows the spectrum of the GPS BPSK
(1) C/A signal and of the Multiplexed Binary Offset Carrier
(MBOC) spectrum of GPS L1C [12–15] as well as Galileo E1
OS, BeiDou B1C, and QZSS L1C signals. The question,
therefore, is whether the C/A signal is interoperable with
the others.
The MBOC signal consists of two components, one being
a BOC(1,1) waveform with 90.9% of the signal power and
the other a BOC(6,1) waveform with 9.1% of the signal
power. Most receivers will track only the BOC(1,1) compo-
nent, either to minimize cost and/or bandwidth, or in the
case of aviation, to minimize complexity. Therefore, we will
examine the difference in tracking the C/A signal versus
the BOC(1,1) component of MBOC.
The most widely used method to track the spreading code
of a GNSS signal is the early-minus-late (E-L) correlator.
Variations of this also are widely used to reduce the effect

Power Spectral Density (dBW/Hz) –60
BPSK(1)
MBOC
–65
–70
–75
–80
–10 –5 0 5
Offset from 1575.42 MHz Center Frequency (MHz)
Figure 9.5 Spectra of C/A and of L1C.
of signal multipath, for example, the narrow correlator, the
strobe correlator, the double delta correlator, or the multi-
path mitigation correlator [16–18]. As explained in [16–18],
subtracting a late correlator waveform from an early corre-
lator waveform produces a waveform with three levels, +1,
0, or −1. When the level is +1, a gate is open and the incom-
ing (I channel) signal samples are summed. (The running
sum also decays, and so older samples are replaced by
newer samples.) When the level is −1, the gate is open
but the signal samples are subtracted from the running
sum. When the level is 0, the gate is closed and signal sam-
ples are ignored. (Ignoring signal samples when there is no
transition to track improves the loop signal-to-noise ratio.)
Also, as explained in [16–18], the code tracking loop works
to center the plus and minus gates on the spreading code
transitions, the polarity of the gate being defined by the
direction of the signal code transition. The result is that
when the average of the running sum is not zero but is
either positive or negative, that is the error signal which
causes the code tracking loop to center the open gate times
on the incoming signal code transitions. When the average
of the running sum is zero, the code tracking loop is aligned
with the peak of the code autocorrelation function.
The process for tracking code transitions of a BPSK(1) or
a BOC(1,1) waveform is the same. The only significant dif-
ference is that a BOC(1,1) waveform has three times the
code transitions per unit time than the BPSK(1), that is,
about 500,000 per second for BPSK(1) and 1,500,000 for
BOC(1,1). That improves the signal-to-noise ratio in the
code tracking loop, but it does not cause one waveform
to be less precise than the other except in extremely weak
signal conditions.
If the receiver RF/IF bandwidth is wide enough, the tran-
sient response after a code transition should mostly settle
before the next code transition. For the C/A spreading code,
the minimum time interval before the next code transition
is approximately 1 μs (977.5 ns). For BOC(1,1), the time
interval is half that because the 1.023 MHz spreading code
9.6 Interoperability Impact of Signal Waveform and Spectrum 211
also is modulated by a 1.023 MHz square wave. Therefore,
the minimum RF/IF bandwidth for BOC(1,1) should be
about twice that of the minimum C/A RF/IF bandwidth.
Practically speaking, the bandwidth of a current narrow-
band C/A receiver may be adequate for BOC(1,1), and a
receiver designed for BOC(1,1) certainly has sufficient
bandwidth for the C/A signal. From a receiver bandwidth
perspective, there is no adverse impact of processing both
signals with the same hardware, especially because they
have the same center frequency.
10 One characteristic which might seem to affect interoper-
ability between BOC(1,1) and BPSK(1) is the autocorrela-
tion function of each, as illustrated in Figure 9.6. When
tracking BOC(1,1), it is important to avoid having the code
loop lock to either of the “false” peaks at +0.5 and −0.5
spreading code chips from the main peak. Many papers
have been written about how to avoid this trap. If both sig-
nals are transmitted from the same satellite, the BPSK(1)
autocorrelation function, which has no such ambiguity,
can be used to verify the proper alignment of the BOC
(1,1) code tracker.
The relative “sharpness” of the two autocorrelation func-
tions could imply that one yields better accuracy than the
other. This has been a long-term fantasy. When GPS was
first designed‚ it was assumed that the P-code would pro-
vide about 10 times the pseudorange measurement accu-
racy of the C/A code because the C/A autocorrelation
function is 10 times wider than it is for the P-code. How-
ever, as is well known, some of the most precise measure-
ments are made by C/A receivers. There are several reasons
for this. One is that receivers using a narrow correlator or a
multipath mitigation correlator can use the same early-
minus-late spacing (same gate width) for C/A as for P-code
tracking. If both signals are filtered with the same RF/IF
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
–0.2
–0.4
–1 –0.5 0 0.5 1
Chips
Figure 9.6 Autocorrelation function of BPSK(1) and BOC(1,1)
signals.
212 9 GNSS Interoperability
bandwidth, the rounding at the top of either autocorrela-
tion function will be the same, which means that the accu-
racy of finding code transitions will be the same if the S/N
in the code tracking loop is sufficiently positive. To improve
the S/N, commercial, scientific, and aviation C/A receivers
almost always employ a version of carrier-aided code
smoothing, that is, the Hatch filter [19]. This allows the
code loop bandwidth to be reduced to 0.01 Hz or less. In
most applications, the penalty of needing time for the filter
to settle is of little consequence.
Therefore, it can be concluded that for most practical pur-
poses the C/A BPSK(1) and the MBOC BOC(1,1) signals are
fully interoperable in terms of code tracking accuracy.
9.7 Clocks, Geodesy, and Differential
Corrections
If you are a scientist and need to squeeze the last millimeter
of accuracy and picosecond of time from GNSS measure-
ments, then any difference between system elements is sig-
nificant. Examples include location of the phase center of
the transmitting antenna relative to the satellite’s center
of mass, location of the tracking stations used to determine
the orbit and clock of each satellite, the geodetic models
which predict satellite orbits, the effect of continental drift
and polar wander on orbit determination, the short-term
and long-term stability of satellite clocks, the wander of
each satellite clock relative to a national Universal Time
Coordinated (UTC) standard, and how close the national
time standard is to the global UTC. In addition, scientists
must be concerned with minute aberrations in signal struc-
ture, ionospheric and tropospheric refraction effects, varia-
bility in receiver antenna characteristics, including phase
variations with azimuth and elevation angle, the local mul-
tipath environment, the physical stability of structures
holding the antennas, and so on. Each one of these and
more have been the subject of intense and ongoing study.
None of these is of much concern to consumers. Most
GNSS receivers are in mobile phones (three billion or
more), followed by automobiles. Accuracy is challenged
by multipath, signal blockage, poor antenna structures,
very limited battery power (which limits sophisticated pro-
cessing), severely constrained physical space, an environ-
ment filled with electronic noise, and so on. A few
meters of error apparently is tolerable and has not limited
the growth of these markets.
In between these quite different applications are profes-
sional and commercial uses. The top accuracy requirement
is about half a centimeter for survey, machine control,
structure monitoring, volcano monitoring, earthquake
monitoring, and so on. Perhaps surprisingly, many preci-
sion agriculture applications require accuracy between 1
and 10 cm. Another set of applications requires between
half and one meter of accuracy. The most prominent exam-
ple is data collection for geographic information systems
(GISs), such as locating and mapping physical structures.
Less accuracy is needed for commercial navigation applica-
tions for aircraft, ships, boats, trucks, etc. More accuracy is
needed when landing aircraft or navigating large ships in
shallow waters.
The above paragraphs are meant to show that there are a
vast number of GNSS applications, each with its own accu-
racy and other requirements. Therefore, the need for inter-
operability of different GNSS signals differs from one
application to another. For general navigation‚ it appears
interoperability has nearly been achieved. This is because
every GNSS provider is striving to improve its accuracy
and adhere to international standards. The international
standard for time is Coordinated Universal Time, which,
in French, is Temps Universel Coordonné. UTC was chosen
as a compromise abbreviation. UTC is based on Interna-
tional Atomic Time (TAI) which is computed by the Inter-
national Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) located
near Paris. Interoperability at the level of about 10 ns
(approximately 3 m at the speed of light) seems achievable
in the near future. Even so, it is recommended that the
measured time offset between systems be obtained. Sources
include external measurements provided as part of satellite
navigation messages or via other communication channels.
The most accurate method is for the receiver to calculate
time offsets when there are enough satellites visible from
each system to include the system time offset as an
unknown parameter in the navigation solution. Because
the time offset between systems changes so slowly, it can
be heavily filtered after the solution has settled.
The other standard which all GNSSs are attempting to
replicate is known as the International Terrestrial Refer-
ence Frame (ITRF) [20]. The difference between the latest
GPS reference frame and the latest ITRF is only a few cen-
timeters. All other GNSSs are also approaching this level of
agreement. Therefore, for applications which require no
more than a few meters of accuracy, it is now – or soon will
be – acceptable to combine signals from several GNSSs
without concern for time or geodetic interoperability.
For applications requiring more accuracy, the answer for
many decades has been the use of differential corrections.
The basic concept is that one reference station at a defined
location, or a network of reference stations at defined loca-
tions, tracks the available satellite signals and compute cor-
rections which are supplied to users. There are differential
systems with one reference station which operate over a
limited distance of between 15 and 50 km from the

reference station, and there are other systems with refer-
ence stations distributed over broad areas which can serve
an entire continent. Over short distances‚ the corrections
may be only pseudorange adjustments or, for survey and
machine control applications, they also include carrier
phase readings. For larger systems, the corrections will
include adjustments to each satellite’s orbit parameters as
well as pseudorange and/or clock corrections. Some appli-
cations permit simple corrections; others may demand a
more complex set of corrections. Systems with large cover-
age areas include the WAAS operated by the US Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) and similar SBASs [5]
around the world. There are private systems operated by
commercial companies such as OmniSTAR by Trimble,
Ltd., StarFire by John Deere, and TerraStar by TerraStar
GNSS Ltd. Each of these services employs communication
satellites to distribute correction messages. Smaller systems
use local radio transmitters and receivers to send correction
messages.
Importantly, all differential systems eliminate basic inter-
operability issues of time or geodesy offsets. After differen-
tial corrections are applied, the time reference and the
orbit coordinates for each satellite are adjusted to agree
with common references, as defined by the differential
system itself. The only remaining interoperability issues
will occur in the user equipment, such as different time
delays due to different signal center frequencies. Differen-
tial systems are widespread and widely used, even in cell
phone networks, and they all but eliminate most concerns
about interoperability.
9.8 Summary
Because of the increasing number of GNSSs, with most
expected to reach maturation by about 2020, this chapter
has focused on whether these systems will work well
together. Are they, or will they be, interoperable? The work
of the ICG in addressing interoperability was reviewed,
including agreement on a definition of interoperability.
This was followed by an exploration of the elements of
interoperability. Because so many signal parameters differ
between systems, it was important to differentiate between
“signal-level” interoperability, in which signal parameters
should be nearly the same, and “user-level” interoperabil-
ity, where the differences are accommodated mostly by
software in the user equipment and, therefore, are invisible
to users.
The next section examined the implications of the GLO-
NASS transition from FDMA to the more interoperable
CDMA signals. It was shown that combining FDMA signals
9.8 Summary 213
imposes an extra costs and the requirement for channel cal-
ibration. For example, because GLONASS signals are not
centered on 1575.42 and 1176.45 MHz, there may be less
combined use of GLONASS in the future than there is
today. However, it was noted that the new GLONASS
CDMA signals will be more interoperable than the original
FDMA signals, despite the difference in GLONASS CDMA
center frequencies with most other GNSS CDMA signals.
The following section concentrates on the interoperabil-
ity challenges imposed by combining signals with different
center frequencies.
A missed opportunity for a common third frequency was
then noted. Regretfully, it is unlikely this opportunity will
ever be realized.
The question of whether differences in a signal waveform
or its spectrum would adversely affect interoperability was
explored. It appears that waveforms as different as the GPS
C/A signal and multiple MBOC signals can be combined
with no loss of accuracy. Therefore, they are considered
interoperable with the minor caveat of whether some types
of Costas (squaring) loop carrier tracking, required for C/A
signals, could introduce small offsets between the tracking
GPS C/A and MBOC signals on L1.
Interoperability of system clocks and of the underlying
orbit determination geodesy was reviewed. Except for sci-
entific, survey, and engineering applications requiring the
very highest precision, it was judged that these differences
are so small – and getting smaller – that they can be ignored
for most consumer applications. It also was noted that dif-
ferential GNSS, which removes all differences in system
clocks and geodesy as well as the individual satellite clock
and orbit errors, is used for scientific, survey, and engineer-
ing as well as most commercial and many consumer
applications.
In the early to mid-1970s, when GPS and GLONASS were
first being designed and developed, no one could imagine
the explosion of applications and of the number of users
these systems would engender. The impact on safety, free-
dom to wander, economics of transport, science, and many
other aspects of life could not have been predicted. The
results have been revolutionary.
We are entering a new revolutionary change. The impact
cannot be as great as deployment of the first continuous,
global, all-weather, four-dimensional navigation and posi-
tioning systems. However, as Europe completes Galileo and
China completes the global version of BeiDou, perhaps
aided by the regional QZSS from Japan and NAVIC from
India, the existing capabilities will be improved signifi-
cantly. The accuracy, availability, and integrity of all appli-
cations, especially in challenged environments, will be
transformed. Availability and accuracy in urban canyons
will be much better. The number of expensive SBAS will
214 9 GNSS Interoperability
begin to decline as ARAIM [4] comes into full use. Scien-
tific, survey, engineering, and agricultural applications will
improve in accuracy, speed of phase ambiguity resolution,
and in availability within challenged environments such as
near trees or deep within a pit mine. Integrity for most
applications will improve as a much larger number of satel-
lites can be used to cross-check each other as in conven-
tional RAIM or with ARAIM.
Interoperability is important in almost every application
of GNSS. It largely has been achieved for consumer appli-
cations, and it continues to improve for all applications as
signal providers strive to increase accuracy, match interna-
tional time and geodesy standards, and bolster their system
integrity. The widespread use of differential corrections can
eliminate any remaining interoperability concerns. Inter-
operability is fueling this important next phase of global
satellite navigation and positioning.
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groups.html
4 Pullen, S. and Joerger, M., Chapter 23 GNSS Integrity and
Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM), in
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technique for ambiguity resolution, Proceedings of the 19th
International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of
The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2006), pp. 309–316,
Fort Worth, TX, September 2006.
12 Hein, G.W., Avila-Rodriguez, J.-A., Wallner, S., Pratt, A.
R., Owen, J., Issler, J.-L., Betz, J.W., Hegarty, C.J.,
Lenahan, S., Rushanan, J.J., Kraay, A.L., and Stansell, T.
A., MBOC: The new optimized spreading modulation
recommended for GALILEO L1 OS and GPS L1C,
Proceedings of IEEE/ION PLANS 2006, pp. 883–892, San
Diego, CA, April 2006.
13 Betz, J., Blanco, M.A., Cahn, C.R., Dafesh, P.A., Hegarty, C.
J., Hudnut, K.W., Kasemsri, V., Keegan, R., Kovach, K.,
Lenahan, L.S., Ma, H.H., Rushanan, J.J., Sklar, D., Stansell,
T.A., Wang, C.C., and Yi, S.K., Description of the L1C
signal, Proceedings of the 19th International Technical
Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation
(ION GNSS 2006), pp. 2080–2091, Fort Worth, TX,
September 2006.
14 Stansell, T., Hudnut, K.W., and Keegan, R.G., GPS L1C:
Enhanced performance, receiver design suggestions, and
key contributions, Proceedings of the 23rd International
Technical Meeting of The Satellite Division of the Institute of
Navigation (ION GNSS 2010), pp. 2860–2873, Portland, OR,
September 2010.
15 Stansell, T., Hudnut, K.W., and Keegan, R.G., “Future
wave: L1C signal performance and receiver design,” GPS
World, April 1, 2011.
16 Hatch, R.R., Keegan, R.G., and Stansell, T.A., Leica’s
code and phase multipath mitigation techniques,
Proceedings of the 1997 National Technical Meeting of
The Institute of Navigation, pp. 217–225, Santa Monica,
CA, January 1997.
17 Stansell, T.A., Inventor, Leica Geosystems Inc., assignee,
Mitigation of multipath effects in global positioning system
receivers, U.S. Patent 5,963,582 filed November 21, 1997,
and issued October 5, 1999.
18 Stansell, T.A., Knight, J.E., Keegan, R.G., and Cahn, C.R.,
Inventors, Leica Geosystems Inc., assignee, Mitigation of
multipath effects global positioning system receivers, U.S.
Patent 6,160,841 filed November 21, 1977, and issued
December 12, 2000.
19 Hatch, R., The synergism of GPS code and carrier
measurements, International Geodetic Symposium on
Satellite Doppler Positioning, 3rd, Las Cruces, NM,
February 8–12, 1982, Proceedings. Volume 2 (A84-18251
06-42), pp. 1213–1231, Las Cruces, NM, New Mexico State
University, 1983.
20 Rizos, C., Altamimi, Z., and Johnson, G., Chapter 27 Global
Geodesy and Reference Frames, in Position, Navigation,
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10
GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring
Frank van Graas and Sabrina Ugazio
Ohio University, United States
10.1 Introduction
As global navigation satellite system (GNSS) applications
become more widespread, the need for service assurances
and associated service monitoring continues to grow. In
the early days of satellite navigation, the emphasis was
on the navigation solution and its accuracy. Once the serv-
ice approached operational capability, the emphasis shifted
to signal monitoring to ensure a guaranteed level of perfor-
mance. The first GPS Standard Positioning Service (SPS)
performance standard was published in 1993, in the same
year that GPS initial operational capability (IOC) was
declared [1]. The original five-station monitor network
was expanded‚ and receiver technology was upgraded to
improve satellite signal monitoring, and to reduce the user
range error (URE) [2, 3]. Performance standards for other
GNSSs that are available include BeiDou [4], and Galileo
[5], while others are anticipated to be based on the perfor-
mance standards being drafted by the International Com-
mittee on GNSS (ICG) Working Group on Systems,
Signals and Services [6].
The next step in signal monitoring is the development
of performance specifications to identify all GNSS para-
meters that need to be monitored. The first edition of the
GPS Civil Monitoring Performance Specification (CMPS)
was published in 2005 [7]. In the international community,
this activity is pursued under the Joint ICG-IGS
(International GNSS Service) International GNSS Monitor-
ing and Assessment (IGMA) Trial Project [8]. The develop-
ment of monitoring standards and their implementation
are an ongoing process for GNSS service providers.
Signal Quality Monitoring (SQM) is a subset of all moni-
toring requirements and primarily covers the transmitted
carrier waveform and code performance. Within the SQM
subset, there are a number of aspects of the signal that are
of interest to the user, ranging from received signal power
to potential failure modes and mechanisms. For high-
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
215
integrity, safety-of-life applications such as aircraft landing
operations, SQM requirements are well developed since
their full definition was required for the approval process.
This chapter starts with an explanation of the importance
of signal quality monitoring, followed by a description of
SQM requirements, and an overview of current monitoring
systems. Next, SQM algorithms and methods are summar-
ized for six parameters: signal power, cross-correlation,
cycle slip, excessive acceleration, code-carrier divergence,
and signal deformation.
10.2 The Importance of SQM
Reasons for monitoring signal quality of the GNSS signals
broadcast by the satellites can be divided into three
categories:
•• Service guarantees and user acceptance
High-accuracy applications
• High-integrity, safety-of-life applications
The first category is associated with service providers,
and addresses the verification of service guarantees as well
as user acceptance of the service. When a navigation signal
is made available to the public, documentation of a mini-
mum performance level is needed for the navigation user
to design its operational use of the signal. It is noted, how-
ever, that many GNSS users rely on advanced signal char-
acteristics that are not documented in the service
guarantee, but that the user implicitly trusts. User accept-
ance can be affected negatively if that trust is breached.
High-accuracy applications are in their own category due
to the need for a local, regional‚ or global network of ground
reference receivers that are used to increase the clock and
orbit accuracies of the navigation satellites. In addition, the
reference receivers could also be used to mitigate tropo-
spheric and ionospheric propagation delays. High-accuracy
216 10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring
systems provide corrections to users to improve their posi-
tion and/or timing performance beyond that provided by a
GNSS service. SQM is included to ensure that the accuracy
of the user solution is within certain bounds.
The third category involves applications that exceed the
level of integrity provided by GNSS. These applications
were not envisioned in the original GNSS designs, and
are not included in current designs due to cost and/or devel-
opment time considerations. Examples of these systems are
the Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) and the
Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS), both of
which are primarily approved for aviation applications.
GBAS and SBAS rely on ground reference receivers to mon-
itor the received satellite signals. User receiver monitoring
is also part of this category, where a higher level of integrity
is achieved through algorithms implemented in the
receiver, such as Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitor-
ing (RAIM) or Advanced RAIM (ARAIM).
Each of the three categories has unique SQM require-
ments that are summarized in the next section.
10.3 SQM Requirements
Due to the complexity and variety of GNSS applications, no
single publication documents a complete set of monitoring
requirements. As a starting point, we can consider the GPS
Civil Monitoring Performance Specification [9], which
derives requirements from multiple US Government docu-
ments: the GPS performance standard [10], interface speci-
fications [11–14], the Wide Area Augmentation System
(WAAS) performance standard [15], the GPS III System
Specification [16], and Interagency Forum for Operational
Requirements (IFOR) proposed new operational require-
ments [17]. Additional requirements are also included from
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Stan-
dards And Recommended Practices (SARPS), Annex 10,
Attachment D [18]. For other GNSSs, corresponding
parameter values can be obtained through a study of their
interface specifications and performance standards.
The monitoring requirements in the CMPS are divided
into three categories:
•
System performance monitoring (35 requirements),
including, for example, the service volume coverage
per satellite and per constellation, and satellite orbital
parameters
• Signal monitoring (136 requirements), including, for
example, verification of civil ranging codes, SQM, semi-
codeless tracking, and navigation message
• Non-broadcast data (4 requirements), including, for
example, Notice Advisory to Navstar Users (NANU)
messages and Yuma almanac messages
SQM is a subset of signal monitoring that specifically
deals with the assessment of carrier waveform and code
performance to ensure that they are within designated lim-
its [19]. The CMPS SQM requirements are summarized in
Table 10.1 [9].
Given the summary in Table 10.1, it can be observed that
SQM requirements are primarily based on interface speci-
fications; however, requirements related to aircraft preci-
sion approach are also included in row 7 and the last
three rows of Table 10.1, as they are derived from WAAS
and ICAO SARPS standards.
The CMPS provides a section with clarifications and algo-
rithms that provides insight into incomplete SQM require-
ments including verification of absolute power delivered by
each satellite and response time, received carrier-to-noise
ratio, code-carrier divergence, signal distortion, carrier
phase discontinuities‚ and bit inversions. These SQM para-
meters are summarized in Table 10.2.
The signal parameters in Table 10.2 do not have associated
monitoring requirements as these depend on the application.
To further develop a set of SQM parameters, consider two
demanding systems in terms of signal accuracy‚ and integ-
rity; GBAS and SBAS. For a detailed description of these sys-
tems, see Chapters 12 and 13 in this volume. Of interest in
this chapter are the GBAS/SBAS high-level requirements
related to SQM, which are summarized in Table 10.3. For
excessive acceleration, code-carrier divergence, and signal
deformation‚ the associated missed detection probability is
less than or equal to 1 for pseudorange errors smaller than
0.75 m, less than or equal to 10−5 for errors larger than 2.7
m, and less than or equal to 10 − 2 56 Er + 1 92 for pseudorange
errors, |Er|, between 0.75 and 2.7 m [20]. For low signal
power and cycle slip detection, there are no specific require-
ments for missed detection probability as they are allocated
by the manufacturer of the equipment during the design
process. The cross-correlation error can be omitted from
the aircraft equipment design [21], but must be considered
for the ground reference receiver, although it is not
addressed by the SARPS [20].
From Tables 10.1 through 10.3, a complete set of SQM
requirements can be developed for each application. Since
the requirements do not address the implementation of the
monitoring or a specific monitoring architecture, the next
section reviews current monitoring systems, followed by
a section with example monitor implementations.
10.4 Current Monitoring
The first level of signal monitoring is performed by the serv-
ice providers. For GPS, the Precise Positioning Service
(PPS) signals are monitored at the GPS Master Control
 10.4 Current Monitoring 217

Table 10.1 Summary of CMPS SQM requirements [9]

Paragraph in CMPS Requirement summary Source referenced by CMPS

3.2.2.a, b Received signals: L1 C/A ≥ −158.5 dBW,L2C ≥ -160 dBW IS-GPS-200 [11]
3.2.2.c, e Received signals for GPS IIF: L5/I5 ≥ −157.9 dBW,L5/Q5 ≥ −157.9 IS-GPS-705 [12]
dBW
3.2.2.d, f Received signal for GPS III: L5/I5 ≥ −157 dBW, L5/Q5 ≥ −157 dBW IS-GPS-705 [12]
3.2.2.g Received signal L1C ≥ −157 dBW IS-GPS-800 [13]
3.2.2.h Received signal in orbit L1C ≥ −182.5 dBW IS-GPS-800 [13]
3.2.2.i, j, k, l Report significant drops in C/N0 for L1 C/A, L2C, L5, and L1C IS-GPS-200 [11], IS-GPS-705 [12],
IS-GPS-800 [13]
3.2.2.m, n, o, p Code-carrier divergence < 6.1 m for 100 < T < 7200 s for L1 C/A, IFOR [17]
L2C, L5, and L1C
3.2.2.q Average time difference between L1 C/A and L1 P(Y) code IS-GPS-200 [11]
transitions < 10 ns (two-sigma)
3.2.2.r, s, t Mean group differential delay between codes: L1 P(Y) and L2C IS-GPS-200 [11], IS-GPS-705 [12],
< 15 ns, L1 P(Y) and L5 < 30 ns, L1 P(Y) and L1C < 15 ns IS-GPS-800 [13]
3.2.2.u, v Stable 90 phase offset (± 100 mrad) between L1 C/A and L1 P(Y) IS-GPS-200 [11], WAAS PS [15]
code carriers with C/A lagging P(Y), and between L2C and L2 P(Y)
code carriers with L2C lagging L2 P(Y)
3.2.2.w, x, y, z Code chip lead/lag variation from a square wave < 0.12 chips for L1 SARPS [18], CMPS Section 5.4.4
C/A, < 0.02 chips for L2C, < 0.02 chips for L5I and L5Q, < 0.05 chips
for L1C
3.2.2.aa Detect and monitor instances when the transient response for each SARPS [18]
bit transition exceeds the limits defined in SARPS Threat Model B
Source: GPS Civil Monitoring Performance Specification, U.S. Department of Transportation, DOT-VNTSC-FAA-09-08, April 30, 2009. Can be
found at: https://www.gps.gov/technical/ps/2009-civil-monitoring-performance-specification.pdf. Reproduced with permission of GPS.

Table 10.2 CMPS SQM considerations [9]

Paragraph
in CMPS SQM parameter Notes

5.4.1 Verification of absolute power Periodic verification (e.g. yearly)

5.4.2 Received carrier-to-noise Continuous verification (e.g. every 1.5 s)
5.4.3 Code-carrier divergence and code-carrier Nominal divergence between different code and carrier combinations as
divergence failure well as failure conditions
5.4.4 Signal distortion Currently only described for GPS L1 C/A code in the SARPS
5.4.5.1 Carrier phase discontinuities Observed by a receiver as partial cycle, half-cycle or full-cycle slip
5.4.5.2 Bit inversion A carrier phase discontinuity that results in a half-cycle error in the
receiver that causes a parity failure
Source: GPS Civil Monitoring Performance Specification, U.S. Department of Transportation, DOT-VNTSC-FAA-09-08, April 30, 2009. Can be
found at: https://www.gps.gov/technical/ps/2009-civil-monitoring-performance-specification.pdf. Reproduced with permission of GPS.

Segment in near real time 24 hours a day [25]. The SPS that
includes the C/A code is not monitored continuously, but
most errors that affect the SPS also affect the PPS, including
satellite clock and orbit parameters. Some aspects of SQM
are included, such as periodic verification of absolute
power levels [26]. Examples of errors that are not
monitored at the levels required for high-integrity applica-
tions are summarized in Table 10.3.
High-accuracy applications are monitored with regional
or worldwide reference networks, such as the regional Con-
tinuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) network,
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Global Differential
218 10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring

Table 10.3 GBAS and SBAS SQM requirements

Description SQM requirement Reference

Low signal power Detect signal levels below those specified in Table 10.1 for GPS L1 C/A code [22]
Cross-correlation Limit error due to cross-correlation to 0.2 m [23, 24]
Cycle slip The satellite signal tracking quality shall be monitored such that the allocated integrity risk [21]
due to undetected cycle slips is within the manufacturer’s allocation
Excessive acceleration Detect excessive pseudorange acceleration such as a step or other rapid change within 1.5 s [20]
Code-carrier divergence Detect excessive code-carrier divergence within 1.5 s [20]
Signal deformation Detect fault conditions on the C/A code that deforms correlation peaks used for tracking the [20]
pseudorange within 1.5 s

GPS (GDGPS) service, and an international reference sta-
tion network coordinated by the IGS. In addition, several
commercial correction services are in worldwide operation.
As an example, the IGS network, through the Real-Time
Service (RTS), provides satellite clock and orbit corrections,
Earth rotation parameters, zenith tropospheric path delay
estimates as well as global ionosphere maps that can be
combined with data from user receivers for Precise Point
Positioning (PPP), thus achieving much higher levels of
accuracy than that provided by a stand-alone GNSS (see
detailed discussions in Chapter 11 of this volume).
High-integrity, safety-of-life applications use regional
(SBAS) or local (GBAS) reference receivers to monitor all
aspects of the received satellite signals. These systems focus
on a rapid response to signal malfunctions, generally
within a few seconds after the error reaches a potentially
GBAS ground station should no longer generate corrections
for the affected satellite(s). An SBAS reference station, on
the other hand, would be removed from the correction gen-
eration, as local interference at a reference station would
likely not affect the user at a different location.
10.5.1 Low Signal Power
A low received satellite signal power condition can affect
satellite acquisition and satellite tracking. Both code and
carrier tracking noise increase as the received satellite sig-
nal power decreases. The carrier phase measurement noise
is given by [27]
λ BW ϕ
σϕ = m 10 1
2π 10 0 1C N0

hazardous level.
where BWϕ is the carrier loop bandwidth in hertz. The code
phase measurement noise is given by [28]

10.5 SQM Algorithms and Methods 0 5 d BW SS

This section describes algorithms and methods for monitor-
ing SQM requirements identified in Section 10.3. The moni-
tors described in this section are not necessarily detecting
satellite malfunctions. For example, most signal deforma-
tion errors are part of normal system operation, although
the level of signal deformation may be too high for aircraft
landing operations. It would not be appropriate to take that
satellite out of service, since the majority of users would not
be affected by this error. Another issue is the separation of
malfunctions that are unacceptable for certain applications
from environmental conditions, such as local interference,
which may or may not affect the user. Clearly, if a GBAS
ground station is affected by strong interference, it may
not be able to generate differential corrections‚ and the air-
craft would likely experience the same conditions as it
approaches the GBAS ground stations. In this case, the
σ ρ = chip m 10 2
10 0 1C N 0
where BWSS is the single-sided code tracking loop band-
width in hertz, chip is the code phase chip length in meters,
and d is the correlator spacing in chips. The carrier and
code phase tracking noise are shown in Figure 10.1 for
the GPS C/A code with a carrier tracking loop bandwidth
of 16 Hz, a correlator spacing of 0.1 chip, and a single-sided
code tracking loop bandwidth of 0.0025 Hz, which corre-
sponds to a smoothing time constant of 100 s.
From Figure 10.1, both the carrier and code tracking
noise increase significantly when C/N0 goes below
40 dB-Hz. For example, the carrier tracking noise standard
deviation increases from 1.2 mm to 3.8 mm for a C/N0
decrease from 40 to 30 dB-Hz, while the code tracking noise
standard deviation increases from 3.3 cm to 10.4 cm for the
same decrease in C/N0.

Phase BW = 16 Hz Code BW = 0.0025 Hz
7 20
6 estimator from [29] is used, then the standard deviation of
15
5 and is approximated by a value of 1 dB for a 1 s update rate.
4
mm
cm
10
3 assumes that the C/N0 measurements are uncorrelated.
2
5 tem design, specifically, whether corrections can be calcu-
1 lated with integrity down to 32 dB-Hz or 25 dB-Hz,
0 0
20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80
C/N0 in dB-Hz C/N0 in dB-Hz
Figure 10.1 Standard deviations of carrier phase tracking noise
(left) and code phase tracking noise (right) as a function of C/N0 for
a carrier loop bandwidth of 16 Hz and a single-sided code loop
bandwidth of 0.0025 Hz.
Low signal power does not directly lead to an integrity
concern, but it can affect safety through the loss of signal
continuity. Indirect impact on integrity has several
mechanisms:
1) Other monitors, such as those used to detect interfer-
ence, cycle slips, code-carrier divergence, excessive
acceleration, ionospheric gradients, and signal deforma-
tion, rely on a minimum C/N0 for meeting their prob-
abilities of false and missed detection.
2) Low satellite transmit power could be an indication of
other malfunctions onboard the satellite, such as atti-
tude control; therefore, prior failure probabilities
assumed for satellite malfunctions are no longer valid.
3) A low C/N0 can result in a large power difference of
more than 10 dB with respect to other satellites, which,
in turn, can cause cross-correlation depending on the
code structure. Also, due to cross-correlation, satellite
acquisition could be affected.
A separate cross-correlation monitor can be implemen-
ted for code structures that are affected by low signal power
(see Section 10.5.2) such that the primary purpose of the
low-signal-power monitor is to ensure that the C/N0 avail-
able to the receiver processing is above a minimum value.
For ground reference receivers, the most practical estimate
for the received signal power is the C/N0 estimator.
Since there is no direct impact on integrity, the C/N0 mea-
surements for each satellite can be averaged to reduce the
noise in the estimate:
1 P−1
C N0 k = C N0 k − pΔT 10 3
Pp=0
10.5 SQM Algorithms and Methods 219
where ΔT is the update rate, and P is the number of C/N0
measurements in the estimate. For example, if the NB/WB
the C/N0 estimate does not depend on the value of C/N0,
When averaged over 50 s using Eq. (10.3), the standard
deviation becomes approximately 0.14 dB. Note that this
The threshold for the C/N0 estimator depends on the sys-
especially in the presence of interference. For illustration
purposes, assume that the probability of false detection,
PFD is set at 10−7, while the probability of missed detection,
PMD is set at 10−3, then the minimum detectable drop in C/
N0 is given by
kfd + k md σ C N0 = 2 erf − 1 1 − PFD
+ erf − 1 1 − 2PMD σ C N0 ≈ 1 2 dB 10 4
2 x − t2
where erf x = e dt, kfd, and kmd are the false detec-
π 0
tion and missed detection multipliers, respectively. If the C/
N0 tracking threshold is 32 dB-Hz, then the detection
threshold for the averaged C/N0 given by Eq. (10.3), should
be set at 32 + 1.2 = 33.2 dB-Hz to guarantee that the aver-
aged C/N0 will not drop below 32 dB-Hz.
10.5.2 Cross-Correlation
Errors due to interaction between ranging codes is a cate-
gory of error that cannot be monitored by the service pro-
vider as it is a function of many parameters, most of which
depend on the user location and receiver architecture.
Cross-correlation occurs when the correlation function is
distorted by energy from a different satellite, either from
the same constellation or from a different constellation.
The size of the cross-correlation error is a function of sev-
eral parameters, including the relative received signal
strength between two satellites, relative Doppler frequency
shift (i.e. fading frequency), relative change in Doppler fre-
quency shift, ranging codes on the two satellites, relative
code phase shift, relative phase alignment, relative rate of
change of code phase shift, navigation data bits on the
two satellites, relative delay between the navigation data
bits, smoothing time constant, and correlator type in the
receiver [30–32].
The probability of occurrence of cross-correlation is small
for stationary users, but the error can reach tens of meters
[33], and thus cannot be ignored for high-integrity systems.
For differential systems, cross-correlation errors are not
common between a reference receiver and the user due
220 10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring
to different geometries. Fortunately, if the user is dynamic,
then cross-correlation errors tend to be mitigated for the
user contribution [24]. Cross-correlation impacts signal
acquisition, signal tracking, and C/N0 estimators.
Cross-correlation conditions and corresponding moni-
tors have been well characterized for the GPS C/A code,
but are of equal concern for GLONASS and other GNSSs
[34, 35]. It is noted that any form of energy leakage can dis-
tort the correlation function, whether it is from the same
frequency, a different frequency, or due to a poor code
cross-correlation sequence. Cross-correlation is referred
to as self-interference when the impact on the spectrum
is evaluated. Because the impact is complicated in terms
of the signal parameters and dynamics, care must be taken
not to assess the impact too conservatively [36, 37].
A summary of GPS C/A code cross-correlation will be
presented, followed by three types of monitors for the
cross-correlation error. In 1978, [30] showed that the
worst-case correlation sidelobes occur at a 4 kHz Doppler
frequency shift offset between two satellites, and that the
effect is temporary in nature. At 0 Hz Doppler offsets
between satellites, the sidelobe interaction with the main
auto correlation peak can last longer. In [30], the emphasis
was on the impact of cross-correlation on signal acquisi-
tion. In 1992, [33] identified potentially large pseudorange
errors on the order of tens of meters during Doppler cross-
overs (relative Doppler frequency shift between two satel-
lites is close to 0 Hz), and suggested that these errors can
be modeled similar to multipath. In 2002, [31] presented
bench test results showing meter-level cross-correlation
errors that become negligible for precision approach appli-
cations after 100 s smoothing with the carrier phase. How-
ever, in [31], cross-correlation was not considered in
combination with off-nominal power levels due to low-sig-
nal-power conditions, or higher than expected power levels
due to recent changes in satellite transmit power redistribu-
tion [38].
The cross-correlation error is often compared to multi-
path error, but there are several distinct differences
between cross-correlation and multipath errors for the
GPS C/A code:
•
A cross-correlating signal can be both early and late
(multipath always arrives after the direct signal).
• Cross-correlation errors do not necessarily repeat from
day to day if the interfering satellites have relative fre-
quency drifts such that the relative clock offsets change
to outside a cross-correlation time window, or if the nav-
igation data bits change.
•
Navigation data bits are not always identical on two
interfering satellites and are generally not near-
synchronous.
• Cross-correlation errors can be twice as large as multi-
path error for the same relative strength (the cross-
correlation slope of the correlation function can be twice
as large as the slope of the autocorrelation function).
• Multipath errors are only significant for the primary cor-
relation peak (i.e. time shift between direct and multi-
path signal less than approximately 1.5 code chips),
while cross-correlation errors can occur for multiple time
offsets between the two codes.
The latter two points are illustrated in Figure 10.2, where
the cross-correlation error envelope for PRN15 due to
PRN24 is shown for relative code chip offsets between
200 and 220 C/A code chips. The receiver correlator spa-
cing, d, is 0.1 chip, and PRN24 is 10 dB stronger than
PRN15 (γ = 10 dB).The error is calculated by adding the
PRN24 signal to PRN15 with relative delays between 200
and 220 chips, and by evaluating the resulting code tracking
error for each relative delay.
The blue error envelope is for the in-phase cross-
correlation, whereas the red error envelope is for the
out-of-phase cross-correlation. As the carrier phase
between PRN15 and PRN24 goes in and out of phase, the
cross-correlation error oscillates between the in-phase
and out-of-phase error envelopes. Similar to the multipath
error envelope, as the relative path delay between the
PRN15 and PRN24 codes increases, the error envelope
increases linearly and then remains constant when the
delay reaches the value of the correlator spacing, or 0.1
chip, relative to the beginning of a chip. If the error would
have been due to multipath of equivalent strength, then the
error would only have reached the 3 m level instead of the 6
m level reached by cross-correlation. Overall, 62.2% of the
relative delay results in zero cross-correlation error, while
PRN15 and PRN24 cross correlation for γ = 10.0 dB
10
5
Error in m
0
–5
–10
200 205 210 215 220
Relative delay in chips
Figure 10.2 Cross-correlation error for PRN15 due to PRN24,
which is 10 dB stronger (γ = 10 dB). Both the in-phase (blue) and
out-of-phase (red) error envelopes are shown.

36.2% of the delays result in errors oscillating between −3
and +3 m, and for 1.6% of the delays, the error oscillates
between −6 and +6 m. The latter corresponds to 16 chip
durations out of 1023 chips. The equation for the maximum
value of the error envelope is given by [39]
γ − 23 9
eenvelope = chip d 10 20 10 5
where γ is the relative strength of the cross-correlating sat-
ellite in decibels with respect to the affected, weaker satel-
lite. The factor of 23.9 is equal to 20log10(65/1023), which is
the ratio of the highest cross-correlation value to the max-
imum value of the autocorrelation, expressed in decibels.
During a Doppler cross-over, the error will oscillate as
shown in Figure 10.3.
Based on Figure 10.3, cross-correlation errors can be
divided into two types: slow fading and fast fading. For both
types, the navigation data bit differences between the two
satellites will modulate the error due to the 180 phase
changes between the two satellites. Both satellites will expe-
rience the same navigation data during the last two sub-
frames when the almanac data is transmitted, which lasts
for 12 s. Note that several conditions have to line up in order
to create the worst-case error given by Eq. (10.5). One, the
Doppler offset between the two satellites has to be either
zero, or offset by a multiple of 1 kHz [24]; two, the Doppler
rate offset has to be within 0.02 Hz/s in order to sustain the
error for at least 30 s; three, the relative power difference
must be large enough; four, the C/A code chips have to
be aligned such that one of the 16 worst-case chip align-
ments occurs; five, the navigation data has to be identical
on both satellites; and six, the navigation data bits must
be closely aligned between the two satellites. Clearly, the
worst-case error is unlikely to occur, but for high-integrity
systems, this error cannot be ignored. It is further noted
that for strong cross-correlation errors, the mean error
for fast fading is not zero, just like multipath errors, due
to the asymmetric shape of the error as a function of the
chip delay [40].
At least three different techniques can be used to protect
against cross-correlation errors. The first technique, which
can be found in GAST-C precision approach applications,
uses a screening algorithm that removes satellites from
the differential data broadcast that are potentially affected
by cross correlation [23]. The screening algorithm starts
Figure 10.3 Cross-correlation error shape during a Doppler cross-over.
10.5 SQM Algorithms and Methods 221
with the selection of a bound for the cross-correlation error,
and then calculates the thresholds for three parameters: dif-
ference in carrier-to-noise ratio, ΔC/N0, difference in Dop-
pler frequency shift, ΔfD, and difference in Doppler rate,
Δf D , between two satellites. This calculation is done in
advance based on a computer simulation. In operation,
the monitor removes satellites from the differential correc-
tion broadcast if the screening conditions are violated. The
screening conditions that limit the worst-case cross-
correlation error to 0.2 m for 100 s smoothing are shown
in Table 10.4 [39].
When any of the 11 conditions in Table 10.4 are met, the
weaker satellite will be removed. For example, when it is
measured that two satellites have a power difference greater
than 10 dB, a Doppler frequency shift difference less than
10 Hz, and the Doppler frequency shift difference is chan-
ging more slowly than 2 Hz/s, condition 8 is met, and the
error on the weaker satellite can be greater than 0.2 m in
Table 10.4 Screening conditions for 100 s smoothing that limit
the worst-case cross-correlation error to 0.2 m [39]
Item Condition
1 Δ f D < 0 01 Hz Δf D < 0 01 Hz s
2 ΔC N 0 > 4 dB Δ f D < 0 01 Hz Δf D < 0 02 Hz s
3 ΔC N 0 > 5 dB Δf D < 0 01 Hz Δf D < 0 03 Hz s
4 ΔC N 0 > 6 dB Δf D < 0 01 Hz Δf D < 0 05 Hz s
5 ΔC N 0 > 7 dB Δ f D < 0 01 Hz Δf D < 0 4 Hz s
6 ΔC N 0 > 8 dB Δ f D < 4 Hz Δf D < 0 5 Hz s
7 ΔC N 0 > 9 dB Δ f D < 7 Hz Δf D < 1 Hz s
8 ΔC N 0 > 10 dB Δf D < 10 Hz Δf D < 2 Hz s
9 ΔC N 0 > 14 dB Δf D < 20 Hz Δf D < 5 Hz s
10 (ΔC/N0 > 16 dB) & (ΔfD < 25 Hz)
11 (ΔC/N0 > 20 dB)
Source: Zhu, Z. and van Graas, F., “C/A Code Cross Correlation Error
with Carrier Smoothing – the Choice of Time Constant: 30 s vs. 100 s,”
Proceedings of the 2011 International Technical Meeting of The Institute
of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 2011, pp. 464–472. Reproduced
with permission of Institute of Navigation.
Time
222 10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring
the theoretical worst-case cross-correlation. It is noted that
only the requisites for the worst-case cross-correlation are
met, but in order for this error to materialize, additional con-
ditions must be met, such as alignment of the code, identical
navigation data, and navigation data bit alignment. As a
result, the screening algorithm is conservative, but effective.
The primary drawback of the screening technique is that all
satellites must be tracked by the receiver in order to obtain
the C/N0, and the Doppler measurements.
Two monitors that both detect the actual cross-correlation
error are the signal deformation monitor (SDM) and the
code-carrier divergence (CCD) monitor [23]. The CCD mon-
itor is described in Section 10.5.5 and the SDM monitor in
Section 10.5.6.
10.5.3 Cycle Slip
Carrier phase cycle slips, or carrier phase discontinuities in
general, can affect high-accuracy/high-integrity applica-
tions that rely on carrier phase for accuracy or monitoring.
For example, real-time high-accuracy systems that are
affected by carrier phase anomalies are dynamic surveying,
plate tectonics, infrastructure monitoring, dredging, con-
struction, scientific and space applications, such as occulta-
tion, formation flight‚ and docking. For real-time high-
integrity systems, carrier phase anomalies can result in loss
of continuity and loss of correction service coverage [41], as
well as loss of integrity if the anomaly affects one or more of
the monitors that relies on the carrier phase. The complica-
tion with carrier phase anomalies is the source of the prob-
lem, which can either be due to the following [42]:
• Discontinuities in the carrier phase generated onboard
the satellite
• Environmental conditions that affect the receiver track-
ing loop such as interference, multipath, signal shadow-
ing, aircraft overflight of the antenna, as well as
ionospheric and tropospheric propagation effects
To monitor the discontinuities onboard the satellite, the
above two sources need to be separated, which is most
effectively accomplished through monitoring at multiple
locations, such that environmental errors do not correlate
between the two locations [9]. It is noted that actual
satellite discontinuities are infrequent, with fewer than
four anomalies per day on average for the GPS L1 fre-
quency [42].
Carrier phase discontinuities can be characterized using
four models: step, pulse, ramp, and tri-state, as illustrated in
Figure 10.4.
Examples of each of the four phase discontinuity models
for the GPS L1 frequency are shown in Figure 10.5 [42].
Step Pulse
ϕ in m
ϕ in m
δ δ
> 10 ms
Time in s Time in s
Ramp Tri-State
ϕ in m
ϕ in m
δ1 δ2
δ
> 30 ms > 10 ms
Time in s Time in s
Figure 10.4 Four models for the characterization of satellite
carrier phase discontinuities.
In Figure 10.5 (upper left), a step discontinuity is shown
for SVN63 that occurred on 14 September 2016; in the
upper right, a pulse discontinuity is shown for SVN45 that
also occurred on 14 September 2016; in the lower left, a
finite ramp discontinuity is shown for SVN63 that occurred
on 8 September 2016; and in the lower right, a tri-state
discontinuity is shown for SVN45 that occurred on
14 September 2016.
To monitor the phase discontinuities, a high-update rate
receiver, for example, 100 Hz, is needed to capture short-
duration events, such as the 750 ms duration of the step dis-
continuity, or the 30 ms portion of the tri-state discontinu-
ity in Figure 10.5. Uncorrelated measurements at 100 Hz
can be obtained through the use of a software defined
receiver (SDR) or through tracking loop design. A stable
receiver reference oscillator is also required to ensure
high-quality carrier phase measurements [42]. The carrier
phase measurements are de-trended by removing the
known dynamics due to satellite motion and satellite fre-
quency offset. Next, a second-order polynomial fit is used
through a sliding window 10 s segment of the carrier phase
data to remove the remaining receiver oscillator effects.
Using nominal, error-free statistics, an overbound Gaus-
sian distribution with standard deviation, σ OB, can be estab-
lished for each 10 s segment.
A step detector can be implemented as follows. Select two
successive measurement data sets with a 1 s duration out of
the 10 s window. At 100 Hz, each data set will contain 100
samples. Calculate the mean value of each data set, and
compare the difference in the mean values to a threshold
to detect the presence of a step discontinuity. The test sta-
tistic for the difference in the mean values is given by [43]
 10.5 SQM Algorithms and Methods 223

0.006 0.020

0.004
0.015

0.002
0.010
0
Phase in m

Phase in m
0.005
–0.002

0
–0.004

–0.006 –0.005

–0.008 –0.010
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Time in s Time in s
0.020 0.008
0.006
0.015
0.004
0.010
0.002
Phase in m

0.005
Phase in m

0
0 –0.002

–0.005 –0.004
–0.006
–0.010
–0.008
–0.015
–0.010
–0.020 –0.012
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Time in s Time in s

Figure 10.5 Examples of observed carrier phase discontinuities for GPS L1 [42]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of
Navigation.

μ2 − μ1 Following the derivation for the low-signal-power mon-

T= 10 6
Sp 1
+ 1 itor (see Eq. (10.4)), the minimum detectable bias for the
n1 n2
step discontinuity model is calculated from
where μ is the mean of a sample set, n is the number of sam-
δstep, min = k fd + kmd σ OB 10 9
ples in a sample set (n1 = n2 = 100 for this example), and Sp
is the pooled sample variance given by Using the same example parameters as those used for the
n1 − 1 σ 21
+ n2 − 1 σ 22 low-signal-power monitor, the minimum detectable step is
Sp = 10 7 δstep, min = 8.4 σ OB. A typical value for σ OB is 1 mm, such that
n1 + n2 − 2
the minimum detectable step is 8.4 mm, which corresponds
where σ is the standard deviation of a sample set. to a phase jump of approximately 16 at the GPS L1 fre-
The detection threshold, TD, is calculated based on the quency. The location of the step is determined by sliding
false detection probability, PFD: the observation window by one sample at the time and find-
ing the maximum value of the test statistic, which provides
TD = 2erf − 1 1 − PFD σ OB 10 8
the location of the step with a resolution of 0.01 s.
where σ OB is the overbound sigma of the de-trended carrier As a final step, detection results from two receiver loca-
phase measurements averaged over 10 s. tions are compared to ensure that the discontinuity is
224 10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring
caused by the satellite. The distance between the two recei-
vers should be close enough to have a similar view of the
satellite in the sky, but far enough to ensure that environ-
mental errors are decorrelated. Decorrelation could be such
that errors are not common between the two locations, or
that they do not occur within 10 ms of each other.
Similar detectors can be designed for the other three dis-
continuity types. The pulse and tri-state discontinuities can
be viewed as two consecutive step anomalies, while the step
discontinuity has step values that are equal and opposite.
The ramp discontinuity can be modeled as a step disconti-
nuity with a ramp connecting the two levels.
With the full characterization of the carrier phase discon-
tinuities, the impact on applications can be evaluated. It is
noted that there is currently not much data available on
carrier phase anomalies for most GNSSs, with the exception
of GPS.
10.5.4 Excessive Acceleration
For correction systems such as GBAS and SBAS, signal accel-
eration can cause unacceptable range errors if the level of
acceleration, including step changes, causes the linear
extrapolation based on the broadcast range rate correction
to be invalid. The pseudorange error grows quadratically
due to an acceleration error, but part of this growth is miti-
gated by the range rate correction, such that the resulting
error in the corrected pseudorange, δρa, is a function of
the age or latency of the differential correction and the dif-
ferential correction update rate [44]:
δρa = 0 5aτ τ + ΔT 10 10
where a is the satellite range acceleration error in m/s2, τ is
the latency of the correction in seconds, and ΔT is the cor-
rection update rate in seconds. Based on Eq. (10.10) and the
maximum allowable range error, δρmax, the maximum
acceleration error, amax, is given by
2δρmax
amax = 10 11
τ τ + ΔT
For example, if δρmax= 0.75 m, ΔT = 0.5 s, and τ = 3 s,
then amax = 0.14 m/s2.
To measure the acceleration of the pseudorange correc-
tion, two successive pseudorange rate corrections could
be differenced as shown in Figure 10.6. The acceleration
estimate at time k is based on the five most recent pseudor-
ange corrections.
Two differential pseudorange correction rates are calcu-
lated for the two most recent seconds of data. Acceleration
is then estimated by differencing the two rates:
2 seconds
rate(k–2) rate(k)
k–4 k–3 k–2 k–1 k
a(k)
Figure 10.6 Excessive acceleration monitor measurement
processing.
δρ k − 2δρ k − 2 + δρ k − 4
aρ k = 10 12
2ΔT 2
Following the derivation for the low-signal-power mon-
itor (see Eq. (10.4)), the minimum detectable acceleration
is given by
amin = k fd + k md σ a 10 13
where σ a is the standard deviation of the acceleration noise.
Using the same example parameters that are those used for
the low-signal-power monitor, the minimum detectable
acceleration amin = 8.4 σ a. Furthermore, if amax = 0.14
m/s2, then it follows that the standard deviation of the
acceleration noise must be less than 1.7 cm/s2. Consider
the case where carrier phase measurements are used to cal-
culate the acceleration. Given a C/N0 of 32 dB-Hz and
Eq. (10.1), the noise on the carrier phase is 0.3 cm. If the
update rate is 0.5 s, then Eq. (10.12) can be used to calculate
the acceleration based on the carrier phase measurements:
aϕ k = ϕ k − 2ϕ k − 2 + ϕ k − 4 10 14
and the standard deviation of the acceleration estimate
based on the carrier phase is given by
2
σ a,ϕ = σ ϕ 22 + 2 = σϕ 6 10 15
For σ ϕ = 0.3 cm, the noise on the acceleration estimate is
0.74 cm/s2, which is well below the required 1.7 cm/s2.
Although it seems that the smoothed pseudorange noise
standard deviation of 8.2 cm would be too high at 32 dB-
Hz, in practice, it is still acceptable due to the time correla-
tion of the noise induced by the 100 s smoothing time con-
stant, which means that the smoothed pseudorange noise is
similar to the carrier phase noise over periods of time of a
few seconds.
The acceleration monitor also responds to a step error‚ as
illustrated in Figure 10.7. The response of the monitor to a
step input is equal to the size of the step. For example, if the
input steps from 0 to 0.1 m, then the monitor will output an
 10.5 SQM Algorithms and Methods 225

Input Step A

k–4 k–3 k–2 k–1 k k+1 k+2 k+3

Monitor Output A

k–4 k–3 k–2 k–1 k k+1 k+2 k+3

–A

Figure 10.7 Response of the acceleration monitor to a step input.

acceleration of 0.1 m/s2 followed by an acceleration of −0.1
m/s2. The input acceleration changed once, which results
in an output that changes three times as shown in the lower
part of Figure 10.7. It is also noted that the monitor
responds within the update rate.
10.5.5 Code-Carrier Divergence
The CCD anomaly is primarily of concern to differential
applications that make use of carrier-smoothed code to mit-
igate pseudorange noise and multipath errors. Differential
range errors are introduced when the reference receiver
and the user receiver implement different filter designs
or if the smoothing filters start at different times. In addi-
tion to the detection of satellite malfunctions, the CCD
monitor is also beneficial for the detection of ionospheric
anomalies and cross-correlation. Following [45], a diver-
gence monitor can be designed using a divergence rate esti-
mator followed by a detection test to protect against
divergence rates that affect integrity. The divergence rate
estimator uses a second-order filter to reduce the pseudor-
ange noise and multipath, and is given by
τ − ΔT 1 nal, or anomalous, signal deformation occurred in the
d1 k = d1 k − 1 + z k − z k − 1
τ τ
τ − ΔT ΔT
d2 k = d2 k − 1 + d1 k 10 16
τ τ
where z(k) = ρ(k) − ϕ(k) is the code-minus-carrier measure-
ment, and τ is the filter time constant, nominally set at 30 s.
The divergence rate estimate at time k is given by d2(k).
The divergence detector threshold is set based on the
desired false detection probability, PFD:
T ccd = 2erf − 1 1 − PFD σ d = kfd σ d 10 17
where σ d is the overbound standard deviation of the diver-
gence rate estimator test statistic. The test statistic is domi-
nated by nominal ionospheric divergence, such that a
practical value of σ d is approximately 4 mm/s [45].
Following the derivation for the low-signal-power mon-
itor (see Eq. (10.4)), the minimum detectable divergence
rate is given by
dmin = k fd + kmd σ d 10 18
Using the same example parameters as those used for the
low-signal-power monitor, the minimum detectable diver-
gence rate dmin = 8.4 σ d = 3.34 cm/s.
To evaluate the impact on the user solution, the ground
monitor performance is combined with the implementa-
tion of the airborne monitor (see [21]).
10.5.6 Signal Deformation
GNSS pseudorange measurements rely on correlation func-
tions, but none of them is ideal due to imperfect signal gen-
eration, bandwidth limiting, distortions due to propagation
effects, or satellite anomalies. Signal deformation can there-
fore be characterized as nominal and off-nominal. Nominal,
or natural, signal deformation is needed to characterize the
contribution of the shape of the signal used for the pseudor-
ange measurements, and to derive detection thresholds
based on nominal statistics. An early example of off-nomi-
1990s on SVN19 before GPS was declared IOC. The anomaly
introduced ranging errors up to 8 m for certain differential
GPS users, while the satellite was within its specified accu-
racy [46]. The keys to dealing with off-nominal deformation
are a precise definition of the measurement along with a
threat model that describes off-nominal deformation. Next,
SDMs can be developed to protect against excessive signal
deformation for high-accuracy/high-integrity applications.
Nominal signal deformation. Until the launch of
SVN60 in 2004, nominal GPS signal deformations were
considered small, at the 5 cm level, and did not receive
much attention [47]. When the nominal deformations
started to trip the SDM, detailed investigations were
initiated‚ and it was found that the actual size of the defor-
mation is not as important as the relative differences
between satellites [48]. The relative error directly
226 10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring
Pseudorange Natural Biases for Reference Intervals Only
0.15
0.1
Pseudorange Natural Bias [Meters]
0.05
–0.05
–0.1
–0.15
0 0.1 0.2
PRN01, SV63, Block IIF, EI:57, Pdi:400s
PRN02, SV61, Block IIR, EI:69, Pdi:210s
PRN03, SV33, Block IIA, EI:69, Pdi:400s
PRN04, SV34, Block IIA, EI:82, Pdi:390s
PRN05, SV50, Block IIR-M, EI:87, Pdi:390s
PRN06, SV36, Block IIA, EI:58, Pdi:450s
PRN07, SV48, Block IIR-M, EI:88, Pdi:1000s
PRN08, SV38, Block IIA, EI:77, Pdi:1000s
PRN09, SV39, Block IIA, EI:53, Pdi:600s
PRN10, SV40, Block IIA, EI:68, Pdi:480s
Figure 10.8 Estimated pseudorange natural biases with respect to 0.1 chip correlator spacing for GPS satellites at highest elevation (El)
with the average error removed. Coherent integration times (Pdi) used for each measurement are indicated in the legend, from [49]. Source:
Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation.
contributes to the differential position error, while the com-
mon error primarily affects the clock offset estimate from
GPS time, which is not of concern for precision landing
applications. An example is shown in Figure 10.8 for the
relative C/A code pseudorange natural biases for most
satellites of the GPS constellation in 2012 [49]. Natural
biases are calculated for high-elevation-angle reference
time intervals with the lowest level of multipath during a
satellite pass. Due to multipath error, the duration of the
reference interval is different for each satellite, resulting
in different coherent integration times (Pdi) for each satel-
lite. A correlator spacing of 0.1 chip is taken as the reference
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
E-L Correlator Spacing [chips]
PRN11, SV46, Block IIR, EI:57, Pdi:730s PRN21, SV45, Block IIR, EI:79, Pdi:1560s
PRN12, SV58, Block IIR-M, EI:49, Pdi:300s PRN22, SV47, Block IIR, EI:88, Pdi:1270s
PRN13, SV43, Block IIR, EI:64, Pdi:440s PRN23, SV60, Block IIR, EI:75, Pdi:450s
PRN14, SV41, Block IIR, EI:68, Pdi:1150s PRN24, SV65, Block IIF, EI:53, Pdi:780s
PRN15, SV55, Block IIR-M, EI:79, Pdi:1510s PRN25, SV62, Block IIF, EI:44, Pdi:400s
PRN16, SV56, Block IIR, EI:88, Pdi:650s PRN26, SV26, Block IIA, EI:57, Pdi:610s
PRN17, SV53, Block IIR-M, EI:69, Pdi:980s PRN28, SV44, Block IIR, EI:80, Pdi:500s
PRN18, SV54, Block IIR, EI:76, Pdi:750s PRN29, SV57, Block IIR-M, EI:64, Pdi:1210s
PRN19, SV59, Block IIR, EI:71, Pdi:780s PRN30, SV35, Block IIA, EI:84, Pdi:1290s
PRN20, SV51, Block IIA, EI:41, Pdi:850s PRN31, SV52, Block IIR-M, EI:77, Pdi:450s
PRN32, SV23, Block IIA, EI:60, Pdi:720s
point‚ and relative errors are shown for correlator spacing
between 0.01 and 1 chip.
For example, consider the 0.1 to 0.2 chip zone, where nat-
ural biases are less than 10 cm, with the exception of
SVN60, which reaches a peak error of 12 cm. For a user
with 0.2 chip correlator spacing and a reference station with
0.1 chip correlator spacing, the differential errors between
the satellites is multiplied by the geometric dilution of pre-
cision, which could easily result in vertical position errors
on the order of 0.1 to 0.3 m.
Similar characterization of nominal deformation has also
been performed for GLONASS [50] and Galileo [51].
 10.5 SQM Algorithms and Methods 227

GLONASS natural deformations were found to be at the 1

m level for the 0.1 versus 0.2 chip spacing comparison,
while Galileo natural deformation was found to be at the
1 to 4 cm level. The latter can likely be credited to the digital
signal generation architecture of Galileo satellites [51].
Anomalous signal deformation. To determine the
impact of anomalous signal deformation, a threat model
was developed following the SVN19 anomaly. The threat
model was incorporated into precision approach standards
developed by RTCA Inc. and ICAO to standardize condi-
tions for monitor design and performance [21, 52]. The cur-
rent ICAO threat models for GPS and GLONASS L1 C/A
codes can be found in [52] and are summarized in
Table 10.5.
The second-order system used for Threat Model B has a
unit step response of [52]:
0 t≤0
et = σ of GPS signal deformation anomalies [47, 56–58]. This
1 − e − σt cos 2πf d t + sin 2πf d t t≥0
ωd
10 19
Threat Models A and B are illustrated in Figure 10.9,
where Threat Model A shows the lead or lag of the falling
edge of a positive chip, while Threat Model B shows the sec-
ond-order step response on both the leading and falling
edges of the signal.
Actual occurrences of GPS anomalous signal deforma-
tions after the original SVN19 are analyzed in detail in
[53]. In [54], the WAAS SDM performance is evaluated
against the ICAO Threat Model and actual anomalous sig-
nal deformations. It was found that the current WAAS
monitor based on the ICAO Threat Model performs ade-
quately. Nevertheless, the formulation of an anomalous sig-
nal deformation threat model is a complicated task,
especially for new constellations that use different signal
structures, digital signal generation techniques, and new
navigation payloads [55]. A possible new, generic threat
Δ
A
B
Figure 10.9 Illustration of anomalous signal deformation Threat
Models A and B.
model has been proposed in [55] that will be the topic of
future research in this area.
SDM. Both WAAS ground reference receivers and
GBAS ground stations implement SDM for the detection
section summarizes the GBAS SDM following [47]. GBAS
ground station receivers track each satellite with eight cor-
relators located at the following offsets from the correla-
tion peak in units of C/A code chips: −0.05, −0.025, 0,
0.025, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1, and 0.125, as shown in Figure 10.10.
Each of the eight correlator measurements is smoothed
using a first-order filter to reduce noise:
τ − ΔT ΔT
M k,m,n t = M k,m,n t − ΔT + M k,m,n t
τ τ
10 20
where Mk, m, n is correlator measurement k (from −2 to 5)
for reference receiver m (from 1 to M) and satellite n (from 1
to N), τ is the filter time constant of 100 s, and ΔT is the
update rate of 0.5 s. Three correlation functions widths
are possible for the C/A code depending on the location
of the first sidelobe relative to the main correlation peak.
Therefore, the smoothed correlator measurements are
compensated for C/A code type as described in [58].

Table 10.5 ICAO SDM threat models for GPS and GLONASS L1 C/A codes, from [52]

Threat model GPS GLONASS

A: Falling edge of positive chips lead or lag relative to the correct end-time −0.12 ≤ Δ ≤ 0.12 −0.11 ≤ Δ ≤ 0.11
of that chip by an amount Δ in units of code chips
B: Output of a second-order system with complex conjugate poles at Δ=0 Δ=0
σ ± j2πfd, where σ is the damping factor in 106 nepers/s, and fd is the 4 ≤ fd ≤ 17 10 ≤ fd ≤ 20
resonant frequency in 106 cycles/s 0.8 ≤ σ ≤ 8.8 2≤σ≤8
C: Combination of Threat Models A and B −0.12 ≤ Δ ≤ 0.12 −0.11 ≤ Δ ≤ 0.11
7.3 ≤ fd ≤ 13 10 ≤ fd ≤ 20
0.8 ≤ σ ≤ 8.8 2≤σ≤8
Source: Amendment No. 89 to Annex 10 Part 1 Edition No. 6, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Montreal, Canada, 14 July 2014.
Reproduced with permission of International Civil Aviation Organization.
228 10 GNSS Signal Quality Monitoring

evaluated considering the signal deformation threat model,

Correlation value
(normalized) and differences in aircraft receiver measurement architec-
ture compared to the ground receiver measurements that
are standardized at 0.1 chip correlator spacing [58].

10.6 Challenges and New

Developments

As GNSS constellations and user equipment continue to

develop, performance standards will need to be updated
or created, along with monitoring standards for service
guarantees, user acceptance, and to support high-accuracy
–0.05 0 0.05 0.1 and high-integrity applications. The development of these
Correlator offset
standards is a necessary, albeit time-consuming, process.
C/A code chips
To encourage compatibility and interoperability among
Figure 10.10 GBAS ground reference receiver correlator points systems, the ICG Working Group on Systems, Signals
[47]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of and Services is drafting performance standards guidelines
Navigation.
[6], while the Joint ICG-IGS IGMA Trial Project is tasked
with the demonstration of a global GNSS monitoring and
The received signals are also deformed by the receiver assessment capability [8].
hardware components through the radio frequency Challenges remain for many aspects of GNSS SQM,
components. This distortion can be time-varying due to including algorithm design and implementation for moni-
temperature and component variations. Since this distor- toring and assessment. For example, although cross-
tion is common for all satellites, the monitor subtracts correlation conditions and corresponding monitors have
the average over all satellites from all measurements for been well characterized for the GPS C/A code, much work
one receiver: remains the be done for GLONASS and other GNSSs [34,
35]. Any form of energy leakage can distort the correlation
1 N function, whether it is from the same frequency, a different
M k,m,n t = M k,m,n t − M k,m,i t 10 21 frequency, or due to a poor code cross-correlation sequence.
N i=1
Detection of cross-correlation errors due to satellites that
Following the receiver distortion removal, the compen- are not tracked by the receiver remains an active area of
sated correlator measurements are differenced and aver- research. A second example is the lack of information about
aged over all M ground receivers: carrier phase anomalies for all GNSS signals and frequen-
cies. A third example concerns the SDM threat models,
1 M which are only applicable to the GPS and GLONASS L1
x k,n t = M k − 2,m,n t − M k − 3,m,n t
Mm=1 C/A codes. The development of a generic signal deforma-
10 22 tion threat model is needed for code signal structures other
than L1 C/A, different signal generation techniques, and
where the index k goes from 1 to 7, one fewer than the 8 new satellite navigation payloads [55].
correlator points due to the differencing. Each satellite
now has a vector with 7 elements, xn, that describes its sig-
nal deformation. Under fault-free conditions, the vector xn
has covariance matrix, P(λ), where λ is the elevation angle References
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each satellite as follows: 1 Global Positioning System Standard Positioning Service
Signal Specification, GPS Civil Performance Standard, U.S.
T
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4 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Open Service
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11
GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
Oliver Montenbruck and Peter Steigenberger
German Aerospace Center, Germany
All navigation satellite systems in use today build on the
measurement of pseudodistances to compute a user posi-
tion. These reflect the time difference between signal trans-
mission at the satellite and signal reception at the user, but
are based on two clocks that are imperfectly synchronized
to each other or to a global system time scale. Accordingly,
both the satellite position and the satellite clock offset must
be accurately known to compute a user position in a global
or regional navigation satellite system (GNSS/RNSS). This
chapter discusses the generation of precise orbit and clock
information using ground- or space-based observations.
Evidently, orbit determination and time synchronization
(ODTS) is an integral part of the control system of any
GNSS/RNSS provider, where the motion of the satellites
and the variation of their clock must be continuously
observed, predicted‚ and distributed to the user as part of
the navigation message. Similarly, a variety of scientific
institutions, such as the International GNSS Service (IGS;
[1]), routinely determine precise GNSS satellite orbits and
clock offsets. These GNSS products provide the basis for
precise point positioning (PPP) applications in engineering,
surveying, and geodesy. As a by-product, the precise orbit
determination (POD) process delivers information on Earth
rotation and the terrestrial reference frame, as well as the
state of Earth’s atmosphere. While precise GNSS products
have typically shown latencies of days or weeks, an increas-
ing interest in real-time applications has resulted in various
real-time correction services that generate and distribute
orbit and clock information to their users in a near-
instantaneous manner.
Both orbit and clock determination require a suitable
tracking network offering an ideally global and continuous
coverage (Figure 11.1). This may range from a dozen of
highly secure sensor stations in the GNSS control segment
to networks with hundreds of stations supporting geodetic
and high-performance real-time applications. Ideally, those
networks support tracking of more than one constellation
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
233
at a time and can thus be used for multi-GNSS applications.
For increased autonomy and to cope with territorial con-
straints in the choice of control segment locations, various
GNSSs make use of additional inter-satellite links (ISLs;
[2, 3]) to obtain ranging measurements between individual
satellites. Finally, satellite laser ranging (SLR; [4]) measure-
ments may be used to augment the radiometric tracking or
to validate the POD performance.
Despite the great variety in tools and processes utilized
today for generation of precise orbit and clock information,
the individual systems build on a largely common set of
core concepts and models that are presented in this chapter.
Other than initial orbit determination methods [5] that
seek to find the orbital elements of an unknown space
object from a minimum set of observations, the orbit deter-
mination of GNSS satellites is essentially an estimation
problem. Approximate information on the orbital motion
is typically available‚ and the key goal of the ODTS process
is thus to improve knowledge of the a priori orbit (and
clock) based on new observations. This requires a proper
understanding of the measurement process and an observa-
tion model that describes the measurements as a function
of the transmitter and receiver location as well as other
parameters of interest. The models used for ODTS must
be consistent with the models employed subsequently by
users of the orbit and clock products and vary in complexity
depending on the application. For state-of-the-art precise
orbit and clock determination, the measurements models
agree with those of PPP users aiming at millimeter- to cen-
timeter-level positioning [6]. An overview of these models
is given in Section 11.1.
A second building block is provided by dynamical mod-
els for the orbital motion of the GNSS satellite that are dis-
cussed in Section 11.2. Such models are obviously needed
to predict the satellite position ahead of time when disse-
minating broadcast ephemeris data to the navigation user.
However, they also form an integral part of the orbit
234 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization

Figure 11.1 Orbit and clock determination of global navigation satellite systems is mainly based on one-way GNSS measurements
(red) from a global station network connected to stable atomic clocks as a primary time reference. Complementary observation
techniques may include inter-satellite links (blue) or ground-based satellite laser ranging (green). Composite based on images of NASA
(Earth, SLR station), ESA/Pierre Carril (GNSS Satellites) and the authors (GNSS stations).

determination process, where they are used to describe the
satellite positions at all observation epochs with a mini-
mum set of independent parameters. Even though GNSS
satellite positions can also be recovered on an epoch-
per-epoch basis using a “reverse PPP,” dynamic orbit
determination is generally more robust and accurate.
The use of purely kinematic orbit determination methods
is therefore limited to characterizing the GNSS satellite
motion during selected phases with improperly known
behavior [7].
Estimation methods constitute the third building block of
the ODTS process. They are used to obtain optimal correc-
tions of an a priori model and state parameters from the dif-
ference between observed and modeled measurements.
A variety of different techniques have been developed for
this purpose that can largely be divided into batch and
sequential estimation methods, and are employed in offline
and real-time applications, respectively. Key aspects of
these methods in the context of orbit and clock determina-
tion are presented in Section 11.3.
Finally, Section 11.4 provides an overview of represen-
tative ODTS systems and the various types of GNSS orbit
and clock products made available to users in post-
processing or real time. It also discusses strategies for vali-
dating the precision and accuracy of these products as a
contribution to GNSS performance monitoring and prod-
uct quality control.
11.1 Observation Models
11.1.1 Pseudorange and Carrier Phase
The ODTS process of GNSS satellites is usually based on
dual-frequency pseudorange and carrier-phase observa-
tions of ground-based tracking stations. Even though three
or even four frequencies are nowadays supported by vari-
ous new-generation and modernized GNSSs, processing
techniques that make joint use of more than two frequen-
cies are only gradually evolving. The basic pseudorange
observation equation for observations of satellite S by
receiver R reads as
PSR = ρSR + c Δt R − Δt S + bR,P + bS,P + Δρion + δρx,P
11 1
with the geometric distance between receiver and satellite
ρSR , receiver and satellite clock corrections ΔtR and ΔtS,
receiver and satellite code biases bR,P and bS,P, the first-
order ionospheric delay Δρion, and the vacuum speed of
light c. δρx,P summarizes station displacements, antenna
eccentricities, receiver and satellite antenna phase center
offsets and variations, tropospheric and higher-order iono-
spheric delays, and relativistic effects that will be discussed
below, as well as measurement errors.
Major differences between the pseudorange and carrier-
phase observation equations are the sign of the ionospheric

correction as well as the presence of an integer ambiguity
term nSR and the phase wind-up correction δnSR :
LSR = ρSR + c Δt R − Δt S + bR,L + bS,L
− Δρion + λ nSR + δnSR + δρx,L 11 2
with the receiver and satellite phase biases bR,L and bS,L
and the wavelength λ. For GLONASS, additional inter-
frequency biases (IFBs) have to be considered due to the dif-
ferent transmission frequencies of the frequency-division
multiple-access (FDMA) approach used by GLONASS
[8, 9]. If observations of different GNSSs are processed
simultaneously, additional inter-system biases (ISBs) have
to be taken into account [10]. State-of-the-art GNSS recei-
vers provide a pseudorange measurement precision of
about 10 cm. The carrier-phase measurement noise is typ-
ically around 1–2 mm.
Linear combinations of pseudorange and/or phase obser-
vations of different frequencies i and j can reduce or elim-
inate certain parts of the observation equation. The basic
form of dual-frequency pseudorange (PC) and carrier-
phase linear combinations (LC) is given by
PCi,j = κi Pi + κ j P j , LCi,j = κ i Li + κ j L j
11 3
The most important linear combination is the “iono-
sphere-free” linear combination, which eliminates the
dominating contributions of the ionospheric path delay
Δρion and is further discussed later in this section. The Mel-
bourne–Wübbena linear combination is another important
combination, which is formed from pseudorange and
carrier-phase observations [11, 12] on two frequencies. It
is both geometry- and ionosphere-free and is particularly
well suited for ambiguity resolution even on very long
baselines.
By forming differences between observations of different
stations and/or satellites, dedicated terms of Eqs. (11.1)
and (11.2) can be eliminated: single differences between
two stations remove the satellite clock correction and the sat-
ellite biases, single differences between two satellites remove
the receiver clock correction and the receiver biases. Double
differences between two stations and two satellites remove
both the clock offsets and biases for receivers and satellites.
Among other factors, this is of interest to avoid a large num-
ber of estimation parameters when determining only precise
satellite orbits (but no clock offsets) from pseudorange
and carrier-phase observations. Finally, triple differences
between subsequent observation epochs eliminate the ambi-
guity term if no cycle slip occurs and can therefore be used
for cycle slip detection.
11.1 Observation Models 235
11.1.2 Inter-Satellite Links
Next to pseudorange and carrier-phase observations from
a terrestrial network, ISLs can be used to measure dis-
tances between pairs of GNSS satellites for ODTS purposes
[13]. ISLs may operate in the microwave or optical
frequency range and mostly provide “dual one-way” mea-
surements, in which each of the two spacecraft measures
the transmit time of a signal emitted by the other space-
craft. Even though the two measurements are obtained
consecutively rather than concurrently in present ISL
implementations and concepts, they can be corrected to
refer to a common epoch using a coarse a priori orbit
and clock information [3].
As GNSS satellites are operated well above the atmos-
phere, the respective delays are not relevant for ISLs. The
simplified observation equation for satellites S1 and S2 thus
reads as
I SS21 + I SS12 = 2 ρSS21 + c btS1 + brS1 + c btS2 + brS2
+ ΔρSS21 + ΔρSS12 11 4
with the receive and transmit biases br and bt and correction
terms for phase center offsets and relativistic effects Δρ.
Optical ISL measurements of the latest GLONASS-M satel-
lites have a precision of about 3 cm [14, 15] whereas BeiDou
uses Ka-band ISLs with a precision of 8 cm [3].
ISLs are frequently suggested as a means for autonomous
orbit determination of GNSS constellations [2, 16, 17], but
are only able to determine the inner geometry of the satel-
lites with respect to each other. Therefore, at least one
ground-based monitor station is necessary to provide a link
to the Earth-fixed reference frame. However, as ISLs can
also be used for communication purposes, the size of the
expensive ground network can be significantly reduced.
11.1.3 Satellite Laser Ranging
Except for GPS, all modern GNSS satellites are equipped
with a laser retroreflector array. This enables SLR from ded-
icated observatories such as the stations of the International
Laser Ranging Service (ILRS; [18]). SLR is a two-way ranging
technique that measures the travel time of short laser pulses
[19]. It can be used for validation of GNSS orbits determined
from microwave observations [20] or provide additional
observations for a combined adjustment [21]. The SLR obser-
vation equation for telescope T observing satellite S reads as
2 S 1
Δt ST = ρ + Δρatm + Δρrel + Δρsys 11 5
c T c
with the measured turn-around light travel time Δt ST, geo-
metric distance between telescope and satellite at the time
236 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
of reflection at the satellite ρST , atmospheric delay Δρatm,
relativistic correction Δρrel, and signal delays in the laser
system Δρsys. Within the ILRS, individual SLR range
measurements are averaged over a time interval of
nominally 5 min for GNSS satellites. These resulting nor-
mal points reduce the amount of data and the individual
noise level. They exhibit a precision of one to a few
millimeters‚ whereas the accuracy is at the 1 cm level for
GNSS satellites.
11.1.4 Reference Systems and Frames
Reference systems and their realizations, the reference
frames, provide the metrological basis for modeling GNSS
observations. Satellite orbits are usually modeled in an iner-
tial reference frame‚ whereas the coordinates of the track-
ing stations are referred to an Earth-fixed Earth-centered
reference frame. The transformation between these frames
will be discussed in the following subsection.
The International Celestial Reference System (ICRS) is
an inertial system whose origin is the barycenter of the solar
system. The International Celestial Reference Frame
(currently ICRF3; [22]) is the realization of the ICRS by
Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI; [23]) observa-
tions of extraterrestrial radio sources (quasars). The orien-
tation of the ICRF is realized by a subset of so-called
defining sources. For GNSS applications, a Geocentric
Celestial Reference Frame (GCRF) is usually employed that
has the same orientation as the ICRF, but refers to a differ-
ent origin.
The International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS) is
geocentric, its scale is defined by the SI meter, and its ori-
entation by the 1984 reference meridian of the Bureau
International de l’Heure (BIH) [24]. The latest realization
of the ITRS is the International Terrestrial Reference Frame
2014 (ITRF2014; [25]). GNSS providers use their own ter-
restrial reference systems and frames for their broadcast
ephemeris products [26]. Currently employed versions
include the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84) for
GPS, PZ90.11 for GLONASS, the Galileo Terrestrial Refer-
ence Frame (GTRF), and the BeiDou Coordinate System
(BDCS) for BeiDou. All these frames are aligned to the
ITRF at the decimeter level or better. This constitutes a neg-
ligible contribution of the broadcast ephemeris error
budget and facilitates mixed-constellation positioning in
GNSS receivers with no need to consider reference frame
transformations between individual systems. For the gener-
ation of precise multi-GNSS products within the IGS, orbits
of all constellations are generated in a common IGS-specific
reference frame (currently IGS14; [27]), derived from
the ITRF.
11.1.5 Earth’s Rotation
Like a gyroscope subject to external torques, Earth rotates
about an axis that is not constant but varies slowly over
time. Tidal friction, deformations of Earth, and mass
distributions of the ocean and atmosphere furthermore
complicate modeling and prediction of Earth’s changing
orientation in space [28]. The transformation between
the ICRF and the ITRF is described by the precession
and nutation angles, Earth rotation angle (which relates
to Universal Time 1, UT1), and the location of Earth’s rota-
tion axis relative to the figure of Earth (pole coordinates).
Nutation and precession are primarily caused by tidal tor-
ques of the Sun and Moon. Whereas precession has a main
period of 25 850 years, the dominant term of nutation has a
period of 18.6 years. In addition, nutation involves numer-
ous smaller terms with periods down to a few days. The lat-
est precession-nutation model of the International
Astronomical Union (IAU2006/2000A) is described in
[24]. Celestial pole offsets (CPOs) represent corrections to
the precession-nutation model to account for unmodeled
effects, for example, free core nutation.
Earth Orientation Parameters (EOPs) comprise the
CPOs, ΔUT1 = UT1–UTC, and the pole coordinates.
Whereas GNSS observations are sensitive to polar motion,
they are unable to measure CPOs and ΔUT1 due to correla-
tions with the orbital elements [29]. Only CPO rates and
changes in ΔUT1 (length of day, LOD) are observable with
GNSS, whereas CPOs and ΔUT1 themselves can only be
measured by VLBI. Combined EOP products as well as
EOP predictions are provided by the International Earth
Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), for exam-
ple, Bulletin A [30] and the C04 series [31]. As these series
only include daily estimates, sub-daily variations have to be
modeled according to [24]. As an example, pole coordinates
and LOD estimated from GNSS observations are shown in
Figure 11.2.
11.1.6 Spacecraft Attitude
Modeling of the antenna phase center location relative to
the spacecraft center of mass as well as modeling of the
phase wind-up effect within the ODTS process require
proper knowledge of the satellite’s orientation in space.
Since measured attitude information is rarely available
for this purpose, models of the nominal orientations are
widely employed as an alternative. The attitude of a GNSS
satellite has to fulfill two basic conditions: the transmit
antenna has to point toward the center of Earth to maxi-
mize the signal power received by users around the globe,
and the solar panels have to be oriented toward the Sun to
maximize the available electrical power. To jointly fulfill

0.6
0.5
Y−Pole [as]
LOD [ms/d]
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
−0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3
X−Pole [as]
Figure 11.2 Pole coordinates (left) and length of day (right) derived from GNSS observations. Whereas polar motion is dominated
by the Chandler wobble with a period of about 430 days, annual, semi-annual, four-weekly, and fortnightly variations are visible for length
of day (LOD).
these conditions, the satellite has to rotate around its Earth-
pointing (yaw) body axis to keep the solar panel axis per-
pendicular to the Sun–spacecraft–Earth plane‚ and the
solar panels have to rotate around their axis to face the
Sun. This nominal yaw steering is employed by most GNSS
satellites [32] and can be used to compute the orientation of
the spacecraft body axes for a known position of the Sun
and satellite relative to Earth.
Exceptions to the nominal yaw-steering apply only for
specific periods of the year, that is, the eclipse season, when
the elevation of the Sun above the orbital plane is close to
zero. Near orbit noon and midnight, the Sun and Earth
direction are almost collinear in this period‚ and large
yaw slews need to be performed in a very short time to
maintain the nominal yaw-steering attitude. The resulting
yaw rates can exceed the maximum yaw rates supported by
the satellite, and a different yaw-steering strategy thus
needs to be used. As the attitude control system design
and the preferred strategies for yaw angle control in this
time period differ widely, dedicated attitude models have
been developed for individual constellations and types of
satellites (see, e.g. [33] for GLONASS-M). In some cases,
relevant models have also been disclosed by the system pro-
viders [34, 35], which greatly benefits precise orbit and
clock determination within the scientific community.
11.1.7 Station Location
Station positions are either fixed or estimated in the ODTS
process. In both cases, a priori station coordinates are
needed that account for long-term motion due to plate tec-
tonics, nonlinear motions, and periodic variations. The lin-
ear model for station positions consists of a three-
dimensional set of Cartesian coordinates at a dedicated ref-
erence epoch and a velocity vector. As post-seismic defor-
mations cannot be modeled accurately with this simple
11.1 Observation Models 237
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
−0.5
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
model, additional logarithmic and exponential terms can
be used to model the nonlinear motion of stations affected
by earthquakes [25].
In addition to these long-term motions, the station loca-
tion is affected by a variety of geophysical processes with
annual to sub-daily periods as well as aperiodic effects.
State-of-the-art correction models for these are given in
the conventions of the IERS [24]. Solid Earth tides are
caused by third-body accelerations of Sun and Moon acting
on Earth’s surface resulting in deformations of up to 40 cm.
The variations in water mass due to ocean tides cause a
varying force acting on Earth’s surface resulting in defor-
mations that are most pronounced for coastal regions. This
ocean tide loading can reach up to 10 cm in the height com-
ponent. The amplitude and phase of these periodic varia-
tions obtained from different ocean tide models can be
computed by the ocean tide loading provider of Chalmers
University of Technology [36]. Non-tidal ocean loading is
caused by variations in water mass due to, for example,
storms, and may result in station position changes with a
magnitude of up to 1.5 cm [37]. Changes of Earth’s rotation
axis with respect to the surface of Earth are the origin of the
pole tide with an amplitude of up to 2.5 cm in the radial
direction. The centrifugal force of polar motion has also
an impact on the oceans. This ocean pole tide causes defor-
mations of up to 2 mm.
Atmospheric tidal loading is caused by daily variations in
atmospheric temperature. These cause pressure variations
at primarily diurnal and semi-diurnal time scales with a
maximum effect of 1.5 mm. Non-periodic variations in
the atmospheric masses induce atmospheric pressure load-
ing that is most pronounced for continental sites and can
reach up to 2 cm [38].
Correction models for solid Earth tides, ocean tidal load-
ing, and pole tide are applied in the ODTS process resulting
in station coordinates, orbit, and clock products free of the
238 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
periodic part of these effects. As the permanent deformation
due to tides is also removed from the station coordinates,
these are given in a so-called tide-free system. Users of these
products have to apply the same corrections in their own
analysis in order to be consistent. However, non-tidal ocean
loading and atmospheric pressure loading are usually not
considered in the ODTS nowadays‚ and the signatures of
these effects remain in the estimated parameters although
their amplitude might be damped [39].
11.1.8 Antenna Models
The position of the GNSS satellites is usually referred to the
center of mass (CoM) of the spacecraft‚ whereas the posi-
tion of a ground station refers to a fixed marker. However,
GNSS observations correspond to the actual phase centers
of the transmit and receive antennas. The antenna phase
center offset (PCO) represents the vector between the
CoM and the mean antenna phase center for the transmit
antennas. For the receiver antennas, a mechanically well-
defined antenna reference point (ARP) is used instead of
the CoM. The offset vector between the ground marker
and the receiver ARP is described by the antenna eccentric-
ity, which usually consists of only a height component.
Deviations from a spherical wavefront are modeled by azi-
muth- and zenith-/nadir-angle-dependent antenna phase
center variations (PCVs). PCOs and PCVs are either
obtained by calibrations on ground [40] or estimated as
additional parameters in global GNSS solutions [41]. Fre-
quency-specific satellite and receiver antenna PCOs and
PCVs are provided by the IGS in the antenna exchange for-
mat (ANTEX). The latest model consistent with ITRF2014
is called igs14.atx [27]. Also, direction-dependent group
delay variations (GDVs) have to be considered for pseudor-
ange observations. These are particularly pronounced
for the BeiDou-2 transmit antennas [42], but are also sig-
nificant for GPS transmit antennas and various receive
antennas [43, 44].
11.1.9 Atmospheric Delays
GNSS signals are delayed by the atmosphere on their way
from the satellite to the receiver. In view of their different
properties, contributions due to the ionosphere and the
neutral atmosphere are distinguished in the observation
modeling. The ionosphere extends over a height range of
about 50–1000 km and consists of a plasma of free ions
and electrons. The neutral atmosphere, in contrast,
which includes the troposphere in the lowermost regions
(0–10 km height) and the subsequent stratosphere, is free
of charged particles.
The ionosphere represents a dispersive medium, in
which the range delays vary roughly with the inverse
square of the signal frequency. Code- and phase-based mea-
surements of signals passing through the ionosphere expe-
rience changes of roughly the same size but opposite sign,
and the total delay is proportional to the integral of the elec-
tron density along the signal path [45]. The dispersive char-
acter of the ionosphere can be utilized to eliminate the first-
order ionospheric delay by forming an “ionosphere-free”
linear combination of dual-frequency observations, which
is given by
1
LCi,j = f 2i Li − f 2j L j 11 6
f 2i − f 2j
for carrier-phase measurements Li and Lj and a correspond-
ing expression for the respective pseudoranges. The first-
order term of the ionospheric delay has an order of magni-
tude of up to 30 m in the zenith direction. Higher-order ion-
ospheric terms can reach up to 2 cm. Correction models for
these effects are given in [46].
The tropospheric delay [47] does not depend on signal
frequency and is, furthermore, identical for code and phase
measurements. It can be separated into a hydrostatic and a
wet part. The hydrostatic part depends primarily on the air
pressure and is typically 2.3 m in the zenith direction at sea
level. The wet part depends on the humidity and varies
between 0 and 40 cm in the zenith direction. [48] gives a
simple model to compute the tropospheric delay from tem-
perature, atmospheric pressure, and water vapor pressure.
Input data for this model can be obtained from meteorolog-
ical measurements, the empirical Global Pressure and Tem-
perature (GPT) model [49–51], or numerical weather
prediction (NWP) models. Figure 11.3 shows the zenith
hydrostatic delay for a GNSS station in Tsukuba (Japan)
obtained from a NWP. As the wet delay is difficult to model
due to rapid variations, zenith wet delays (ZWDs) are usu-
ally estimated in precise applications. In addition to short-
term variations of up to 20 cm, the estimated ZWD for
Tsukuba shows a pronounced seasonal variation with a
minimum in the dry winter and a maximum in the humid
summer.
The estimated or modeled delays refer to the zenith direc-
tion‚ but observations are obtained at different elevation
angles. A mapping function describes the relation between
the delay in zenith direction and for a dedicated zenith dis-
tance z. Slightly different mapping functions fh(z) and fw(z)
are used for the hydrostatic and wet delay. Commonly used
mapping functions include the empirical Global Mapping
Function (GMF; [52]) and different versions of the Vienna
Mapping Function (VMF; [51, 53]) based on NWP data.
Asymmetries in the tropospheric delay depending on the
azimuth A can be considered by modeling or estimating
troposphere gradients [54]. The total tropospheric delay
composed of hydrostatic, wet, and gradient delay reads as

Zenith Hydr. Delay [cm] 235
230
225
Jan Apr Jul Oct
Figure 11.3 Tropospheric parameters for the IGS station TSKB in Tsukuba, Japan: (left) zenith hydrostatic delays from a numerical
weather model; (middle) zenith wet delays (ZWDs) estimated from GNSS observations; (right) north/south troposphere gradients estimated
from GNSS observations; the solid line represents an annual and semi-annual fit.
Δρtrp z, A = f h z Δρh + f w z
+ fg z Δρn cos A + f g z
with the gradient mapping function fg(z) [55], the north/
south gradient Δρn, and the east/west gradient Δρe. Daily
north/south gradient estimates of a station with a pro-
nounced annual variation are shown in the right subplot
of Figure 11.3.
11.1.10 Phase Wind-Up
GNSS phase observations are based on right-hand circu-
larly polarized electromagnetic waves. As a result of the
circular polarization, the carrier-phase of the received sig-
nal changes by one wavelength per full rotation of the
receive and transmit antenna with respect to each other.
For a static reference station antenna, orientation changes
originate from rotations of the satellite around its yaw axis
to maintain the nominal attitude as well as changes of the
line of sight due to the relative motion of the satellite with
respect to the receiver. For common satellites, phase wind-
up effects are typically limited to one wavelength and affect
mainly the satellite clock offset. Differential phase wind-up
effects between two stations can reach up to several centi-
meters for intercontinental baselines [56].
11.1.11 Relativistic Signal Propagation Effects
The gravity field of Earth affects the propagation time of
GNSS signals traveling from the satellite to the receiver.
This general-relativistic effect is called the Shapiro effect
and causes a propagation delay of up to 2 cm. As clocks
onboard GNSS satellites have different height and velocity
with respect to the receiver clock, additional relativistic cor-
rections have to be considered to express the observed clock
11.2 Orbital Dynamics 239
40 2
Zenith Wet Delay [cm]
N/S gradient [mm]
30 1
20 0
10 −1
0 −2
Jan Apr Jul Oct Jan Apr Jul Oct
Δρw offset in the clock’s proper time scale. The average part is
compensated by shifting the transmit frequency by a con-
Δρe sin A
stant offset of, for example, −4.4647 10−10 Hz for GPS
11 7 [57]. As GNSS orbits are not perfectly circular, a periodic
term also arises. This effect depends on the eccentricity,
the semi-major axis, and the eccentric anomaly of the sat-
ellite. It can reach up to 14 m for GPS satellites.
11.2 Orbital Dynamics
A satellite orbiting Earth is subject to the gravitational
attraction of Earth as well as a variety of other perturba-
tions. The total acceleration a acting on the satellite can
be described through suitable physical models and depends
•
on the satellite’s position r, its velocity r = v, and time t.
From a mathematical point of view, the propagation of a
satellite orbit thus represents an initial value problem,
which is solved by numerical integration of the second-
•• •
order differential equation r = a r, r , t for given initial
values. As a rule of thumb, dynamical models for GNSS
satellites aim to describe the acceleration at a level of better
than 0.1 nm/s2, which is roughly twelve orders of magni-
tude smaller than the acceleration experienced by a body
on the surface of the Earth. While this accuracy is well
within reach of current models for the gravitational forces,
the description of non-gravitational surface forces often suf-
fers from the lacking knowledge of relevant spacecraft
properties. To bridge this gap, empirical models may be
employed, in which the parameters of a generic model
are adjusted to the observations. Within this section, the
most important constituents of the dynamical model for
orbit prediction and determination of GNSS satellites are
described along with an overview of relevant numerical
integration techniques.
240 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
11.2.1 Gravitational Forces
11.2.1.1 Earth’s Gravity
Earth’s gravitational attraction is mainly directed toward
the center of Earth‚ and the acceleration varies between
0.6 m/s2 at the altitude of a GPS satellite and 0.2 m/s2 at
a geosynchronous altitude. In view of Earth’s extended size
and slightly irregular mass distribution, a spherical harmo-
nics expansion is used to describe the geopotential
∞ n
GM Rn
U = Pn,m sin ϕ
r n=0m=0
rn 11 8
Cn,m cos mλ + Sn,m sin mλ
at geocentric distance r, latitude ϕ, and longitude λ, and
the associated acceleration is given by the gradient
agrav = ∇U . Here GM denotes Earth’s gravitational coef-
ficient (i.e. the product of the gravitational constant and
Earth’s mass), while Cn,m and Sn,m are the model-specific
normalized gravity field coefficients. Various forms of
recurrence relations are available in the literature to evalu-
ate the trigonometric functions and the normalized associ-
ated Legendre polynomials Pn,m in a numerically stable
manner. Among these, the recurrence relations of Cun-
ningham [58] are particularly well suited when working
with Cartesian rather than spherical coordinates.
Since contributions of individual gravity field terms to the
acceleration decrease with the (n + 2)-nd power of the dis-
tance, only a small set of low degree and order coefficients
need to be considered in the orbit modeling of representa-
tive GNSS satellites. Within the IGS, a 12 × 12 subset of
recent GRACE+GOCE(+SLR) gravity field models (e.g.,
GGM05; [59]) is presently applied by most analysis centers.
Beyond the static gravity field, various forms of temporal
gravity field variations are taken into account for best accu-
racy. These include secular changes in the low-order zonal
(C2,0, C3,0, C4,0) coefficients and changes in C2,1, S2,1
related to polar motion but also tidal variations of the geo-
potential caused by solid Earth tides, ocean tides, solid
Earth pole tides, and oceanic pole tides. Details of the
respective models are described in [24] and references
therein.
11.2.1.2 Third-Body Attraction
Next to the dominating gravitational attraction of Earth,
the motion of a GNSS satellite is also subject to the perturb-
ing gravitational acceleration of the Sun, Moon, and pla-
nets. In view of the much larger distance of these bodies,
this acceleration can be adequately described by a point-
mass model. Given a body with gravitational coefficient
GM at geocentric position s , the perturbing acceleration
is given by the difference
s−r s
a3rd-body = GM 3 − 3 11 9
s−r s
of the gravitational accelerations exerted by the body on
the satellite and Earth itself. Representative values of
the third-body perturbation amount to 1.5 μm/s2 and
3 μm/s2 for the Sun and Moon, respectively, while the
tidal acceleration due to the dominating planets
Venus (0.2 nm/s2 at inferior conjunction) and Jupiter
(0.02 nm/s2 at opposition) is at least four to five orders
of magnitude smaller.
For evaluation of Eq. (11.9), the coordinates of the per-
turbing body must be known with adequate precision.
Must commonly, precomputed solar system ephemerides
such as the Development/Lunar Ephemerides (DE/LE;
[60, 61]) of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are
employed for this purpose. Trajectories of the individual
bodies in these ephemerides are represented as Chebyshev
polynomials, which enables a fast computation of luni-
solar and planetary coordinates at moderate storage
requirements.
11.2.1.3 Post-Newtonian Dynamics
Even though Newton’s law of gravity provides an excellent
description of the gravitational forces acting on a satellite,
the high measurement accuracy available in GNSS today
requires a careful consideration of relativistic effects in
the equation of motion. Differences between a relativistic
and a Newtonian formulation scale roughly with the
squared ratio of the satellite’s velocity and the speed of
light, that is, (v/c)2 ≈ 10−10. Despite ongoing efforts to
describe GNSS orbits and measurements in a fully relativ-
istic framework [62, 63], it is common practice to rather
apply a post-Newtonian correction of the acceleration in
the equation of motion [24]. For near-circular orbits, the
leading Schwarzschild term
GM GM
arel = 4 − v2 r
c2 r 3 r
GM r v2
+4 r v v ≈ 3 11 10
r = const r 2 r c2
causes a small reduction of Earth’s central gravitational
attraction and an associated change in the relation of
orbital period and orbital radius (i.e. Kepler’s third law).
When considering the relativistic correction (Eq. (11.10))
within the orbit determination process, the resulting orbital
radius is lowered by about 4.5 mm compared to the Newto-
nian formulation irrespective of the altitude.

11.2.2 Non-Gravitational Forces
11.2.2.1 Solar Radiation Pressure
Electromagnetic radiation carries a momentum that is pro-
portional to the transmitted energy. When radiation is
absorbed or reflected by a surface, this momentum is trans-
ferred to the respective body and causes a subtle radiation
pressure [64]. Solar radiation pressure (SRP) is the domi-
nating source of non-gravitational perturbations for GNSS
satellites, since the Sun is the most intense source of elec-
tromagnetic radiation and since the satellites are equipped
with large solar panels for energy production. At the mean
Earth–Sun distance of about 150 × 106 km, the solar irradi-
ance amounts to Φ = 1361 W/m2 [65], which results in a
pressure of P = 4.5 × 10−6 N/m2 upon complete absorption.
An additional momentum transfer occurs, when radiation
is reflected or re-transmitted from the surface. Denoting the
fractions of absorbed, diffusely, and specularly reflected
photons by α, δ, and ρ, the total force experienced by a sur-
face element ΔA is given by
Φ 2
ΔF = − ΔA cos θ α+δ e + δen + 2ρ cos θ en
c 3
11 11
[64], where en is the surface unit normal vector and e is the
Sun direction unit vector, while θ = arccos e en denotes
the angle enclosed by these vectors; see Figure 11.4.
Equation (11.11) provides the basis for computing the
total SRP acceleration for a given orientation and size of
individual surface elements as well as their optical proper-
ties. The most sophisticated SRP models are based on com-
puter-aided design (CAD) models of the satellite and make
use of ray tracing techniques to describe the illumination
conditions for different incidence angles. In this way,
mutual shading of structural elements as well as multiple
reflections can be taken into account even for complex
spacecraft structures. Early results of ray tracing for SRP
modeling of GLONASS and GPS Block IIR satellites have
been reported in [66–68], while more recent applications
to BeiDou-2 satellites are described in [69, 70].
Incident Incident Reflected
photons photons photons
e⨀ en
θ
ΔA ΔA
ΔF ΔF
Figure 11.4 Depending on the surface properties, solar radiation pressure generates a force opposite to the Sun’s direction (absorption;
left), perpendicular to the surface (specular reflection; center), or a linear combination thereof (diffuse reflection; right).
11.2 Orbital Dynamics 241
To reduce the overall complexity of SRP modeling, box-
wing models may be applied instead of a detailed CAD
model. Here, the spacecraft structure is approximated by
a box-shaped satellite body made up of six rectangular
plates and two additional plates representing the solar
panels. Optical parameters of the individual plate can be
inferred from the material properties or adjusted in the
orbit determination process [71]. Box-wing models are cur-
rently employed for the Galileo and QZSS satellites [72–74]
using either adjusted model parameters or spacecraft meta-
data released by the system providers [35, 34].
Depending on the size and mass, the SRP acceleration
amounts to 50–150 nm/s2 and thus constitutes the biggest
source of orbital perturbations for GNSS satellites after the
tidal accelerations of the Sun and Moon. Besides the dimen-
sions and surface properties, the attitude and solar panel
orientation must be known with good confidence to fully
benefit from analytical SRP models. During normal opera-
tions, the solar panels can typically be assumed to be Sun
pointing, and the satellite body follows a yaw-steering ori-
entation [32]. Deviations from this nominal attitude that
may occur near noon, and midnight turns will affect the
net acceleration due to radiation pressure and have to be
taken into account in the SRP modeling.
11.2.2.2 Thermal Emission
Solar radiation that is absorbed by the spacecraft will result
in heating and ultimately be radiated back into space in the
form of thermal emission. In particular, this applies for
most of the electrical energy generated by the solar panels,
which is converted to heat in the onboard equipment. Ther-
mal radiators mounted on the shaded side of the spacecraft
are commonly used to emit the excess heat produced inside
the spacecraft body and may result in a net force acting on
the satellite. Likewise‚ temperature differences between the
front and backside of the solar panels contribute to accel-
erations along the Sun direction. A detailed thermal mod-
eling and knowledge of the spacecraft design are required
to properly describe the thermal emission and resulting
Incident Reflected
photons photons
ΔA
ΔF
242 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
acceleration [68, 75], which is mostly impractical for orbit
determination. As a workaround, optical properties of box-
wing models may be adjusted to best represent the sum of
SRP and thermal emission, or additional empirical accel-
erations may be taken into account and inferred from
observations.
11.2.2.3 Earth Albedo and Infrared Radiation
Besides the direct illumination by the Sun, reflected sun-
light from Earth as well as infrared radiation from Earth
constitute a second source of radiation pressure. Since
the reflectivity (or “albedo”) varies notably across Earth,
cloud coverage maps are required for a detailed modeling
of Earth radiation pressure (ERP). The total ERP accelera-
tion is obtained by summing contributions from individual
grid points over the visible portion of Earth [76]. For each
grid point, the irradiance is evaluated based on the local
albedo and infrared emissivity as well as the Sun–satellite
geometry, and the contribution to the ERP acceleration is
evaluated in analogy with Eq. (11.11). The impact of ERP
on the orbit modeling of GPS satellites has been assessed
in [77] based on Earth albedo and emissivity data from
the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES;
[78]). ERP results in a predominantly radial acceleration
that counteracts the gravitational attraction of Earth and
causes a 1.5 cm reduction of the orbital radius for GPS Block
IIA satellites when considered in the orbit determination
process.
11.2.2.4 Antenna Thrust
Aside from reflected Sun light or thermal emission, the
transmission of radio signals contributes to a recoil acceler-
ation [64] that is always directed away from Earth. The
impact of this “radiation rocket” effect on orbit determina-
tion of GPS and GLONASS satellites has early on been dis-
cussed in [79], but its proper consideration has long
suffered from limited public availability of transmit power
information for most GNSS satellites. More recently, such
values have been derived in [80] from measurements of
received signal power using a calibrated high-gain antenna.
Transmit powers vary substantially across the various
spacecraft types and range from about 50 W for early gen-
erations of GPS and GLONASS satellites to roughly ten
times this value for some of the most powerful GNSS satel-
lites at a geosynchronous altitude [34]. Depending on the
spacecraft mass and orbit, consideration of antenna thrust
in the orbit determination process results in a lowering of
the orbital radius by up to 3 cm [80].
11.2.2.5 Empirical Accelerations
The limited availability of GNSS spacecraft design informa-
tion for orbit modeling purposes has triggered the use of
purely empirical acceleration as a substitute or complement
for a priori models of the non-gravitational forces. Among
these, the Extended CODE Orbit Model (ECOM; [81, 82])
and its successor ECOM-2 [83] proposed by the Center
for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) have gained
widespread attention and are routinely applied for POD
of all GNSSs in the scientific community. The ECOM mod-
els describe the acceleration
aD D0 Dc,n
aemp = aY = Y0 + Y c,n cos nu
n
aB B0 Bc,n
Ds,n
+ Y s,n sin nu 11 12
n
Bs,n
due to SRP and other contributions through constant and
harmonic terms in a DYB-frame aligned with the Sun direc-
tion (D), the solar panel axis (Y), and the orthogonal B-
direction. The argument u measures the orbital longitude
relative to the ascending node of the orbit on the equator
(ECOM) or the projection of the Sun’s direction on the
orbital plane (ECOM-2). The individual model coefficients
(or a well-observable subset thereof ) are adjusted within
the orbit determination process. While a five-parameter
model considering only D0, Y0, B0, and the harmonics
Bc,1 and Bs,1 has proved to be well suited for use with
GPS and GLONASS satellites, higher harmonics were intro-
duced in ECOM-2 to best match the conditions of stretched
satellite bodies such as those of Galileo and QZSS [83].
In order to compensate remaining modeling deficiencies,
additional empirical accelerations in the radial, along-
track, and cross-track directions may be estimated in the
orbit determination process. These are typically modeled
as piecewise constant or piecewise linear parameters. Alter-
natively, pseudo-stochastic pulses can be estimated that
represent instantaneous velocity increments at a limited
set of epochs within the observation arc [81].
11.2.2.6 Maneuvers
To maintain a desired constellation geometry under the
action of secular perturbing forces or to move satellites to
a new orbital slot, GNSS satellites need to conduct orbit cor-
rection maneuvers at semi-regular intervals. The maneuver
frequency varies with constellation and orbit type and
ranges from a few maneuvers over the mission lifetime
(Galileo) to semi-annual maneuvers of QZSS and BeiDou
satellites in inclined geosynchronous orbits, or even
monthly maneuvers of geostationary navigation satellites.
In most cases‚ maneuvers can be described through a con-
stant acceleration vector in a reference frame aligned with
 11.3 Parameter Adjustment 243

the radial, along-track, and cross-track direction, or, alter-
natively, an impulsive velocity increment. Even though
GNSS satellites are commonly flagged as “unhealthy” in
the vicinity of a maneuver and the outage may be
announced ahead of time, the planned time and parameters
of a maneuver are only available to the control center and
system providers themselves. Incorporation of maneuvers
into the orbit determination by external institutions is ham-
pered by the lack of a priori information and commonly
results in a lack of ephemeris products for the maneuvering
satellite over a full day. Various strategies have therefore
been developed by individual analysis centers to infer the
occurrence of a maneuver and approximate maneuver
times from observations for subsequent consideration
and adjustment of the maneuver in the subsequent orbit
determination process [84, 85].
acceleration computations and results in high efficiency.
On the other hand, much effort is required in the start-
up phase, which may become impractical if the integrator
needs to be restarted frequently. Such restarts are required
at orbital maneuvers, but also other events that mark a dis-
continuity in the higher derivatives of the equation of
motion (e.g. shadow transits [88]). Likewise, multi-step
methods appear unsuitable for sequential estimation and
orbit determination schemes. Here, the initial conditions
for the trajectory propagation change at each measurement.
To cope with the need for frequent integrator restarts, sin-
gle-step methods such as the diverse class of Runge–Kutta
methods are preferable in these applications.
11.3 Parameter Adjustment

The dynamical and observation models discussed in the

11.2.3 Numerical Integration
A wide range of numerical integration methods is available
to compute a satellite orbit based on the equation of motion
and known initial conditions [5, 86, 87]. Since GNSS orbits
are typically near circular, a step-size control is not nor-
mally required‚ and a fixed step size can be chosen in
accordance with the accuracy requirements. The choice
of specific methods depends largely on the application
and also on the employed estimation strategy. Multi-step
methods maintain a table of derivative values at past epochs
based on which the solution at the next step can be
predicted. This offers high accuracy at a minimum of
previous sections provide the basis for describing the mea-
surements through a limited set of initial conditions and
model parameters. Starting from an initial guess or past
estimate, refined values of these parameters may then be
obtained in a differential correction process [89]. Despite
a variety of different estimation techniques and a smooth
transition between the extremes, two fundamental classes
may be distinguished (Figure 11.5). In the batch least-
squares process‚ all observations are available prior to the
start of the adjustment process and used concurrently to
derive a set of parameters which minimizes the difference
between modeled and measured values over the entire data

Adjusted Orbit
Least Squares Estimation
Measurements
zi

Reference Orbit
xˆ

Correction
x0
Initial State

Extended Kalman Filter Measurements

zi
Measurement
xi+
Update
xi–
Propagated Orbit
(Time Update)
x0
Initial State

Figure 11.5 Schematic view of orbit determination based on least-squares estimation (top) and extended Kalman filtering (bottom).
244 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
arc. Least-squares estimation is widely used for orbit and
clock determination in IGS analysis centers but also forms
the basis of the ODTS process in various GNSS control cen-
ters. Sequential estimation schemes, in contrast, enable an
“on-the-fly” refinement of the estimated parameters as new
observations become available. By their nature, sequential
estimation is the method of choice in real-time applica-
tions. Examples include the Kalman filter of the GPS
mission control center [90] or the filters used for generating
real-time orbit and clock estimates in PPP correction
services [91–93].
11.3.1 Least-Squares Estimation
Given a set of observations z and a model function h x that
depends on a set of parameters x, least-squares estimation
aims to find the value that minimizes the weighted norm
z − h x Pzz− 1 of the difference between the observations
and the model. Within the ODTS process, z typically com-
prises the pseudorange and carrier-phase measurements
collected by the monitoring stations, while x combines
the initial conditions of the orbit, satellite and clock offsets,
phase ambiguities, and tropospheric zenith delays as well
as other unknown parameters of interest. When linearizing
the loss function about an approximate value x 0, the least-
squares solution is described by the normal equation
H WH x − x 0 = H W z − h x 0 , 11 13
where H = dh dx denotes the design matrix and where the
weighting matrix W = Pz−z1 is set equal to the inverse of the
measurement covariance. For zero-mean measurement
errors, Eq. (11.13) yields an unbiased estimate x of the true
−1
solution with covariance P xx = H WH . The solution
of the normal equation and, optionally, the covariance
matrix can be obtained through a Cholesky decomposition
[94] of the information matrix H WH. Alternatively, vari-
ous other factorization techniques are available to solve the
normal equations in a numerically stable manner. Among
others, these include the square root information filter
(SRIF; [95]) formulation that has been adopted for the Gip-
syX GNSS processing and orbit determination software of
the JPL [96, 97].
A priori information can be incorporated into the least-
squares estimation by considering the modified loss func-
tion z − h x Pzz− 1 + x − x a Px− 1x , where x a and P x−a x1a
a a
denote the a priori value of x and its covariance. The corre-
sponding minimum is obtained for
−1
x = x 0 + H WH + P x−a x1a H W z − h x0
+ Px−a x1a x − x a 11 14
In the same way, normal equations resulting from
multiple data batches i may be combined, to find the
least-squares solution
−1
x = x0 + Ni di 11 15
i i
with N i = H i W i H i and d = H i W i zi − hi x 0 that
corresponds to the joint processing of all data in a common
estimation. This “normal equations stacking” offers a con-
venient way to obtain long-arc parameter estimates in
GNSS orbit determination without requiring a continuous
orbit modeling over extended periods. By way of example,
the results of daily solutions may be combined to estimate
site displacements, EOPs, or GNSS transmit antenna offsets
over a multi-year time frame.
Given the large number of satellites, stations, and epochs
concurrently processed in a least-squares ODTS, the nor-
mal equations quickly attain a dimension that renders a
direct solution (or inversion of the full information matrix)
cumbersome, if not impossible. On the other hand, large
parts of the information matrix are only sparsely populated.
Among others, this is due to the fact that pseudorange and
carrier-phase observations at a given epoch do not depend
on clock offsets at any other epoch. By suitable arrange-
ment of clock offsets in the estimation vector, the normal
equations can therefore be arranged into blocks of diagonal
and fully populated matrices. This block structure can then
be used to pre-eliminate certain parameters and effectively
reduce the size of the final normal equations. Considering,
for example, a set of estimation parameters A and B and the
associated normal equations
N AA N AB x A − x A,0 dA
= 11 16
N BA N BB x B − x B,0 dB
the solution for x A can formally be expressed as
−1
x A − x A,0 = N AA dA − N AB x B − x B,0 11 17
When substituted into the normal equations, the solution
−1 −1 −1 −1
x B − x B,0 = N BB − N BA N AA N AB dA − N BA N AA dA
11 18
is obtained for the second set of parameters. By eliminating
parameters A, the dimension of the normal equations
has been reduced from dim x A + dim x B to dim x B at the
expense of requiring an inversion of the information matrix
N AA This can be accomplished with moderate effort,
though, if N AA is a sparse or, ideally, diagonal matrix.
11.3.2 Sequential Estimation
Other than least-squares estimation, which only provides a
solution for the parameters of interest after processing all

observations in the entire data arc, sequential estimation
schemes provide a new solution after processing of each
individual observation (or a small batch of observations).
In the most widely applied sequential estimation scheme,
the extended Kalman filter (EKF), an estimate of the filter
state x i and its covariance P i are maintained, which are
recursively updated at each observation epoch ti [89, 98].
This update is performed in two basic steps. In the first part,
the time update step, a dynamical model is used to predict
the evolution of the state parameters and their covariance
from one epoch to the next. Within the subsequent meas-
urement update, the predicted state is “blended” with the
observations to obtain an optimal estimate of the current
state, taking into account both past and new information.
The latter step is essentially equivalent to least-squares esti-
mation using the predicted filter state as a priori informa-
tion and processing just the observations at the new
epoch. However, it does not require solution of the normal
equations but makes use of an explicit relation to compute
the updated state.
Using superscripts − and + to denote values before and
after processing of the new observations, the EKF time
update equations may be summarized as
x i− = x t i ; x t i − 1 = x i+− 1
11 19
P i− = Φi P i+− 1 ΦTi + Qi
while the measurement update equations are given by
−1
K i = Pi− H i W i− 1 + H i P i− H i
x i+ = x i− + K i zi − hi x i− 11 20
P i+ = 1 − K i H i Pi−
The factor K is known as the Kalman gain and maps the
difference between observed and modeled measurements
to a correction of the estimated state. Φi = dx i dx i − 1
denotes the state transition matrix, that is, the partial deri-
vatives of the propagated state x i− with respect to the initial
conditions x i+− 1 . The process noise Q that is added to the
propagated covariance accounts for an increase in the state
uncertainty over the propagation arc due to deficiencies in
the dynamical model. Depending on the parameter of inter-
est, different process noise models (white noise, correlated
noise) may be applied. Large amounts of process noise will
give the filter a “fading memory” and reduce the impact of
past observations on the current estimate, while low proc-
ess noise will make the filter less receptive to new observa-
tions and may result in filter divergence. Proper choice of
the size and type of process noise is thus part of the “art”
of Kalman filter tuning and is often a matter of experience
with the specific nature of the problem at hand.
While Eq. (11.20) provides a mathematically correct
formulation of the filter update step, it is sensitive to
11.3 Parameter Adjustment 245
round-off errors and should therefore be avoided in practice.
Alternative formulations such as the Joseph update equation
P i+ = 1 − K i H i Pi− 1 − K i H i + K i W i− 1 K i ,
11 21
or factorization methods that directly update a unit triangu-
lar matrix U and a diagonal matrix D of a UDU decompo-
sition of the covariance matrix are therefore recommended
to ensure numerical stability of the Kalman filter imple-
mentation [95].
When applied to orbit and clock estimation of GNSS
satellites, the instantaneous satellite position and velocity
as well as the instantaneous satellite and station clock off-
sets constitute individual elements of the filter state that are
propagated between epochs and subsequently updated with
the new measurements. Compared to a batch least-squares
estimator, the filter provides sequential estimates of the
“current” clock parameters rather than simultaneously sol-
ving for clock parameters at all individual observation
epochs. This allows for a dramatic reduction in the size
of the estimation parameter vector and greatly facilitates
the filter implementation. On the other hand, the filter’s
estimate is only based on past observations‚ and a for-
ward-backward filter/smoother is needed to achieve results
compatible with the least-squares process when using the
Kalman filter in offline processing.
The Kalman filter concept also offers an attractive way to
handle estimation parameters that cannot be described by a
rigorous dynamical model but rather represent a random
process. In many cases, the respective states (or their devi-
ation from the model) can be described by a first-order
Gauss–Markov process [98]. The corresponding state para-
meters exhibit an exponential autocorrelation with time
scale τ and a steady-state standard deviation σ [89, 95].
In the time update step of the Kalman filter, the exponen-
tially correlated random variables (ECRVs) are described as
xi = exp (−(ti − ti − 1)/τ) xi − 1, and their covariance is
incremented by a process noise Q = σ 2 (1 − exp (−2
(ti − ti − 1)/τ)). Among others, ECRV states are useful to
describe empirical accelerations in the force model or
atmospheric delays in the observation model.
11.3.3 Ambiguity Resolution
As discussed in Section 11.1, GNSS receivers provide both
pseudorange and carrier-phase observations. In view of
their low measurement noise, use of carrier-phase observa-
tions is indispensable for high-precision orbit and clock
determination. The carrier-phase ambiguity is an unknown
quantity, but is constant during continuous tracking of a
GNSS satellite by a station. In the ODTS process, a distinct
ambiguity parameter must thus be estimated for each indi-
vidual tracking arc and satellite-station pair.
246 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
For further improvement of the accuracy, use can be
made of the fact that ambiguities can be partitioned into
an integer multiple of the signal wavelength as well as a
receiver-dependent fractional part (that is common to all
tracked satellites) and a satellite-dependent fractional part
(that is common to all receivers in the network). When
forming between-satellite and between-receiver double dif-
ferences, the fractional parts vanish‚ and the resulting dou-
ble-difference ambiguity is of integer nature. Knowledge of
this integer value effectively converts the ambiguous dou-
ble-difference carrier phases into highly precise double-
difference pseudoranges and results in a notably improved
stiffness of the observed satellite-station geometry.
Mathematically, the combined adjustment of integer-
valued ambiguities along with float-valued other para-
meters represents a “mixed-integer” least-squares prob-
lem‚ and various sophisticated techniques have been
developed to solve it in an optimal and robust manner
[99]. However, due to the large number of ambiguity para-
meters, simpler strategies are employed in common ODTS
software packages that build on a so-called wide-lane/nar-
row-lane ambiguity concept for use with dual-frequency
observations [100]. In a first step, the wide-lane ambiguity,
that is, the difference n1 − n2 between ambiguities on the
first and second frequencies is determined. It can be
obtained through integer rounding from double differences
of the Melbourne–Wübbena combination over a suffi-
ciently long data arc. In a second step, a float-valued esti-
mate of the n1 ambiguity can then be computed and
fixed to an integer value based on the ionosphere-free car-
rier-phase ambiguity obtained in the initial ODTS process
and the knowledge of the wide-lane ambiguity [101].
Ambiguity fixing for undifferenced data is also possible if
fractional wide-lane delays are estimated [102]. When con-
straining double-difference ambiguities for a globally dis-
tributed set of stations and satellites to integer values,
representative performance improvements by a factor of
two have been achieved by IGS analysis centers in the orbit
and clock product generation [103].
11.4 Systems and Products
The models and techniques presented in the previous sec-
tions provide a common algorithmic basis for all GNSS
orbit and clock determination systems. Over time, a multi-
tude of ODTS tools and systems has evolved, which all
make use of these basic concepts, but differ in specific
aspects in response to application needs or simply inherited
preferences. Within this section, we present a selection of
ODTS systems along with their overall architecture and
operation. Complementary to this, different classes of orbit
and clock products are compared, and basic strategies for
quality control and validation are discussed.
11.4.1 Architecture and Tools
To illustrate the overall architecture of the ODTS process,
flowcharts for two representative implementations are
shown in Figure 11.6. They describe orbit and clock deter-
mination in the GPS Control Segment as well as generation
of precise orbit and clock products within the IGS and its
analysis centers.
11.4.1.1 GPS Control Segment
The left part of Figure 11.6 describes the (near-)real-time
orbit and clock determination process employed in the
master control station (MCS) of the United States’ Global
Positioning System [90, 104]. It is based on a Kalman filter
and processes observations in a sequential manner. The
MCS continuously receives raw observations on the L1
and L2 frequency from the five GPS monitoring stations.
In a first processing step, ionosphere-free combinations
are formed‚ and various initial corrections are applied. Fur-
thermore, the pseudorange observations are smoothed with
accumulated delta range (i.e. carrier phase) observations to
obtain low-noise normal points at a 15 min sampling. These
measurements are then processed in the Kalman filter,
which computes a state correction relative to a precom-
puted reference trajectory at the same update interval.
These epoch states are then used to predict the future orbit
and clock evolution and to adjust the broadcast ephemeris
parameters for the subsequent upload to the satellite. In
parallel to the actual ODTS process, a performance monitor
is operated, which continuously compares epoch states and
broadcast ephemerides, and evaluates observed range resi-
duals, that is, the difference between observed pseudo-
ranges and values modeled from the navigation message.
The reference ephemeris that serves as the basis of the
differential correction process in the MCS Kalman filter
is generated in a separate process. The orbital dynamics
model comprises an 8×8 gravity model, luni-solar pertur-
bations, solid Earth tides, and an a priori SRP model, while
the evolution of clock states is described through second-
order polynomials in time. EOPs that are required for the
transformation of satellite positions into the Earth-fixed
reference frame are provided to MCS by the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) on a weekly basis
and treated as fixed parameters. Within the filter, correc-
tions of the inertial satellite positions and velocities rela-
tive to the reference trajectory as well as two radiation
pressure parameters are estimated along with the clock
offset, drift, and, optionally, rate of satellite and monitor-
ing station clocks.
 11.4 Systems and Products 247

A priori orbits, Raw

Raw clocks and EOPs Observations
Observations
Preprocessing
Reference Corrector &
Ephemeris Smoother Cleaned
Observations
Iteration loop
Smoothed
Observations
Measurement model & partials
Ephemeris & Trajectory propagation & partials
Clock
Estimation Observation loop

Normal equation
Epoch loop

Epoch Solution of normal equation

States

Estimated Ambiguity
Upload parameters fixing
Navigation Data
Generator
Trajectory Residuals &
propagation Screening
Performance Navigation
Monitor Message
Products

Figure 11.6 Flowchart of the orbit and clock determination process for the legacy operational control system of GPS (left) and a
representative IGS analysis center (right).

Since only clock differences but no absolute clock offsets
can be observed from pseudorange observations, a single
monitoring station was originally selected as a master clock
to which all other satellite and station clocks were referred.
Later, a “composite clock” concept [105] was implemented
that realizes GPS time as a weighted average of all clocks in
the space and ground segment to improve the overall accu-
racy. Still, the exclusive use of one-way (pseudorange and
carrier phase) observations implies a tight integration of
the satellite clock offset and system time determination
with the determination of the satellite orbits in the GPS
control system. Despite a different overall architecture,
the same applies as well for other constellations such as
GLONASS and Galileo. As an exception, BeiDou uses a
two-way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTFT)
technique to synchronize the space and ground clocks
[106]. The resulting clock offsets are later combined with
independent orbit determination results to generate the
broadcast navigation message in this navigation system.
11.4.1.2 IGS Precise Orbit and Clock Product
Generation
Complementary to the MCS Kalman filter, the right-hand
part of Figure 11.6 illustrates the typical data flow of a
least-squares orbit and clock determination process as
employed by IGS analysis centers. Examples of software
packages using this or similar concepts include the Bernese
GNSS Software [101] maintained by the Astronomical
Institute of the University of Bern, the GAMIT-GLOBK
software of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
[107], JPL’s GipsyX [97], the NAvigation Package for Earth
Orbiting Satellites (NAPEOS; [108]) of the European Space
Agency, and the Position and Navigation Data Analysis
(PANDA; [109]) software of Wuhan University, China.
The IGS processing is typically based on daily files of
GNSS observation data collected by a global station net-
work with a representative sampling interval of 30 s. Out
of the large number of IGS stations‚ only a subset of typi-
cally 80–300 stations is processed, which is selected based
on data quality, geographic distribution, availability of
high-performance atomic clocks, and co-location with
other geodetic measurement techniques. As part of the pre-
processing, code and phase observations of the selected sta-
tions undergo a screening, which may be purely data driven
or employ a priori information on satellite orbits and sta-
tions coordinates. Furthermore, cycle slips in the carrier-
phase observations are identified and – if possible –
repaired. In addition, the measurements may also be sorted
into passes of continuous tracking and constant carrier-
phase ambiguity.
248 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
Starting from a priori state vectors, which commonly
result from a previous prediction, the trajectories of all
GNSS satellite are propagated to the individual observation
epochs. Along with this, the variational equations are inte-
grated to obtain the state vector partials with respect to the
a priori state as well as the partials with respect to force
model parameters. Based on the measurement model for
pseudorange and carrier-phase observations, normal equa-
tions can then be formed and solved for the parameters of
interest. Among others, float-valued estimates of the indi-
vidual carrier-phase ambiguities are obtained, which may
further be fixed to integer values as part of a dedicated
ambiguity resolution step. After correcting the initial values
of all state, force, and measurement model parameters, sub-
sequent iterations may be used for further refinement to
cope with the nonlinearity of the employed models.
11.4.1.3 Estimation Parameters
Aside from the choice of estimation techniques and process
flows, the orbit and clock determination in near-real time
differs from its post-processing counterpart by the way in
which certain parameter groups are estimated or modeled.
Representative choices for ODTS in the control segment of
a GNSS provider and high-precision ODTS in space geodesy
are summarized in Table 11.1.
Within the near-real-time ODTS, satellite orbits and
clock offsets as well as station clock offsets must be
estimated from a limited amount of observation data. To
cope with the resulting lack of observability, the ODTS
process relies on a priori data and models. Post-processed
solutions can be based on a much larger station network
and extended data arcs. This enables estimation of a larger
set of parameters (such as station coordinates, Earth
rotation parameters, and tropospheric delays) from the
observations, and also supports the resolution and fixing
Table 11.1 Typical ODTS parameters in the control center and scientific post-processing applications
Parameter Control Segment
Satellite orbits Estimated
Satellite clocks Estimated
Solar radiation pressure Estimated
Station coordinates Fixed or heavily constrained
Receiver clocks Estimated
Ambiguities None or float
Differential code biases — Estimated or corrected a priori
Troposphere zenith delays Modeled
Troposphere gradients Neglected
Earth rotation parameters Fixed
of carrier-phase ambiguities for increased accuracy. In both
cases, constraints may need to be applied to handle correla-
tions among certain parameters. Most obviously, this
applies to satellite and station clocks, which require a com-
mon datum (such as a master clock). Likewise, constraints
are needed in the joint estimation of station coordinates
and Earth rotation parameters. Here, a no-net-rotation con-
dition with respect to a priori station coordinates may be
applied to break the correlation of the two parameter
sets [110].
11.4.2 Validation
Along with the generation of orbit and clock products for
GNSS satellites comes the obvious need to assess the accu-
racy of these products and to validate their conformance
with specified or desired performance values. Given the
lack of a truth standard against which a GNSS ephemeris
product can be compared, a variety of techniques have been
devised to assess the precision, that is, the repeatability, and
partly accuracy, of orbit and clock products. These include
ephemeris overlaps, inter-comparisons of different solu-
tions, or point positioning analyses. Additional tests may
be used to provide specific information on either orbit qual-
ity (SLR) or clock quality (TWSTFT; clock fits). The most
important techniques are briefly described.
11.4.2.1 Ephemeris Comparison
Comparison of orbit positions computed by different anal-
ysis centers in terms of bias and standard deviation (STD)
allows evaluation of the consistency of these solutions.
However, care must be taken when interpreting the results
of such comparisons. As only the consistency of two solu-
tions is assessed, good results can be obtained if two anal-
ysis centers consistently use the same bad model.
Post-Processing
Estimated
Estimated or eliminated by double differencing
Estimated
Estimated
Estimated or eliminated by double differencing
Fixed to integers
Estimated at 1- or 2-h intervals
Estimated at daily or shorter intervals
Polar motion, polar motion rates, and LOD estimated at daily intervals

40
2016
20
Radial [cm]
−20
−40
Jan Apr Jul Oct
Figure 11.7 Radial orbit differences between the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) and Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum
(GFZ) orbits of Galileo satellite E102. The change in October 2016 is related to the adoption of ECOM-2 by GFZ.
Figure 11.7 illustrates the radial orbit differences of two
analysis centers (CODE and GFZ) for a selected Galileo sat-
ellite. Until October 2016, CODE and GFZ used different
SRP models, resulting in an STD of 9 cm. After GFZ
adopted the SRP model of [83] already used by CODE
before, the STD decreases to 4 cm with a further decrease
down to 2 cm in August 2017 when CODE implemented
albedo and antenna thrust.
A common quantity to evaluate the stand-alone perfor-
mance of a GNSS is the signal-in-space ranging error
(SISRE). The broadcast orbits, clocks, and group delays
transmitted via the navigation message are compared with
a precise reference product of superior accuracy‚ and a
global average is formed. The SISRE is computed as
2
SISRE = RMS w1 δR − δT + w22 δ2A + δ2C
11 22
where δR, δA, and δC denote the epoch-wise differences of
broadcast and precise ephemerides in the radial, along-
track, and cross-track directions, while δT denotes the cor-
responding clock difference. Furthermore, w1 and w2 are
weighting factors depending on the orbit height that
account for the average contribution of individual orbit
errors to the line-of-sight range [111].
Orbit 1 RMS
Day n Day n+1
Figure 11.8 Computation of orbit overlap statistics for two orbits with an overlap period of 1 day.
11.4 Systems and Products 249
2017
Jan Apr Jul Oct Jan
11.4.2.2 Orbit and Clock Overlaps
Another method of evaluating the internal consistency of
GNSS orbit and clock products is overlap comparisons.
For multi-day solutions, the 3D orbit RMS or the clock
RMS or STD of overlapping sub-intervals can be computed.
Figure 11.8 illustrates this differencing for the second day of
a two-day arc with the first day of the consecutive two-day
arc. For consecutive one-day solutions, orbit predictions
can be used or so-called day boundary discontinuities can
be computed, that is, the 3D difference between the orbit
positions at midnight.
11.4.2.3 Point Positioning
PPP [112] is an absolute positioning technique utilizing
dual-frequency pseudorange and carrier-phase measure-
ments as well as precise satellite orbit and clock products.
By applying the correction models discussed in Section 11.1
and estimating auxiliary parameters like receiver clocks,
troposphere parameters, and ambiguities, positioning
accuracies at the several-millimeter level can be achieved.
With dedicated orbit and clock products, even integer
ambiguity resolution is possible [113]. As the orbit and
clock accuracy directly affects the positioning performance,
PPP can also be used to evaluate the quality of these pro-
ducts. Formal errors, the convergence time, or the scatter
Orbit 2
Day n+2
250 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization

of kinematic coordinate estimates of a static station or mul-
tiple static solutions with respect to a reference solution
(e.g. the IGS combined reference frame product) are typi-
cally used as quality indicators. The same quantities can
also be used to assess the broadcast orbit and clock products
in a single point positioning with single- or dual-frequency
pseudorange observations.
11.4.2.4 Satellite Laser Ranging
As already mentioned in Section 11.1, the optical SLR tech-
nique can be used as a validation tool for satellite orbits
obtained from microwave observations. SLR residuals rep-
resent the differences between the SLR range measure-
ments and the ranges computed from positions of the
SLR station and the satellite orbit obtained from GNSS
observations. SLR residuals are especially suited to reveal-
ing systematic errors in GNSS orbits, for example, due to
SRP mis-modeling [114, 115]. As an example, Figure 11.9
shows the SLR residuals for the CODE orbits of Galileo
E102. Until 2014, pronounced systematic errors due to an
inappropriate SRP model were visible. These errors van-
ished in 2015, when CODE switched to the more sophisti-
cated ECOM-2 model [83]. However, a systematic bias of
about 5 cm remained. This bias became significantly smal-
ler in mid-2017, when albedo and antenna thrust were con-
sidered. The biannual short periods with increased SLR
residuals are related to eclipses of the satellite.
11.4.3 Orbit and Clock Products
11.4.3.1 Broadcast Ephemerides
Orbit and clock information generated in the GNSS control
centers is disseminated to the users in the form of broadcast
ephemerides. These represent predictions of the latest
ODTS results and comprise a small number of parameters
based on which the users can compute approximate
positions of the GNSS satellites as well as the expected clock
offsets. Two basic parameterizations – Keplerian and
Cartesian – are presently employed by the different GNSS
providers to describe the evolution of the satellite orbit over
time. The Keplerian orbit model enables an analytical com-
putation of the satellite position at any time within a prede-
fined validity period based on a set of orbital elements and
complementary perturbation terms. It has been adopted by
GPS, BeiDou, Galileo, IRNSS/NavIC, and QZSS and
involves a total of 15–17 parameters. The GLONASS navi-
gation message, in contrast, provides the satellite’s state
vector (i.e. position and velocity) as well as a vector of
luni-solar perturbational accelerations at a reference epoch.
Based on these data‚ the user receiver can then obtain the
satellite position in the vicinity of the reference epoch
through numerical integration. Complementary to the
orbit model, low-order polynomials (with two to three para-
meters) are used by all constellations to describe the evolu-
tion of the clock offset over time.
The accuracy of broadcast ephemerides depends on a
variety of factors, in particular‚ the length of the prediction
arc and the fit interval used in their generation, but also the
stability of the onboard clock. It is commonly assessed in
terms of SISRE, that is, the combined contribution of the
orbit and clock errors to the modeled pseudorange (see
Section 11.4.2.1). Representative SISRE values for the cur-
rently operational constellations range from about 0.2–2 m
(RMS) [111, 116–118], which is generally adequate for posi-
tioning at the 1–10 m level. So far, broadcast ephemerides
provide the only source of satellite orbit and clock informa-
tion that is ubiquitously available in real-time for all
constellations.
11.4.3.2 Precise Orbit and Clock Products
GPS orbit and clock solutions have been provided by the
IGS for more than 20 years and have become a benchmark
for high-precision applications in science and engineering
[119]. Traditionally, three categories of products are distin-
guished that differ by their latency, update rate, and accu-
racy. With a precision at the one- to few-centimeter level (in

20
2014 2015 2016 2017
10
SLR Residuals [cm]

−10

−20

−30
Jul Oct Jan Apr Jul Oct Jan Apr Jul Oct Jan Apr Jul Oct Jan Apr Jul Oct Jan

Figure 11.9 Satellite laser ranging residuals for the CODE orbits of Galileo E102.

terms of orbit, clock, and range modeling errors), the “final
products” offer the highest performance level but are only
made available after about two weeks. “Rapid products” in
contrast are made available the next day and exhibit an only
slightly lower precision. “Ultra-rapid” products, finally, are
issued four times a day with a latency of 3 h after the end of
the data arc. The observed part of the ultra-rapid products is
complemented by a one-day prediction, which still provides
a 5 cm orbit accuracy but may exhibit clock errors at the
0.5 m level similar to broadcast ephemerides. All three
GPS products result from a combination process that com-
putes a weighted average of solutions contributed by indi-
vidual IGS analysis centers (ACs) to ensure high quality
and robustness at all times [120]. Making use of monitoring
stations with high-performance atomic clocks and inter-
faces to national timing laboratories in the clock combina-
tion process, a common ensemble time (IGS Time, IGST) is
realized that is closely aligned with and traceable to the
GPS and UTC time scales.
Complementary to GPS, a combined GLONASS final
orbit product with 3 cm precision is provided by the IGS.
The evolution of the weighted RMS of the individual ACs
with respect to the combined orbits is illustrated in
Figure 11.10. However, no combined GLONASS clock
product is presently provided due to systematic, satellite-,
and product-specific clock biases in the solutions of individ-
ual ACs [121]. These biases are related to the use of an
FDMA modulation scheme in GLONASS along with fre-
quency-channel-dependent code biases in the receivers that
vary notably between different receiver types. To cope with
this problem, weakly constrained bias parameters are com-
monly estimated in the orbit and clock determination proc-
ess. The individual clock products only offer a limited
(decimeter- to meter-level) accuracy for pseudorange-based
100
BKG
80
WRMS [mm]
60
40
20
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Figure 11.10 Weighted RMS of analysis center contributions with respect to the IGS combined final orbits for GLONASS. BKG: Bundesamt
für Kartographie und Geodäsie (Germany); COD: Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (Switzerland); EMX: National Resources Canada;
ESX: European Space Agency (Germany); GFZ: Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (Germany); GRG: Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales,
Collecte Localisation Satellites, Groupe de Recherche de Géodésie Spatiale (France); IAC: Information and Analysis Center (Russia).
11.4 Systems and Products 251
positioning, but can still be used for centimeter-level PPP
based on carrier-phase observations.
Aside from the legacy constellations GPS and GLONASS,
the IGS has started to provide orbit and clock products for
Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS within the frame of its Multi-
GNSS pilot project (MGEX; [122]). As of early 2020, three
MGEX ACs provide multi-GNSS products covering all five
constellations‚ and another three cover a subset thereof.
With orbit and clock errors of about 4 cm (RMS contribu-
tion to the modeled pseudorange), the MGEX products for
Galileo currently exhibit the best performance among the
new constellations. Among others, the orbit and clock
determination of Galileo benefits from the public release
of satellite metadata such as radiation pressure models
and antenna characteristics, which greatly facilitate a real-
istic modeling of Galileo orbits and observations.
Compared to Galileo, a roughly three times lower perfor-
mance is presently achieved for BeiDou satellites in
medium Earth orbit (MEO) and inclined geosynchronous
orbit (IGSO), but substantially larger uncertainties apply
for the orbit determination of BeiDou satellites in geosta-
tionary orbit (GEO). In view of the near-static viewing
geometry, some orbital elements are barely observable with
pseudorange and carrier-phase observations from ground-
based stations for these satellites, and the resulting solu-
tions are very sensitive to all forms of measurement and
modeling errors. Complementary use of SLR [123] and
observations from spaceborne GNSS receivers in LEO
[124] have been suggested to cope with this problem, but
are difficult to realize in practice.
QZS-1, the first satellite of the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Sat-
ellite System‚ has been included in MGEX orbit and clock
products for many years, but only moderate accuracies have
been achieved so far. SLR residuals and the consistency of
COD EMX ESX GFZ GRG IAC
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
252 11 GNSS Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization
different solutions indicate orbit errors at the 0.5 m level
[122] in MGEX products of QZS-1 up to 2016. More recently,
incorporation of enhanced radiation pressure models has
reduced SLR residuals to less than 1 dm [73, 74]. On the
other hand, new challenges are posed by the latest addition
of a GEO satellite into the QZSS constellations.
All IGS ACs make use of common exchange formats for
the distribution of GNSS orbit and clock information. These
include the “Special Format 3” (SP3) format for satellite
orbit and clock information [125] as well as the comple-
mentary “Clock RINEX” format [126] for clock solutions
of satellites and monitoring stations. Since GNSS satellite
orbits are sufficiently smooth to allow interpolation across
extended periods of time, sampling intervals of 5–15 min
are commonly adopted for the respective SP3 files. On
the other hand, a much higher temporal resolution is
required for clock offset information‚ and most ACs nowa-
days support sampling intervals down to 30 s in their Clock
RINEX products. For specific applications, dedicated high-
rate clock products are, furthermore, made available by the
CODE analysis center [127].
11.4.3.3 Real-Time Products
As a complement to regional, differential correction ser-
vices, various commercial providers have established dedi-
cated services to support global PPP in real time. These are
based on a precise GNSS orbit and clock determination per-
formed by the service provider from a sufficiently dense
network of worldwide monitoring stations. The ODTS proc-
ess is similar to the one performed inside a GNSS control
center, but typically designed to support higher accuracy
and multiple constellations. To reduce the required com-
munication bandwidth, the precise orbit and clock infor-
mation obtained in this process is usually expressed as a
correction relative to the GNSS-specific broadcast ephem-
eris valid at the same instant of time. Once generated,
the corrections can be disseminated through geostationary
communication satellites to users with suitably equipped
GNSS receivers. Using frequencies close to the L1/E1-band
for transmission of the correction data, combined antennas
for GNSS and correction data reception can be used‚ and
modems for decoding the correction can be integrated right
into the user equipment. Examples of real-time correction
services include Fugro’s OmniSTAR, Trimble’s RTX serv-
ice, NavCom’s StarFire system, and the TERRASTAR serv-
ice of Veripos [92, 128–130]. In addition, NASA’s JPL has
established the Global Differential GPS system and pro-
vides real-time correction data and orbit/clock products
to interested customers [91] on a commercial basis.
A free access to real-time orbit and clock corrections is
offered by the IGS Real-Time Service (RTS) [131, 132]. It
comprises GPS real-time products from eight ACs and three
streams with combined solutions for improved accuracy
and reliability. In addition, some streams include correc-
tion data for GLONASS, Galileo, and/or BeiDou. Standard
deviations of the GPS real-time orbits and clocks are at the
3 cm (0.1 ns) level, which enables decimeter-level point
positioning in real time.
Given the increasing public demand for accurate posi-
tioning, various GNSS providers are now considering the
provision of real-time correction data as part of the trans-
mitted GNSS signals. This is particularly convenient for
the respective users since no additional hardware other
than a surveying-grade GNSS receiver and antenna are
required. Examples of such services include the QZSS Cen-
timeter-Level Augmentation Service (CLAS; [133]) and the
planned High-Accuracy Service (HAS) of Galileo. While the
QZSS service area is naturally confined to Japan and sur-
rounding territories, Galileo aims to enable decimeter-level
PPP on a global scale [134].
To harmonize the exchange of orbit and clock corrections
as well as auxiliary data for real-time PPP across different
vendors and service providers, the State Space Representa-
tion (SSR) concept has been developed [135]. An associated
set of messages is also incorporated into the latest version of
the standard for Differential GNSS Services of the Radio
Technical Commission for Maritime Services (RTCM;
[136]). RTCM-SSR messages are used in the IGS RTS,
and an advanced set of highly compact SSR messages has
been defined for the QZSS CLAS.
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 259

12

Ground-Based Augmentation System

Boris Pervan
Illinois Institute of Technology, United States

12.1 Introduction
• provides very limited capabilities for curved and parallel
approaches,
The Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) is a local
area differential GNSS (DGNSS) architecture designed to
• is highly sensitive to local terrain and nearby structures
(the associated multipath must be eliminated through
provide navigation services for civil aircraft users during careful assessment and grooming of the local environ-
precision approach and landing. The GBAS ground compo- ment), and
nent, illustrated in Figure 12.1, is composed of a number of
key elements, including multiple spatially separated multi-
• each glideslope and localizer can serve only a single run-
way end – meaning that two installations are needed to
path-limiting antennas, a comprehensive integrity monitor- fully equip a single runway, and many more for an air-
ing system, and a VHF transmitter to broadcast differential port with several runways.
corrections and integrity information to airborne users. The
airborne component uses the differential corrections and GBAS addresses all of these concerns. Curved and paral-
integrity information to accurately estimate aircraft position lel approaches are easily handled; multipath is mitigated by
(within about 1 m) and to perform the final quantitative antenna design; and a single GBAS facility can serve all
assessment of navigation integrity. runaway ends at an airport.

12.2 Motivation for GBAS 12.3 History of GBAS

Navigation for civil aircraft precision approach and landing
has a history spanning many decades in the form of the
instrument landing system (ILS). An ILS installation is
made up of a VHF localizer (horizontal) beam, a UHF gli-
deslope (vertical) beam, and three marker beacons under
the approach path. During the final approach, an aircraft
uses the localizer signal to determine its displacement from
the runway centerline and the glideslope to measure its
deviation from the nominal glidepath (typically 3 ). The
marker beacons provide coarse distance checks to the air-
craft during the approach.
ILS has been an extremely reliable system over the years,
with a flawless safety record (no fatalities have been directly
attributed to ILS failure). However, there are a number of
important practical issues that have motivated the develop-
ment of GBAS. For example, the ILS system:
The earliest concept related to today’s GBAS was the Spe-
cial Category I (SCAT-I) standard developed in 1993 by
RTCA [1]. It defined the requirements under which DGNSS
could be used to support the same operations as a Category
I ILS. At the same time, the Federal Aviation Administra-
tion (FAA) launched an agenda with more ambitious goals.
The FAA’s “Pathfinder” Category III Feasibility Program
[2] was a joint effort involving government (FAA and
NASA), industry (E-Systems and Wilcox), and academia
(Ohio University and Stanford University). The program
was decisive success, culminating in over 400 successful
automatic landings using different variants of DGNSS.
On the basis of these successes, in 1995, the FAA launched
the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) program [3].
Over time, the FAA has phased out the use of the LAAS
moniker in favor of its international name, GBAS.

Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

0004815231.3D 259 13/12/2020 12:53:42 AM

 260 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System
GPS Satellites
Ranging Sources
Differential Corrections,
Integrity Data and
Path Definition
Figure 12.1 Overview of the GBAS (Source: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)).
12.4 GBAS Performance
Requirements
The overall quality and utility of an ILS system is rated
according to the specific aircraft operations it can support.
These are divided into three tiers as follows [3, 4]:
• Category I (CAT I): If the horizontal visibility on the run-
way, known as the runway visual range (RVR), is greater
than 1800 ft, a CAT I system may deliver the aircraft
down to a decision height (DH) of 200 ft.
• Category II (CAT II): If the RVR is greater than 1200 ft, a
CAT II system may deliver an aircraft down to a DH of
100 ft.
• Category III (CAT III): These systems are generally
designed for automatic landing. Some variability in
ground system performance is allowed, ranging from
50 ft ≤ DH < 100 ft to no DH at all, depending on the
degree of fault tolerance in the aircraft’s avionics.
0004815231.3D 260
Status Information
GBAS
Ground
Facility
GBAS
Reference
Receivers
Omnidirectional VHF Data
Broadcast (VDB) Signal
GBAS is intended to provide equivalent performance
with existing ILS CAT I, II, and III systems. It will also pro-
vide a “differentially-corrected positioning service” (DCPS)
to support terminal area operations including initial
approach, non-precision approach, missed approach, and
departure, as well as more complex terminal area proce-
dures. The GBAS service volume is approximately 23 nmi.
GBAS precision approach and landing performance
requirements are classified in terms of GBAS Approach Serv-
ice Types (GAST). GAST A and GAST B designate systems
whose performance is suitable for “approaches with vertical
guidance” (APV-I and APV-II). A GAST C system is designed
to support precision approach operations to the lowest Cat-
egory I minima (i.e. RVR and DH). A GAST D system is
designed to support precision approach operations to the
lowest Category III minima, when augmented with other
airborne equipment – as is the case with CAT III ILS-
equipped aircraft, which additionally use radar altimeters
and inertial systems. The required performance is defined
13/12/2020 12:54:01 AM

as the navigation system performance as observed at the out-
put of a fault-free airborne subsystem. Faults in the avionics
are managed by onboard redundancy; these are outside the
scope of the ILS and GBAS systems.
GAST A and B are much less stringent services than
GAST C (CAT I) and will not be discussed further (because
any GAST C system will be capable of providing the same
services). Going one step further, it is also true that a GAST
D (Cat II/III) system will be able to provide GAST C service.
The common requirements between the two systems will
be described in in the context of a GAST C (CAT I) imple-
mentation. A GAST D system, which, as noted above, pre-
sumes additional airborne equipment, will satisfy all these
requirements plus additional ones to enable CAT II/III
operations.
As is the case with other aircraft navigation systems, the
requirements are allocated across four fundamental areas:
Accuracy is the measure of the navigation system output
error under fault-free conditions. It is most often speci-
fied in terms of required 95% performance.
Integrity is the ability of the system to provide timely
warnings when the system should no longer be used
for navigation – for example‚ due to the presence of
faulty sensor measurements. The metric typically used
to quantify integrity is integrity risk, which is the joint
probability that a navigation system error or failure is
not detected and that it results in position errors exceed-
ing either a horizontal alert limit (HAL) or a vertical alert
limit (VAL). The effect of this joint event at the aircraft is
called hazardously misleading information (HMI).
Integrity risk is therefore the same as the probability
of HMI.
Continuity is the ability of the navigation system to meet
the accuracy and integrity requirements for the duration
of the intended operation. It is usually quantified by con-
tinuity risk, which is the probability of a detected, but
unscheduled, navigation function interruption after the
operation has been initiated.
Availability is the fraction of time the navigation system is
usable – as determined by compliance with accuracy,
integrity, and continuity requirements – before the oper-
ation is initiated.
The GBAS requirements for GAST C/CAT I are listed in
Table 12.1 [5, 6]. As noted earlier, GAST D systems also
need to meet these requirements. However, to understand
the additional requirements for GAST D, some knowledge
of GBAS integrity threats and their monitoring for GAST
C will be required. We will therefore defer a discussion of
GAST D requirements after the prerequisite topics are
covered.
0004815231.3D 261
12.4 GBAS Performance Requirements 261
Table 12.1 GBAS GAST C requirements
Accuracy Horizontal 16 m
(95%)
Vertical (95%) 4m
Integrity Risk 2 × 10−7 per approach
(150 s)
Time to alert 6s
LAL 40 m
VAL 10 m
Continuity Risk 8 × 10−6 in any 15 s
Availability Fraction of time 0.99 to 0.99999
12.4.1 Reference Receivers
To ensure integrity and continuity in the event of a refer-
ence receiver failure, GBAS uses multiple reference recei-
vers. At least three receivers are required to provide the
desired capability for detection and exclusion of a failure
of a single reference receiver. Four (or more) receivers
can further help ensure availability (of integrity and conti-
nuity) after a detected receiver fault.
The use of multiple reference receivers will also improve
accuracy and fault-free integrity of the differential correc-
tion. This improvement is possible because ground multi-
path, which is the largest normal source of measurement
error in GBAS that is not reduced by differential correc-
tions, may be averaged across the multiple receivers. The
antennas feeding each of these receivers are typically sepa-
rated by 100 m or more to minimize multipath correlation
between the receivers.
12.4.2 Multipath-Limiting Antennas
If left unmitigated‚ multipath is a significant error source in
the measured code phase (pseudorange) at the GBAS
ground receivers. Attenuating the multipath error in air-
port environments is not always easy. GBAS installations
typically use special multipath-limiting antennas (MLAs),
careful siting, averaging of differential corrections across
antennas, and, if needed, masking troublesome spot
regions of the sky (if they are the source of unwanted reflec-
tions from nearby structures). However, there is some flex-
ibility allowed in ground system quality, which is measured
by the standard deviation of the accuracy of the broadcast
corrections, σ pr_gnd. GBAS ground system facility accuracy
performance is divided into three separate classes, called
Ground Accuracy Designators (GADs) [5]. Figure 12.2
shows the upper bound curves for σ pr_gnd as a function of
elevation for the three classes of ground installation:
GAD-A, GAD-B, and GAD-C. The curves assume averaging
13/12/2020 12:54:02 AM
 262 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System

1
0.9
GAD-A
0.8 GAD-B
0.7 GAD-C
sigmapr-gnd

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
elevation (deg)

Figure 12.2 Standard deviation of broadcast carrier-smoothed

correction error (in meters) due to multipath and receiver noise for
a GBAS ground installation with three reference receivers.

across three reference receivers, which is a typical number

for GBAS. The respective GAD performance for different
numbers of reference receivers can be easily computed
using the standardized formulas provided in [5–7].
The GBAS ground system will broadcast its GAD to air-
borne users as well as the values of σ pr_gnd for each satellite.
It is anticipated that most ground systems will be GAD-C
installations, because this high level of accuracy will be
needed to enable GAST D service. An example of a verti-
cally stacked dipole MLA for GAD-C is shown in
Figure 12.3 (left image).
12.4.3 Ground Processing
GBAS ground processing has two main purposes: (1) gen-
erate differential corrections and other reference data for
transmission to aircraft in the local area and (2) detect
and remove of anomalies present in the GBAS “signal-in-
space” (SIS) that would otherwise result in an unacceptable
integrity risk to an aircraft on the final approach. The sat-
ellite signals and broadcast reference data collectively
define the GBAS SIS. The notion of an SIS is introduced
to distribute accountability between the ground and air-
borne navigation subsystems. The aircraft is responsible
for the proper functionality of the airborne equipment
(which would generally include the implementation of
redundant sensor tracks to provide the means for detection
and removal of airborne equipment failures), while the
GBAS ground system is responsible for the detection of
anomalies in both the received satellite signals and the
GBAS reference data broadcast to the aircraft. The ground
system functions form the core of the GBAS system, and
Figure 12.3 (Left) BAE ARL-1900 multipath-limiting antenna for
GAD-C; (right) DB Systems three-element VHF Data Broadcast
(VDB) antenna.
therefore will be discussed separately, in much greater
detail, in Section 12.6.
12.4.4 VHF Data Broadcast
The VHF Data Broadcast (VDB) organizes and encodes the
data provided by the GBAS ground processor into a stan-
dardized format and transmits it to local area users. The
VDB operates in the 108–117.975 MHz frequency band in
25 kHz channels, using a time division multiple access
(TDMA) protocol. The messages are encoded by a differen-
tial 8-phase shift keying (D8PSK) modulation format and
updated and broadcast at 2 Hz. An example VDB broadcast
antenna is shown in Figure 12.3 (right image).
There are 10 message types (see Table 12.2) [8], three of
which are directly relevant to differential positioning –
Message Types (MT) 1, 2, and 11 – and one message,
MT 4, which provides data describing the local final
approach and terminal area procedures. MT 4 is broadcast
every 10 s.
MT 1 is the core GBAS message; it contains the ranging
corrections obtained using 100 s carrier-smoothed pseudor-
anges, associated correction rates and error standard devia-
tions, as well as orbit ephemeris decorrelation parameters,
and so-called b-values, which will be described in
Section 12.6. MT 1 is broadcast at a 2 Hz rate. It is intended
to support GAST C service. For GAST-D-capable GBAS

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 12.5 Error Sources and Faults 263

Table 12.2 VDB messages and broadcast rates from [8]

Message
type Message name Minimum broadcast rate (Note 5) Maximum broadcast rate

1 Differential corrections – 100 s
smoothed pseudoranges
2 GBAS-Related Data
3 Null message
4 Final Approach Segment (FAS)
construction data
Terminal Area Path (TAP)
construction data
5 Ranging source availability
6 Reserved for carrier corrections
7 Reserved for military
8 Reserved for test
11 Differential corrections – 30 s
smoothed pseudoranges
101 GRAS pseudorange corrections – (As
defined in the ICAO Amex 10 SARPs)
For each measurement type: All For each measurement type: All
measurement blocks, once per frame measurement blocks, once per slot
(Note 1) (Note 1)
Once per 20 consecutive frames Once per frame
N/A Once per slot
All FAS blocks once per 20 consecutive All FAS blocks once per frame (Note 2)
frames (Note 2)
(Notes 2 and 3) (Notes 2 and 3)
All impacted sources once per All impacted sources once per 5
20 consecutive frames consecutive frames
— —
— —
— —
For each measurement type: All For each measurement type: All
measurement blocks, once per frame measurement blocks, once per frame
(Note 4) (Note 4)
— —

Note: The notes referenced in the table are in [8]. A “frame” is ½ s in length.
Source: From RTCA DO-246E, GNSS-Based Precision Approach Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) Signal-in-Space Interface Control
Document (ICD), 13 July 2017.

installations, MT 11 is also broadcast at a 2 Hz rate to aug-
ment MT 1 by additionally providing corrections for 30 s
carrier-smoothed pseudoranges (and associated correction
rates and standard deviations). The significance of the
two different smoothing time constants will be discussed
in Section 12.8. MT 2 contains additional information rele-
vant ionospheric and tropospheric spatial decorrelation
and protection level generation. The data is not needed
for positioning, but it is critical for integrity assurance.
However, the data in MT 2 does not change in response
to real-time measurements at the reference station, and
therefore it does not need to be broadcast at the same high
rate as MTs 1 and 11. Like MT 4, it will typically be broad-
cast once every 10 s.
12.4.5 Avionics
At the GBAS user end, the avionics processor applies the
received differential corrections to the smoothed pseudor-
anges obtained at the aircraft. The corrected pseudoranges
are then used to estimate the aircraft’s position, with a
resulting accuracy of about 1 m (1-σ). In addition to gener-
ation of these real-time position estimates, which is an obvi-
ous practical requirement for the navigation system, the
GBAS avionics also has an important role in the integrity
assurance process. Because it has knowledge of the satel-
lites that are being used in the position estimate, which
the ground does not, the position-domain protection levels
are also produced by the avionics. In addition, there are
some specific SIS monitoring functions, in particular aiding
the detection of ionospheric fronts, that are also resident in
the avionics. These integrity functions and the protection
levels will be discussed in detail in the next section.
12.5 Error Sources and Faults
In basic local area DGPS, a reference GPS receiver is placed
at a precisely known location in the near vicinity of the user
to calibrate GPS SIS errors. These include nominal satellite
orbit and clock errors and nominal ionospheric and tropo-
spheric delays, all of which are highly spatially correlated.
DGPS is not effective against native receiver errors like
thermal noise and multipath; these are actually increased
because multiple receivers are used – two in basic DGPS
(reference plus user) and more in GBAS (multiple refer-
ences plus user). Nevertheless, because the SIS errors are
typically much larger, positioning accuracy can be
improved significantly, to the sub-meter level, using GBAS.

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 264 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System

12.5.1 Nominal Error Sources σ tropo = σ N h0 f θ 1 − e − Δh h0

The residual nominal errors are due to multipath, thermal
noise, and spatial and temporal decorrelation. A detailed
description of these error sources and their modeling can
be found in [7]. Multipath and thermal noise error var-
iances at the GBAS ground system can vary depending
on the multipath rejection capabilities of the ground system
antennas; the three GAD classes are shown in Figure 12.2.
It is expected that GAST C and D installations will adhere to
the GAD-C standard. The aircraft multipath and thermal
noise variances are classified into either of two types, Air-
borne Accuracy Designator (AAD) A or B; these are shown
in Figure 12.4. Aircraft serving GAST D must be equipped
with AAD B equipment [9].
Residual tropospheric errors are primarily due to the
altitude differences (Δh) between the reference station
and aircraft. They are largely removed via modeling using
broadcast data in MT 2, which includes the local estimated
refractivity index (NR) and tropospheric scale height (h0), as
well as the refractivity uncertainty (σ N). The tropospheric
correction (TC) applied at the aircraft is
TC = N R h0 f θ 1 − e − Δh h0
≈ N R f θ Δh
12 1
where θ is the satellite elevation angle, and f (θ) is the asso-
ciated mapping function:
≈ σ N f θ Δh
12 3
Residual ionospheric error due to spatial decorrelation
cannot be modeled like the troposphere because of the
extreme spatial variability of the ionosphere (even under
normal conditions). However, the differential ranging error
is equally likely to be positive or negative, so it is modeled as
zero mean. The standard deviation of the error is propor-
tional to the standard deviation of the vertical ionospheric
gradient (σ VIG), and the effective displacement (xeff)
between the reference station and the aircraft:
σ iono = σ VIG g θ x eff 12 4
where g(θ) is the obliquity factor
RE cos θ 2
gθ = 1− 12 5
RE + hI
RE is the Earth radius (6378 km), and hI is the assumed ion-
ospheric shell height (350 km). The effective distance is the
sum of the physical distance and an additional virtual dis-
placement caused by the “memory” of the airborne
smoothing filter of the aircraft traveling through the
gradient:
x eff = x air + 2vair τ 12 6

f θ = 10 − 6 0 002 + sin 2 θ 12 2 where xair is the physical displacement between the current
aircraft location and the GBAS reference point indicated in
The post-correction tropospheric error is assumed to be MT 2, vair is the aircraft’s ground speed, and τ is the smooth-
zero mean with standard deviation given by ing filter time constant. The proof of this result is provided
in [10]. The parameter σ VIG is broadcast in MT 2. Values of
2 to 4 mm/km are typical, but some margin may be imple-
mented to account for unmodeled effects of horizontal trop-
0.6
ospheric variations, as suggested in [11].
0.55 Orbit ephemeris errors also decorrelate spatially, but
0.5 AAD A under normal (unfaulted) conditions the resulting satellite
0.45 AAD B position errors are on the order of a few meters, which is far
0.4 too small to cause appreciable differential error even for air-
Sigmapr-air

craft at the outer edges of the GBAS service volume. Finally,

0.35
as noted earlier, the effect of data link latency is managed
0.3 by broadcasting the rate of change of the pseudorange cor-
0.25 rection in MT 1. The result is centimeter-level differential
0.2 error at the aircraft given nominal range accelerations. It
0.15 is important to keep in mind, however, that satellite orbit
and clock faults can cause much larger differential ranging
0.1
0 20 40 60 80 100 errors. This will be discussed in some detail in the next
Elevation (deg) sections.
The effects of all of the nominal errors are quantified by
Figure 12.4 Standard deviation of carrier-smoothed
pseudorange error (in meters) due to multipath and receiver noise the fault-free protection levels [5]. For example, the fault-
for a GBAS-equipped aircraft. free vertical protection level is

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 12.5 Error Sources and Faults 265

N
VPLH0 = kffmd S2v,i σ 2i = kffmd σ v
i=1
where
N is the number of satellites usesd in the position estimate,
Sv,i is the partial derivative of position error in the vertical
direction with respect to the corrected pseudorange error
on the ith satellite,
σ 2i is an upper bound of the variance of the nominal error
(due to all sources) of the corrected pseudorange used
at the aircraft for satellite i, and
σ v is the standard deviation of the nominal vertical posi-
tion error.
This position error bound is consistent with the integrity
risk allocated to the fault-free hypothesis, which is encoded
in the integrity multiplier, kffmd, whose value (based on a
bounding zero-mean normal distribution) ranges from
5.76 to 5.85 [9], depending on the number of reference
receivers being used.
12.5.2 Anomalous Error Sources
The most important potential threats to GBAS integrity are
listed in Table 12.3. There are three possible ultimate ori-
gins: GPS SIS faults (i.e. the satellites), GBAS ground sta-
tion faults, and anomalies in the propagation medium.
The mean fault rate for most of the SIS faults is
assumed to be 10−4/h. This rate is much larger than
the satellite fault probability of 10−5/h specified in
the GPS Standard Positioning Service Performance
Specification (GPS-SPS-PS) [12]. The reason for this
is that the definition of fault in the GPS-SPS-PS corre-
12 7 sponds only to errors larger than 4.42 × σ URA. The
broadcast GPS navigation data provides the information
needed to compute σ URA for each satellite, and the smallest
σ URA that can currently be encoded is 2.4 m. This means
that faults smaller than about 10 m are never accounted
for in the specified 10−5/h rate, and that faults much larger
than 10 m may not be covered for satellites with larger
σ URA. Because operations with VAL = 10 m will be heavily
influenced by ranging errors with magnitudes smaller than
10 m (per satellite), the GPS SPS-PS fault definition is not
suitable for GBAS. So, to include the probability of occur-
rence of smaller faults, a fault rate of 10−4/h – an order
of magnitude larger than the GPS-SPS-PS rate – is used
instead. This specific rate is based on analysis in [13].
The use of 10−5/h for ephemeris faults is justified by the fact
that extremely large satellite position errors (1000 m or
more) are needed to produce worrisome differential posi-
tioning errors. As long as only satellites with σ URA≲ 200
m are used, the GPS-SPS-PS specified rate of 10−5/h can
be safely assumed.
As discussed in Section 12.5.1, nominal spatial and tem-
poral variations in the ionospheric delays are accounted for
in GBAS and do not pose a threat. However, unusual
behavior during ionospheric storms may result in large spa-
tial gradients, over 400 mm/km in slant ionospheric delay,
which are referred to as ionospheric fronts. Such structures
have been observed over continental United States
(CONUS) in 2000 and 2003 and are detailed in [14]. It is
expected that much higher values are possible in more
active regions near the equator. For an approaching aircraft
using GBAS, gradients this large could cause vertical

Table 12.3 GBAS anomalous error sources and faults [4], and prior probabilities of occurrence

Origin Fault/anomaly Threat Prior probability

SIS Excessive range Rapid accelerations cause large differential errors over latency 10−4/h
acceleration period
SIS Erroneous ephemeris Large satellite position errors lead to differential positioning errors 10−5/h
data
SIS Satellite signal Inconsistent correlation errors between ground and air receivers 10−4/h
deformation causes differential ranging error
SIS Code-carrier divergence Ground and air filter mismatches and differences in start times 10−4/h
lead to differential ranging error
SIS Low satellite signal Possible ranging error caused by cross-correlation with satellite 10−4/h
power with stronger signal
Propagation Ionospheric storm Large ionospheric gradients cause large differential ranging errors 10−3 to 1 (state
Environment fronts due to spatial decorrelation probability)
GBAS Ground Reference receiver/ Erroneous measurements from reference receiver lead to errors in 10−5/approach
System antenna failures broadcast correction
Source: From Federal Aviation Administration, “Criteria for Approval of Category III Weather Minima for Takeoff, Landing, and Rollout,”
Washington DC, Advisory Circular AC 120-28D, July 1999.

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 266 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System

position errors of up to 20 m. More details about the hazard- 12.6.1 Signal Quality Monitoring
ous impact of sharp ionospheric fronts on GBAS navigation
The SIS Receive and Decode (SISRAD) function (A) is exe-
are provided in [14]. The prior probability that may be
cuted by the GPS reference receiver and antenna subsys-
assumed for ionospheric storm fronts is still a matter of
tem. Its inputs are the L1 RF Signals from the GPS
some debate. The range provided in the table is bounded
satellites, conforming to the GPS-SPS-PS [12]. Its outputs
on the high end by the most conservative possible assump-
are raw code phase (pseudorange) and carrier phase mea-
tion and on the lower end by a more realistic value that may
surements, both at 2 Hz rates, as well as decoded satellite
be justifiable based on data collected to date.
navigation data, which is output immediately after the is
The probability of a ground receiver failure is limited by
decoded.
specification to be no larger than 10−5 per 150 s aircraft
The Signal Quality Receive (SQR) function (B) is also a
approach (equivalent to 2.4×10−4/h). This ensures that at
GPS receiver, but it has the more specific purpose of gener-
most one reference receiver fault would ever need to be
ating observables to be used in some Signal Quality Monitor
detected to satisfy the 10−7/approach integrity requirement.
(SQM) tests, in particular those that target signal deforma-
tion faults. Other SQM tests are designed to detect code-
carrier divergence and low satellite signal power events.
These latter monitors can work with either SISRAD or
12.6 GBAS Integrity Monitoring
SQR outputs. It is also possible to implement the SISRAD
and SQR functions in a single receiver.
An example functional flow diagram of GBAS ground-
The intent of the SQM functions (E) is to detect and
based integrity monitoring is shown in Figure 12.5. The
identify anomalies in the received GPS SIS resulting from
associated function and acronym definitions are provided
satellite signal generation or transmission failures – for
in Table 12.4. It is evident from the diagram that GBAS
example, deformation of the L1 code correlation peak.
integrity monitoring presents a complex and multifaceted
Implementation of SQM at the GBAS ground segment is
challenge. Some of the important details involved are dis-
necessary to ensure interoperability of different types of
cussed in the following subsections.

GPS
P
SIS Database
A
SISRAD

C D
B MQM Smooth
SQR

GBAS
Messages

E F
SQM DQM
L
VDB
M
Message VDB
G
Executive Monitor Formatter TX
&
Scheduler
H
GBAS
Correction Messages

VDB N
I J K
Monitor VDB
Average MRCC σ-Monitor RX

Q
LAAS Ground System Maintenance

Figure 12.5 GBAS ground system functional flow.

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 12.6 GBAS Integrity Monitoring 267

Table 12.4 GBAS function definitions and acronyms

A. SISRAD: Signal-in-Space Receive and Decode Function

B. SQR: Signal Quality Receiver Function
C. MQM: Measurement Quality Monitor Functions
D. Smooth: Carrier-Smoothed Code Function
E. SQM: Signal Quality Monitor Functions
F. DQM: Data Quality Monitor Functions
G. EXM: Executive Monitor Functions
H. Correction: Correction Generation Function
I. Average: Clock Adjustment and Correction Average Functions
J. MRCC: Multiple Receiver Consistency Check Functions
K. σ-Monitor: Standard Deviation and Mean Monitoring Function
L. VDB Message Formatter and Scheduler
M. VDB TX: VDB Transmitter
N. VDB RX: VDB Receiver
O. VDB Monitor: Data Broadcast Parameter Verification Functions
P. Database: Approach Path, Antenna Loc., Elev. Mask, VDB Info.
Q. LAAS Ground System Maintenance: External Maintenance Function and Data Archive

receivers in the LAAS service volume. This is important
because ground and airborne equipment will typically be
built by different manufacturers. Detection and isolation
of signal anomalies on the ground is needed because
ground and airborne receivers may respond differently dur-
ing such events‚ resulting in differential ranging errors. The
impacts and monitoring of signal deformation faults are
discussed in detail in Chapter 10, so the subject will not
be elaborated on further here. The SQM signal deformation
monitor specifications for GBAS are provided in attach-
ment D of [6].
Low satellite signal power (due to an onboard failure) can
directly affect the thermal noise contribution to the ranging
error standard deviation. The most straightforward monitor
simply tests the estimated C/N0 against a predetermined
threshold. However, satellites that are broadcasting at
anomalously low power levels can present additional pro-
blems because of the potential for cross-correlation within
the receiver with other satellite PRNs with higher received
powers. The effect occurs only when the Doppler difference
between the two satellites is an integral multiple of 1 kHz
[15, 16]. Therefore, it can be monitored by using predicted
Doppler differences together with the estimated C/N0.
Code-carrier divergence (CCD) can be caused by iono-
spheric activity or a satellite fault. The latter is the primary
CCD threat, because the ionosphere cannot produce arbi-
trarily large divergence rates, but it is theoretically possible
that satellite failures can. This motivates the need for
ground-based CCD monitoring. During active ionospheric
events, the CCD monitor can also help detect moving
storm fronts. However, as will be discussed shortly,
there are other means of monitoring against ionospheric
fronts.
In GBAS, both the reference station and the aircraft
employ code-carrier smoothing to mitigate the effects of
receiver noise and multipath. For GAST C, a first-order fil-
ter with a 100 s time constant is implemented; for GAST D,
a separate 30 s filter is also used. In the event of a CCD fault,
transient differential ranging errors will result if there are
differences in either (1) ground and air filter implementa-
tions, or (2) start times of ground and air filters. A typical
GBAS CCD ground monitor filters raw code-minus carrier
over time to estimate the divergence rate. A detailed
description of this type of monitor may be found in [17].
The smoothing function (D) uses the carrier phase mea-
surements to reduce errors on the code phase due to noise
and high-frequency multipath. The standard GBAS
smoothing filter is
N −1 1
pk = p k − 1 + ϕk − ϕ k − 1 + p k 12 8
N N
where
k is the time index,
Δt is the sample interval (0.5 s for the ground; 0.2 s for air),
N is the number of samples used to define the filter gain,
τ = N × Δt is the time constant of the smoothing filter (100 s
for GASC C and 30 s for GAST D),

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 268 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System
p is the raw pseudorange (code phase),
p is the smoothed pseudorange, and
ϕ is the carrier phase (expressed in the same length units
as p).
The same filter is prescribed at the ground and aircraft,
which helps to significantly limit the potential impact of
undetected CCD faults, but some variation in filter start-
up is permitted. The linear time-invariant (LTI) filter
defined above can be implemented directly. Alternatively,
a linear time-varying (LTV) version can be used at start-
up. This filter differs from the LTI filter only during the first
100 s (or 30 s) of operation, when the effective filter time
constant increases uniformly in time up to the k = τ/Δt,
at which point the gain is held constant and the LTI filter
is the result [9]. Using a time-varying gain at start-up signif-
icantly speeds up the noise reduction benefits of the filter,
but it does increase the differential ranging error somewhat
after a CCD fault. These small effects have been carefully
considered in the design of and integrity analysis; see, for
example, [17].
12.6.2 Measurement Quality Monitoring
The MQM functions (D) are designed to detect anomalous
satellite signal generation and propagation behaviors that
are potentially observable in the measurements directly.
For example, they provide the means for detection of exces-
sive range acceleration faults, including step and impulsive
errors. Detection of these faults is necessary for ground/air
interoperability because a constant range rate model is used
at the aircraft to account for latency in the broadcast correc-
tions. Due to natural delays in the ground processing, data
formatting, and transmission, the reference corrections
received at the aircraft will typically be delayed about
0.5 s relative to the punctual airborne GPS receiver output.
There are two basic ground-based tests that have been put
forward to detect these events. The first is the carrier-
smoothed-code innovations test, which compares the fil-
ter-predicted pseudorange, pk − 1 + ϕk − ϕk − 1 , with the
actual measurement, pk, relative to a predefined threshold.
It is effective as a coarse check against rapid changes in the
range rate. The second monitor, known as the excessive
acceleration (EA) test, is more important, because it
directly estimates the second derivative of the clock error
using the last three measurements [18]. Using the estimate,
along with the known estimate error statistics, the maxi-
mum differential ranging error can be upper-bounded for
any specified data latency.
The MQM function also includes an ionospheric gradient
monitor (IGM) to detect potentially hazardous ionospheric
storm fronts. GBAS installations will have multiple spatially
separated GPS antennas, primarily intended to detect and
0004815231.3D 268
isolate receiver faults, but also to reduce the ranging error
by averaging measurements for a given satellite. However,
differential carrier phase measurements across these anten-
nas can also be used to detect the presence of ionospheric
fronts. This type of monitor was first introduced in [19]
and subsequently investigated in more detail in [20, 21]
and [22]. It is a powerful means of detecting ionospheric
fronts, but it cannot see fronts that do not reach the GBAS
ground antennas; these can still affect an aircraft during
parts of its final approach.
As noted in the SQM discussion above, the ground CCD
monitor also contributes to ionosphere front detection.
However, fronts that are nearly static are invisible to it.
Because of the limitations of the IGM and CCD ground
monitors against ionospheric fronts, GAST D aircraft are
also required to take an active role by applying the follow-
ing four monitors and mitigations [9]:
• Implement an airborne CCD monitor of the type similar
to that on the ground. As the aircraft passes through a
gradient‚ it will be visible as CCD, unless that front is
moving at nearly the same speed as the aircraft.
• Generate and use position estimates using 30 s smoothed
pseudoranges instead of the standard 100 s smoothed
pseudoranges used for GAST C. This decreases τ in
Eq. (12.6), thereby making xeff smaller and reducing
the effect of gradients (nominal or anomalous) on the dif-
ferential ranging error.
•
Implement a new detection function, called the Dual
Solution Ionospheric Gradient Monitoring (DSIGMA),
which computes the difference between the 30 s
smoothed and 100 s smoothed position solutions. If the
absolute value of the difference between the two is
greater than 2 m, the aircraft must fall back to GAST
C operations.
•
Perform satellite geometry screening, in which the air-
craft will compare the maximum absolute value of any
single Sv,i and the sum of the two maximum absolute
values of Sv,i (and their lateral equivalents) to separate
user-specified thresholds. If either threshold is exceeded,
the aircraft must fall back on GAST C operations. The test
assumes that the probability of three or more satellite
being affected by an ionospheric front is negligibly small.
The thresholds are based on the aircraft airworthiness
requirements described in Appendix J of [9].
12.6.3 Data Quality Monitoring (DQM)
The DQM functions (F) are implemented to detect anoma-
lies in the decoded GPS satellite navigation data. Of partic-
ular importance is the need to provide protection against
the possibility of errors in the broadcast ephemerides that
13/12/2020 12:54:02 AM

define the satellite orbits. Satellite ephemeris errors that are
in the reference-to-satellite line-of-sight (LOS) direction are
implicitly corrected for using DGPS. However, satellite
orbit errors orthogonal to the LOS can lead to an effective
differential ranging error proportional to the distance
between the reference station and the aircraft.
Although there may be a variety of potential causes for
such anomalies, for example, unscheduled maneuvers,
incorrect orbit uploads, and faulted data decoding in the
receiver, all ephemeris errors can be categorized into just
two basic types, with the first type being further subdivided
into three subtypes:
Type A: The broadcast ephemeris data is erroneous follow-
ing a satellite maneuver.
Type A1: A nominal station-keeping maneuver occurs,
and the satellite is set to unhealthy status by the
GPS ground segment during the maneuver, but after
the maneuver the satellite is restored to healthy status
with an incorrect ephemeris. Nominal GPS maneu-
vers only occur in the along-track direction (i.e. tan-
gent to the direction of motion of the satellite, either
positive or negative).
Type A2: A nominal station-keeping maneuver occurs,
but the satellite is not set to unhealthy status by the
GPS ground segment during the maneuver. GBAS
continues using the broadcast (pre-maneuver) ephem-
eris, but the satellite orbit has since changed.
Type A2’: An unscheduled maneuver occurs in any
direction. This fault subtype acknowledges the possi-
bility of an operational fault causing the firing of arbi-
trary thrusters, thereby changing the orbit.
Type B: The broadcast ephemeris data is erroneous, but no
satellite maneuvers are involved.
Both Type A and Type B events can cause differential ran-
ging errors. However, the two failure types differ in both
likelihood of occurrence and means of detection. The like-
lihood of Type B failures is relatively higher than Type
A because orbit ephemeris uploads and broadcast ephem-
eris changeovers are frequent (nominally once per day
and once every two hours, respectively, for each satellite),
whereas spacecraft maneuvers are rare (not more frequent
than once or twice per year). Nevertheless, both fault types
have occurred in the past: Type B on 17 June 2012 (SVN 59),
Type A1 on 20 July 2004 (SVN 60), and Type A2 on 10 April
2007 (SVN 54). In each of these cases‚ the maximum orbit
error ranged from 400 m to many kilometers. No known
Type A2’ faults are known to have occurred, and the corre-
sponding prior probability of such faults is expected to be
lower. However, the potential for this type of fault must still
be accounted for in GAST D designs.
0004815231.3D 269
12.6 GBAS Integrity Monitoring 269
GBAS standards [5, 6] assign the responsibility for detect-
ing orbit ephemeris faults to the ground facility, rather than
to the users. However, it is recognized that any monitor
implementation, ground or aircraft based, will be imperfect
(i.e. smaller ephemeris errors will be difficult to detect) and
any undetected orbit error will ultimately cause navigation
errors that are dependent on the (time-varying) displace-
ment between the ground and aircraft antennas. Therefore,
the impact of possible undetected orbit errors on navigation
must ultimately be assessed separately by each individual
aircraft within the GBAS service volume. Accordingly,
along with the DGPS ranging corrections, the GBAS MT
1 also carries an ephemeris decorrelation parameter
that defines the minimum ephemeris gradient error
detectable by the ground monitor. The bound on navigation
error is consistent with the integrity risk allocated to
ephemeris faults, which is also broadcast to users in MT
1 via a missed detection multiplier k mde . The aircraft uses
this information to compute vertical and horizontal posi-
tion error bounds under the hypothesis of an ephemeris
failure. The vertical error bound associated with an ephem-
eris fault on satellite j is
N
VEB j = Sv,j x air j + k mde S2v,i σ 2i , 12 9
i=1
The resulting bound over all satellites being used is then
VEB = max VEB j 12 10
j
The horizontal/lateral ephemeris error bounds are
analogous.
An alert condition will be triggered at the aircraft when
the ephemeris position bounds exceed fixed alert limits,
VAL (and LAL), defined for the specific aircraft procedure.
The capability to generate such alerts is necessary to ensure
navigation integrity. However, to maintain continuity‚ it is
important that the minimum position error bound be small,
which, in turn, means that j must be small, establishing a
minimum performance limit for the ephemeris monitor.
The decorrelation parameter is defined as a spatial gradient
in terms of the minimum detectable satellite position
error (MDE),
j = MDE ρ j , 12 11
where ρj is the distance to the satellite from the reference
station. The detection probability associated with MDE must
also be consistent with the broadcast value of k mde as well as
the assumed prior probability of ephemeris fault (in
Table 12.3). As each new ephemeris – with new or updated
parameters – is received it must be validated before it is
13/12/2020 12:54:03 AM
 270 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System

used. To mitigate Type B threats, the GBAS ground station
can store validated prior ephemerides and use them to proj-
ect forward an independent predictive estimate of the cur-
rent ephemeris for comparison. The last available validated
ephemeris will usually be the previously transmitted one
(2 h old). For a new rising satellite‚ however, it will be
the last ephemeris received at that particular LGF on the
previous pass. The limiting case will be for a pass that is
shorter than 2 h, where the difference in broadcast ephem-
eris times approaches 24 h. Figure 12.6 shows an example of
variation of an orbit semimajor axis over adjacent 24 periods
for a typical satellite. Forward projection of previously vali-
dated ephemeris parameters for monitoring can be done in
a variety of ways, the simplest of which, the zero-order hold
(ZOH) and first-order hold (FOH), are shown in
Figure 12.7. These types of monitors have been described
in detail in [23].
Variation in semimajor axis
300
250
200
Meters
In Type A faults, ephemeris data is erroneous following
a satellite maneuver. A Type B monitor like the one
described above is not effective against such threats
because its predictive capability is compromised by the
intervening maneuver. Instead, it is necessary to directly
monitor ranging measurements to determine whether
they are consistent with the broadcast ephemerides.
The most straightforward approach is to monitor the size
of the pseudorange correction. GBAS will actively cull
any ephemeris errors that have a component in the
LOS direction exceeding 328 m, the correction message
field in MT 1. However, this test alone is not sufficient
because errors orthogonal to the LOS (which are the main
risk for GBAS) are not removed. Another proposed mon-
itor compares range rate measurements over time against
the ephemeris predictions. The monitor is generally effec-
tive, but analytical proof of its integrity sufficiency is dif-
ficult, especially for Type A1 and A2’ faults [24]. The most
effective monitor against such faults is the GAST D IGM,
which is equally capable of detecting gradients that orig-
inate from either ionospheric fronts or orbit ephemeris
errors. The application of this monitor concept to the
detection of orbit ephemeris faults is discussed in detail
in [25, 26] and [27].
In addition to integrity screening of the navigation data,
the GBAS ground system also broadcasts an Issue of Data

150 (IOD) time tag for each satellite in MT 1. This ensures that
the aircraft will know what ephemeris was used on the
100 ground to generate the broadcast corrections. Inconsis-
tencies in the ephemerides used on the ground and in
50 the air can lead directly to effective differential ranging
error because the aircraft will not be able to correctly
0 “reconstitute” the ground measurements. For added
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
integrity, the GBAS ground system also broadcasts a 16-
Days
bit CRC on the ephemeris message used to generate the
Figure 12.6 Example change in broadcast semimajor axis at corrections.
24-hour intervals.

12.6.4 Executive Monitor

The Executive Monitor (EXM) function (G) is a central
ZOH FOH
logic processing algorithm that consolidates detection deci-
sions across different monitors to identify which satellites
and which receivers have failed. Given the outputs of the
monitors described so far, it is possible to make determina-
tions about failed satellites (including satellites that have
experienced propagation anomalies). In the first phase of
EXM, satellites are either screened or validated based on
the current monitor detection results. The second phase
Today–2 Today–1 Today Today–2 Today–1 Today
is implemented in conjunction with the Multiple Reference
Figure 12.7 Zero- and first-order hold parameter prediction Consistence Check (MRCC), which will be described
concepts. shortly.

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 12.6 GBAS Integrity Monitoring 271

12.6.5 Correction Generation, Clock Adjustment‚ 12.6.6 B-Values and MRCC

and Correction Average Functions
The purpose of the “b-value” generation and MRCC func-
The correction function (H) is used to reduce the amount of tions (J) is primarily to facilitate the computation of integ-
data broadcast. For each satellite on each reference rity protection levels at the aircraft, and secondarily to
receiver, the computed range to the satellite (rk), based prescreen reference receiver measurements prior to broad-
on the known location of the reference antenna and the cast of the corrections. The b-values are defined as the
location of the satellite (as computed using the navigation difference between ck n as defined in Eq. (12.13) and
data), is subtracted from the smoothed measurements to its equivalent with each individual receiver removed
compute the pseudorange correction ck = pk − r k . Since in turn:
the aircraft also has access to the GPS satellite navigation
data, it has enough information to reconstitute the original 1
bk n, m = ck n − ck n, i 12 14
reference receiver measurement by simply adding back the M n −1
i Sn
removed terms. This is not necessary, however, because the i m

correction can be applied directly to the aircraft’s ranging

measurements. As defined, the b-value gives the best estimate of the error
The clock adjustment and correction average function (I) in the broadcast correction under the hypothesis of a single
is implemented to level the receiver clock biases; these reference receiver failure. For example, if N satellites are
biases are different for each of the reference receivers. This being tracked on all M reference receivers, given a fault
∗
function is required for two reasons: (1) to further reduce f nm∗ on reference receiver m∗on the receiver channel corre-
the amount of unnecessary data broadcast and (2) to facil- sponding to satellite n∗, the mean b-values are
itate a simpler consistency check of measurements across
∗ n∗
reference receivers. The clock adjustment sub-function is E bnm∗ = N − 1 f m∗ 12 15
implemented by subtracting the average of the smoothed
corrections across each receiver from those for each indi- ∗ n∗
vidual satellite. Define E bnm∗ n = − f m∗ 12 16

Sc to be the set of common satellites tracked by all EXM-

∗ N − 1 n∗
validated reference receivers, E bnm m∗ = f ∗ 12 17
M−1 m
Nc as the number of elements in Sc, and
m and n to be individual receiver and satellite indices,
n∗ 1 n∗
respectively. E bnm m∗ = f m∗ 12 18
M−1
Then the clock-adjusted smoothed pseudorange correc-
n∗ ∗
tions is where f m∗ ≜ f nm∗ MN . For a large fault, it is evident the
b-value in Eq. (12.15) will be much larger than the others.
1
ck n, m = ck n, m − ck n, m 12 12 The MRCC test exploits this fact to detect large faults and
Nc n Sc then returns the result to the EXM for a second phase of
The correction average sub-function generates candidate fault identification and screening. However, it is possible
broadcast corrections by averaging ck n, m for a given sat- that faults of intermediate size will be left undetected by
ellite across all reference receivers tracking the satellite. MRCC/EXM and be passed along to the aircraft in the
Define Sn as the set of reference receivers with at least broadcast corrections. To ensure integrity, the ground
two EXM-endorsed values of ck n, m for satellite n. (Two broadcasts the b-values to the aircraft so that it can compute
or more measurements are needed for subsequent proces- position-domain protection levels under the hypothesis
sing, as described below.) Also, define M(n) to be the num- (H1) of a failure on reference receiver m [9]:
ber of elements of Sn. The candidate broadcast correction
(smoothed, clock-adjusted, and averaged) is then N N
VPLH1 m = Sv,n b n, m + kmd S2v,n σ 2n
1
ck n = ck n, m 12 13 n=1 n=1
M n m Sn
12 19
Averaging across multiple independent receivers reduces
the variance of the multipath error in the broadcast correc- The upper bound protection level over all reference recei-
tion for satellite n by a factor of 1/M(n). vers is

0004815231.3D 271 13/12/2020 12:54:03 AM

 272 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System

VPLH1 = max VPLH1 m 12 20
m
This position error bound is consistent with the integrity
risk allocated to the H1 hypothesis, which is encoded in the
integrity multiplier bound, kmd, whose value is approxi-
mately 2.8 (the exact value differs very slightly depending
on the number of reference receivers being used) [9].
12.6.7 Sigma Monitor
The GBAS ground system will broadcast the values for
σ pr_gnd each to use for each satellite. These will be used
as inputs to position error bounds in Eqs. (12.7), (12.9),
(12.10), (12.19), and (12.20). Therefore, it is critical that
the ground system be capable of detecting any changes –
in particular, increases – in σ pr_gnd over time. Monitoring
changes in variance can be done in a number of ways,
including direct estimation and cumulative sum
(CUSUM) monitoring. These methods are described in
some detail in [28] and [29]. It is important to understand
that detection of variance changes takes some time, and
cannot be expected to meet GAST C or D time to alert
requirements. However, if the probability of undetected
variance change is treated as a state probability (related
to an attribute of the ground station), rather than as fault
event to be detected within a specified time to alert, it is pos-
sible to build a coherent integrity case. A rigorous approach
to do this is provided in [29].
12.7 GBAS Integrity Analysis: GAST C
requirements. For all these faults, we must ensure that
the probability of the aircraft position error exceeding the
VPL (or LPL) is no larger than the ratio of the GBAS ground
system manufacturer’s integrity risk allocation for the fault
and its prior probability of occurrence (10−4/h for all
remaining faults in Table 12.3). As will become evident
in the remainder of this section, this is not an easy task,
even for the simplest monitors.
For a given SIS monitor and a fault fj on satellite j, we can
express the test statistic qj ≥ 0 as a positive random variable
with a known cumulative distribution function Fq(x; fj).
For a given continuity allocation to the monitor’s fault-free
detection probability, Pffd, the detection threshold is
L = F q− 1 Pffd ; 0 The probability of a Loss of Integrity
(LOI) is then defined as
P LOI f j ≜ P ev t > VPL t t 0, T A qj t
<L t −∞ , T A − τg f j 12 21
where ev is the vertical position estimate error, TA is the
required time to alert, τg is the latency in the transmission
of information to the aircraft, and t is the time since fault
onset. For GAST C, TA = 6 s, and τg will typically be less
than 1 s and can never exceed TA (because the continuity
of the navigation function will be terminated at that point).
Only vertical errors are considered in Eq. (12.21), but the
same analysis can be applied to the lateral case. Noting that
VPLH0 ≤ VPL, we can write the following upper bound on
Eq. (12.21):

P LOI f j <P ev t > VPLH0 t

The largest of the position error bounds in Eqs. (12.7),
(12.9), (12.10), (12.19), and (12.20) (and their lateral coun- t 0, T A q tq < L t 0, T A − τg f j
terparts) is the overall VPL (and LPL). It is compared to the
12 22
VAL (and LAL) to ensure that integrity requirements are
met under normal error conditions, and under the hypoth- Assuming statistical independence of random error (i.e.
eses of orbit ephemeris and reference receiver faults. non-failure) contributions to the position error and test
Implicit in this statement is that GBAS ground system man- statistic:
ufacturers demonstrate that
P LOI f <P ev t > VPLH0 t t 0, T A f

•
j j
the monitor MDEj used to generate the broadcast value of
j in Eq. (12.11) must be consistent with the broadcast
P q tq < L t 0, T A − τg f j 12 23
value of k mdeand the assumed prior probability of ephem-
Define te to be any individual time in the interval [0, TA]
eris fault (in Table 12.3), and

• the probability of a reference receiver failure is lower

10−5 per 150 s aircraft approach (equivalent to
and tq to be any individual time in the interval [0, TA − τg].
Then, because Eq. (12.23) is true, it is also true that
2.4×10−4/h).
P LOI f j <P ev t e > VPLH0 t e f j
Of course, it must also be demonstrated that the monitors
designed to detect the remaining GPS SIS faults in P q tq < L f 12 24
j
Table12.3 are also are effective enough to meet integrity

0004815231.3D 272 13/12/2020 12:54:03 AM

 12.7 GBAS Integrity Analysis: GAST C 273

Because te and tq can be chosen arbitrarily within their f j

respective intervals, it is permissible to choose each time P ev > VPLH0 f = Q k ffmd − 12 31
to separately minimize the two probabilities on the right-
j
σj
hand-side of Eq. (12.24) individually. This is desirable
because it would yield the tightest possible bound on the Now we turn our attention to the second term on the
probability of the LOI. One straightforward choice is right-hand side of Eq. (12.24), which can be directly
expressed as follows:
te = 0 12 25
P q tq < L f j = 1 − F q L; f j 12 32
t q = T A − τg 12 26
Substituting Eqs. (12.31) and (12.32) into Eq. (12.24)
so that the monitor detection probability (the second term yields
on the right side of Eq. (12.24)) is evaluated TA − τg later
than the position error bounding probability (first term P LOI f j = Q k ffmd − f j σj
on the right-hand side of Eq. (12.24)). The basis for this 1 − F q L; f 12 33
j
choice is that it allows the monitor TA − τg extra time (rel-
ative to the position error) for the test statistic to grow In general, a space segment fault event fj on satellite j will
beyond the threshold. cause different transient responses in the differential posi-
Consider now the two terms on the right-hand side of tion error ev and the monitor test statistic qj. The LOI prob-
inequality (12.24) separately. For brevity in notation in ability in Eq. (12.33) will be a function of both of these fault
the following few steps, the time variables will be temporar- response functions, the magnitude of the fault itself, the
ily omitted. They will be included again in the final result. elapsed time since fault onset (t), as well as the ground
Given a failure on satellite j with a fault vector fj not close to and airborne receiver tracking start times (t0g) and (t0a).
zero, the first term is closely approximated by For every type of SIS fault, it is necessary to find the specific
conditions that maximize the LOI probability and to deter-
P ev > VPLH0 f j =P Sv,j f j + εv > k ffmd σ v ,
mine whether the result exceeds the integrity risk alloca-
12 27 tion for the failure mode.

where εv is the nominal (fault-free) contribution to the

vertical position estimate error, which can be upper- 12.7.1 Example GAST C SIS Integrity Case
bounded using a normal distribution with standard
Figure 12.8 shows example results of this analysis for a CCD
deviation σ v using the techniques described in [30] and
monitor of the type described in [17]. The plot shows the
[31]. Let Q(x) be the right tail probability of the standard
LOI probability as a function of the fault magnitude, which,
normal distribution (i.e. the complement of its cumulative
distribution function). Then, we have
CCD LTI/LTV P(LOI)
Sv,j f j 10–2
P ev > VPLH0 f = Q kffmd −
j
σv

12 28 10–4

Now define
P(LOI|fault)

σ v,j ≜ Sv, j σ j 12 29 10–6

so that we can write

10–8
σ v,j f j
P ev > VPLH0 f = Q kffmd −
j
σv σ j

12 30 10–10 –4
10 10–3 10–2 10–1 100
d (m/s)
The upper bound probability occurs when σ v, j/σ v 1.
Therefore, it is convenient to conservatively use the follow- Figure 12.8 Worst-case P(LOI| fj) for any value of t, t0g, and t0a,
ing satellite-geometry-free expression versus magnitude of divergence rate fault d: GAST C case.

0004815231.3D 273 13/12/2020 12:54:03 AM

 274 12 Ground-Based Augmentation System
in this example, is the divergence rate d. To obtain worst-
case results, it was assumed that the aircraft uses an LTV
smoothing filter and the ground uses an LTI filter. The LOI
probability is a function of four variables: t, t0g, t0a, and d.
For each value of d on the figure, the values of t, t0g, and
t0a were found to maximize the probability of LOI. The
dotted horizontal line was located at 10−4, a typical monitor
integrity risk allocation. As long as long all points on the
curve are below the allocation, integrity is assured.
12.8 GAST D Requirements and
Integrity Case
As noted in Section 12.4, there are additional requirements
for GAST D operations. These are defined in terms of Er ,
which is the differential ranging error on the 30 s smoothed
corrected pseudorange at the landing threshold point (LTP)
(of any runway for which the ground system supports
GAST D). The first requirement, termed the “limit case”
requirement, specifies the minimum required probability
of missed detection of a ranging source fault as a function
of Er . The requirement is given in Table 12.5. An addi-
tional requirement, known as the “malfunction case”
requirement, applies to all faults that have a prior probabil-
ity of occurrence greater than 1×10−9. It stipulates that the
probability of an undetected fault leading to a differential
ranging error greater than 1.8 m must not exceed 1×10−9.
The time to alert for the GAST D ground system to detect
an out-of-tolerance condition is 1.5 s [31]. Details concern-
ing the origin of these requirements may be found in [32]
and [33]. An example visual illustration of the require-
ments is shown in Figure 12.9 for the case where the prior
probability of the fault is 10−5. A hypothetical, compliant
performance curve is also shown.
There are also additional requirements for ionospheric
front monitoring for GAST D. For the most part, these were
already discussed in Section 12.6 – namely, 30 s smoothed
pseudoranges, airborne CCD and DSIGMA monitors, and
geometry screening at the aircraft. The ground system man-
ufacturer is responsible for ensuring that through the
Table 12.5 GBAS GAST D limit case integrity requirements [34].
Probability of missed detection Pseudorange error (meters)
Pmd_limit ≤ 1 0≤ Er ≤ 0.75
Pmd limit ≤ 10 − 2 56 × E r + 1 92 0.75 ≤ Er ≤ 2.7
Pmd_limit ≤ 10 −5
2.7 ≤ Er ≤∞
0004815231.3D 274
Example GAST D Integrity Requirement: |Er| vs. Pmd
100
10–1
Malfunction
requirement
10–2 (with example
10–5 prior)
P(MD∣fault)
10–3
10–4
10–5
Example GAST D
10–6 compliant monitor Limit case
requirement
10–7
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
|Er| (m)
Figure 12.9 Example GAST D SIS integrity requirement and
hypothetical compliant performance curve.
combined use of all air and ground monitors, the probabil-
ity of an undetected ionospheric front leading to a differen-
tial ranging error greater than 2.75 m must not exceed
1×10−9 at the LTP for any approach supporting GAST
D [32, 34]. The total probability of an undetected iono-
spheric front gradient includes both the prior probability
of the front (if applicable) and the probability of not detect-
ing it.
12.9 Current State and Future of GBAS
To date, GBAS systems have been installed at 30 airports in
the United States, Europe, Australia, India, Brazil, and Rus-
sia. Honeywell International’s SLS-4000 SmartPath GBAS
ground system has been certified by the FAA for Category
I (GAST C) precision approach operations, and Rockwell-
Collins’s Multi-Mode Receiver (MMR) and Honeywell
International’s Integrated Navigation Receiver (INR) are
approved GBAS avionics packages. GBAS avionics are avail-
able as standard or optional equipment on all Boeing and
Airbus aircraft. Current air carriers using GBAS include
United Airlines, Delta Airlines, British Airways, Emirates
Airlines, Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, TUI, Swiss
Air, Air Berlin, and various Russian airlines [35].
In October 2016, The International Civil Aviation Organ-
ization (ICAO) issued an update (Amendment 90) to [6] to
officially codify GAST D standards, including those cited in
the source documents [34, 36], and [37]. Validated stan-
dards for dual-frequency equipment and multiple core con-
stellations are planned for the 2022–2023 timeframe [38].
13/12/2020 12:54:03 AM

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of GNSS,” in Radio Science, Vol. 44, Issue 1, February 2009.
15 Zhu, Z. and van Graas, F., “Implications of C/A Code Cross
Correlation on GPS and GBAS,” Proc IEEE/ION Position,
Location, and Navigation Symposium (PLANS 2014),
Monterey, CA, May 2014, pp. 282–293.
16 Zhu, Z. and van Graas, F., “Operational Considerations for
C/A Code Tracking Errors Due to Cross Correlation,” in
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(ION GNSS 2005), Long Beach, CA, September 2005,
pp. 1255–1262.
17 Simili, D. and Pervan, B., “Code-Carrier Divergence
Monitoring for the GPS Local Area Augmentation System,”
Proc. IEEE/ION Position, Location, and Navigation
Symposium (PLANS 2006), San Diego, CA, April
24–27, 2006.
18 Rife, J., Pullen, S., and Enge, P. , “Evaluating Fault-Mode
Protection Levels at the Aircraft in Category III LAAS,”
Proc. 63rd Annual Meeting Institute of Navigation (2007),
Cambridge, MA, April 2007, pp. 356–371.
19 Khanafseh, S., Yang, F., Pervan, B., Pullen, S., and
Warburton, J., “Carrier phase ionospheric gradient ground
monitor for GBAS with experimental validation,” in Proc.
of the 23rd Int. Tech. Meeting of the Sat. Div. Institute of
Navigation, (ION GNSS 2010), Portland, OR,
September 2010.
20 Khanafseh S., Pullen, S., and Warburton, J., “Carrier phase
ionospheric gradient ground monitor for GBAS with
experimental validation,” Navigation, Journal of The
Institute of Navigation, Vol. 59, No. 1, Spring 2012,
pp. 51–60.
21 Jing, J., Khanafseh, S., Chan, F.-C., Langel, S., and Pervan,
B., “Carrier phase null space monitor for ionospheric
gradient detection,” in IEEE Transactions on Aerospace
and Electronic Systems, Vol. 50, No. 4, October 2014.
22 Reuter, R., Weed, D., and Brenner, M., “Ionosphere
Gradient Detection for Cat III GBAS,” in Proc. 25th Int.
Tech. Meeting Sat. Div. Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS
2012), Nashville, TN, September 2012, pp. 2175–2183.
23 Pervan, B. and Gratton, L., “Orbit ephemeris monitors for
local area differential GPS,” in IEEE Transactions on
Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Vol. 41, No.2, April 2005.
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24 Tang, H., Pullen, S., Enge, P., Gratton, L., Pervan, B.,
Brenner, M., Scheitlin, J., and Kline, P., “Ephemeris Type
A Fault Analysis and Mitigation for LAAS,” in Proc. of
IEEE/ION Position, Location, and Navigation Symposium
(PLANS 2010), Indian Wells, CA, May 2010, pp. 654-666.
25 Khanafseh, S., Patel, J., and Pervan, B., “Spatial Gradient
Monitor for GBAS Using Long Baseline Antennas,” in
Proc. 30th Int. Tech. Meeting Sat. Div. Institute of Navigation
(ION GNSS+ 2017), Portland, OR, September 2017.
26 Jing, J., Khanafseh, S., Langel, S., Chan, F.-C., and Pervan,
B., “Optimal antenna topologies for spatial gradient
detection in differential GNSS,” in Radio Science, Vol. 50,
Issue 7, July 2015.
27 Pervan, B. and Chan, F.-C., “Detecting global positioning
satellite orbit errors using short-baseline carrier phase
measurements,” Journal of Guidance, Control, and
Dynamics, Vol. 26, No. 1, January–February 2003.
28 Pullen, S., Lee, J., Xie, G., and Enge, P., “CUSUM-Based
Real-Time Risk Metrics for Augmented GPS and GNSS,” in
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(ION GPS/GNSS 2003), Portland, OR, September 2003, pp.
2275–2287.
29 Khanafseh, S., Langel, S., Chan, F.-C., Joerger, M., and
Pervan, B., “Monitoring Measurement Noise Variance for
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Overbounding,”Proc. 13th Int. Tech. Meeting Sat. Div.
Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2000), Salt Lake City, UT,
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31 Rife, J., Pullen, S., Enge, P., and Pervan, B., “Paired
overbounding for nonideal LAAS and WAAS error
0004815231.3D 276
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about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/
techops/navservices/gnss/laas/.
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Requirements,” NSP CSG Meeting, Flimsy 9, 17–20
February 2015.
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Group Meeting, Seattle, WA, GWGs/1-WP/2,
12 August 2016.
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Working Group of the Whole,” RTCA, Washington DC,
October 27, 2017.
13/12/2020 12:54:03 AM

13
Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)
Todd Walter
Stanford University, United States
The concept of an SBAS has its roots in the 1980s. The GPS
constellation was not yet complete, but people immediately
began to consider how it could be used for aviation. The
main problem was that since GPS was not designed as a
safety-of-life system, it occasionally provides misleading
information. A network of monitoring stations was envi-
sioned to send flags to the user when a satellite’s ranging
information was not correct. Then it was realized that this
network could differentially correct the errors, leading to
better accuracy and availability. Finally, the idea of broad-
casting the corrections and flags from a geostationary satel-
lite was incorporated. The signal from this satellite would
be similar to the GPS satellites and be able to provide ran-
ging as well as data. These three ideas together are what
make up an SBAS.
13.1 Introduction to SBAS
An SBAS is a system designed to improve global navigation
satellite system (GNSS) service such that the augmented
service meets the strict requirements of air navigation. In
particular, the service must be accurate, safe, and suffi-
ciently available to guide aircraft in close proximity to each
other or to other obstacles. Stand-alone (or unaugmented)
satellite navigation does not meet all of these aviation
requirements. Specifically, the reliability of the signals is
not assured. Large positioning errors could be presented
to the pilot without suitable warning. An SBAS monitors
the core constellation signals using a network of ground
monitoring equipment and broadcasts information about
the status of their performance via a satellite communica-
tion link. An SBAS has a strict upper limit on the length
of time that erroneous information could be presented to
the pilot. The Time-To-Alert (TTA) for an SBAS is 6 s in
order to support operations where the aircraft is near to
the ground.
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
c13.3d 277
277
Each SBAS also evaluates the effects of the ionosphere on
the ranging signals. Differential corrections and confidence
bounds are produced to improve the nominal positioning
accuracy and alert the user when the ionosphere may be
creating unacceptably large errors. SBAS has been used
for many years to guide aircraft both at high altitude and
down to within 200 feet of the ground. Examples of SBASs
are the Wide-Area Augmentation System (WAAS) covering
North America [1] and the European Geostationary Navi-
gation Overlay Service (EGNOS) covering Europe [2].
13.1.1 Principles and Use in Civil Aviation
An SBAS is designed to replace a large number of distribu-
ted navigational aids with a single integrated system. An
SBAS is capable of providing guidance for all phases of
flight including takeoff, ascent, en route, terminal area,
and approach. It was conceived to supplant non-directional
beacons (NDBs), distance measuring equipment (DME),
tactical air navigation systems (TACANs), VHF Omni
Range systems (VORs), and Category I instrument landing
systems (ILSs) [3]. There are, or were, over a thousand of
each type of navigational aid (navaid) in use in US air space
when the decision was made to implement WAAS. The
Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) goal was to
replace the thousands of pieces of equipment and their
associated maintenance cost with a single much more eas-
ily maintained system. Over time, the need to back up
GNSS-based navigation became better understood‚ and
the reduction of traditional navigational aids has been
much more gradual than initially planned. Nevertheless,
WAAS has fulfilled its goal of providing seamless guidance
throughout US airspace.
The advantages of satellite-based navigation are clear;
GNSS provides global coverage‚ and its signals come down
from space, covering almost all areas where aircraft are
most likely to operate. Unlike terrestrial navigation aids,
15/12/2020 5:21:08 PM
 278 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)
the signals are rarely limited by terrain in any open sky
environment. GNSS provides all-weather service. It pro-
vides three-dimensional guidance (including altitude)
whose accuracy does not rapidly degrade as the user moves
away from reference locations. Aircraft can fly any three-
dimensional path that they desire and are not constrained
to particular routes extending from one navaid to another.
Any airport can be supplied with a precision approach (PA)
capability without the need for specific guidance equip-
ment to be installed at that airport. The avionics are simpli-
fied, as a single SBAS box can supply navigation at all
locations rather than needing different boxes for different
navigational aids that have to be handed off from one fre-
quency to another. Finally, the accuracy of GNSS is much
higher than that of traditional navaids. The uncertainty of
position is reduced so that more aircraft can be placed
closer together without increasing the risk of collision.
Navigation systems designed for use in aviation are judged
by four important criteria: accuracy, integrity, continuity,
and availability. Accuracy is perhaps the most obvious of
these required attributes. It is a statistical measure of how
close the indicated position is to the true position. Integrity
consists of two key aspects: an upper bound on the position
error at any given time and a maximum time required to
alert the user if that upper bound cannot be assured to the
required level of confidence. Both aspects must be met at
all times to claim that the system meets the required integ-
rity. It is this requirement in particular that motivated the
development of the different augmentation systems. It is this
requirement that is held above all others when making sys-
tem design choices. Continuity and availability measure the
GPS Satellites
I
o
n
o
s
p
Atmospheric
Effects
Reference Station Master Station
Figure 13.1 SBAS architecture.
c13.3d 278
system’s ability to provide a predictable and consistent level
of service. The requirements on these latter two criteria also
create a challenge, as it can be difficult to maintain service in
the face of potential integrity threats. For a much more
detailed description of these parameters, please see
Chapter 23 on GNSS integrity.
13.1.2 SBAS Architecture Overview
The SBAS ground segment consists of four elements as
shown in Figure 13.1. It has a network of reference stations
to observe GNSS performance, a communication network
to transfer data to and from the other elements, a master
station to aggregate the data and decide what information
to send to the users, and an uplink station to send the data
to a communication satellite so that it can be relayed to
the user.
The reference stations are the eyes and ears of an SBAS.
Each reference station has multiple (either two or three
depending on the system) GNSS receivers that are capable
of precisely measuring the code and carrier on two frequen-
cies. Currently, GPS is the only constellation monitored by
operational SBASs, and measurements are made on the
GPS L1 and L2 frequencies. However, SBASs are evolving
to incorporate other constellations (Galileo, GLONASS,
and BeiDou) as well as new signals on different frequencies
(e.g. GPS L5 and Galileo E5a). Two different frequencies are
used so that the system can measure the effects of iono-
spheric delay. The redundancy of receivers is to identify
and isolate individual receiver faults or excessive multipath
effects. The reference stations have atomic clocks and
h
e
r
i
c
E GEO
f Satellite
f
e
c
t
s
Ground Uplink Station
15/12/2020 5:22:22 PM

precisely surveyed antennas to improve the overall meas-
urement consistency and aid in detecting and isolating
errors. The raw measurements from all of the reference sta-
tions are sent once per second to the master stations.
The master stations are the brains of the SBAS. They take
in the raw measurements, process them to reduce the
effects of noise, and make estimates of the errors that are
affecting the signals. The master stations generate correc-
tions to reduce the errors to the user. The corrections
improve the accuracy compared to stand-alone ranging sig-
nals. Most importantly, each master station estimates how
much the corrections may be in error and sends confidence
bounds on these corrections to the user. This information is
packaged into individual messages and then transmitted to
the user. The avionics are then able to use these bounds to
determine if the corrected position solution may be used for
its intended operation. The master station also determines
if there is any unsafe information being used by the SBAS
receiver and can immediately send an alert to the user if
needed.
The communication network carries the data to and from
the master station. It needs to be redundant and reliable.
The information is time critical, so it cannot get lost or
delayed. Consequently, it has very tight requirements in
terms of latency (no more than 50 ms in the case of WAAS)
and reliability. WAAS requires that more than 99.9% of
messages reach their intended destination on time along
each channel and that the two parallel channels achieve
at least 99.999% reliability.
Ground uplink stations and communication satellites
(currently all geostationary satellites) take the information
on its final leg to the user. The signal from the geostationary
Earth orbit (GEO) satellites is very similar in structure to
the GPS L1 C/A signal. The primary difference is that the
data rate has been increased to 250 bits per second. The
information is encoded into 1-s-long, 250-bit messages that
each contain a portion of the information required by the
user. The user must aggregate information from many mes-
sages over time in order to obtain the full set of corrections
and integrity bounds.
13.1.3 WAAS Architecture Overview
The previous section described a generic SBAS architecture.
This section presents the specific structure and nomencla-
ture used by WAAS, as illustrated in Figure 13.2. WAAS has
a network of 38 WAAS reference stations (WRSs) spanning
most of North America, each containing three parallel
threads of equipment. These WAAS reference elements
(WREs) each consist of a GPS antenna, a GPS receiver, a
cesium clock, and a computer to format the data and send
it to the WAAS master stations (WMSs). Each of the three
c13.3d 279
13.1 Introduction to SBAS 279
WMSs has a Corrections and Verification (C&V) processor
that consists of two parts: a Corrections Processor (CP) and
a Safety Processor (SP). The CP performs an initial screen-
ing of the data to identify and remove outliers. The resulting
output is fed into filters that estimate the receiver and sat-
ellite inter-frequency biases (IFBs) [4], the WRE clock off-
sets, the satellite orbital locations, and the satellite clock
offsets [5]. These are then passed along to the SP for
evaluation.
The SP is responsible for ensuring the safety of the WAAS
output. It will decide what information will be sent to the
user and to what level such information can be trusted.
The SP performs its own independent data screening on
the input WRE data. Its Code Noise and MultiPath
(CNMP) monitor [6] performs data screening, carrier
smoothing, and produces a confidence bound for the
remaining uncertainty on the smoothed pseudorange
values. The user differential range error (UDRE) monitor
takes in the smoothed ionosphere-free pseudoranges and
bounds from the CNMP monitor and uses them to deter-
mine a confidence bound on the satellite clock and orbital
correction errors from the CP [7]. The code-carrier coher-
ence (CCC) monitor [8] and the signal quality monitor
(SQM) [9] use inputs from the CNMP monitor to determine
whether or not the UDRE bound is also sufficiently large to
protect against potential code-carrier divergence and/or
signal deformations, respectively.
The grid ionospheric vertical error (GIVE) monitor [10,
11] takes in the smoothed ionospheric delay estimates
and bounds from the CNMP monitor as well as the IFB esti-
mates from the CP to estimate the ionospheric delays and
confidence bounds for a set of ionospheric grid points
(IGPs) defined to exist 350 km above the WAAS service area
[12]. The user is able to interpolate between these IGPs to
determine an ionospheric delay correction and correspond-
ing confidence bound for each of their satellite measure-
ments. The range domain monitor (RDM) then evaluates
all of the corrections and confidence bounds. The RDM
uses smoothed L1 measurements and bounds from the
CNMP monitor to determine whether corrections and
bounds from the prior monitors combine as expected to
bound the fully corrected single-frequency measurements.
If there is a problem, the RDM may increase the corre-
sponding UDRE and GIVE values‚ or it may flag the satel-
lite as unsafe to use. All of this information is then passed to
the user position monitor (UPM) [13], which evaluates
whether all the corrected position errors at each WRE
are properly bounded. Like the RDM, it too has the ability
to increase the broadcast bounds or set a satellite as unus-
able. Finally, the corrections, UDREs, and GIVEs are
broadcast to the user in a sequence of messages [12, 14].
In order to understand the functioning of these monitors,
15/12/2020 5:22:22 PM
 280 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)

GPS
GEO

USER
Receiver Receiver Receiver

Clock Clock Clock

Corrections Processor (CP)
Process & Interfrequncy Orbit Clock
WRE A WRE B WRE C Screen Data Bias Filter Estimator Estimator

WRS 1 Receiver
GIVE UDRE Message Control Signal
CNMP RDM UPM
Monitor Monitor Process Loop Generator
Clock
Safety Processor (SP)
WMS 1
GUS

Corrections Processor (CP)

Receiver
Control Signal
Process & Interfrequncy Orbit Clock
Loop Generator
Screen Data Bias Filter Estimator Estimator Clock

GIVE UDRE Message

Receiver Receiver Receiver CNMP RDM UPM
Monitor Monitor Process GUS
Clock Clock Clock Safety Processor (SP)
WRE A WRE B WRE C WMS 3
WRS 38

Figure 13.2 WAAS system architecture.

it is necessary to understand the threats that they address.
Section 13.2 describes these threats. The monitors are then
described in greater detail in Section 13.3.
13.2 Error Sources and Threats
to SBAS Service
There are many error sources that may affect GNSS ran-
ging. The rows of Table 13.1 [15] provide a list of the eight
major error sources evaluated by all augmentation systems.
Each error source is capable of degrading the ranging accu-
racy. All of the error sources have some nominal or
unfaulted level of error as described in the second column
of Table 13.1. For WAAS, these typically lead to nominal
horizontal positioning errors of less than 0.75 m 95% of
the time (and vertical errors below 1.2 m 95%) [16]. Most
of these error sources also have fault modes where
anomalous behavior may lead to larger and unexpected
errors. If the fault only affects one satellite ranging meas-
urement‚ it is referred to as a narrow fault. If the same
underlying cause can affect multiple (or even all) ranging
sources, then it is referred to as a wide fault. The last two
columns of Table 13.1 briefly describe some sources of such
fault types. If a fault type is sufficiently unlikely or only has
a negligible effect on SBAS, it is identified as N/A (Not
Applicable) in the table.
Threat models describe the anticipated events that a sys-
tem must protect the user against and conditions under
which it must provide reliably safe confidence bounds.
Each threat model describes the specific nature of the
threat, its magnitude, and its likelihood. It also describes
the nominal error magnitudes that may be expected under
unfaulted conditions. Together, the various threat models
must be comprehensive in describing all reasonable condi-
tions under which the system might have difficulty protect-
ing the user. Ultimately the threat models form a major part

c13.3d 280 15/12/2020 5:22:22 PM

 13.2 Error Sources and Threats to SBAS Service 281

Table 13.1 GNSS error sources

Nominal Narrow fault Wide fault

1-Clock and Orbit/clock estimation and Includes clock runoffs or Includes errors in operating the
Ephemeris prediction inaccuracy jumps, bad ephemeris, and constellation including the possibility
unflagged maneuvers of erroneous broadcast data
2-Signal Nominal differences in signals Failures in satellite payload N/A
Deformation due to RF components and signal generation components
waveform distortion
3-Code-Carrier Incoherence in generated code Failures in satellite payload N/A
Incoherence and carrier signals signal generation components
4-Inter-Frequency Delay differences in satellite Failures in satellite payload Errors in off-line determination or
Bias payload signal paths at different signal generation components dissemination
frequencies
5-Satellite Look-angle-dependent biases Failures in satellite antenna N/A
Antenna Bias caused at satellite antennas components
6-Ionosphere Incorrectly modeled ionospheric Large ionospheric deviations Multiple large ionospheric deviations
delay due to disturbed ionosphere due to disturbed ionosphere
7-Troposphere Incorrectly modeled N/A N/A
tropospheric delay
8-Receiver Noise Nominal noise and multipath Receiver fault or a single strong Receiver fault or environment with
and Multipath errors multipath reflection multiple strong multipath reflections

of the basis for determining if the system design meets its
integrity requirement. Each individual threat must be fully
mitigated to within its allocation. Only when it can be
shown that all threats have been sufficiently addressed
can the system be deemed safe.
SBAS was originally developed to address threats affect-
ing satellite ranging. However, an SBAS also runs the risk of
introducing new threats in the absence of any ranging fault.
Included in the set of threat models must be the possibility
of erroneous corrections introduced by the SBAS. Some of
these threats are universal to any design‚ while others are
specific to the implementation. The following paragraphs
provide an overview of many of the SBAS threats, although
the full details depend on implementation and must be
decided by the service provider.
13.2.1 SV Clock/Ephemeris Estimation Errors
GPS and the other core constellations broadcast orbit and
clock information to predict the satellite location and clock
value at the time the signals are broadcast. These broadcast
parameters contain some level of nominal error even when
there are no faults in the core constellation [17–19]. The
clock error magnitude is strongly dependent on clock type
and age of data [20]. GPS satellites with cesium clocks gen-
erally see larger error values than those that have rubidium
oscillators [20, 21]. The errors are also smaller when the
GPS satellite has recently been uploaded with new ephem-
eris parameters. The better-performing clocks have their
errors bounded by 0.75 m 95% right after an upload (and
below 1.5 m 95% when the upload data is 24 h old). The
nominal cesium clock error is usually below 1.5 m 95% right
after upload (and below 3 m 95% after 24 h). GLONASS
satellites all use cesium clocks‚ and their error is closer to
5 m 95% (age of data information is not available through
its broadcast) [22].
The nominal orbital errors are typically on par with the
clock errors. These errors are best expressed in terms of
radial, cross-track, and along-track errors, as errors in this
coordinate frame exhibit the greatest stability. Figure 13.3
shows histograms of these orbital errors, along with the
clock errors and Instantaneous User Ranging Error
(IURE), for both the GPS [20] and GLONASS [22] satellites.
These histograms contain data collected from all healthy
satellites from 1 January 2013 through 31 December
2016. Note that the error scale is twice as large for the GLO-
NASS data. The radial error is the smallest component, the
along-track is the largest, and the cross-track falls in
between. For GPS the errors are approximately 0.45 m,
2.25 m, and 1.25 m 95%, respectively. For GLONASS the
errors are approximately 1 m, 6.5 m, and 5 m 95%, respec-
tively. The radial error is closely aligned with the lines of
sight to the user, and therefore nearly all of it directly affects
the IURE. The along-track and cross-track are nearly

c13.3d 281 15/12/2020 5:22:23 PM

 282 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)

10–1
Radial
Along-Track
10–2 Cross-Track
Clock
IURE
Probability of Occurance

10–3

10–4

10–5

10–6

10–7
–15 –10 –5 0 5 10 15
Error (m)

10–1
Radial
Along-Track
10–2 Cross-Track
Clock
IURE
Probability of Occurance

10–3

10–4

10–5

10–6

10–7
–35 –20 –10 0 10 20 30
Error (m)

Figure 13.3 Radial, along-track, cross-track, clock, and projected error distributions of the GPS (top) and GLONASS (bottom) satellites.

perpendicular to these lines of sight, so only about 15% of
these errors affect the IURE. The resulting uncorrected,
nominal clock and ephemeris IURE errors are about 1.8
m and 5.1 m 95% for GPS and GLONASS, respectively.
WAAS only corrects the GPS constellation. After applying
its differential corrections, WAAS reduces the nominal
clock and ephemeris IURE errors to about 0.33 m 95%
for satellites that are well observed by the reference
network.
Beyond the nominal conditions, the broadcast satellite
clock and ephemeris information sometimes contain signif-
icant errors in the event of a satellite fault or erroneous
upload. Such faults may create jumps, ramps, or higher-
order errors in the satellite clock, ephemeris, or both
[23–28]. Such faults may be created by changes in state
of the satellite orbit or clock, or simply due to the broadcast-
ing of erroneous information. GPS has experienced five
such faults since 2008 [29]. One event was a 20 m clock step,

c13.3d 282 15/12/2020 5:22:23 PM


two events were clock runoffs where the clock gained errors
of order one meter per minute for roughly an hour, and two
events were broadcasts of incorrect orbital estimates that
led to errors of order 10 m in the first case and over 400
m in the second. A much greater number of faults have
been observed on GLONASS in the same time period.
When the GPS errors occurred in view of WAAS, it was able
to correct the error in the case of smaller faults and other-
wise to flag the error to the user when it was too large to
differentially correct.
Either the user or the SBAS may also experience incor-
rectly decoded ephemeris information. Therefore, both
must take steps to ensure the received parameters are cor-
rect. The ephemeris must be decoded more than once and a
bitwise verification performed to ensure it was correctly
received. Further, the computed ephemeris position is com-
pared against the almanac position to ensure that the
receiver is correctly tracking the intended satellite.
Although GPS has never broadcast faulty clock and
orbital data for multiple satellites at the same time, such
wide faults are viewed as a possibility. Such events have
been observed on GLONASS [22, 30]. SBAS systems
undergo thorough evaluation in order to ensure that their
risk of broadcasting erroneously characterized clock and/or
ephemeris corrections is well below 10−7 per hour.
13.2.2 Signal Deformations
The ranging measurement depends on correlating the
incoming signal with an internally generated replica of
the expected code. If the incoming signal is distorted (i.e.
different from expectation), it can lead to timing/ranging
errors. If these distortions differ from one satellite to
another, positioning errors will result. The International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) [31] has adopted a
threat model to describe the possible signal distortions that
may occur on the GPS L1 CA code. The threat model cre-
ates a representative set of faulted signals. These faults con-
tain digital and analog components. The digital component
is a measure of the positive chip length compared to the
negative chip length. Ideally, these would be equal, and
the zero crossing as the signal transitions from one to the
other would occur exactly where expected. In reality, the
zero crossing in one direction will be slightly delayed or
advanced relative to the crossing in the opposite direction.
The GPS specification states that this difference should be
no greater than 10 ns nominally [32]. The ICAO fault model
includes cases that go to 120 ns [31].
The analog model accounts for effects of finite bandwidth
and filtering. Rather than producing a perfect square wave,
the chips are rounded with some overshoot and ringing fol-
lowing each transition. The right side of Figure 13.4 shows
c13.3d 283
13.2 Error Sources and Threats to SBAS Service 283
nominal signals in red for multiple GPS satellites where
these effects can clearly be seen. These distortions will lead
to biases that depend on the correlator spacing and band-
width of the observing receivers. The left side of
Figure 13.4 shows an example of the magnitude of these
errors as the receiver correlator spacing is changed. For this
figure, it was assumed that a reference receiver was used
with a 1-chip correlator spacing‚ and therefore all of these
errors would cancel if the user receiver was identically con-
figured. The errors grow, and can exceed half a meter for
users with very different spacings. Such biases would not
be observable in the ranging measurements from a network
of identically configured receivers [33–35]. Some sudden
changes to the signal structure have been observed on
GPS, but all such events have had only a small impact on
the pseudorange errors and did not necessitate tripping
the WAAS SQM monitor [36]. Threat models for other sat-
ellite signals are still under development‚ although it has
been proposed that the GPS L1 threat model is also appli-
cable to the GPS L5 signal.
13.2.3 Code-Carrier Incoherency
The satellite is expected to maintain coherency between the
broadcast code and carrier. This potential fault mode
describes a threat that originates on the satellite and is
unrelated to differences in the code and carrier caused by
the ionosphere. This satellite-based threat is modeled as
either a step or a rate of change between the code and car-
rier broadcast from the satellite. The nominal error is too
small to adequately measure as it is obscured by the effects
of the ionosphere and multipath. It is nominally modeled as
having zero effect. Similarly, no fault has ever been
observed on the GPS L1 signals. However‚ nominal errors
have been observed on WAAS geostationary signals and on
the GPS L5 signal [37, 38]. This threat harms users because
the SBAS ground segment and the users each employ car-
rier smoothing to reduce multipath, but with very different
time scales. Any noticeable code and carrier incoherence
would lead to unaccounted errors for the user.
13.2.4 Inter-Frequency Bias Estimation Errors
For the current L1-only SBAS service, the correction algo-
rithms need to know the hardware differential delay
between the L1 and L2 frequencies in order to convert their
dual-frequency measurements into single-frequency cor-
rections. These hardware delays are referred to as timing
group delay (TGD) for the bias on the satellite and IFBs
for the biases in the reference station receivers/antennas.
These values are typically estimated in tandem with the
ionospheric delay estimation [4].
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 284 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)

GPS-L1 Normalized Step Response vs Time [μsec]

1.4
Spread of Ideal
L1: Normalized Step Response [μsec]

Analog Actual (Multi-SVN)

1.2 Spread of
Distortions
Digital
1 Distortions

0.8

0.6
Analog
Distortions

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time [μsec] Digital
Distortions

L1-GPS - Mean Removed - 1 chip

1

0.8

0.6
Reference Correlator Spacing
0.4 Early-minus-late (1-chip)

0.2
Error [m]

–0.2

–0.4

–0.6

–0.8

–1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
User Correlator Spacing [Chips]

Figure 13.4 Nominal signal distortions (top) and their potential ranging errors (bottom).

Although these values are nominally constant, there are nominal error (typically a few centimeters), and occasion-
some conditions under which they may change their value ally one or more of them will contain a larger error (up to a
over time. One concern is component switching. If a new few meters).
receiver or antenna is used to replace an old one, or if dif- Inter-frequency bias errors will be very similar to clock
ferent components or paths are made active on a satellite, errors in that there is no spatial variation in their effect
then there may be a change in the relative delay between on the user. The difference is that their effect is specific
the two frequencies. Another means is through thermal to the frequency combination employed by the user. The
variation either at the reference station or on the satellite satellite clock is in reference to a specific combination. Cur-
as it goes through its eclipse season. Finally, component rently for GPS, the broadcast clock is in reference to the
aging may also induce a slow variation in these values. L1P/L2P ionosphere-free code combination. The L1-only
The estimate of these values will contain some small clock is offset from this reference by the TGD. The future

c13.3d 284 15/12/2020 5:22:24 PM


L1/L5 ionosphere combination will be offset by a combina-
tion of TGD and an inter-signal correction or ISC. Any errors
in these values will appear as a clock difference to the user.
13.2.5 Antenna Bias and Survey Errors
Look-angle-dependent biases in the code phase on both fre-
quencies are present on the reference station and GPS sat-
ellite antennas [39, 40]. These biases may be several tens of
centimeters. In the case of at least one reference station
antenna, they did not become smaller at a higher elevation
angle.
These biases are observable in an anechoic chamber, but
are more difficult to characterize in operation. They may
result from intrinsic antenna design as well as manufactur-
ing variation. So far, no significant change in these patterns
has been reported for an operational GPS satellite, but there
is a concern that multi-element antennas could suffer from a
fault that would create a significant degradation in perfor-
mance. GPS Space Vehicle Number (SVN) 49 was launched
with an incorrect antenna connection that resulted in meter
level antenna variations on the L1 signal [41]. However, this
satellite was never set healthy as a result of this fault.
Errors in the surveyed coordinates of the reference sta-
tion antenna code and/or carrier phase center can affect
users in a similar manner as antenna biases. However, sur-
vey errors tend to be much smaller in magnitude and affect
all frequencies identically. Survey values must be carefully
checked before being applied. Further, position estimates
for the reference stations are continuously evaluated to
detect any unexpected changes. Fault sources could include
slow motion due to continental drift or due to subsidence
due to ground water pumping. Further rapid changes could
be observed during earthquakes.
13.2.6 Ionosphere and Ionospheric
Estimation Errors
The propagation delays caused by the ionosphere may sig-
nificantly limit the ability of an SBAS to provide its higher-
accuracy services, especially in the equatorial and auroral
regions. Propagation delays are caused by the presence of
free electrons in the upper atmosphere along the propaga-
tion path of the signal.
SBAS performance can be affected by the ionosphere
through (1) rapid changes in electron density that cause
estimates of range delays to be less accurate, (2) spatial gra-
dients in electron density that cannot be resolved by the 5
by 5 ionospheric grid, (3) amplitude scintillation fading,
that, in the worst case, can result in the intermittent loss
of the signal, and (4) phase scintillation effects that can
cause signal outages on semi-codeless receivers operating
on the GPS L2 frequency. All of these ionospheric effects
c13.3d 285
13.2 Error Sources and Threats to SBAS Service 285
are related to geography, season, and time of day, as well
as solar activity level and geomagnetic activity [42].
Most of the time, mid-latitude ionosphere is easily esti-
mated and bounded using a simple local planar fit. How-
ever, periods of disturbance occasionally occur where
simple confidence bounds fall significantly short of bound-
ing the true error [10]. Additionally, in other regions of the
world, particularly in equatorial regions, the ionosphere
frequently cannot be adequately described by this simple
model [43]. Some ionospheric disturbances can occur over
very short baselines‚ causing them to be difficult to describe
even with higher-order models. Gradients larger than 3 m
of vertical delay over a 10 km baseline have been observed,
even at mid-latitude [44, 45]. Further, because the iono-
sphere is not a static medium‚ there may be large temporal
gradients in addition to spatial gradients. Rates of change as
large as four vertical meters per minute have been observed
at mid-latitudes [44].
GPS broadcasts a simple global model of the ionosphere
that typically cuts the error in half. However, on some days,
the errors will be significantly larger and the simple model
does not have the spatial or temporal resolution to capture
the true variability. An SBAS sends estimated ionospheric
delay values on a 5 by 5 grid that is updated every
5 min [12]. Even this model has days where it cannot cap-
ture the true ionospheric variation.
13.2.7 Tropospheric Errors
Tropospheric errors are typically small compared to iono-
spheric errors or satellite faults. Historical observations
were used to formulate a model and analyze deviations
from that model [46]. The tropospheric delays are about
2.4 m for a satellite directly overhead, to about 25 m at 5
above the horizon. A very conservative bound was applied
to the distribution of the deviations about this model. They
are bounded by a 1-σ value of 0.12 m at zenith and 1.23 m at
5 . The model and bound are described in the Minimum
Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) [12]. These
errors may affect the user both directly through their local
troposphere and indirectly through errors at the reference
stations that may propagate into satellite clock and ephem-
eris estimates. Both sides reduce the direct effect using the
specified formulas.
13.2.8 Multipath and Thermal Noise
Multipath is the most significant measurement error
source. It limits the ability to estimate the satellite and ion-
ospheric errors. It depends upon the environment sur-
rounding the antenna and the satellite trajectories. While
many receiver tracking techniques can limit multipath’s
magnitude, at the reference stations its period can be tens
15/12/2020 5:22:25 PM
 286 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)
of minutes or greater [6, 47]. Fortunately, both SBAS refer-
ence receivers and aircraft receivers operate in clear sky
environments. Severe multipath can be avoided though
careful placement of the antennas. The effects of multipath
can be further reduced through the application of a narrow
correlator spacing. More advanced techniques are generally
avoided due to their uncertain performance under signal
deformation threats. Carrier smoothing is employed to
further reduce the effects. At the aircraft, after applying a
100 s smoothing filter, the 1-σ residual multipath error is
expected to be below 0.13 m at zenith and below 0.45 m
at 5 .
13.3 SBAS Integrity Monitoring
Monitors are algorithms that determine the potential
impact of the previously described threats. The monitors
estimate the magnitude of the remaining error that may
affect the user after they apply corrections. This magnitude
is then broadcast to the user so that they may both properly
weight the relative contributions of the satellites and deter-
mine an overall confidence bound on their position esti-
mate. The monitors also may alert the users that one or
more satellites are unsafe to use as they either have an error
too large to correct or the uncertainty surrounding the error
magnitude is too large. The SBAS integrity parameters sent
to the users are the UDREs to bound the ranging errors to a
specific satellite and the GIVEs to bound the estimated
errors in the SBAS ionospheric delay model.
This chapter will use the existing WAAS L1 design to
describe the different SBAS monitors. As other SBASs have
to mitigate the same threats, their designs will include a
similar set of monitors; however‚ the details vary from sys-
tem to system. WAAS has been operational since 2003 and
has been designed to mitigate all of the threats identified for
an L1-only user [48]. Figure 13.5 shows a high-level over-
view of the major integrity monitors. The CNMP algo-
rithms process the receiver measurements from each of
three receivers at the 38 WRSs. It provides smoothed mea-
surements and confidence bounds to the remaining
monitors
The UDRE is initially set by the UDRE monitor, which
evaluates the accuracy of the clock and ephemeris correc-
tions and residual threats for each satellite in view. The
CCC monitor then evaluates if that threat can be protected
by the same UDRE or if it needs to be increased. Next, the
SQM evaluates if the risk of unobservable signal deforma-
tion can also be bounded by the UDRE resulting from the
previous two monitors. While nominal errors of all types
need to be bounded simultaneously, it is unlikely that more
c13.3d 286
Raw Code & Carrier from WRSs
CNMP Code Noise & Multipath error bounding
UDRE CCC SQM GIVE
UDRE GIVE Bound on
ionospheric error
Maximum bound on
clock/ephemeris error, RDM Range Domain
Monitor: bound on
CCC error, and signal
deformation error UDRE combined range error
& GIVE including IFB
User Position Monitor:
bound on combined UPM
UDREs & GIVEs
errors across all ranges to user
Figure 13.5 A high-level schematic of the major integrity
monitors of the current WAAS system.
than one fault type (clock/ephemeris, CCC, or SQM) will be
initiated within the same 6 s window. Therefore, the por-
tion of the UDRE covering unobserved faults can be the
maximum of the portion needed individually by any of
the monitors. Because the clock and ephemeris threat cre-
ates errors that may be spatially varying, it generally has
greater uncertainty than other satellite threats for the L1-
only user. Most often, the UDRE monitor determines the
minimum UDRE that can be safely broadcast and only
occasionally is it increased or flagged by later monitors.
In parallel, the GIVE monitor determines the ionospheric
corrections and the confidence bound that must be applied
to each IGP. These ionospheric corrections and GIVEs are
then combined with the satellite corrections and the
UDREs to determine if the total L1 correction on each line
of sight between the reference stations and the satellites is
properly bounded by the combination of the UDRE and
GIVE terms (Section 13.4.5 has more details on how they
are combined). This comparison is made by the RDM,
which ensures that the individual corrections safely com-
bine. The primary threat addressed by this monitor is
related to IFBs. Finally, all of the corrections applied to
each reference station result in a net WAAS positioning
error that is checked against the known survey coordinates
of the reference receiver’s antenna in the UPM. If either the
RDM or UPM observe faults or lack the observability to val-
idate the input UDREs and GIVEs, it will be increased or
flagged unsafe by these monitors.
13.3.1 CNMP
The aims of the CNMP algorithms are to estimate and cor-
rect for observed code noise and multipath errors and then
to provide a confidence estimate for residual error in
smoothed L1 and L2 pseudorange measurements. To
15/12/2020 5:22:25 PM

perform this function, CNMP must check for cycle slips,
data gaps, and other anomalous signal tracking conditions.
Inconsistent measurements are identified and removed or
deweighted. The surviving measurements are then used
for carrier smoothing. Having three parallel threads at each
reference station allows voting to remove large artifacts that
affect each thread differently. Measurements also have to
be consistent over time in order to initialize the carrier
smoothing of the code. The CNMP algorithms produce
smoothed ionosphere-free pseudoranges for use by the
UDRE monitor, smoothed ionospheric estimates for use
by the GIVE monitor, and smoothed L1-only measure-
ments for use by the RDM and UPM [6, 47]. In addition,
the instantaneous discrepancies between the smoothed
code and raw code are provided to the CCC monitor for
evaluation.
In addition, the CNMP algorithms produce upper bounds
on the possible remaining error affecting each of these out-
puts. The error curve is a function of the number of
screened measurements that have been used by each
smoothing filter. If there are too many missing or inconsist-
ent measurements, the filter is restarted. At initialization,
the multipath error is assumed to be large (up to 10 m
99.9% of the time on each L1 and L2). For GPS satellites,
it is further assumed to initially follow a sinusoid with a
10 min period that decorrelates over time [6]. Figure 13.6
shows the bounding 1-σ confidence values for GPS (on
the left) and GEO (on the right) satellites. The curves in this
figure assume that the measurements were collected at 1 Hz
and that all survive the screening process. If instead some
measurements are removed, the curve will hold at the
previous value until a new valid measurement is obtained.
The curve will be reset if 6 s elapse without any valid
3.5
Above 30° Start
3 Below 30° Start
2.5
2
σCNMP (m)
1.5
1 3
0.5
0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Smoothing Time (hours)
Figure 13.6 One-sigma CNMP error bounding curves for GPS (left) and GEOs (right).
c13.3d 287
13.3 SBAS Integrity Monitoring 287
measurements. GPS satellites that restart while above a
30 elevation angle use the lower red line since the multi-
path will be much smaller for the higher elevation. For
GEO satellites, the initial period is assumed to be 24 h. Ear-
lier narrow bandwidth GEOs were further assumed to have
initial multipath errors of 30 m 99.9%. Later wide-band
GEOs could utilize narrow correlators and therefore
assume a smaller 10 m initial multipath value as shown
in the lower red curve.
13.3.2 UDRE
The orbit determination algorithms in the CP estimate the
satellites’ clock and orbital states, along with the WRS
clock states, as part of a large extended Kalman filter
[5]. This filter has been found to be very accurate. How-
ever, due to its complexity, its potential fault modes have
not been exhaustively analyzed. Instead, it is treated as an
untrusted component, despite its excellent track record of
service. The much simpler UDRE monitor, which is part
of the SP, determines the error bounds on these satellite
corrections. The UDRE monitor applies the corrections
to the ionosphere-free pseudorange measurements from
each WRS and compares each residual difference against
a respective threshold. These threshold values are a func-
tion of the CNMP confidence values and the expected fil-
ter error. If the threshold is exceeded by two WREs at any
given WRS, the satellite is set to be unusable. Otherwise,
the magnitude of the residual errors is compared against
one of the 14 possible broadcast UDRE values. The UDRE
monitor determines the probability of latent fault versus
these discrete UDRE values [7]. The smallest UDRE value
that meets the required probability of fault is selected for
10
9
Original Curve (A = 30 m)
8 Reduced Curve (A = 10 m)
7
6
CNMP (m)
5
4
2
1
4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Time Since Reset (hours)
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 288 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)

broadcast. If there are insufficient measurements or if 13.3.3 GIVE

none of the numerical UDRE values meet the require-
Unlike the UDRE monitor, the GIVE monitor determines
ment, the satellite is flagged as unusable. The UDRE
both the corrections and the confidence values. SBASs
monitor also evaluates prior broadcast correction and
broadcast corrections on a 5 by 5 grid of points set at a
UDRE values to evaluate whether they remain safe for
fixed 350 km height above the surface of Earth [12, 14].
use. If a change makes old information unsafe to continue
Users interpolate the expected delay on their specific line
using, the UDRE monitor will trigger an alert to warn all
of sight by interpolating the correction values at the sur-
SBAS users to immediately discontinue use of that
rounding IGPs. The GIVE monitor estimates the amount
satellite.
of vertical ionospheric delay occurring at each grid point.
The UDRE monitor is also responsible for generating a
WAAS uses a simple linear model of ionospheric behavior.
covariance matrix that describes its ability to bound the
It assumes that in the immediate area around each IGP, the
clock and ephemeris error. This four-by-four matrix
ionosphere can be modeled by three deterministic para-
describes the correlated errors affecting the satellite clock
meters: the vertical delay at the IGP plus the vertical iono-
and its three-dimensional positioning errors. This matrix
spheric gradients in the east and north directions. It further
is normalized such that the resulting minimum value pro-
assumes that the underlying ionospheric model has a sto-
jected along any line of sight is one. Typically, this line of
chastic component. Initially this component was treated
sight corresponds to one between the satellite and the
as being independent of location (i.e. two co-located mea-
weighted centroid of WRSs able to observe the satellite.
surements had the same correlation as two widely spaced
The projected normalized matrix value is larger than one
measurements) [10]. A later update to the monitor intro-
for lines of sight that are farther from the observing net-
duced spatial correlation to this stochastic component. This
work. These parameters are broadcast in a message whose
later technique is called kriging, and it allowed the GIVE
identifying number is 28 and are referred to as Message
monitor to more accurately model non-planar behavior
Type 28 (MT28) parameters [49]. These parameters are
about each IGP [11, 51].
used to multiply the UDRE so that the error bound is smal-
The magnitudes of the gradients and of the stochastic
lest where observability is the best, and it appropriately
components can vary greatly with time of day, season, loca-
increases the uncertainty at the edges of coverage where
tion, and solar and geomagnetic activity. It has further been
unobserved errors may lurk. Correctly formulating the
observed that sometimes the assumed model could not
MT28 parameters is an important part of the UDRE mon-
properly capture all of the variability of the ionosphere
itor‚ and they factor heavily into determining the minimum
[52]. Figure 13.7 shows a dense sampling of the ionosphere
safe broadcast UDRE values [50].

10/28/2003, 20:35:00UT 10/29/2003, 20:31:00UT

42 42 20

18
41 41
16
Vertical lonospheric Delay in m
40 40
14
39 39
12

38 38 10

8
37 37
6
36 36
4
35 35
2

34 34 0
–90 –89 –88 –87 –86 –85 –84 –83 –82 –81 –80 –90 –89 –88 –87 –86 –85 –84 –83 –82 –81 –80

Figure 13.7 Vertical ionospheric delay measurements for quiet (left) and disturbed (right) days.

c13.3d 288 15/12/2020 5:22:26 PM


on two successive days (much denser than actual WAAS
sampling). Each circle represents the intersection of a line
of sight with the assumed ionosphere at 350 km altitude.
The line extending from the center of each circle points
back to the receiver location. Longer lines correspond to
lower elevation satellites. On the left is a typical quiet
day where nearly every measurement consistently identi-
fies about 8 m of vertical delay regardless of location or
elevation angle. On the right is 24 h later on a severely dis-
turbed day where the vertical delay values range from
nearly zero to over 20 m. These variations occur in close
proximity to each other; well within 5 of latitude and
longitude.
Figure 13.8 shows the vertical stochastic ionospheric
error component as a function of the distance between
any two measurements. The different colors show the con-
tainment at different probability levels. The 95% and 99.9%
bounds are converted to one-sigma expectations by dividing
those values by 1.96 and 3.29, respectively. If the random
component were perfectly Gaussian, the three curves
would lie on top of each other. The separation of the lines
indicates that a small fraction of the data is more likely to
have large errors than would be expected from a Gaussian
distribution. The left side of Figure 13.8 corresponds to a
nominal or quiet day. The lines are closer together. Note
that even for zero separation there is 0.2 m of expected dif-
ference. This “nugget” is due to the fact that co-located ver-
tical measurements of the ionosphere actually sample
differing lines of sight. That is, the simple two-dimensional
model of the ionosphere fails to account for ionospheric
variability in three dimensions. On most days, this effect
is small and easily absorbed into the GIVE.
Vertical lonosphere Containment σ, 1st Order Correlation
(CONUS, 2nd July 2000)
2 10
σ (68)
1.8 σ (95%)
σ (99.9%)
1.6
1.4
σ Bound (m)
1.2
1 5
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Distance (km)
Figure 13.8 One-sigma ionospheric error bounding curves for quiet (left) and disturbed (right) ionosphere.
c13.3d 289
13.3 SBAS Integrity Monitoring 289
The right side of Figure 13.8 shows the behavior of the
vertical ionosphere on a disturbed day. On this day, the
nugget value was greater than 3 m (it was even worse on
the day shown on the right for Figure 13.7). Even closely
spaced observations using the grid model would have sig-
nificant discrepancies. The WAAS GIVE algorithm uses
the chi-square value of the measurements with respect to
the nominal model to determine the current state of the
ionosphere. If the measurements match the model, a quiet
ionosphere may be assumed. If there are significant discre-
pancies, the assumed stochastic level must be appropriately
increased along with the corresponding GIVE. This chi-
square evaluation serves as the basis for the WAAS “storm
detectors” [10, 53, 54]. These detectors operate on a per-IGP
level for smaller disturbances and at a system level for lar-
ger ones. When storms are detected, the GIVEs are set to a
maximum numerical value for a period of time. These
values are too large to support the most demanding vertical
operations, but are sufficiently small to always support hor-
izontal guidance. Fortunately, the ionosphere over North
America is nearly always well behaved. Less than 0.5%
availability of vertical guidance is lost due to disturbed ion-
ospheric conditions.
The GIVE monitor contains another component to pro-
tect against the concern that the ionosphere may be in a dis-
turbed state, but the measurements are not sufficiently
sampling this behavior. This so-called “undersampled”
threat is primarily a concern near the edges of coverage,
where the sampling density becomes low. It has been
observed that sometimes the disturbances are not sampled
or are only barely sampled by the WRS measurements [55,
56]. To counteract this threat, three actions are taken:
Vertical lonosphere Containment σ, 1st Order Correlation,
(CONUS 15nd July 2000)
σ (68)
9 σ (95%)
σ (99.9%)
8
7
σ Bound (m)
6
4
3
2
1
2500 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Distance (km)
15/12/2020 5:22:28 PM
 290 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)
(1) the assumed level of stochastic error is always increased
relative to the expected value; (2) storm detectors remain in
their tripped state for a period of time after the ionosphere
appears to return to its quiet state; and (3) a specific under-
sampled threat term is added to the GIVE that is a function
of the sampling density. This last term significantly
increases the GIVE at the edges of coverage.
13.3.4 CCC and SQM
For each satellite corrected by WAAS, the CCC monitor
averages the instantaneous raw pseudorange error across
all measurements to that satellite. Individual multipath
errors are reduced, especially when many receivers view
the satellite as is the case for satellites with low UDRE
values. If the satellite were to create a divergence between
the code and the carrier, it would bias this test metric and,
when sufficiently large, cause the monitor to trip and alert
the user to the error [8]. Any incoherence between the code
and the carrier would create a bias between the satellite
clock correction (based on long-term smoothing) and the
user measurement (based on a 100 s smoothing filter).
The monitor metric has greater sensitivity against this
threat and can detect such a fault well below the error
bounds implied by the broadcast UDRE. This monitor
has not ever tripped over the lifetime of WAAS, nor has
it needed to. Nevertheless, it protects against the possibility
of future events.
The WAAS reference receivers provided measurements
at nine different correlator spacings. The SQM algorithms
evaluate the symmetry and consistency of the chip shapes
broadcast by the different satellites [9]. These algorithms
are used to evaluate performance off-line in order to ensure
there are no latent harmful deformations. The real-time
implementation uses four metric values to evaluate the dif-
ferences among the satellites. A common mode shape dis-
tortion would lead to identical pseudorange errors on all
satellites. Such an error mode would only affect the user
clock estimate and not lead to a position error. Therefore,
the monitor determines and removes a common mode
shape‚ and the metrics are only affected by differences from
one satellite to another. When any one of the metrics
exceeds its threshold, the satellite is flagged as unusable.
This flag persists for 12 h after the metric returns below
the threshold. The magnitude of the threshold is a function
of the UDRE determined by the prior monitors.
13.3.5 RDM and UPM
The RDM evaluates the performance of the satellite and
ionospheric corrections together on each observed line of
sight. It does not use the internal IFB and TGD estimates
from the CP and therefore is able to detect errors in these
c13.3d 290
values that may not be detected at the UDRE or GIVE mon-
itor. It uses the broadcast TGD values from the GPS satel-
lites. The RDM also does not use the CP-estimated WRS
clock biases. Instead it determines its own estimates of
the WRS clock biases using the corrected pseudorange resi-
duals based on the surveyed location of the WRS antennas.
The IFB is common across all measurements to each spe-
cific WRE and therefore is incorporated into this clock esti-
mate. The RDM evaluates the quality of its measurements,
and if they cannot support the input UDRE, it will increase
this value to one that is supported by the measurement
quality. If it sees an error that exceeds its threshold, it will
raise an alert that the satellite should not be used. It will
also signal the CP that it needs to reset the TGD and IFB esti-
mates for the affected satellites and WRSs.
The UPM examines the corrections and checks if corre-
lated errors exist that create a larger position error than
expected. Recently, a new UPM algorithm was developed
that guarantees user protection against the correlated error
threat [13]. It performs a chi-square check on the sum of the
square of the normalized corrected residuals at each WRS.
A mathematical proof shows that users will be protected as
long as this chi-square metric is below a specified residual.
This new chi-square UPM was fielded in 2017. At the
moment, no integrity credit is taken for this monitor. How-
ever, in the future, the UDRE and/or GIVE values may be
lowered, to exploit the protection now provided by this
monitor.
13.4 SBAS Message, GEO Signal
Definition and Processing
Messages sent to the user are defined in a document called
the SBAS MOPS [12]. It is a large document written by com-
mittee to describe a complicated system. It has evolved
slowly over time, and some of the nomenclature and writ-
ing reflects a history of ideas and approaches. As such, it
can be an intimidating and difficult document for the unin-
itiated. This section is intended to provide an overview to
assist the reader in understanding how the different mes-
sage types connect together to form a differential GPS cor-
rection. The corrections are broken into two categories:
clock-ephemeris corrections and ionospheric corrections.
13.4.1 Message Format
Messages are sent once per second and contain 212 bits of
correction data comprising 8 additional bits of acquisition
and synchronization data, 6 bits to identify the message
type and 24 bits designated for parity, for a total of 250 bits.
This format is shown in Figure 13.9. The parity bits protect
15/12/2020 5:22:28 PM
 13.4 SBAS Message, GEO Signal Definition and Processing 291

DIRECTION OF DATA FLOW FROM SATELLITE; MOST SIGNIFICANT BIT (MSB) TRANSMITTED FIRST

250 BITS - 1 SECOND

24-BITS
212-BIT DATA FIELD PARITY

6-BIT MESSAGE TYPE IDENTIFIER (0-63)

8-BIT PREAMBLE OF 24 BITS TOTAL IN 3 CONTIGUOUS BLOCKS

Figure 13.9 SBAS message structure.

Table 13.2 SBAS message types and update intervals

Message Type Messages Contents Update Period (s)

0 Do not use this GEO for safety of life (it is only for testing) 6
1 PRN Mask assignments, set up to 51 of 210 bits 120
2–5 Fast corrections (satellite clock error) 6–60
6 Integrity information (UDREI) 6
7 Fast correction degradation factors 120
9 GEO navigation message (X, Y, Z, time, etc.) 120
10 Degradation parameters 120
12 WAAS network time/UTC offset parameters 300
17 GEO satellite almanacs 300
18 Ionospheric grid point masks 300
24 Mixed fast/long-term satellite error corrections 6–60
25 Long-term satellite error corrections 120
26 Ionospheric delay corrections 300
27 WAAS service message 300
28 Clock/ephemeris covariance matrix 120
63 Null message —

against the use of corrupted data. The information from
multiple messages must be stored and combined to form
the corrections and confidence bounds for all of the satel-
lites [14]. The different message types are listed in
Table 13.2 along with their nominal update rates. Some
information, such as satellite clock corrections and the
associated UDREs, are updated very frequently (every
6 s). Other information, such as the ionospheric correc-
tions, can be transmitted much less frequently (every
5 min). For precise vertical operations, the user must stop
using data from messages that were received earlier than
two update periods. This restriction prevents users from
applying outdated information, but allows them to operate
even when they are missing the most recent copy of any
given message. For the less precise lateral-only operations,
the user may continue to use older information until three
update periods have passed. This allows them to operate
even when they have missed the two most recent copies
of any given message.
13.4.2 Clock and Ephemeris Corrections
and Bounds
The satellite clock and ephemeris errors are corrected and
bounded by information in Message Types (MT) 1–7, 9, 10,
17, 24, 25, 27, and 28. The corrections are split into two
types: fast corrections, which are scalar values that affect
all users identically; and long-term corrections, which are
in the form of a four-dimensional vector (delta position
and clock) that affect users differently depending on their

c13.3d 291 15/12/2020 5:22:28 PM

 292 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)
location. Most of the common errors, particularly most of
the satellite clock errors, are removed by the fast correc-
tion. The long-term correction primarily removes the sat-
ellite ephemeris errors. Any discontinuities between one
set of ephemeris parameters broadcast from a GPS satellite
and the next set are incorporated into the long-term cor-
rections. This is done for two reasons: to keep the fast cor-
rections continuous, and to match specific ephemeris
parameters, since only the long-term corrections are spe-
cifically linked to the issue of data from the GPS satellites.
Any discontinuities in the broadcast GPS clock terms
between one ephemeris and the next are absorbed into
the long-term clock correction.
Message Type 1 contains what is called the satellite mask.
It identifies for which satellites the SBAS will broadcast cor-
rections. This saves the SBAS from having to broadcast a
PRN value along with the correction. Instead, the first satel-
lites listed in the mask are corrected in MT2, the next set in
MT3, and so on.
Message Types 2–5 and 24 contain fast corrections. The
pseudorange correction contained is specific to the time
of reception. Users update these corrections over time by
applying a range rate correction term formed from recent
corrections. The range rate correction is determined by dif-
ferencing the most recent fast clock correction from a prior
one, and dividing this difference by the difference between
the times of arrival of two messages. The range rate correc-
tion is then multiplied by the time since receiving the most
recent fast correction and added to the correction value in
that fast correction. This extrapolated fast correction is
added to the user’s pseudorange measurement. Message
Types 2–5 are each capable of providing up to 13 fast cor-
rections and associated UDRE values.
Message Types 24 and 25 contain long-term corrections,
that is, x, y, z, and clock corrections in an Earth Centered
Earth Fixed (ECEF) frame. The rates of change of these
values are also included in the message. The correction vec-
tor is added to the satellite position and clock vector calcu-
lated from the navigation message broadcast by each GPS
satellite. The corrections effectively move the estimated sat-
ellite position and clock values from those broadcast by the
GPS satellite to the values estimated by the SBAS.
Message Type 9 contains the full ephemeris information
from each geostationary satellite for itself. This message
provides the full x, y, z, and clock states for the GEO. The
message contains three-dimensional position, velocity,
and acceleration states in the ECEF frame as well as clock
and clock rate states. Message Type 17 contains almanac
data for up to three GEOs. These messages contain only
approximate three-dimensional position and velocity esti-
mates for each GEO.
c13.3d 292
Message Types 2–5, 6, and 24 also contain UDREs. The
UDREs are quantized into 1 of 16 states. Each one is broad-
cast as a 4-bit number called a UDRE Index (UDREI).
UDREIs run from 0 to 15. The values 0 to 13 correspond
to numerical values with smaller indices corresponding
to smaller UDRE values. A UDREI of 14 indicates that
the satellite is “Not Monitored” (NM), and a value of 15 indi-
cates that the satellite has been set to “Do Not Use” (DNU).
NM indicates that the satellite is either out of view or so
poorly viewed that the SBAS cannot verify its current level
of performance. DNU indicates that the satellite is in view,
but that it may have some problem such that it should not
be used. In practice, both of these designations mean that
the aircraft may not use the satellite as part of any SBAS-
corrected position solution.
13.4.3 Ionospheric Corrections
The ionospheric corrections and integrity bound informa-
tion are broadcast in Message Types 18 and 26. Message
Type 18 defines a “mask” of activated IGPs. This mask
allows the user to determine the latitude and longitude
of the corrections and confidences in the Type 26 mes-
sages. As shown in Figure 13.10, Earth is divided into
10 regions‚ and a separate MT18 is sent for each region
which may contain up to 201 possible IGPs. An MT18 is
only sent for regions where the SBAS chooses to broadcast
corrections. WAAS, for example, only broadcasts masks
for regions 0, 1, 2, 3, and 9.
The application of ionospheric corrections requires the
user to interpolate corrections for their measurements from
a predefined grid of vertical delay values. The user must
determine which grid points to use for interpolation and
then apply the proper weights to each one to form their ver-
tical delay estimate and confidence. This vertical delay esti-
mate at the user’s ionospheric pierce point (IPP) is then
scaled by the obliquity factor to convert it to a slant range
correction.
As depicted in Figure 13.10, Earth can be divided into
four interpolation regions:
1) |Latitude| ≤ 60
2) 60 < |Latitude| ≤ 75
3) 75 < |Latitude| ≤ 85
4) 85 < |Latitude|
The first region uses rectangular grids with equal spa-
cings in latitude and longitude. The second region uses cells
that are 5 in latitude and 10 in longitude. In Region 3, the
cell sizes are 10 in latitude and 30 in longitude. Region 4 is
a circular region‚ and the interpolation has slightly differ-
ent form. In all regions‚ the user’s IPP must be surrounded
15/12/2020 5:22:28 PM
 13.4 SBAS Message, GEO Signal Definition and Processing 293

W180 W140 W100 W60 W20 0 E20 E60 E100 E140

N85

N75
9
N60
N55

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
S55
S60

S75

S85 10
Figure 13.10 SBAS ionospheric grid point locations.

by active grid points with valid data. The user first seeks to
use the four active surrounding IGPs defined in the mask to
create a rectangle that can be used to interpolate to the loca-
tion of the IPP. If there is no surrounding rectangle, the user
then checks for a surrounding triangular region. If this too
is unavailable, the user cannot form a differential iono-
spheric correction. The selection criteria for choosing sur-
rounding grid points are given in Section 13.4.4.10.2 of [12].
Message Type 26 also contains GIVEs. The GIVEs are
quantized into one of 16 states. Each one is broadcast as
a 4-bit number called a GIVE Index (GIVEI) that runs from
0 to 15. Values 0 to 14 correspond to numerical values.
A GIVEI of 15 indicates that the satellite is not monitored.
As with the satellites, NM indicates that the IGP is so poorly
viewed that the SBAS cannot verify its current level of
performance.
13.4.4 Issue of Data (IOD)
Information must be coordinated across different messages
and with the information broadcast from the GPS satellites.
It is necessary to have a way to identify which different
sources of data may be used in combination. Issue num-
bers, termed IOD, are used to match different messages
each containing only some of the required information.
When IODs are the same across two different messages,
the user knows that those two parts work together. When
the IODs do not agree, the user knows that they are
attempting to combine incompatible data and that they
may be missing crucial pieces of information. The use of
IODs maintains the high level of integrity mandated by
the system. Specific examples will be given in the para-
graphs below.
There are five defined types of IOD. On the unaugmented
GPS system there are IODs to coordinate clock (IODC) and
ephemeris (IODE) information [32]. Each satellite has its
own individual values. The IODE represents the eight least
significant bits of the ten-bit IODC. The ephemeris data is
split into three subframes of data. The three subframes
must all have the same matching IODE to be combined
together to obtain the full ephemeris data set. The IODE
also enables the WAAS service provider to uniquely iden-
tify which ephemeris information is being corrected. The
user must ensure that the IODE in the MT25 WAAS

c13.3d 293 15/12/2020 5:22:28 PM

 294 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)
correction matches the value in the GPS ephemeris data set
used for that satellite.
Within the MOPS messages there is an IODP that allows
the user to uniquely match the PRN number of the satellite
identified in the mask (MT1) to the location of the correc-
tions and bounds in the messages 2–5, and 24 and 25. That
is, the IODPs in MTs 2–5, and 24 and 25 must match the
IODP in MT1. There is also an IODF that allows the integ-
rity information in Message Type 6 to be traced back to a
specific fast correction. The IODF also serves another pur-
pose: it increments by one from one fast correction to the
next, modulo 3. Thus, users can detect when they have
missed a message because when that happens, the IODFs
will not be sequential for the received messages. By deter-
mining that they are missing information, users can then
take the prescribed steps to ensure that their integrity
bound sufficiently covers the increased uncertainty.
The IODI allows latitude and longitude to be mapped
onto the ionospheric correction information. It coordinates
the information in the MT18 messages with the data in the
MT26 messages. That is, the IODI must match across all
MT18 and MT26 messages that are used together. If the
information were not divided in this manner, it would be
impossible to fit the data into the 250 bps bandwidth. Fur-
ther, the user could not recombine the information with
sufficient integrity without the use of the IODI or a similar
matching mechanism.
13.4.5 Protection Levels
The SBAS protection level equations are based upon the
observation that the error sources are approximately Gaus-
sian and that an inflated Gaussian model can be used to
conservatively describe the positioning errors [57, 58].
Therefore, four error terms were developed to describe sat-
ellite clock and ephemeris errors, ionospheric delay errors,
tropospheric delay errors, and airborne receiver and multi-
path errors. The conservative variances of these terms were
combined to form a conservative variance for the individual
pseudorange error:
σ 2i = σ 2flt,i + σ 2UIRE,i + σ 2tropo,i + σ 2air,i 13 1
The first three terms are more fully described in Appen-
dix A of [12], while the last term is described in Appendix J.
The first term, σ flt, covers the fast and long-term satellite
corrections. It is the product of the σ UDRE with the multi-
plier from MT28 plus additional terms to account for the
error growth since receiving the fast corrections and to
account for any lost or missing messages. The second term,
σ UIRE, is the interpolated GIVE values at the user’s pierce
point location multiplied by the obliquity factor to convert
the value form vertical to slant. The third term bounding
c13.3d 294
the tropospheric error comprises a vertical one-sigma error
bound of 0.12 m that is multiplied by a mapping function to
convert from vertical to slant as specified in [12]. The last
term describes the airborne noise and multipath and is a
fixed function of the elevation angle.
The pseudorange variance for each satellite, σ i, is
inverted and placed on the diagonal elements of the weight-
ing matrix, W, and is combined with the geometry matrix,
G, to form the covariance of the position estimate.
−1
P = GT W G 13 2
When the G matrix is expressed in the local East-North-
Up (ENU) reference frame, the third diagonal element of
the position covariance matrix represents the conservative
estimate of the error variance in the vertical direction. Since
the Vertical Protection Level (VPL) is intended to bound
99.99999% of errors, we need to multiply the one-sigma
overbound by an appropriate factor. Using Gaussian statis-
tics, 68% of the error is bounded within one-sigma, and
99.99999% of the errors will be within 5.33-sigma. Thus,
the VPL for SBAS is given by
VPLSBAS = 5 33 p3,3 13 3
where p3,3, is the third diagonal element of P. The Horizon-
tal Protection Level (HPL) is given by
p1,1 + p2,2 p1,1 − p2,2 2
HPLSBAS = K H + + p21,2
2 2
13 4
where KH is set to 6.0 for PA mode and to 6.18 for
non-precision approach (NPA) mode. These differences
were initially derived from different integrity allocations
and exposure times. In the PA mode, the maximum allow-
able risk is 10−7/approach (where an approach is consid-
ered to last 150 s) and is split with 98% allocated to
vertical and 2% allocated to horizontal. In the NPA mode,
the HPL gets 100% of the allocation‚ which is 10−7/hour.
The VPL allocation of 9.8 × 10−8 corresponds to a 5.33σ
Gaussian error. The PA HPL allocation of 2 × 10−9 corre-
sponds to a 6σ Gaussian error. For the PA mode, the
HPL protects against a one-dimensional cross-track error.
For the NPA mode, the HPL protects against a two-
dimensional horizontal error. The NPA HPL allocation is
defined as per hour; therefore‚ it contains twenty-four
150 s exposure periods. The corresponding allocation of
(10−7)/24 = 4.17 × 10−9 corresponds to a 6.21σ two-
dimensional Gaussian error. The reason behind the dis-
crepancy between 6.18 and 6.21 is not known. The discrep-
ancy is not important as it leads to less than a 0.5%
difference in the required bounding sigmas. These protec-
tion levels provide real-time upper bounds on the possible
15/12/2020 5:22:29 PM
 13.5 SBAS Implementations 295

magnitudes of the position errors. They are compared WRSs

against the Vertical and Horizontal Alert Limits (VALs 80° N IGPs
and HALs) to determine the availability of an operation. 70° N
60° N
For example, a VAL of 50 m and an HAL of 40 m supports N
a PA operation called LPV [59] that can guide the aircraft to
within 250 feet above the ground. That is, as long as the
VPL is below 50 m and the HPL is below 40 m, an aircraft
may use SBAS to navigate down to 250 feet above ground
level. After that point, the pilot must be able to see the run-
way well enough to land visually, or abort the landing.

60°

13.5 SBAS Implementations W 70° W

160° W 80° W
13.5.1 WAAS Figure 13.11 WRS and IGP locations for WAAS.
WAAS consists of 20 WRSs in the Conterminous United
States (CONUS), in addition to 7 in Alaska, 1 in Hawaii,
1 in Puerto Rico, 4 in Canada, and 5 in Mexico for a network
80
of 38 WRSs in all [1]. The WRS locations are shown as red
circles in Figure 13.11. WAAS also has three WMSs and
60
three geostationary satellites (GEOs), whose footprints
are shown in Figure 13.12. The current GEOs are the
40
SES-15 satellite at 129 W (labeled S15 and using PRN
133), the Telesat ANIK F1R satellite at 107 W (labeled
20
CRE and using PRN 138), and the EUTELSAT 117 West
Latitude

B at 117 W (labeled SM9 and using PRN 131). Each

0
GEO has two independent ground uplink stations S15
SM9 CRE
133
(GUSs). WAAS was commissioned for service in July 131 138
–20
2003 and has undergone many changes with many
improvements to its service since that time [60].
–40
As can be seen in the left side of Figure 13.13, availability
of the LPV service is very high for most of North America.
–60
In general, this performance meets the goals for the system.
The right side of Figure 13.13 shows the NPA availability
–80
for an operation called Required Navigation Performance –200 –150 –100 –50 0
(RNP) with a 0.3 nautical mile HAL.
Longitude

Figure 13.12 GEO footprints for WAAS.

13.5.2 EGNOS
EGNOS consists of 29 Ranging and Integrity Monitoring
Stations (RIMSs) in Europe, in addition to 1 in Turkey, 6
in Africa, 1 in North America, 1 in Israel, and 1 in South
America for a total of 39 [61]. The station locations are
shown as green squares in Figure 13.14 (except for Kourou
[French Guiana] and Hartebeesthoek [South Africa]). There
are four Master Control Centers (MCCs) and three opera-
tional GEOs. The operational GEOs are the Inmarsat-4 F2
satellite at 63.9 E, the Astra-5B satellite at 31.5 E, and
the SES 5 satellite at 5 E. Their PRNs are 122, 123, and
136 respectively and they are shown in Figure 13.15. EGNOS
was declared operational in October 2009, and was certified
for safety-of-life service in March 2011. EGNOS uses MT27
to restrict the use of their satellite corrections to within
the red boundary box also shown in Figure 13.15.
For a variety of reasons‚ EGNOS has chosen to implement
its GEO satellites without a ranging capability. EGNOS also
currently implements Message Type 27 (MT27) rather than
Message Type 28 (MT28) [49] as do WAAS and Multi-
function Satellite Augmentation Service (MSAS). MT27
restricts the use of low UDRE values to a box centered on
the European region. Its borders can be seen in Figures 13.15
and 13.16 (right). Currently MT27 impacts only LPV service

c13.3d 295 15/12/2020 5:22:29 PM

 296 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)

WAAS LPV Coverage Contours WAAS RNP 0.3 Coverage contours

12/18/17 12/18/17
Week 1980 Day 1 Week 1980 Day 1
1 80 1
70
60 0.9

60 0.8
40
0.95 0.7
50 20
0.6
Latitude

Latitude
0
40 0.5
–20
0.9 0.4
30
–40
0.3
20
–60 0.2

10 0.85 –80 0.1

–160 –140 –120 –100 –80 –60 E110 E160 W150 W100 W50 0 E50 E100
Longitude Longitude

Figure 13.13 WAAS LPV (left) and RNP 0.3 (right) availability. Source: Courtesy FAA [FAATC].

RIMS 80
80° N
70° N IGPs
N 60

40

20
Latitude

–20

–40

–60
50°
W 40° E –80
30° W 30° E
20° W –80 –60 –40 –20 0 20 40 60 80 100
10° W 20° E
0° 10° E
Longitude

Figure 13.15 GEO footprints for EGNOS.

Figure 13.14 RIMS and IGP locations for EGNOS.

(MTSAT) geostationary satellites at 145 E broadcasting on

to the north, but it is a limiting factor for NPA service. Avail-
ability of LPV service is very high for most of Europe.
13.5.3 MSAS
MSAS is in its initial operating phase. It consists of six
ground monitoring stations (GMSs) on the Japanese
islands. The station locations are shown as magenta
diamonds in Figure 13.17. There are two Master Control
Stations (MCSs) and one Multi-function Transport Satellite
two different PRNs. MSAS was commissioned for service in
September 2007 [63].
Due to the limited network size, the GEO UDREs for
MSAS are set to 50 m and therefore do not benefit vertical
guidance. Further, the limited ionospheric observations
offer little availability of LPV. As a result, vertically guided
operations have not yet been authorized based upon MSAS.
The Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) has studied
performance improvements that could allow it to provide

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 13.5 SBAS Implementations 297

SIS Op-18/12/2017 00:00:00 to 18/12/2017 23:59:59 PRN 123 -18/12/2017 00:00:00 to 18/12/2017 23:59:59
Availability Map Availability (%) Availability Map Availability (%)
≥99.9 ≥99.9
70
≥99 70 ≥99
≥98 ≥98
65 ≥95 ≥95
≥90 ≥90
60 ≥80
60 ≥80
≥70 ≥70
55 <70 <70

No 50 No
Latitude

Latitude
50 availability availability

45
40
40

35 30

30
20
–30 –20 –10 0 10 20 30 40 –40 –30 –20 –10 0 10 20 30 40
Longitude Longitude

Figure 13.16 EGNOS LPV (left) and RNP 0.3 (right) availability. Source: Courtesy ESSP [62].

83 E, and GSAT-15 at 93.5 E as its GEOs as shown in

60° N Figure 13.20. The geomagnetic equator passes through
India‚ and it therefore has to cope with the equatorial iono-
50° N sphere, which is not as well suited for the grid model as mid-
latitude ionosphere. GAGANs algorithms were derived from
the same ones developed for WAAS. However, the iono-
40° N
spheric estimation and monitoring required extensive
changes. The equatorial ionosphere has noticeable curvature
30° N and necessitated adding second-order deterministic compo-
nents. Also, variability from one location to another is
0° N
greater, which required retuning the kriging parameters
and changing the thresholds for storm detection. GAGAN
has good availability for vertical guidance when the iono-
sphere is quiet; see the left side of Figure 13.21. However,
GMSs when the ionosphere is more active, the PA availability
IGPs can be limited. GAGAN is always able to provide horizontal
110° E guidance irrespective of the ionospheric state as can be seen
160° E
120° E 150° E on the right side of Figure 13.21.
130° E 140° E

Figure 13.17 GMS and IGP locations for MSAS.

LPV operations. Until then, MSAS provides only lateral
navigation as shown in Figure 13.18.
13.5.4 Geo-Aided Geo-Augmented
Navigation (GAGAN)
The SBAS in India is called GAGAN. Currently it has
15 Indian Reference Stations (INRESs), all of which are in
India. The station locations are shown as blue diamonds
in Figure 13.19. There are two Indian Master Control Cen-
ters (INMCCs), and it uses GSAT-8 at 55 E, GSAT-10 at
13.5.5 System for Differential Correction
and Monitoring (SDCM)
Russia is developing its SDCM. Currently it has 19 opera-
tional measuring points (MPs) in Russia, 3 just outside of
Russia, and 3 in Antarctica [65, 66]. The system is not yet
operational but does broadcast a test signal. Unlike the
operational systems, SDCM corrects both the GPS and
the GLONASS constellations. It broadcasts on three GEOs:
Luch-5A at 16 W, Luch-5B at 95 E, and Luch-4 at 167 E.
These GEOs only have minor overlap‚ and therefore much
of Russia only receives single coverage from this set
of GEOs.

c13.3d 297 15/12/2020 5:22:34 PM

 298 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)

Service Levels

Availability
Percentage

100. 0%

96. 4%

92 . 6%

88 . 8%

85. 0%

Times Queried
From: Dec 18 2017 at 00:00:00 GPS Time
To: Dec 18 2017 at 23:59:59 GPS Time

Figure 13.18 RNP 0.3 availability for MSAS.

INRES
IGPs 13.5.6 BeiDou SBAS (BDSBAS)
40° N
China is developing its BeiDou SBAS (BDSBAS). The num-
ber of reference stations and their locations are not yet
decided. The corrections will be delivered from three Bei-
30° N Dou GEOs located at 80 E, 110.5 E, and 140 E and using
PRN codes 130, 143, and 144 [67]. BeiDou will correct both
the GPS and the BeiDou constellations. BDSBAS is
20° N evaluating the possibility of also correcting Galileo and
GLONASS.

10° N 13.5.7 Korean Augmentation Satellite

System (KASS)
The Republic of Korea has announced the development of
0° the KASS. It is anticipating that it will have seven KASS ref-
60° E 70° E 80° E 90° E 100° E 110° E erence stations (KRSs), two GEOs, and two KASS Control
Systems (KCSs). A contract was recently awarded for devel-
Figure 13.19 INRES and IGP locations for GAGAN opment and implementation of the system.

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 13.6 Future Evolutions (Dual-Frequency, Multi-Constellation) 299

13.5.8 Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in of Comoros, the 17 African member states of ASECNA
Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) [68]. These states collaboratively manage their airspace
and are interested in developing an SBAS to provide guid-
The Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Mad-
ance to support en route, terminal, and approach opera-
agascar (ASECNA) has been investigating the possibility of
tions in their region of responsibility. They have
SBAS over the region of Africa containing Benin, Burkina,
conducted tests in coordinating with EGNOS and are inves-
Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Congo, Ivory Coast,
tigating adapting the EGNOS algorithms to provide service
Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar,
over Africa [69].
Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Togo, and Union

80 13.6 Future Evolutions (Dual-Frequency,

Multi-Constellation)
60

There are major innovations occurring on the core constel-

40
lations: GPS is adding new signals including a civil signal at
L5, GLONASS is improving the performance of its satel-
20
lites, and Galileo and BeiDou are filling out the remainder
Latitude

0 of their planned constellations. SBAS is also planning to

G-8 G-10 G-15 evolve along with these improvements. Current SBAS
127 128 132
–20 receivers only process GPS L1 C/A signals. The next gener-
ation of SBAS receivers will exploit signals on at least two
–40 different frequencies and from multiple constellations [70].
The details for exploiting these Dual-Frequency Multi-
–60 Constellation (DFMC) enhancements are still in the proc-
ess of being developed. At the moment, there is significant
–80 effort on incorporating the L5 GPS signals and the E1 and
–20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 E5A Galileo signals. However, the intention is that this
Longitude early work will be extended to GLONASS and BeiDou sig-
nals as well. The L5 and E5 signals are attractive as they
Figure 13.20 GEO footprints for GAGAN. overlap each other and are in a protected Aeronautical

Figure 13.21 GAGAN LPV (left) and RNP 0.3 (right) availability. Source: Courtesy AAI [64].

c13.3d 299 15/12/2020 5:22:39 PM

 300 13 Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBASs)

Radio Navigation Service (ARNS) frequency band (unlike For L1-only SBAS, the ionospheric correction uncer-
GPS L2 or Galileo E6, for example). ARNS bands are pro- tainty, reflected in the GIVEs, is by far the largest term in
tected for aviation use and have lower concerns over other (S-1), while the σ air term is the smallest. For dual-frequency
transmissions overwhelming these signals. SBAS, the error term on an individual satellite is given by
The joint use of L1 with L5 (and E1 with E5a) is especially
σ 2i,DF = σ 2DFC,i + σ 2tropo,i + σ 2air_iono-free,i 13 5
attractive because the signals can be combined so as to can-
cel the first-order ionospheric delay effect. This ionosphere- where σ 2DFC,i is the dual-frequency clock and ephemeris
free combination reduces the ionospherically induced
bound, and σ 2air_iono-free,i is the ionosphere-free user noise
ranging error to a satellite from tens of meters to a few cen-
and multipath bound. This term is used in place of (S-1)
timeters (usually even lower) [71]. Thus, the dominant
for the dual-frequency SBAS user.
source of uncertainty for the current L1-only SBAS systems
The inclusion of additional constellations in SBAS also
can be virtually eliminated for a dual-frequency SBAS. The
promises to significantly improve their performance. Hav-
coverage regions for vertical guidance shown in previous
ing more ranging measurements means that a user is very
plots could be dramatically expanded. Further, far fewer
unlikely to suffer from weak geometry. Further, extra ran-
reference stations are required‚ as there would be no need
ging measurements average down the effect of noise and
to estimate and send ionospheric grid corrections. Instead,
uncertainty. Roughly speaking, doubling the number of
the user directly estimates and removes the ionospheric
ranging measurements will divide the protection level
delay along each of their lines of sight. The only penalty
values by approximately the square root of two (about a
is that independent individual errors on each frequency
30% reduction). The constellations have different signal
become amplified. Thus, the effects of multipath are
properties‚ and thus their clocks are not precisely coordi-
increased by a factor of 2.26 on L1 and 1.26 on L5 (if the
nated form one constellation to another. Further, the
error is equal on each frequency, the overall effect increases
constellation timing differences may be larger than the
by 2.6) [70].

Availability as a function of user location

80

60

40

20

0
Latitude (deg)

–20

–40

–60

–80

–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150

Longitude (deg)

< 50 % > 50 % > 75 % > 85 % > 90 % > 95 % > 99 % > 99 .5% > 99 9%
Availability with VAL = 50, HAL = 40, Coverage(99%) = 10.98%

Figure 13.22 Existing L1-only LPV coverage

c13.3d 300 15/12/2020 5:22:41 PM

 13.6 Future Evolutions (Dual-Frequency, Multi-Constellation) 301

Availability as a function of user location

80

60

40

20

0
Latitude (deg)

–20

–40

–60

–80

–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150

Longitude (deg)

< 50 % > 50 % > 75 % > 85 % > 90 % > 95 % > 99 % > 99 .5% > 99 9%
Availability with VAL = 50, HAL = 40, Coverage(99%) = 31.53%

Figure 13.23 DF LPV coverage for existing systems.

dynamic range of the corrections. Therefore, the user needs
to add another clock state to be estimated for each addi-
tional constellation from which they use ranging measure-
ments. This estimated clock state will absorb both the
differences in the constellation time base, and also those
due to the different signal structure employed by the new
constellation.
Figure 13.22 shows the LPV coverage provided by the
currently operating systems. As can be seen, coverage is
limited to the four regions: North America, Europe, Japan,
and India. Figure 13.23 shows the coverage if those four sys-
tems all implemented dual frequency. This modeling fur-
ther assumes that EGNOS switches from using MT27 to
using MT28. Dual frequency eliminates the reliance on
the ionospheric grid and large associated uncertainty at
the edges of each system. Now coverage expands well
beyond the original borders. The current systems only pro-
vide LPV service to approximately 11% of Earth’s surface.
Switching to dual frequency nearly triples the area covered
to now over 31%.
Adding another constellation to the set of corrections
nearly doubles the area covered to 59%. Figure 13.24 shows
this result when these same four systems provide DFMC
service correcting both GPS and Galileo. These results are
calculated using Stanford University’s MATLAB Algorithm
Availability Simulation Toolset (MAAST) [72]. MAAST
uses the locations of the reference stations and satellites
(obtained from the constellation almanacs) and replicates
the UDRE and GIVE algorithms for each of the different
systems. It is able to then estimate the resulting VPL and
HPL at each time step and user location to compute the
expected availability. MAAST provides the ability to evalu-
ate DFMC algorithms long before any DFMC-capable
receivers are fielded or satellites are launched. It is used
extensively by WAAS to determine which algorithm candi-
dates are most promising. It allows SBAS providers to esti-
mate the expected levels of service for future evolutions as
can be seen in Figures 13.23 to 13.25.
Figure 13.25 shows the resulting LPV availability if the
remaining planned SBASs are also implemented with
DFMC service. The most significant expansion is now over
Africa. This is because all of the planned services, with the
exception of ASECNA, are in the Northern Hemisphere
and tend to overlap. In order to expand further, more

c13.3d 301 15/12/2020 5:22:42 PM

 Availability as a function of user location
80

60

40

20
Latitude (deg)

–20

–40

–60

–80

–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150

Longitude (deg)

< 50 % > 50 % > 75 % > 85 % > 90 % > 95 % > 99 % > 99 .5% > 99 9%
Availability with VAL = 50, HAL = 40, Coverage(99%) = 59%

Figure 13.24 DFMC LPV coverage for existing systems.

Availability as a function of user location

80

60

40

20
Latitude (deg)

–20

–40

–60

–80

–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150

Longitude (deg)

< 50 % > 50 % > 75 % > 85 % > 90 % > 95 % > 99 % > 99 .5% > 99 9%
Availability with VAL = 50, HAL = 40, Coverage(99%) = 62.44%

Figure 13.25 DFMC LPV coverage for all systems.

c13.3d 302 15/12/2020 5:22:44 PM


development is required over South America and Australia.
These regions have expressed interest and may well field
their own SBAS services in the future.
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 307

Part B

Satellite Navigation Technologies


14
Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
Sanjeev Gunawardena1 and Y.T. Jade Morton2
1
Air Force Institute of Technology, United States
2
University of Colorado Boulder, United States
The technology evolution of satellite navigation and timing
receivers over the past five decades since the first GPS sets
were developed is truly remarkable. Compared to the hand-
ful of early GPS receiver types classified as either military or
civilian, with form factors comprising stationary reference,
geodetic, aviation‚ or portable, today’s receivers span a
large set of market segments and innumerable applications.
For example, emerging reference station receivers used for
global navigation satellite system (GNSS) constellation
monitoring are capable of directly sampling the entire
1–2 GHz L-band radio frequency (RF) spectrum and per-
form GNSS signal monitoring as well as interference detec-
tion and characterization in real time. High-accuracy users
are served by both real-time kinematic (RTK) receivers that
provide millimeter-level carrier-phase-based relative posi-
tioning as well as precise point positioning (PPP) technol-
ogy that can provide unprecedented sub-centimeter-level
stand-alone absolute positioning. On the mass-market
end of this product spectrum, current generation cell-
phones have integrated the entire position, navigation,
and timing (PNT) functionality‚ including an all-GNSS con-
stellation receiver into a single CMOS chip that is less than
3×3 mm in size, consumes tens of milliwatts, and costs a
few dollars (e.g. [1]). In terms of time to first fix (TTFF), sen-
sitivity, and in some cases accuracy, these cellphone GNSS
receivers significantly outperform aviation-grade GPS sets
from the previous decade that cost thousands of dollars.
As a final example, the GNSS receivers used in low-cost
asset tracking devices sample and store a 1–2 ms “snapshot”
of the L1 band at the smallest possible bandwidth once
every few hours to flash memory. Once retrieved, these
coarsely time-tagged samples are post-processed at a server
to pinpoint location to within a few meters anywhere on
Earth. From the extreme high end to the extreme low
end, at their core, all GNSS receivers share a common set
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
309
of functions to provide range measurements to visible radio
navigation satellites. This chapter provides an overview of
the fundamentals of receiver technology, its development
history, and current trends.
All radio receivers extract raw modulated information
through a process known as detection. Figure 14.1 shows
the so-called eye pattern or eye diagram of a received binary
phase-shift keying (BPSK) signal just prior to detection. In
this case, the diagram shows the synchronized superposi-
tion of repeated GPS L5Q chip transitions. For a communi-
cation receiver, the detection process recovers symbols,
which for BPSK involves evaluating whether the signal
value is positive or negative at a consistent point in time
where transients have settled. It is clear from the figure that
although there is significant variation in the signal in both
time and amplitude due to noise and distortion, ample mar-
gin exists to perform error-free detection, as seen by the
open “data eye.”
Receivers that perform PNT using radio signals differ fun-
damentally from other digital receivers; the data communi-
cations example just described is a case in point. While it is
true that most PNT receivers need to demodulate data that
contains essential parameters needed for positioning and
coarse time synchronization, the primary information
detected by the receiver is precise timing. Timing is per-
formed by estimating the average zero-crossing point of
one or more phase transitions. As shown in Figure 14.1,
the true phase transition zero-crossing times are unique,
as opposed to a range of times for symbol detection, and
its detection affords no margin. In practice, the receiver’s
timing estimate is never error free. All physical processes
that cause phase transition jitter and waveform deformation
such as thermal noise, multipath, interference, atmospheric
effects, and transmitter/receiver reference oscillator fre-
quency drift and phase noise will cause timing, and
310 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers

PNT Receiver: Communication Receiver: × 10−23 J/K is the Boltzmann constant, and B is the band-
Determine the Determine the sign of width in hertz. For the 24 MHz transmitted bandwidth of
time of transition the wavefrom
the legacy GPS L1 signal, where all of the GPS-SPS signal
2.0 power is contained, the thermal noise power at room tem-
Normalized Amplitude (Q5)

1.5 perature (T=293 K) is 10−13 W (−130 dBW). This results in

1.0
0.5
0.0
–0.5
–1.0
–1.5
–2.0
–2.5
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15
Time (microseconds)
Figure 14.1 Phase transition eye diagram for a BPSK-modulated
signal containing noise, phase jitter‚ and distortion (live sky GPS
L5Q chip transitions) [2].
Radio wave free space propagation model
Pt Gt Gr
(Friss free space equation): Pr =
Lt
Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP)
Free Space Path Loss (FSPL)
GPS L1 CA signal transmission power: Pt = 25W = 14 dBW
Satellite transmission antenna gain: Gt = 13dB; transmitter loss Lt ~ 2dB
Receiver antenna gain Gr = 0
EIRP = 10log10(Pt) + 10log10(Gt) + 10log10(Gr) – 10log10(Lt) = 25dB
Satellite-receiver range r = 21,000km; GPS L1 wavelength λ = 19cm
FSPL = –32 – 20log10(r) – 20log10( f ) = –183 dB
Receiver power (dB) = EIRP + FSPL = 25 – 183 = –158 dB
Figure 14.2 GPS-SPS link budget.
consequently ranging, errors. A well-designed PNT receiver
strives to minimize these errors while conforming to the size,
weight, power consumption‚ and cost (SWAP-c) constraints
stipulated by its application and market segment.
Arguably, as challenging as PNT receivers are to design
and implement compared to digital communications, it is
more so for satellite navigation. As shown in Figure 14.2,
the power induced by a GPS standard positioning service
(SPS) signal-in-space (SIS) on a receive antenna on the sur-
face of Earth is about 10−16 W (−160 dBW). This unimag-
inably small value is representative of all received GNSS
signals to within a few decibels (dB). Free electrons within
all matter at temperatures T(K) above absolute zero experi-
ence random Brownian motion, which gives rise to thermal
noise. In theory, this noise has a constant spectral density
from DC to infinity. Hence, thermal noise power is band-
width dependent and defined as Pn=kTB, where k =1.38
a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on the order of −30 dB at the
antenna. In other words, in a 24 MHz bandwidth, the
received GPS-SPS signal is 1000 times less powerful than
thermal noise! A GNSS receiver performs the challenging
precise timing estimation process described above on a sig-
nal that it cannot directly observe above the noise floor.
Moreover, provided there is no in-band interference, most
0.20
low-cost GNSS receivers perform this feat to produce meter-
level positioning accuracy (3 ns timing accuracy) by sam-
pling this received signal at only one bit (i.e. only the sign
of the received signal is considered)! This chapter provides
the foundation to understand how this seemingly magical
task is accomplished using modern front-end design tech-
niques and digital signal processing.
The organization of this chapter is the following.
Section 14.1 will provide an overview of the anatomy of a
GNSS receiver. The functionalities and interrelationships
λ2
among the various components are described. Section 14.2
( 4πr )2
discusses signal generation and transmission. Signal models
at the satellite transmission and receiver antennas are pre-
sented. Section 14.3 focuses on RF front-end (RFFE)
functionalities, components, performance metrics, and
architecture. The signal model at the RFFE is covered in
the subsequent section, Section 14.4. A central operation
in a GNSS receiver is correlation regardless of the application
or specific implementations of a receiver. We devote
Section 14.5 to the correlation operation output model and
correlation at hardware and software levels. Section 14.6
provides a quick overview of a receiver channel control state
machine without dwelling on the details of the state machine
implementations as they are covered in Chapters 15, 17, and
18. Section 14.7 discusses the generation and relationship
among the various timing bases in a GNSS receiver. The
future outlook of GNSS receiver trends are presented in
Section 14.8.
14.1 Anatomy of a GNSS Receiver
Irrespective of the receiver type, the functionality of all
GNSS receivers can be broken down into three major
blocks: RFFE, baseband processor (BBP), and system proc-
essor (SP). In the literature, the term “baseband processor”
may be used to refer to the combination of both the BBP
and SP defined here. The general anatomy of a GNSS
receiver is shown in Figure 14.3.
 14.1 Anatomy of a GNSS Receiver 311

Antenna Baseband Processor (BBP)

Dynamic range management, Sample Processor (SMP)

RF Front End (RFFE) quantizer optimization
Situational awareness Acquisition
processor engine
Digital
Signal Frequency Bandwidth Sampling, stream Sample Correlation
conditioning translation selection digitization conditioner engine

Reference Phase-locked frequency synthesis Counters, timers, pulse generators

oscillator

• PPS Hardware-software interface

Reduced Data Processor (RDP)

System Processor (SP) • Acquisition commands
• PVT • State updates
• Status Acquisition Tracking
User Receiver • Resource management
loops
management
interface intelligence • TOR adjustments
Power supply Ctrl. state Error Data
PVT machines
Channel (CSM) correction decoding
solution management
• Low-power • ADR, TOT, I/Q, C/N0
oscillator Interference/spoofing
Non- • Acquisition results
• Realtime clock • Nav data bit streams detection/mitigation
volatile Initialization
• Battery memory • Situational awareness
indicators

Figure 14.3 Simplified block diagram of a modern GNSS receiver.

The RFFE converts the signals induced at one or more
antennas into digitized sample streams. Depending on
the application and market segment, data rates for these
streams may be as low as 0.4 Mbytes/s (e.g. L1 band
sampled at 3.5 MSPS and 1-bit sampling in an asset tracking
device) to greater than 3 GB/s (e.g. L1 and L2 bands
sampled at 60 MSPS and 16 bits across seven elements in
an anti-jam military GPS receiver).
The BBP performs digital signal processing to acquire and
track GNSS signals present in the digitized sample streams
to produce raw GNSS observables for each visible satellite.
These observables include time of transmission (TOT), accu-
mulated Doppler Range (ADR), signal quality metrics such
as carrier-to-noise density ratio (C/N0), in-phase and quad-
rature prompt correlator output (I/Q), and raw symbols of a
GNSS signal’s broadcast navigation message (which are sub-
sequently decoded). In addition, modern receivers typically
perform varying degrees of situational awareness processing
to monitor in-band interference such that a level of confi-
dence can be assigned to these raw observables. Some
advanced receivers have the ability to identify spoofing sig-
nals. Depending on the application, situational awareness
outputs may be as rudimentary as the automatic gain control
(AGC) voltage used to adjust front-end amplification or as
sophisticated as spectrogram, histogram, and sample statis-
tics for all streams evaluated at full sample precision.
The BBP also contains a counter that is driven by a digital
clock signal that is phase-locked to the receiver’s reference
oscillator. This counter is the basis for the receiver’s clock
and is used to generate time-of-reception (TOR) epochs.
Raw observables for all satellites in view that lead to range
measurements are computed with respect to TOR epochs.
Since the receiver clock is based on its reference oscillator,
it drifts with respect to GNSS system times. Although pos-
sible, the frequency bias, drift, and drift rate of the reference
oscillator are typically not adjusted to align with GNSS sys-
tem time because dynamic adjustment of the oscillator can
lead to instabilities. Instead, these parameters are estimated
and used to drive a separate adjustable-rate counter that
compensates for the reference oscillator errors. This forms
the basis for GNSS disciplined oscillators.
It is possible to partition all baseband processing into two
categories: sample processor (SMP) and reduced-data proc-
essor (RDP). The SMP performs high-rate but simple and
algorithmically regular operations which largely comprise
multiply-accumulate operations performed at the sample
rate. The SMP may also contain configurable timers and
pulse/event generators that determine sample processing
intervals, as well as output precise timing pulses that are
synchronized down to the nanosecond level with respect
to GNSS system times (timing accuracy and precision are
dependent on the application and market segment). The
312 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
RDP performs low-rate but algorithmically complex opera-
tions. Some representative software functions running
within the RDP are illustrated in Figure 14.3.
Bidirectional communications occur between the SMP
and RDP at regular timed intervals corresponding to a kil-
ohertz rate. This rate is easily handled by all modern micro-
processors. Since these SMP/RDP transactions are time
critical, the RDP runs either bare-metal code (i.e. no oper-
ating system) or a real-time operating system. The opera-
tions within the BBP are inherently parallel and largely
independent of each other at the signal processing level.
Some coupling occurs, for example‚ in code-carrier aiding,
inter-frequency aiding (see Chapter 15), inter-satellite aid-
ing (referred to as vector tracking, described in Chapter 16),
and multi-element processing. However, this coupling is
typically implemented at higher levels of abstraction. Mod-
ern multi-band and multi-constellation receivers are capa-
ble of tracking hundreds of GNSS signals simultaneously.
To facilitate this highly complex command and control
structure – which also needs to be dynamically scalable
and adaptive depending on the number of satellites in view,
environmental conditions‚ and operating modes – the con-
trol architecture is typically layered (i.e. hierarchical).
Control at the individual signal acquisition and tracking
layers is performed using simple configurable finite state
machines (FSMs) whose state transitions are based on sig-
nal condition indicators such as code lock, phase lock,
C/N0, and code-carrier divergence (CCD). These FSMs
operate independently but are typically managed at a high
level by the SP.
The SP takes the raw signal observables produced by
the BBP and transforms them to the standard GNSS
receiver measurements. These measurements include
pseudorange (PR), ADR, carrier phase (CP), carrier Dop-
pler, and C/N0. All modern GNSS receivers also compute
position, velocity, and time (PVT) at configurable rates
(1 to 100 Hz depending on the receiver type). The SP
encodes these in one or more industry-standard data for-
mats for distribution. These formats include Receiver
Independent Exchange Format (RINEX) [3], the National
Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) format [4], the
Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services
(RTCM) format [5], and vendor-specific proprietary
binary formats.
The SP also performs all high-level functions that include
receiver initialization, channel management, and user inter-
face functions. Unlike the BBP, the operations within the SP
are generally not time critical. In modern GNSS receivers,
the SP is often an embedded computer running an advanced
non-real-time operating system. It may also support modern
data interfaces (wired USB and Ethernet, or wireless/cellular
connectivity) and an advanced graphical user interface with
touchscreen support. While too numerous to mention, rep-
resentative software processes running within the SP are
illustrated in Figure 14.3.
Although not shown in Figure 14.3, modern receivers (or
the navigation system to which they are interfaced) may also
support aiding from external sensors such as inertial meas-
urement units (IMUs), magnetometers, inclinometers, bar-
ometers, wheel sensors, RADAR, LiDAR, infra-red (IR),
and electro-optical (EO) sensors. This external aiding to
GNSS can occur at three levels: loose coupling (position
level), tight coupling (measurement level), or ultra-tight cou-
pling (sampled signal processing level). GNSS aiding using
various non-GNSS sensors is described in Chapters 43–51
in Volume II, Part E.
As shown in Figure 14.3, a stand-alone GNSS receiver
contains battery-powered low-power circuitry to keep track
of absolute time while it is turned off. A real-time clock
(RTC) driven by a low-power crystal oscillator accom-
plishes this task. In some cases, this crystal may be the same
as the reference oscillator. Knowledge of absolute time,
along with the last known location and previously decoded
almanac/ephemeris data stored in the receiver’s non-
volatile memory, allows it to estimate satellites in view
and their Doppler offsets, thereby significantly reducing
the TTFF: the time needed to acquire satellites and produce
the initial PVT solution. In the case of modern military
receivers such as M-Code, or subscription-based services
such as the Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS), the
receiver must acquire the cryptographically generated
spreading code that may never repeat. In this case, the ini-
tial time uncertainty has a significant impact on the acqui-
sition search space and consequently the computational
resources consumed by the acquisition engine as well as
power consumption. The TTFF can be dramatically
reduced when absolute time, the satellites in view, their
Doppler frequencies, and ephemerides are sent to the
receiver from a nearby reference station via a communica-
tions link. This describes the basis of Assisted GNSS
(A-GNSS) technology, covered in Chapter 17 of this book.
In some respects, the reference oscillator can be consid-
ered the single most important component that affects
GNSS receiver performance. Although the PVT solution
estimates the deterministic components of the reference
oscillator’s frequency error (i.e. short-term bias, drift, and
drift rate), the stochastic component cannot be estimated
and hence represents additional dynamics that must be
tracked (i.e. in addition to satellite motion, user motion, sat-
ellite clock motion, and any ionospheric scintillation and
multipath). The bandwidth of the carrier tracking loops
must be increased to accommodate this close-in phase
noise of the reference oscillator. This in turn increases
the variance of the range measurements. The reference

oscillator is also the only “moving part” in the receiver since
it is based on the resonance of a quartz crystal or microelec-
tromechanical systems (MEMS) structure. In addition to
microphonics, which are small phase variations that may
occur within the RFFE due to external forces (particularly
if the RFFE comprises large discrete components), these
forces couple through the resonating element leading to
shock and vibration sensitivity [6]. Similarly, thermal
expansion of the crystal as well as analog components in
the RFFE due to changing ambient temperature, unless
appropriately compensated or isolated, causes temperature
sensitivity. The frequency synthesizer in the RFFE multi-
plies the oscillator phase noise and dynamics by the ratio
of the synthesizer output frequency to the oscillator funda-
mental frequency, thus placing a significant short-term
stability requirement on the reference oscillator. Oscillator
short-term stability limits the coherent integration time,
which is proportional to the processing gain. Hence, the
quality of the reference oscillator directly impacts the recei-
ver’s attainable sensitivity (i.e. the minimum observable
signal levels) as well as the rate at which it can output
statistically independent measurements. Oscillator effects
are covered in detail in Chapter 47.
The receiver intelligence process within the SP shown in
Figure 14.3 performs functions such as determining what
satellites are in view, how best to mitigate any in-band
interference (as observed by the situational awareness indi-
cators), dynamically adapting to varying operating condi-
tions, determining the best set of range measurements to
use for the PVT solution based on optimum satellite geom-
etry and estimated range error metrics indicated by C/N0
(for signal blockage) and CCD fluctuations (for multipath
and ionospheric effects), and many such highly complex
decisions. Typically, these high-level functions occur at a
lower rate such as 1 Hz or less. To a large degree, the level
of sophistication and engineering embedded within the
receiver intelligence block, as well as the other low-level
control functions determines the receiver’s performance
in the real world, as expressed by established figures of
merit. These include measurement accuracy, update rate,
TTFF, sensitivity, dynamics handling capability, multipath
mitigation performance, interference detection and mitiga-
tion capability, receiver autonomous integrity monitoring,
and fault detection and exclusion (see Chapter 23). In other
words, for a given market segment and its associated
SWAP-c constraints, the receiver’s hardware and available
signal processing capabilities can only do so much. The rest,
and quite often the attributes that distinguish it in the mar-
ketplace, lies within the hundreds of thousands of person-
hours and centuries of combined experience baked into its
sophisticated software/firmware.
14.2 Signal Generation and Transmission 313
14.2 Signal Generation
and Transmission
14.2.1 Signal at the Satellite Transmit Antenna
The general form of a GNSS signal sTX emanating from the
transmit antenna of a satellite vehicle (SV) at time t with
nominal frequency fTX can be modeled as
sTX t = hSV t ∗ 2PTX,I cos ωSV t + ϕI t
+ 2PTX,Q sin ωSV t + ϕQ t 14 1
where
ωSV = 2π f TX + δf SV t 14 2
is the radial frequency, δfSV(t) is the random frequency varia-
tion due to the small but significant drift of the satellite’s signal
generation payload reference oscillator, and ϕ represents the
instantaneous phase relative to time t. Equation (14.1)
describes a real signal whose in-phase and quadrature carrier
components have been phase-modulated with functions ϕI(t)
and ϕQ(t), respectively. This is referred to as phase quadrature
modulation. A real signal is defined as one that can be trans-
mitted using a single port or channel. hSV(t) represents the
time-domain impulse response of the satellite’s signal gener-
ation and transmission hardware. The convolution of hSV(t)
with the ideal signal (denoted by the ∗ operator) models the
fact that the transmitted signal is band-limited for transmis-
sion efficiency as well as to conform to International Telecom-
munications Union (ITU) regulations. It is important to note
that hSV(t) introduces a time delay from the generation of the
signal at the payload to when it is radiated by the antenna.
This delay, also referred to as equipment group delay, is
included in the clock correction parameters relayed to the user
via the navigation message [7]. Also note that hSV(t) in (14.1)
represents a simplified model. In reality, this function has
dependencies on the nadir angle and azimuth (stemming
from the transmit antenna gain and phase pattern), and
may change due to satellite aging – all of which can impact
high-accuracy users. The detailed study of hSV (t) falls under
SV signal quality monitoring (SQM), which is covered in
Chapter 10.
Since the transmitted in-phase and quadrature signal
powers PTX,I and PTX,Q in (14.1) are constant over time,
the in-phase and quadrature components of sTX(t) will each
have a constant envelope. In other words, the amplitude of
the signal conveys no information. This is an important
design constraint for GNSS signals as it allows the use of
efficient power amplifiers in the signal generation and
transmission payload. However, modern GNSSs have
requirements to modulate multiple signal components at
different power levels onto the same carrier. These include
314 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
pilot and data components across multiple services (e.g.
civilian, military, and commercial). Hence, the only way
to deliver multiple signal components with a single ampli-
fier and antenna while maintaining a constant envelope for
sTX(t) is to embed all signal information into the phase mod-
ulation terms ϕI(t) and ϕQ(t). Techniques to achieve this
include majority vote, Interplex [8], Coherent Adaptive
Subcarrier Modulation (CASM) [9, 10], and Phase-
Optimized Constant Envelope Transmission (POCET)
[11]. However, to a receiver that is performing correlation
for a specific pair of quadrature-modulated signal compo-
nents, provided that the other signal components have
low cross-correlation and are sufficiently separated in spec-
trum, sTX(t) appears as though ϕI(t) and ϕQ(t) are only
modulated by the said pair. The remainder of this descrip-
tion assumes a single pair of quadrature-modulated signal
components, otherwise known as quadrature phase shift
keying (QPSK).
For a GNSS signal with two components modulated in
phase quadrature, the phase terms ϕI and ϕQ are given by
ϕI t = πW I t
ϕQ t = πW Q t 14 3
where WI and WQ are binary sequences with alphabet {0, 1}
that are ideally uncorrelated. That is, for all possible
delays τ:
+∞
RW I ,W Q τ = W I t W Q t − τ dt = 0 14 4
−∞
where W is sequence W transformed to {+1, −1} sign
representation given by
W = 1 − 2W 14 5
W is the modulo-2 sum (i.e. XOR operation, denoted by ⨁)
of two digital sequences C and D:
W I t = DI f D , t ⨁CI f C , t 14 6
W Q t = DQ f D , t ⨁CQ f C , t
D is a slow-rate digital sequence with rate fd symbols/s
that is used to convey data and/or coarse timing informa-
tion. C is a fast-rate sequence with rate fC symbols/s that
achieves direct-sequence spectral spreading and shaping.
Equation (14.6) denotes fC and fd to be the same on both
in-phase and quadrature components. This is to simplify
the notation‚ and in general they may be different for
each component. The transitions of C and D are digitally
synchronized to occur at precisely the same time, and
these transitions are also synchronized to the carrier
cycles:
f TX = α f C = β f D 14 7
where α and β are integers. For example, for the GPS C/A
code modulation on the GPS Link-1 (L1) frequency,
fTX = 1575.42 MHz, fC = 1.023 × 106 symbols/sec, fd = 50
symbols/s, α = 1540, and β = 31,508,400.
For BPSK modulation with rectangular spreading sym-
bols, denoted by BPSK − R(n), C represents the primary
pseudorandom spreading sequence at a chipping rate of
n×1.023×106 chips/s. The normalized autocorrelation of
this spreading sequence is given by
1− τ ,τ ≤ 1
RC ,C τ = 14 8
0, τ > 1
For binary offset carrier modulation with BOC(m, n)
notation, C represents the modulo-2 sum of the primary
spreading sequence with a 50% duty cycle square wave at
the frequency m × 1.023 MHz, which is known as the sub-
carrier. The subcarrier spreads power away from the center
of the band‚ and in conjunction with the spreading
sequence is used to spectrally separate multiple signal com-
ponents to achieve both inter-signal-component and inter-
system interoperability. The binary assumption for C holds
true for the majority of GNSS signals. Notable exceptions
include the Galileo E5 Alt-BOC and E1 CBOC modulations.
Further details of GNSS signal modulation techniques can
be found in Chapter 2.
D comprises data symbols and/or secondary codes,
depending on the particular GNSS signal structure. In the
context of data modulation, the term symbol refers to the
actual binary sequence that is modulated onto the carrier.
One or more symbols may be used to represent a single
information-carrying bit, and depends on the type of error
correction coding that is applied to the navigation data mes-
sage. Secondary codes (also referred to as overlay codes) are
used to effectively lengthen the periodicity of the primary
spreading code, thereby improving its cross-correlation
properties while not significantly increasing the signal
acquisition burden for the receiver. These deterministic sec-
ondary codes are also used for coarse timing alignment. In
general, the secondary codes have a known timing relation-
ship with the data symbols. Hence, aligning with the
known secondary code, for example‚ on a pilot signal com-
ponent, avoids the bit synchronization process that is
required in legacy GPS and GLONASS receivers. A pilot sig-
nal is one that contains no data modulation. These are
designed primary for signal tracking and impose no restric-
tions on how long the signal can be coherently integrated
for at the receiver.

14.2.2 Signal at the Receiver Antenna
The signal rAnt incident at the antenna of a GNSS receiver
with Γ visible SVs, each broadcasting its version of signal
sTX can be modeled as
Γ affects the modulations on the received signal by their
r Ant t = sRX,i t + X t + nAnt t 14 9
i=1
where sRX,i is the signal received from the ith satellite
given by
sRX t = henv t ∗ hSV t
∗ PRX,I cos ωRX t + πW I t − τRX + ϕRX
+ PRX,Q sin ωRX t + πW Q t − τRX + ϕRX
14 10
and
ωRX t = 2π f TX + δf SV t + f d t 14 11
PRX,I and PRX,Q represent the received signal powers of
the in-phase and quadrature components, respectively.
As is evident from Figure 14.2, the signal power induced
at a receiver antenna is severely attenuated with respect
to the transmit power. While this power level is certainly
low compared to terrestrial RF systems, it is important to
note that this is typical for all GNSS systems and stems from
practical limitations on the amount of power that can be
transmitted from a navigation satellite, the free space loss
that the signal experiences as its transmitted power is
spread out over an area that is proportional to 1/4πR2
(where R is the radius of a sphere expanding outward from
the phase center of the antenna), and the reception of that
signal on Earth by a small aperture antenna. Hence, all
GNSS signal structures must incorporate large processing
gains to increase the SNR through receiver signal proces-
sing. In a spread-spectrum system, the processing gain is
defined as the ratio of the spread bandwidth to the
un-spread bandwidth. For example, the processing gain
of the GPS L1 C/A code signal, which has a BPSK − R(1)
modulation and 50 Hz symbol rate, is 10log10(2.046 × 106/
100) ≈ 43 dB. For pilot signals that do not have symbol mod-
ulation or have symbol modulation that is known to the
receiver, the processing gain is theoretically infinite but
practically limited by the stability of the receiver’s reference
oscillator.
fd is the Doppler frequency offset due to line-of-sight
(LOS) velocity, v, given by fd = −vfTX/c. The negative sign
relating Doppler to the velocity stems from the definition of
range. The range of an object (and hence its time derivative
velocity) is defined to be positive when it is moving away
from an observer. Conversely, the frequency of a signal
source is observed to be less than its nominal value when
14.2 Signal Generation and Transmission 315
it is moving away from the observer. For a satellite at
medium Earth orbit (MEO), the velocity in the LOS direc-
tion for a stationary user on the surface of Earth can vary
by as much as ±800 m/s. This is equivalent to a carrier
Doppler frequency range of ±4.2 kHz at L1. Doppler also
respective rates. For the GPS L1 C/A code example, code
Doppler varies by as much as ±2.73 chips/s due to
satellite motion with respect to a stationary observer on
the surface of Earth.
τRX represents the signal propagation delay as it travels
from the SV to the receiver antenna. This delay is made
up of signal propagation in free space and delays through
the ionosphere and troposphere. For an MEO satellite
and user on Earth’s surface, τRX varies between 67 ±
20 ms [12].
ϕRX is the fractional CP due to propagation delays and
distortions. Assuming point source antennas and free-
space-only propagation, the relationship between τRX and
ΦRX is given by τRX = f 1 L + ΦRX 2π , where L is an inte-
RX
ger. In reality, the received phase deviates from this
relationship due to antenna phase windup effects, propaga-
tion through the ionosphere, SV and receiver electronics
group delay effects, and multipath.
X(t) represents any type of interference that may be
induced onto rAnt. This may include intentional or uninten-
tional interference. The latter includes harmonics and spu-
rious emissions from nearby transmitters. In the case of the
GNSS receiver function that is embedded into a multifunc-
tion RF chipset in a mobile device application (e.g. multiple
cellular and Wi-Fi standards and bands, Bluetooth), a sig-
nificant amount of interference is generated and coupled
into the GNSS band RFFE within the chipset itself [13].
Even when the GNSS receiver and the other radios are
separated, the proximity of the various transceiver anten-
nas to the GNSS antenna within the handset can cause
interference on the received signal through processes such
as intermodulation (IM) and reciprocal mixing that occur
within the RFFE. Types of interference include continuous
wave (CW), swept CW, chirp, pulsed, pseudo random noise,
and broadband noise. GNSS receivers have widely varying
impacts based on the type of interference and how the
receiver is designed. Further details will be found in
Chapter 24. It should be noted that XAnt does not represent
spoofing. The intentions and the corresponding response of
the receiver to spoofing are fundamentally different from
interference. In (14.9), spoofing would be represented by
additional signals sRX whose received parameters closely
resemble those of one or more genuine GNSS signals in
view. Further details on spoofing can be found in
Chapter 25.
316 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
nAnt is the noise induced at the antenna. Noise contribu-
tions to nAnt include the following: (1) ground noise, which
is noise from Earth that can be modeled as a blackbody
radiator, (2) sky noise, which comprises atmospheric noise,
noise from celestial objects, and cosmic noise, and (3) ther-
mal noise induced by the random motion of electrons in the
resistive elements within the antenna. Of these, thermal
noise is by far the largest contributor to nAnt. All these noise
processes can be modeled as additive white Gaussian, but
the actual contributions depend on the antenna gain pat-
tern, time of day, space and local weather, and ambient
temperature. A simplified model for antenna noise power
is given by σ 2n = kT Ant BAnt , where TAnt and BAnt represent
the antenna equivalent temperature and bandwidth,
respectively. In practice, TAnt is several kelvins higher than
ambient temperature to account for ground noise and sky
noise. It should also be noted that BAnt is generally larger
than the receiver RFFE bandwidth‚ and hence some
antenna noise is rejected by the RFFE.
henv represents a time-varying transfer function that mod-
els environmental effects such as multipath, ionosphere,
and troposphere which affect the amplitude, delay, and
phase of the received signal. These effects are further
described in Chapters 22, 31, and 30, respectively.
In general, the primary goal of GNSS receiver signal pro-
cessing is to estimate τRX, fd, and ϕRX for each visible SV at
regular intervals and as accurately as possible in the pres-
ence of noise, signal distortion, and potential interference
and spoofing. In addition, the SNR or the C/N0 and interfer-
ence-to-signal ratio (I/S) (when applicable) are used to
determine error bounds for these estimates. As described
in Chapter 2, these signal parameter estimates are used
to compute absolute PVT. In general, henv represents a nui-
sance parameter caused by multipath, the ionosphere, and
other environmental effects. On the other hand, since henv
affects PRX, τRX, fd, and ϕRX, and assuming that hTX and the
receiver RFFE transfer function hFE (described below) can
be modeled, these estimates can be used to characterize the
environment. This describes the essence of GNSS-based
reflectometry and remote sensing, described in Chapters
19, 30, 33, and 34.
14.3 Receiver RFFE
This section describes the architectures, performance met-
rics, and some practical aspects of GNSS receiver RFFE.
An RFFE performs four primary functions as shown in
Figure 14.1: signal conditioning, frequency translation (also
referred to as down-conversion), pre-correlation bandwidth
selection (or filtering), and sampling and digitization.
Signal conditioning includes amplification and filtering‚
and it is performed throughout the RFFE. An RF amplifier
or a filter is typically the first component after the antenna.
Additional amplifier and filters may also be placed after the
frequency translation stage. The amplification is needed to
bring the weak signal and noise (below −100 dBm or on the
order of microvolts) from the antenna to a useful level
(about −10 dBm or 100 mV). The filters reject out-of-band
noise and interferences at various stages of the RFFE. Two
important factors to consider in signal conditioning cir-
cuitry are noise figure and linearity. They will be discussed
later in this section.
Frequency translation is the conversion of the RF signal
to lower, intermediate-frequency signals. The correlation
processing required to obtain observables for the GNSS sig-
nals induced at the antenna cannot be performed directly
since the frequencies involved are too high. The band of
interest must therefore be translated to a value that is close
to baseband.
Pre-correlation bandwidth selection is needed for trade-
off between the accuracy and efficiency of pseudorange
measurements provided by a GNSS receiver. Pseudorange
accuracy depends on how well we can estimate the timing
of received signal phase transitions. The timing is derived
from the code phase discriminator. The sharper the peak
of the correlation function and the narrower the early-to-
late correlator spacing, the more accurate the pseudorange
measurement will be. The time-domain correlation func-
tion is made sharper by increasing the pre-correlation
bandwidth, which lets in more high-frequency components
from the transmitted signal. However, the higher the
selected pre-correlation bandwidth, the higher the sample
rate, and the number of computations required in down-
stream digital signal processing and the amount of power
consumed are also increased. The selection of pre-
correlation bandwidth is therefore a trade-off between
the pseudorange accuracy requirements of the application,
the available computation technology and its power effi-
ciency (characterized in terms of performance per watt),
and the overall cost of implementation (because more com-
putations required per unit of time increases the area of the
integrated circuit).
Sampling and digitization is the process of converting the
received analog signal to a discrete time and quantized
amplitude representation. As is the case with all modern
communication systems, GNSS receivers employ digital
signal processing technology. All processing performed in
BBP are on the digitized signals.
The RFFE design process involves implementing the
above functions while introducing as little signal degrada-
tion or distortion as possible. The analog processes of
amplification, filtering, down-conversion, and sampling
 14.3 Receiver RFFE 317

that occur within the RFFE introduce unavoidable degra-
dation. In the context of a GNSS receiver, this degradation
can be classified into the following three different types:
1) Degradation that reduces post-correlation SNR.
There are many factors that can lead to reduction in post-
correlation SNR. They include noise figure, nonlinearity,
IM distortion, oscillator and frequency synthesizer phase
noise, and quantization losses. Post-correlation SNR degra-
dation reduces the sensitivity of the receiver. The pre-
detection integration time can be increased to compensate
for the reduction. However, this in turn limits the receiver’s
ability to track dynamics, or external velocity aiding is
required. Acquisition also needs more search bins, which
leads to increased power consumption. Hence, minimizing
this degradation is crucial for high-sensitivity and high-
dynamics receivers.
2) Degradation that distorts the correlation function.
dynamics needs to be tracked in order to not lose lock or
have cycle slips. However, that means increasing the track-
ing loop bandwidth‚ which in turn increases the noise in
the measurements. Phase noise above the tracking loop
bandwidth is filtered out – but this phase noise reduces
the SNR in the correlation stage.
The degradations due to the above reasons and the per-
formance of the RFFE can be described by several metrics,
including noise figure, linearity, dynamic range, passband
group delay and variation, frequency bias and drift, and
phase noise. The following subsections will discuss these
metrics in detail.
14.3.1 Noise Figure
The noise factor, F, of a two-port electronic device charac-
terizes the amount of SNR degradation that occurs when a
signal flows through it:

The RFFE introduces group delay and group delay vari- S N input
F= 14 12
ation in the passband, and also internal reflections due to S N output
component-induced multipath. These effects are also tem-
perature dependent. The associated degradation is respon- When the noise factor is expressed in dB, it is known as
sible for inter-channel biases between code as well as the noise figure (NF):
carrier measurements and produces pseudorange biases NF = F dB = 10 log 10 F 14 13
as a function of the correlator spacing. Component-induced
multipath introduces distortions that then cause correlator- Since any device above a temperature of 0 K adds thermal
spacing-based biases. noise to a signal, the noise factor of practical devices is
always greater than one (F > 1, NF > 0 dB).
3) Degradation due to spurious dynamics. The noise factor of a device can be measured by injecting
Ideally, the digitized signal from the RFFE should con- a precisely calibrated noise source at its input and measur-
tain only the dynamics present in each GNSS signal, ing the output power. The output power that is above the
dynamics due to receiver motion‚ and those due to channel expected value is attributed to device noise. A passive
effects (i.e. multipath and ionosphere). However, spurious device has gain G < 1 (G < 0 dB). Since thermal noise
dynamics are introduced through the processes of down- exists at both input and output, the noise factor of a passive
conversion and sampling. Even though these dynamics device is given by
are largely common mode (affects all received signals iden- st kTB
tically) and hence eventually revealed in the time compo- F= × = G − 1 , NF = − G dB 14 14
kTB Gs t
nent of the PVT solution, they must be tracked as part of
the composite-signal dynamics. Spurious dynamics largely For example, a 3 dB attenuator has a gain of −3 dB and
arise from the drift as well as the receiver reference oscilla- hence an NF of 3 dB.
tor’s sensitivities to the receiver platform and environmen- The noise factor Fsys of a system of N cascaded compo-
tal factors such as shock, vibration, and temperature. These nents with gain Gi and noise factor Fi is given by the Friis
dynamics are amplified by the frequency synthesizers that equation for the noise factor [14]. Assuming that the device
are phase-locked to the reference oscillator. In addition, the ports are ideally matched (i.e. no reflected power):
sensitivities of the voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) to F2 − 1 F3 − 1 F4 − 1 FN − 1
the environmental factors that are present within these F sys = F 1 + + + +…+ N
G1 G1 G2 G1 G2 G3 i = 1 Gi
synthesizers can introduce further dynamics. Finally, phys-
14 15
ical flexing of the RFFE due to the environmental factors
can modulate the output signal phase. Severe microphonics If the first device has a low noise factor and a high gain
(shock and vibration) can cause carrier cycle slips or even (i.e. a low-noise amplifier [LNA]), then the contribution to
loss of lock. The stochastic component of these spurious the system noise factor from the remaining components
318 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
becomes negligible. It is said that the LNA “sets” the noise
factor of the system. On the other hand, if the first device is
passive, the system noise factor is degraded by the loss of
this first device‚ and no amount of low-noise amplification
thereafter can help to improve it.
In a practical receiver, the first component is always pas-
sive and represents the insertion and transmission line
losses from the antenna element to the LNA. This can be
kept to a minimum by placing the LNA as close to the
antenna feed point as possible. For this reason, most GNSS
receiver antennas embed the LNA into the antenna hous-
ing, and are referred to as active antennas. Direct current
(DC) power to the embedded LNA is supplied through
the transmission line. GNSS antennas are supplied as pas-
sive types only in a few instances. For example, for anten-
nas used in miniaturized portable devices (such as cell
phones), the transmission line loss is negligible due to
the close proximity of the antenna element to the RF inte-
grated circuit that includes the LNA. Multi-element GNSS
antennas used for beam-steering and null-forming are also
supplied as passive types. This simplifies measurement of
the gain and phase characteristics of elements with respect
to a reference element (a process known as antenna man-
ifold calibration) by the antenna electronics manufacturer.
The NF of a commercial GNSS antenna is typically around
2.5 dB, and the embedded LNAs have gains above 20 dB.
This is sufficient to set the low NF of the active antenna
as the receiver’s system NF even with a moderate amount
of cable loss between antenna and receiver. As can be seen
from (14.15), the system NF starts to degrade significantly
when this cable loss approaches the gain of the
embedded LNA.
14.3.2 Linearity
A two-port device input and output signals sin and sout can
be modeled as
sout = A0 + A1 sin + A2 s2in + A3 s3in + … + An snin
14 16
where A0 represents the DC bias‚ and A1 represents the
voltage gain of the device. The device is said to be purely
linear if and only if Ai = 0, i > 1. In practice, any compo-
nent that employs semiconductors to achieve its function
does not exhibit linear behavior. In fact, as described later,
the essential process of frequency mixing exploits second-
order behavior (A2 0). The nonlinearity of a device is
characterized by coefficients A2 through An.
When the input is a pure tone of the form
sin = a cos (ω0t + ϕ0), also known as the fundamental
tone, the nonlinear operations s2in , s3in , …, snin in (14.16)
produces output tones with frequencies 2ω0, 3ω0, …, nω0,
respectively. These are known as ith-order harmonics.
A purely linear device does not produce any harmonics.
In general, harmonics are distant enough in frequency from
the desired channel bandwidth that they can be removed
through filtering. On the other hand, extracting a particular
harmonic is the principle used to implement frequency
multipliers.
Now consider a two-tone input signal of the
form sin = a cos (ω0t + ϕ0) + a cos (ω1t + ϕ1). The sec-
ond-order term (i.e. the input squaring operation) in
(14.16) will produce output tones at 2ω0, 2ω1, ω0 + ω1,
and ω0 − ω1, as shown in Figure 14.4. The first two terms
are the second-order harmonics. The latter two terms are
referred to as second-order inter-modulations or “inter-
mods.” In general, spectral components that are algebraic
combinations of the input tones are known as IM products.
A purely linear device does not produce any intermods. In
general, the second-order intermodulation (IM2) products
are also sufficiently separated in frequency from the desired
band that they can be easily filtered out. However, if either
ω0 or ω1 is the desired signal and the other is an interference
source, and if the A2 of the device is sufficiently large, the
resulting IM2 will cause some of the desired signal power to
be shifted away from the passband. This is known as gain
compression‚ which occurs when the input signal ampli-
tude is large and the device becomes nonlinear.
For a two-tone input, a nonzero A3 term in (14.16) will
produce third-order harmonics at 3ω0 and 3ω1 as well as
IM3s at 2ω0 + ω1, 2ω1 + ω0, 2ω0 − ω1, and 2ω1 − ω0 as
shown in Figure 14.4. If the frequency difference of the
two tones is small, the latter two intermods can fall so
close to the desired ω0 and ω1 frequencies that they can
be extremely difficult if not impossible to filter out. If either
ω0 or ω1 is the desired signal with modulation and the other
is an interferer, not only does the interferer degrade the
signal reception but it also modulates the desired signal
in a manner that is unpredictable to the receiver, and this
IM can pass through the RFFE passband, causing further
degradation. For example, if the desired signals are the
received GNSS signals, where each is at frequency fL + fdi
and the interferer is a CW signal at frequency fCW, the inter-
mods will be the frequency-shifted GNSS signals at
(2fL − fCW) + 2fdi and (2fCW − fL) − fdi. If fCW is close to
ω0 ω1
ω1+2ω0 2ω1+ω0
2ω0–ω1 2ω1-ω0 2ω0 ω1+ω0 2ω 3ω0
ω1-ω0 1
3ω1
Frequency
Figure 14.4 Second- and third-order harmonics and IM products
for a two-tone input.

fL and A3/A1 is sufficiently high, the result is attenuated
GNSS signals at unexpected Doppler frequencies in the
passband. In RFFE architectures where the passband starts
off wide and is progressively narrowed using one or more
frequency conversion stages (as is the case for the superhet-
erodyne receiver architecture described below), the inter-
ferer may be a strong adjacent band signal that is well
outside the receiver’s intended pre-correlation bandwidth.
However, IM3 occurring within the first amplifier stage of
the RFFE could place significant interference power
directly in the final pre-correlation passband.
Higher-order terms of (14.16) produce additional
harmonics and intermods. In general, the higher-order
terms produce harmonics at higher frequencies, which
makes them easier to filter out from the desired passband.
Likewise, even-order intermods fall outside the passband.
However, some intermods from odd-order terms fall within
the passband and have the same detrimental effects as
described above for the third-order case.
For small signal levels, a practical amplifier produces
the amplified version of the input signal according to its
voltage gain, and some additional distortion that can be
–1-dB
Compression
Point, P1
OIP2 (dBm)
OIP3 (dBm)
1 dB
POUT (dBm)
Fundamental
1
1
1 2
IMD2 1
IMD3
PIN (dBm)
Figure 14.5 Illustration of P1dB, IP2, and IP3 through the input and output powers of the primary spectral components and the third-
order intermodulation products for a practical device with a two-tone input signal [15]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Texas
Instruments.
14.3 Receiver RFFE 319
characterized by the higher-order terms of (14.16). How-
ever, if the input signal level is steadily increased, at some
point the output signal becomes severely distorted as the
peak output levels approach the power supply rails. In
the frequency domain, this distortion results in the relative
reduction of spectral components from the desired signal
and a relative increase of spectral components stemming
from harmonics and IM. Hence, the coefficients in
(14.16) are in general not constant for a given device but
rather change as a function of the input level and also
the type of signal being amplified. Therefore, it is not con-
venient to characterize the linearity of practical devices
using transfer function coefficients. Instead, we use gain
compression and third-order intercept points.
Figure 14.5 plots, on a logarithmic scale, the input and
output powers of the primary spectral components and
the IM3 products when a practical device is presented with
a two-tone signal. These spectral components are typically
directly measured using a spectral analyzer. Due to the
logarithmic scale, the fundamental and IM3 curves in
Figure 14.5 have slopes of 1 and 3, respectively. These
curves start to flatten out for large input signal levels due
IP3 (dBm)
IP2 (dBm)
3
IIP2 (dBm) IIP3 (dBm)
320 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
to gain compression. The point where the fundamental
curve diverges by 1dB compared to the slope-1 line is
referred to as the 1 dB compression point (P1dB). P1dB
may be referenced to the input (IP1dB) or output
(OP1dB) and is related by OP1dB = G × IP1dB, where G
is the small signal power gain of the device. The greater
the separation of the x-axis intercepts of the fundamental
and IM3 lines, the greater the linearity of the device. Where
these extrapolated slope-1 and slope-3 lines cross is referred
to as the third-order intercept point (IP3). IP3 is a virtual
measurement since the device can never reach this point
due to gain compression. As with P1dB, IP3 may be refer-
enced to the input (IIP3) or the output (OIP3). In general,
IP3 for a high-linearity amplifier is at least 15 dB greater
than P1dB. Similar to IP3, intercept points for other IM pro-
ducts can be measured by subjecting the device to a two-
tone test signal and measuring the total power of the
expected intermods using a spectrum analyzer. P1dB and
IP3 that characterize the dynamic range and linearity of
practical devices, as well as the test conditions used to
measure them‚ are specified in the device data sheets. These
device parameters are useful for evaluating the suitability of
devices for the target application as well as to compare and
contrast competing solutions. The actual performance of
the RFFE subsystem can be modeled using simulation tools
as well as measured using test instruments.
It is usually adequate to characterize nonlinearity by con-
sidering IM3 only. For practical devices operating in the
small signal power range for which they are designed,
the higher-order coefficients of their transfer characteristic
diminish rapidly as a function of order. Devices such as
amplifiers and mixers that are designed to be as linear as
possible operate this way when the input signal levels are
small. For larger input signal levels, output compression
or gain compression occurs as the device starts to deviate
from nominally linear behavior. Compression can be
exploited for useful functions such as limiters that are used
to prevent large input signals (such as voltage spikes
induced at the antenna from lightning) from potentially
damaging sensitive RFFE components such as LNAs. For
amplifiers, compression occurs when the output signal
starts to approach its power supply voltage. For mixers,
input signal interaction with the mixer core starts to mod-
ulate the local oscillator (LO) signal rather than the other
way around.
14.3.3 Dynamic Range
The dynamic range is an important parameter of an elec-
tronic system. It is defined as the ratio of the highest signal
level to the lowest signal level a system or component can
process in a linear manner. Dynamic range is typically
expressed in decibels. In a receiver, the dynamic range is
typically defined to extend from its IP3 at the high-level
end to its sensitivity limit at the low-level end. The high-
level end is a result of signal saturation and distortion
effects. An AGC circuit in a receiver RFFE is a mechanism
designed to minimize signal saturation and distortion. The
sensitivity limit at the low-level end is determined by the
receiver thermal noise, NF, spurious signals, harmonics,
and phase noise. It can be estimated by measuring the aver-
age noise level. A receiver’s dynamic range is mainly deter-
mined by the mixers and amplifiers in the system. Other
components such as active and passive filters play a second-
ary role.
Other parameters have also been used to define the high-
est-level signal, such as P1dB. This is because P1dB corre-
sponds to the signal power level above which the
linearity of the amplifier begins to degrade. For a mixer,
signals with power above P1dB may generate high levels
of IM distortion. For passive RF mixers, the P1dB is typi-
cally about 5–10 dB below the mixer’s LO power. Passive
RF mixers are commonly classified as low-, medium-, or
high-level mixers based on the LO power required for their
operation. Typically, low-, medium, and high-level mixers
have LO power at +7, +10, and +14 dBm, respectively. For
example, Mini-Circuits offers mixers with LO powers ran-
ging from +3 dBm through +17 dBm. A mixer with a higher
LO power level yields a higher P1dB and a higher receiver
dynamic range [16]. Using different parameters to define
dynamic range often leads to confusion when comparing
the dynamic ranges for electronic components or systems.
In modern GNSS receivers designed to operate in the
presence of in-band interference, the RFFE is designed to
have a high dynamic range, and interference mitigation
processing is performed on the digitized sample stream
prior to correlation. The digitizer or the analog-to-digital
converter (ADC) also has a dynamic range which is related
to the number of bits that are used to digitize the analog sig-
nal. Consider an N-bit ADC. The minimum value that can
be detected is one least significant bit (LSB). The maximum
value is 2N−1 times the LSB value. Therefore, the dynamic
range of an ADC is 20 log10(2N−1) ≈ 6×N (dB). A 4-bit ADC
therefore has a dynamic range of ~24 dB. This pre-
processing is most effective when the RFFE is designed
to be as linear as possible up to the expected received inter-
ference power level – usually specified as a maximum inter-
ference-to-signal ratio performance requirement.
14.3.4 Frequency Translation and Sampling
Frequency translation, also referred to as down-conversion
or mixing, can be accomplished through analog mixing or
through intermediate-frequency (IF) sampling (also known
 14.3 Receiver RFFE 321

as bandpass sampling). Figure 14.6 shows the block dia-
gram of a single channel (left) and a dual-channel (right)
analog mixing operation. The mixer is a nonlinear device
that is effectively a multiplier of the input signal and a ref-
erence signal generated by the frequency synthesizer. The
multiplication operation effectively translates the input sig-
nal frequency into two bands: an upper band centered
around fRF + fLO and a lower band centered around fRF − fLO.
A low-pass or bandpass filter is applied at the output of the
signals, they could also be an early stage IF output in a
multi-stage mixing operation.
The IF sampling process is often used to further down-
convert the IF signal to baseband signals. It is based on
the sampling property of a band-limited analog signal. For
a continuous band-limited time-domain signal sa(t) with a
frequency-domain representation Sa(f), its time-domain
samples sd(t) and frequency-domain function Sd(f) are
∞

mixer operation to remove the upper band, leaving only the sd t = sa t δ t − nt s 14 17

n = −∞
lower band component as the IF signal for subsequent pro- ∞
cessing. The single channel mixer generates one IF output. Sd f = Sa f ∗ f sδ f − k f s
The dual-channel mixer employs two mixers, each operat- k = −∞

ing on the equally split RF input with one of the mixers tak- ∞

ing a direct LO signal and the other a 90o phase-shifted LO = fs Sa f − k f s 14 18

signal. Both mixers’ outputs will further go through low or
bandpass filters to remove their corresponding upper bands
to yield the IF I and Q channel outputs. Note that although
the diagrams indicated that the inputs to the mixers are RF
k = −∞
where fs is the sampling frequency, and t s = 1 f s is the
sample interval. Figure 14.7 illustrates the sampling-
process-generated spectrum for a band-limited signal

Mixer M

IF signal fIF I channel

Mixer M
RF signal fRF IF signal fIF RF signal fRF
90°

fLo
IF signal fIF Q channel
Frequency Synthesizer
fLo
Mixer M
Frequency Synthesizer

Figure 14.6 Single and dual analog mixing operation.

Sa(f) Sd(f)

f f
B -fs B fs

Output
frequency
fs/2

Input
fs/2 fs 3fs/2 2fs 5fs/2 frequency

Direct Inverse
Transition Transition 1
Mode Mode foutput = finput – nfs and foutput < f
2 s

Figure 14.7 Sampling frequency and input and output frequency relationship.
322 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers

Direct frequency transition mode Reverse frequency transition mode

fs f
foutput = finput – nfs ≈ foutput = finput – (n + 1 )fs ≈ s
2 4
4
Output Output
frequency frequency

Bandwidth
fs/2
Bandwidth

fs/2

Output
Output

2B 2B

Input Input
nfs (n+½)fs (n+1)fs frequency nfs (n+½)fs (n+1)fs frequency
2B 2B
Input Bandwidth Input Bandwidth

Figure 14.8 Direct and indirect translation mode illustration. Both figures show ideal scenarios of input frequency and sampling
frequency placement.

Output Overlapped sampling frequencies based on the input IF signal fre-

bandwidth quency and bandwidths.
fs/2 frequency
Output Because the sampling device’s sampling frequency may
Bandwidth<2B
have errors (due to environmental factors such as temper-
Input
ature variations), it may not be possible to ensure that input
nfs (n+½)fs (n+1)fs frequency IF frequency placement is ideal. This is especially the case
for large n values because the amount of deviation in the
2B
Input Bandwidth output center frequency is nΔfs, where Δfs is the sampling
frequency error. For example, for an RFFE with an ADC
Figure 14.9 Improper sampling frequency selection illustration. sampling frequency of 5 MHz and 21.25 MHz IF, the
In this direct transition mode, the input signal center frequency is
too close to n + 12 f s, leading to an overlapping frequency band in n value will be 4. If there is a 10 Hz deviation in the sampling
the output signal. frequency, the down-converted output frequency deviation
will be 40 Hz. Often, the error in the down-converted signal
frequency is absorbed as Doppler frequency error:

with bandwidth B, and the general input-output fre-
quency and sampling frequency relationship.
Figure 14.7 also highlighted the so-called direct and
inverse frequency translation mode for input frequency
ranges corresponding to a given sampling frequency. In
the direct translation mode, a larger input RF frequency
is translated into a larger IF frequency, while in the reverse
translation mode, the opposite happens. Figure 14.8 illus-
trates an ideal direct (left) and inverse translation modes
(right) of operation. The ideal scenario corresponds to
where the center frequency at the input signal center fre-
quency (which is the carrier frequency for GNSS) is about
half way between nfs and n + 12 f s for the direct mode and
between n + 12 f s and (n + 1)fs for the indirect mode (n is
an integer), and 2B < 14 f s . The resulting output center
frequency is ~ 14 f s .
An improperly designed sampling scheme is shown in
Figure 14.9, where the input center frequency is too close
to the n + 12 f s, leading to an overlapped frequency band.
Reference [17] provides several example real GPS receiver
RFFE implementations and details the selection of
f input = f IF + f d 14 19
f output = f IF + f d − n f s + Δf s = f IF − n f s
+ f d − nΔf s 14 20
This sampling-frequency-error-induced Doppler fre-
quency error can be estimated‚ and the results can be used
to calibrate the sampling frequency itself [18].
14.3.5 Filters
Filters are needed to limit out-of-band noise, spurious sig-
nals, and interference. Both RF and IF filters are needed in
a GNSS receiver RFFE. The types of RF filters used in
L-band GNSS receivers include RF cavity, ceramic (dielec-
tric) resonator, surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator,
bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator, and advanced
switched-capacitor filters. RF cavity filters comprise one
or more coupled resonators filled with air or in vacuum.
These resonators have high Q (on the order of several hun-
dred) and very low insertion losses (fractions of a decibel
per resonator). The Q factor is the ratio of the resonator cen-
ter frequency and the bandwidth. A high-Q resonator has a

lower rate of energy loss relative to its stored energy. It reso-
nates with greater amplitudes (at the resonant frequency)
but has a smaller range of frequencies around that fre-
quency for which they resonate. Therefore, tuning of the
individual cavities is sensitive. They are also sensitive to
vibration because the coupling structures can mechanically
vibrate. Their dimensions are relatively large compared to
other types of filters and are not practical for portable GNSS
receivers. They are typically only found in high-end geo-
detic grade antennas that are used in GNSS monitoring
stations. Due to the very high electrical breakdown, cavity
filters can handle high power. For this reason, they are
extensively used as diplexers and triplexers in satellite
transmitters. Because of precision machining costs and
tuning labor, these filters are expensive.
Dielectric resonator filters or ceramic filters operate
according to the same principle as cavity filters. However,
instead of using air, they use specially formulated ceramic
materials that have very high relative dielectric constants
with εr values typically ranging from 7 to 40. The high
εr value enables resonance cavities to be made much smal-
ler. Manufacture of dielectric filters is much less expensive
compared to cavity filters. However, for low- to mid-volume
production, the ceramic resonators are individually tuned.
This tuning, verification, and assembling process still
requires some human labor, and the resulting products
are ~1/5 the cost of cavity filters. For high-volume applica-
tions, the entire multi-cavity resonator structure can be
manufactured using molds. This significantly reduces cost
and provides consistent performance without the need to
tune each component. These are called monoblock filters.
Monoblock filters are typically used as the pre-filters and
diplexers and triplexers in precision multipath limiting
antennas. They cost $1–$2 each in volume. Due to the
higher loss tangent of high-εr materials, dielectric resona-
tors have higher insertion loss.
The mechanism by which a dielectric resonator filter
yields a smaller physical resonator size compared to an
air-cavity filter is that the propagation speed of the electro-
magnetic wave is reduced as εr becomes larger, hence redu-
cing the wavelength. This principle can be exploited further
by converting the electromagnetic wave (which has propa-
gation speeds on the order of the speed of light c) to a
mechanical wave (which has propagation speeds that are
hundreds of times slower than c) using electromechanical
materials/properties. This conversion can lead to a dra-
matic reduction in size. This is the principle of the SAW
and BAW filter [19]. For RF SAW and BAW filters, the prin-
ciple of one or more cascaded resonators is used. SAW fil-
ters can be manufactured using planar lithography and
etching processes similar to semiconductor integrated cir-
cuits. Therefore, very high volume, high yield, and low cost
14.3 Receiver RFFE 323
(pennies in volume) can be expected. This is what has made
portable wireless devices possible (including portable
GNSS receivers).
Reducing the propagation speed does not come without
its drawbacks. SAW filters have high absolute delay – on
the order of hundreds of nanoseconds for SAW resona-
tor-based RF filters and around 1 μs for transversal IF
SAWs. The fact that the distance of hundreds of meters
of signal in space is shrunk down to millimeters means that
SAW filters have a very large delay variation as a function of
temperature. There are also internal reflections that occur
in hundreds of nanoseconds which can cause component-
induced multipath. While this does not change the filter
function, it does add large group delay variation in the pass-
band. Figure 14.10 shows GPS-SPS pseudorange errors due
to temperature variation for (a) a dielectric resonator
(Lorch 6DF6) and for (b) a transversal SAW IF filter based
on measurements obtained for PRN 1, 8, and 15 [20]. For
the ceramic filter, the pseudorange measurement varies
between −1.5 to 2 m between −55 C and 125 C relative
to 25 C in a consistent manner. Unlike the ceramic filter,
the pseudorange error for the SAW filter does not change
consistently with temperature. Unless the application is
for a GNSS timing receiver‚ in which case this temperature
dependency must be calibrated out, it is not a concern for
positioning applications because the delay is common to
all signals. However, as shown in Figure 14.10(b), the pseu-
dorange error for the SAW filter also varies as a function of
PRN sequence and correlator spacing. These variations,
known as inter-PRN biases, are a significant error source
for differential GNSS applications. Further discussion on
inter-PRN biases and their impact on high-accuracy GNSS
can be found in Chapter 10.
Typical IF filters include LC ladder filters and transversal
SAW types for bandpass applications. Low-pass LC filters
can be implemented relatively easily in modern monolithic
microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) processes. In general,
IF filters are relatively inexpensive compared to RF filters.
14.3.6 Front-End Architectures
GNSS receiver RFFE architectures have evolved considera-
bly over the years. The earliest GPS receivers of the 1970s
employed analog baseband processing. Due to the complex-
ity, size, and power consumption of analog electronics avail-
able at the time, these receivers had only one channel that
was time-shared to track and obtain range measurements
to visible satellites. The designs for these early receivers were
based on existing military systems such as radar. Likewise,
many of the components and sub-modules used in those sys-
tems (such as crystal oscillators, synthesizers, RF cavity fil-
ters, and mechanical IF filters) were adapted for GPS and
324 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers

(a)
Pseudorange Biases Due to Temperature for Lorch 6DF6
2 125°C
PRN1
PRN8
PRN15
1.5
Pseudorange Error (Meters)

0.5

25°C
0

–0.5

–1

–1.5 –55°C
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
Correlator Spacing (Chips)
(b)
Pseudorange Biases Due to Temperature for SAWTEK 854670
1 125°C
PRN1
PRN8
PRN15
0.8
Pseudorange Error (Meters)

0.6

0.4

25°C
0.2

–0.2

–0.4 –55°C
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
Correlator Spacing (Chips)

Figure 14.10 GPS-SPS pseudorange biases due to temperature variation for (a) dielectric resonator filter (Lorch 6DF6) and (b) transversal
SAW IF filter (SAWTEK 854670). In addition to temperature-dependent biases, the SAW filter also exhibits significant inter-PRN biases that
increase as a function of correlator spacing. Figure adapted from [20]. Source: Guerrero and Gunawardena [20].

GLONASS. Around the early 1980s, with the advent of sem-
iconductor large-scale integration (LSI), the analog baseband
functions were replaced by digital signal processing. RF tech-
nology at the time was still less integrated compared to dig-
ital circuits, and RFFEs were implemented using discrete
components (individual transistors, diodes, inductors, capa-
citors, resistors, RF cavity filters, mechanical IF filters, and
RF/IF transformers). Circuit construction used through-hole
printed circuit board (PCB) technology. As discussed at the
beginning of Section 14.3, a GNSS receiver RFFE must have

more than 100 dB of effective gain between the passive
antenna element and the ADC. Through-hole technology
has significant unwanted coupling between stages due to
the relatively high parasitic capacitance and inductance of
leaded components. These parasitics cause coupling and
losses to increase with frequency. For this reason, in early
GPS receiver RFFE designs, it was advantageous to incorpo-
rate multiple frequency translation stages to break up the
gain across frequencies. By the late 1980s, RF devices and
building blocks implemented as MMICs in surface mount
packages (SMDs) had become mainstream. It was possible
to implement the RFFE using a handful of MMICs and dis-
crete filters. By the late 1990s, RF microelectronics and sem-
iconductor processors evolved to include silicon-germanium
and the entire GNSS receiver RFFE can be integrated into a
single MMIC. Since the 2000s, the entire RFFE as well as
baseband processor are integrated into the same die.
Throughout this evolution, the architectures of the GNSS
receiver RFFE have changed, mostly in favor of miniaturiza-
tion, lower power, and lower cost. In some instances, the
advance of technology has made it possible to realize GNSS
RFFE architectures that achieve levels of performance and
capability (such as monitoring the entire L-band GNSS spec-
trum) that would have been unthinkable in the early days of
GPS and GLONASS.
The following sections describe the various GNSS
receiver RFFE architectures in approximate chronologi-
cal order.
14.3.6.1 Dual-Conversion Superheterodyne with
Quadrature Low-Pass Sampling
One of the earliest architectures used for radio communica-
tion is the tuned radio frequency (TRF) receiver. A TRF
receiver comprises several gain stages, each one tuned to
the frequency band (or channel) of interest. When a different
channel is selected, each stage needs to be re-tuned to the
new desired frequency. This represented a significant imple-
mentation challenge since all stages had to have the same
mechanically linked (ganged) frequency response across a
fIF2 ≈ 0
Antenna
fRF fIF1
LNA M1 G2
M2
90°
fLO1 fLO2
Reference
Frequency Synthesizer
Oscillator
Figure 14.11 Block diagram of a dual-conversion superheterodyne front-end.
14.3 Receiver RFFE 325
wide range of frequencies. Further, the relatively large
amount of narrowband RF gain developed by the cascaded
stages (which also varies across frequency and temperature)
as well as poor isolation led to unwanted instability and
oscillation.
The pursuit of solving the problems associated with the
TRF approach led to the development of the superheterodyne
architecture. In a superheterodyne architecture, the band of
interest is pre-selected by the first tuned stage. The signal from
this stage is then heterodyned (or “generated by differen-
cing”) to a frequency that remains constant thereafter, regard-
less of the channel being selected. Subsequent analog signal
processing (i.e. amplification and filtering to achieve selectiv-
ity) is performed at this IF. IFs are standardized according to
radio bands, channel bandwidth, and application (for exam-
ple, 455 kHz for LF/HF, 10.7 MHz for VHF, 70 MHz for UHF
and satcom). This greatly simplifies the design and implemen-
tation of the receiver. The superheterodyne architecture is
widely regarded as the most important radio technology
invention of the twentieth century.
Even though a GNSS receiver does not need to be dynam-
ically tuned, the superheterodyne architecture offers sev-
eral advantages. Figure 14.11 shows a block diagram of a
dual-conversion superheterodyne low-pass quadrature
sampling GNSS receiver architecture that is representative
of one used in an early GPS receiver (circa 1970s). The
L-band signal from the antenna is pre-selected by an RF
bandpass filter fRF and amplified by the LNA. The RF band-
pass filter also rejects any signals at the image frequency
that may be received by the antenna. It is then converted
to fIF1 by mixer M1 using an LO signal at frequency fLO1=
fRF − fIF1. Bandpass filter fIF1 serves both to reject the
high-side component of mixing as well as to select a nar-
rower bandwidth of the low-side component. Since fIF1 is
significantly lower than fRF, a higher selectivity (Q) can
be achieved for fIF1 at a reduced size and cost compared
to fRF. After amplification by gain stage G2, the signal is
down-converted to baseband using quadrature mixer M2
with an LO at frequency fLO2.
G3,I Baseband
ADC In-Phase
Samples
G3,Q Baseband
ADC Quadrature
Samples
fs
326 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers

14.3.6.2 Single-Conversion Superheterodyne with
Bandpass (IF) Sampling
Single-conversion superheterodyne with bandpass IF sam-
pling was the architecture used in survey- and aviation-
grade receivers of the later 1990s. It was made possible
by the advent of ADCs that have a high input bandwidth
based on the pipelined ADC architecture [21]. It performs
a single conversion to a fairly high IF that allows good
image rejection. The IF is then bandpass-sampled to per-
form a digital frequency translation to a second (digital)
IF. Figure 14.12 shows the block diagram of the single-
conversion IF sampling front-end system.
The single-conversion architecture has a number of
advantages. With a single channel mixing operation, there
is no I/Q amplitude and phase imbalance issue. Compared
to the dual-conversion superheterodyne front-end, it has a
lower number of analog components. The architecture also
supports some level of integration, although the IF band-
pass filter must be an off-chip component. The overall
amplification or gain is distributed across two frequencies,
providing flexibility in managing the gain (especially at the
IF) while minimizing the size of the system. There are also a
Antenna
fRF fIF,analog
LNA M1 G2
ADC
fLO
Reference
Oscillator
Frequency Synthesizer
Figure 14.12 Block diagram of a single-conversion IF sampling
front-end.
number of disadvantages. For example, it has a higher
power consumption compared to a direct-conversion archi-
tecture (discussed below). In addition, it needs a very tight
IF bandpass filter for anti-aliasing filtering since the
Nyquist bandwidth is small. Typically, transversal SAW
filters are used for this purpose. These can introduce
unwanted signal deformations and inter-PRN biases for
GNSS signals with short spreading codes [20].
14.3.6.3 Direct RF Sampling Front-End with
Digital Channelization
Direct RF sampling is based on careful selection of the sam-
pling frequency so that all the desired bands fall next to each
other at the IF without overlap. It was explored as a means of
designing multi-frequency RFFEs [22]. Figure 14.13 shows
the block diagram of a direct RF sampling front-end includ-
ing a digital channelizer to illustrate how the desired bands
are separated into individual baseband sample streams for
subsequence processing. By moving the ADC upstream to
eliminate the analog down-conversion and subsequent IF
stages, the direct digitization approach reduces the hardware
requirements in traditional RFFE designs. The hardware
that has been eliminated is typically the source of a number
of potential difficulties including age-based, temperature-
based, and/or nonlinear performance [23]. Direct RF sam-
fIF,digital
pling also offers maximum flexibility as the downstream
IF Samples
channelizer can be programmed to pick any number of cen-
ter frequencies and bandwidths for processing, and this is
done completely by programming (i.e. the architecture is
fs
fully software defined). Furthermore, the ability to imple-
ment flat group delay filters within the channelizer, thereby
minimizing signal distortions introduced by the front-end
makes this architecture particularly well suited for GNSS
SQM applications in reference stations [24].

Digital Processing (Channelizer)

S(f) S(f)
quadrature
filter/decimators B1
mixers
B3 N1 f
B1 B2
fIF,1 ≈ 0
f
0 fRF 1 fRF 2 fRF 3 NCO S(f)
Antenna B2
N2
fRF f
LNA IF Samples fIF,2 ≈ 0
ADC NCO
S(f)
fs B3
N3
Reference Frequency fclk
f
Oscillator Synthesizer fIF,3 ≈ 0
NCO
Baseband Sample Streams

Figure 14.13 Block diagram of a direct RF sampling front-end with digital channelizer.

The direct RF sampling architecture is becoming a pop-
ular option for wireless and cellular infrastructure systems.
This is mainly due to the fact that a wideband multi-
element fully programmable software-defined radio
(SDR; includes programmable receive/transmit chains,
programmable logic, and embedded multi-core CPU) can
now be implemented in a single integrated circuit (IC),
known as an RF system-on-chip (RFSoC) [25]. However,
there are a number of challenges that prohibit the wide-
spread adoption of the direct RF sampling architecture
for GNSS receivers. First, the front-end is dependent on
having an ADC whose input bandwidth accommodates
the RF band of interest (~1–2 GHz for L-band GNSS) and
whose maximum sampling frequency is more than twice
the cumulative bandwidth of the multiple carrier signals
[23]. However, with recent progress in pipelined ADC tech-
nologies, it can be implemented with subsampling ADCs.
Second, it is difficult to implement uniform gain at all fre-
quencies for such a wide range of signals. Third, interfer-
ence on one band will affect all other bands, although it
may be possible to perform some level of interference sup-
pression prior to ADC, which undoubtedly will increase the
complexity of the system. Finally, the design demands very
high power consumption and a large physical size as phys-
ical separation of gain stages is most effective at keeping it
from oscillating, since all the gain is at RF (as described pre-
viously, a GNSS RFFE requires more than 100 dB of gain
between the antenna element and ADC). As a result of
these limitations, this architecture only has limited use in
practical systems such as the one described in [24].
14.3.6.4 Direct Conversion to Zero or Low IF
Direct conversion to zero or low IF is an architecture in
which the desired RF center frequency is translated to zero
or near-zero frequency. Figure 14.14 shows a block dia-
gram of the architecture. Quadrature analog down-
conversion is performed directly on filtered and amplified
RF signals. The down-converted signals are band-limited
fIF2 ≈ 0
Antenna G2,I
ADC
fRF
LNA
M1
90°
G2,Q
ADC
fLO fs
Reference
Frequency Synthesizer
Oscillator
Figure 14.14 Block diagram of a direct-conversion zero or low-IF
front-end.
14.4 Signal at RFFE Output 327
or filtered and sampled to yield baseband data with zero
or near-zero IF for downstream signal processing. Since
the band-limiting and anti-aliasing filtering is performed
at about half of the desired signal bandwidth, these filters
are RC or LC with small Q and are very inexpensive to
implement. The gain is split across RF and half-bandwidth
frequencies. Most of the gain can be implemented in the lat-
ter and is thus low power and easy to implement on a chip.
It is also easier to isolate the gain stages on a chip. The cen-
ter frequency is easily tunable as it only requires fLO and the
bandpass filter center frequency to change. Also, there is no
image because the image and desired signal are the same.
The foregoing properties make the architecture very well
suited for integration‚ and the entire RFFE can be imple-
mented in a single monolithic IC. The majority of all
modern low-power miniaturized RFFEs employ this archi-
tecture. This is what makes portable GNSS devices possible
(and for that matter all modern portable wireless devices).
Direct conversion to a zero- or low-IF architecture also
has several disadvantages. It is sensitive to second-order
IM distortion. LO coupling to the RF side of the mixer
results in a large DC offset, which cannot be removed since
the output is direct coupled. The separate I and Q paths
of amplification, filtering, and sampling cause I and
Q channel amplitude and phase imbalance, which must
be corrected later using digital signal processing.
14.4 Signal at RFFE Output
The RFFE discussed above performs signal amplification,
filtering, frequency translation, and conversion to discrete
time and quantized amplitude. Depending on the RFFE
architecture, one or more frequency translation steps
may precede the final quadrature down-conversion where
the signal becomes analytic. Further, quadrature down-
conversion may be performed before or after digitization.
Without loss of generality, the following description
assumes a single-step quadrature down-conversion of sig-
nal rAnt prior to digitization. The process of amplification
and filtering performed by the RFFE can be modeled as
Baseband
In-Phase
Samples r FE t = hFE t ∗ GFE r Ant t + nFE t 14 21
Baseband
GFE is the effective voltage gain from the RFFE amplifica-
Quadrature tion. nFE is the additional device noise introduced by the
Samples
RFFE electronics, which is characterized by the receiver’s
overall system NF, FFE. Considering only the noise compo-
nent of rAnt(t), the unfiltered noise output from the RFFE
can be expressed in terms of the system NF:
GFE nAnt t + nFE t = F FE GFE nAnt t 14 22
328 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
Then,
Γ
r FE t = GFE hFE t ∗ sRX,i t + X t + F FE nAnt t
i=1
14 23
hFE represents the RFFE’s impulse response function. Prior
to down-conversion, hFE has a bandpass characteristic with
corresponding double-sided bandwidth BFE. For the pur-
pose of this description, BFE can be assumed to be the
3 dB (i.e. half power) bandwidth. BFE is typically lower than
BAnt and is an important design parameter determined by
the market segment and application. A higher bandwidth
enhances the ability to estimate time more precisely‚ which
results in an improved pseudorange accuracy. However,
increasing the bandwidth also increases the sample rate
and the number of computations, leading to higher power
consumption. For a receiver designed for the BOC(10, 5)
modulation of GPS M-Code, BFE may exceed 31 MHz.
For a GPS L1 C/A code receiver optimized for low power,
BFE may even be significantly less than the 2.046 MHz null-
to-null bandwidth of the BPSK − R(1) modulation.
The amplified and band-limited real signal rFE(t) cen-
tered at fTX in (14.23) can now be transformed to an analytic
signal using quadrature down-conversion:
r IF t = LPF r FE t e − j2π f LO t 14 24
where fLO is the LO frequency given by
f LO t = f TX − f Offset − δf osc t 14 25
δfosc(t) is a random time-varying frequency drift that stems
from the receiver’s reference oscillator and phase-locked
oscillators (PLOs). Details of oscillator drift can be found
in Chapter 29 and 47. fOffset is an intentional frequency off-
set that is included in the frequency plan to keep the fre-
quency uncertainties of all GNSS signals present in rIF(t)
that need to be tracked at the same sign and from approach-
ing 0 Hz. LPF( ) represents an ideal low-pass filter with a
single-sided bandwidth of BFE/2 Hz.
The frequency mixing operation of the real band-limited
received signal rFE centered at fTX with the quadrature LO
signal at fLO described in (14.24) is assumed to be ideal. In
practice‚ this nonlinear operation produces unwanted
images and spurious outputs that must be kept away from
the desired signal using proper frequency planning and fil-
tering, as discussed in Section 14.3.6. The mixing operation
translates rFE into two components centered at frequencies
fTX + fLO and fTX − fLO, each with half the power of rFE. The
low-pass filter removes the high-frequency component,
resulting in the analytic signal rIF(t) that is centered at a
low IF as described by (14.26):
Γ
r IF t = GIF hFE t ∗ hSV ,i t ∗henv,i t ∗sIF,i t
i=1
+ X IF t + nIF t 14 26
where
sIF t = sIF,I t + sIF,Q t 14 27
is the quadrature down-converted version of the in-phase
and quadrature signal components from satellite i, given by
sIF,I t = AI cos ωIF t + πW I t − τRX + ϕRX
+ j sin ωIF t + πW I t − τRX + ϕRX
14 28
π
sIF,Q t = AQ cos ωIF t + πW Q t − τRX + ϕRX +
2
π
+ j sin ωIF t + πW Q t − τRX + ϕRX +
2
14 29
where ωIF = 2πfIF and
f IF t = f Offset + f d t + δf osc t + δf SV t 14 30
Note from (14.28) and (14.29) that the in-phase signal
component leads the quadrature component by π/2 (rad).
The quadrature down-conversion process translates the
transfer function that has a bandpass characteristic to a
low-pass characteristic:
H f = H f − f LO 14 31
where H f = h t is the Fourier transform of h(t).
τRX and ϕRX are the parameters to be estimated from rIF(t)
and are subsequently used to form the pseudorange and CP
measurements for each visible satellite. These not only rep-
resent the signal propagation delays in free space but also
include delays due to environmental effects (i.e. propagation
through the ionosphere, troposphere, and perceived delay
due to multipath – represented by henv ) and front-end elec-
tronics (passband group delay and variation – represented
by hFE). Ionospheric delay can be estimated using modeling
or dual-frequency measurements and is covered in
Chapter 31. Tropospheric errors can be estimated through
a combination of modeling (dry component) and meteoro-
logical observations (wet component) and is described in
Chapter 30. Multipath errors on the pseudorange and CP
measurement can be mitigated using antenna siting,
antenna gain pattern shaping, spatial observation techni-
ques such as beamforming, as well as advanced receiver
processing such as correlator gating. These techniques
are covered in Chapter 22. For the majority of modern
CDMA-based GNSS signal structures, the group delay

due to the front-end impulse response function hFE can be
considered to be common mode; the only exception is leg-
acy GNSS signals that have short spreading code periods
(such as GPS C/A), which leads to measurable inter-PRN
pseudorange errors when hFE has significant group delay
variations in the passband [26, 27]. However, for FDMA-
based legacy GLONASS signals, each signal having a differ-
ent center frequency undergoes a different group delay and
therefore a pseudorange bias as it passes through hFE .
Hence‚ each GLONASS pseudorange measurement must
be compensated for receiver front-end group delay [28].
As shown in (14.30), the low IF is the sum of the inten-
tional frequency offset and all frequency uncertainty terms
such that fIF > 0. This also shows how the frequency uncer-
tainties of a given signal due to satellite reference oscillator
drift, Doppler due to SV-to-user LOS dynamics, perceived
Doppler due to ionospheric TEC gradient and phase scintil-
lation, and multipath, and receiver reference oscillator drift
are all combined in the low-IF term fIF. Hence, the signal
tracking process must track the combined effect of all fre-
quency uncertainties because they typically cannot be sepa-
rated out. However, if satellite ephemeris, accurate absolute
time, approximate location, and user dynamics are availa-
ble (for example, from an inertial measurement unit), then
it is possible to compute an approximation for fd(t), thereby
significantly reducing the frequency uncertainly and
dynamics that need to be tracked. Further, in this external
aiding mode, as long as the GNSS signals are genuine, the
dynamics estimation errors become more representative of
external aiding sensor drift than GNSS multipath and ion-
ospheric errors. Hence‚ these error observations can be
70
65
Relative Spectral Magnitude [dB]
60
55
50
45
40
35
0 0.5 1 1.5
Downconverted Frequency [Hz]
Figure 14.15 One-hundred-second averaged power spectral densities of IF data streams corresponding to the GPS L1, GPS L2, GLONASS
L1‚ and GLONASS L2 bands.
14.4 Signal at RFFE Output 329
used to correct the sensor errors, thus leading to both a
robust and high-rate PVT solution. These techniques that
perform external sensor aiding at the correlator level are
covered in Chapter 46.
The noise component of the down-converted signal can
be modeled as low-pass filtered additive Gaussian noise.
Both real and imaginary components of the noise distribu-
tions have zero mean and are uncorrelated with respect to
each other. In the absence of interference, the down-
converted signal rIF(t) has a Gaussian distribution since it
is dominated by noise. The presence of GNSS signals is
not directly apparent in rIF(t). However, in the frequency
domain, r IF f = r IF t , the central spectral lobes of
the received narrowband signal modulation components
can be distinguished above the filtered-noise response of
the front-end – particularly in receivers that have a wide
front-end bandwidth, and the resolution bandwidth is
small, as shown in Figure 14.15. These narrowband compo-
nents include the BPSK-R(0.5) of GLONASS, BPSK-R(1) of
GPS L1 C/A and L2C, and BOC(1, 1) components of GPS
L1C and Galileo E1. The combination of the received signal
powers from all BPSK-R(1) and BOC(1,1) signals in view
results in a characteristic spectral hump at the translated
L1 frequency, as shown in Figure 14.15. Multiple small
humps are visible in the GLONASS L1 and L2 bands at dif-
ferent frequency offsets corresponding to their channel
numbers (see Chapter 4). The figure also shows the charac-
teristic spectral lines that appear above the noise floor in L1
when one or more legacy GPS satellites broadcast the non-
standard code: a repeating pattern of alternating +1 and
−1 chips.
Ch00: 1575.42.MHz
Ch01: 1227.60 MHz
Ch02: 1602.00 MHz
Ch03: 1246.00 MHz
2 2.5 3
× 104
330 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
Depending on where the antenna is pointing and what
celestial objects are in view (which affects the received
sky noise) and the season and time of day (which affects
the ground noise and ambient temperature for thermal
noise), the received noise can vary by several decibels above
the nominal thermal noise level. For receivers that are not
designed to handle a wide digital dynamic range, it is
important to keep the power level of rIF(t) as constant as
possible in order to yield an optimally sampled Gaussian
distribution (in the absence of interference, except broad-
band Gaussian interference). For these receivers, the
short-term average output signal power is estimated and
used to adjust GFE in a feedback loop, typically using an
analog control voltage. This procedure is called AGC.
In the presence of interference, the AGC control voltage
typically goes through large swings as the feedback loop
attempts to normalize the received interference power. This
behavior of the AGC loop represents the simplest form of
in-band situational awareness that is available even in
the lowest-cost receivers, and has been found to be effective
at detecting interference as well as spoofing (provided the
received spoofing signal is stronger than background noise
power) [29, 30].
After amplification, rIF(t) is at a sufficient power level to
be sampled by the ADC (typically around 0 dBm for a dis-
crete ADC with a 50 ohm input characteristic impedance).
The sampling process can be modeled by
r IF k = ADC r IF t t = kT s , k = 0, 1, 2… 14 32
Losses from amplitude quantization tend to be small for
GNSS processing due to the relatively large number of sam-
ples that comprise each correlation [31]. Further, quantiza-
tion intervals are chosen to be uniform and non-centered,
meaning that there is no digital value to represent a
0 V input. The zero state is not required since the sampled
signal is zero mean, and each sample will always have a
detectable sign and hence contribute toward correlation.
However, the zero value may be inserted by the sample con-
ditioner to support sample-level correlator blanking [32].
Sample blanking is used to prevent a given sample from
being included in the correlation operation when it is deter-
mined to contain interference that is detrimental to the cor-
relation result.
For GNSS signals buried in Gaussian noise, the quantiza-
tion losses for 1-bit, 2-bit, and 3-bit quantizers (2, 4, and
8 levels) are 1.961, 0.549, and 0.166 dB, respectively [31].
A 2-bit quantizer is commonly used in GNSS receivers since
it represents a good trade-off between an acceptable corre-
lation loss and processing logic utilization (i.e. logic gates).
The ideal ADC model for this 2-bit quantizer is given by
ADC 2 − bit r = sign r 1 + 2 r > 0 9960 σ r
14 33
This ADC produces the set of values {−3, −1, 1, 3}. The
0.9960 scale factor in (14.33) represents the optimum value
that minimizes correlation loss. The signal standard devia-
tion estimation σ r is typically derived from the AGC voltage
in a low-cost receiver.
Modern receivers that are designed to mitigate interfer-
ence sample rIF[k] using ADCs with a high dynamic range,
typically 12 bits with at least 10 effective number of bits
(ENOB), yielding 60 dB of digital dynamic range (see dis-
cussions in Section 14.3.3). In this case, the analog AGC
is only engaged to the extent of maintaining linear opera-
tion of the front-end. Utilizing the ADC’s full dynamic
range maximizes the options available for applying various
signal processing techniques to identify and mitigate inter-
ference. These techniques are implemented in the situa-
tional awareness processor and sample conditioner
blocks shown in Figure 14.3.
It is important to note that (14.26) considers noise due to
thermal effects only. In practice, additional noise-like
effects in the front-end contribute to lowering the SNR.
These include spurious emissions and IM products.
The digitized complex signal is given by
Γ
r IF k = hFE k ∗ hSV ,i k ∗henv,i k ∗sIF,i k
i=1
+ X IF k + nIF k 14 34
where, for the 2-bit sign-magnitude encoded ADC:
r IF k − 3, − 1, + 1, + 3 14 35
Recognizing that in general the front-end transfer func-
tion can distort received SV signals by different amounts
according to sequence W:
Γ
r IF k = hS,i k ∗sIF,i k + hFE k ∗ X IF k + nIF k
i=1
= bandlimited received signals
+ bandlimited inteference and noise 14 36
where
hS,i = hSV ,i ∗henv,i ∗hFE,i 14 37
14.5 Correlation Processing
14.5.1 Correlation Outputs
GNSS signals contained within the sampled stream
rIF[k] are below the noise floor and hence are not directly
observable. The receiver tracks a desired signal by correlat-
ing rIF[k] with a locally generated replica signal sIF k .
The correlation output is then used to determine signal

parameters that represent how closely sIF k is aligned rel-
ative to the true signal sIF[k] buried within rIF[k]. These
somewhat noisy signal parameters are then filtered and
used to estimate LOS signal dynamics, and steer the local
replica at regular intervals to keep it as closely aligned to
the true signal as possible. The receiver also uses the corre-
lation outputs to compute C/N0 and other quality metrics
that indicate how well the local replica is aligned to the true
signal, as well as to assess statistical error bounds for the
measured signal parameters. When criteria for good align-
ment and confidence are met, the receiver processes the
sIF k steering commands into range measurements. It is
important to note that during this entire process, at no
point is the true signal sIF[k] directly visible to the receiver
– it is still buried in noise within rIF[k]. Incidentally, the
only way to directly observe GNSS signals above the noise
floor from Earth is to utilize a high-gain dish antenna. This
section describes the digital signal processing that is per-
formed on front-end sample stream rIF[k] to obtain range
measurements and signal quality metrics for GNSS signals
that are contained within it.
Without loss of generality, suppose the receiver intends to
track the in-phase component of the received signal
from SVi that is contained within sample stream rIF[k] from
(14.34). Then the correlation operation is given by
N n + 1 −1
Corr i,I n = r IF k sIF,i,I,n k , n = 0, 1, 2, …
k = Nn
14 38
n represents discrete time epochs where an N-sample block
is correlated, and the resulting output returned for signal
parameter estimation. The time interval associated with
this integrate-and-dump operation is therefore referred to
as the pre-detection integration interval Tpdi:
T pdi = NT s 14 39
The locally generated replica corresponding to SVi’s
in-phase signal component at epoch n is given by
sIF,I,n k = CI f C + α − 1 f d,n , kt s − τn e − j2πf IF,n kts + ϕn
14 40
where τ, f IF = f Offset + f d, and ϕ are the receiver’s estimates
of code phase, carrier frequency offset, and CP, respectively.
In most legacy GPS receivers, these estimates are constant
over Tpdi, which makes the assumption that incoming-
signal dynamics are largely constant over this interval.
However, for applications such as space receivers where
signal dynamics are large or high-sensitivity receivers
where Tpdi is on the order of a second, multiple parameter
updates may be required to keep the replica adequately
aligned to the desired signal. For this ongoing description
14.5 Correlation Processing 331
it is assumed that the receiver’s given Tpdi interval n is
aligned with the transitions of the slow-rate modulation
D I in (14.6). In practice, this is only true when the receiver
has achieved symbol synchronization.
Given the sampled signal model of (14.36), the correla-
tion output of (14.38) (now generalized to either the in-
phase or quadrature signal component) can be expressed
as the sum of four components: (1) Corr SV i: correlation with
the desired GNSS signal component, (2) CorrY: cross-
correlation with other modulation components on the
same SV carrier signal as well as cross-correlation with
other received GNSS signals and/or spoofing signals that
may be present in rIF(k), (3) CorrX: correlation with interfer-
ence signals, and (4) Corrnoise: correlation with noise:
Corr i = Corr SV i + Corr Y + Corr X + Corr noise
14 41
Cross-correlation, spoofing, and interference each have
different types of effects on the correlation output and
how desired signal acquisition and tracking is ultimately
affected. These topics are further described in Chapters
10, 24, and 25.
Assuming that the receiver’s initial estimates of code
phase and carrier frequency are close to those of the desired
signal, the correlation output at epoch n for the desired
component of GNSS signal from SVi is given by
Corr SV i n = An Dn hS,i ∗ R δτn
sin πδf n NT s
cos δϕn + jsin δϕn = I SV i ,n + jQSV i ,n
πδf n NT s
14 42
where An is the average received signal level during interval
n, and R δτn is the correlation over N samples of the
desired signal component’s spreading sequence at an
arbitrary phase τRXwith the locally generated copy of that
sequence with an estimated rate f C + α − 1 f d and estimated
code phase τn :
N n + 1 −1
R δτn = C f c + α − 1 f d , kt s − τRX C
k = Nn
f c + α − 1 f d,n , kt s − τn 14 43
It should be clear from (14.8) that |R(δτ)| 0 when δτ > 1.
Otherwise |R(δτ)| increases linearly with N, as long as the
sign of D stays constant during the integration interval.
If the sign of D changes at any time during this interval,
the increasing correlation magnitude will start to diminish
– this is why correlation intervals need to be precisely
aligned to the sign changes of D . During the initial signal
acquisition and pull-in phase, this information is generally
332 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
| sincπδfmTpdi |
–δf δf
–1/Tpdi 1/Tpdi
sin πδf T pdi
Figure 14.16 Illustration of the sinc function
πδf T pdi
magnitude and its null-to-null bandwidth dependence on the
pre-detection integration interval Tpdi.
unknown. Alignment to D must be performed using a sym-
bol synchronization technique. It is also important to note
that R(δτ) within Corr SV i is band-limited due to convolution
with the impulse response hS,i .
The sinc function in (14.42) results from the correlation of
two sinusoids. Figure 14.16 shows the response as a func-
tion of the average frequency error δf over the integration
interval between the desired signal and the local replica.
The null-to-null bandwidth of this sinc function is inversely
proportional to the pre-detection integration interval. As a
result, the longer the integration interval, the higher the
precision to which the receiver must steer f to follow the
dynamics of the desired signal.
Equations (14.42) and (14.43) indicate that as long as
the local replica is aligned, the correlation power increases
by N2: I 2SV i + Q2SV i N 2 .
Correlation of the local replica with band-limited noise
within the sample stream rIF(k) is given by
N n + 1 −1
Corr noise n = hFE k ∗nIF k sIF,i,I,n k ,
k = Nn
n = 0, 1, 2, … = I noise,n + jQnoise,n
The real and imaginary components are uncorrelated:
Cov (Inoise, Qnoise) = 0. Unlike the signal power which
increases with N2, the noise correlation power increases
with N: I 2noise + Q2noise N . Therefore, the SNR is propor-
tional to the pre-detection integration time (also known
as the coherent integration time).
14.5.2 Hardware and Software Correlation
In general, since fs is relatively high, initial correlation is
performed in hardware. Typically, the hardware integra-
tion time is 1 ms. This is performed in the hardware corre-
lation engine (within the SMP) as shown in Figure 14.17.
Note that in a full software-based GNSS receiver‚ the
1 ms correlation is performed using highly optimized
implementations leveraging multiple CPU cores and/or
threads, single instruction, multiple-data (SIMD) vector
instructions, bit-wise parallel techniques, general-purpose
graphics processing units (GPGPU), and combinations
thereof. We use the term “hardware correlation” here to
refer to this constant-interval component of the operation
rather than the implementation approach. After hardware
correlation, the outputs are dumped to software where con-
secutive hardware correlation outputs can be accumulated
to extend the pre-detection time in increments of 1 ms.
These software accumulated outputs are referred to as nar-
rowband or coherent correlation.
T HW = N HW T s = 0 001 sec 14 45
M n + 1 −1
I NB,m = I WB,n , m = 0, 1, 2, …
m = Mn
M n + 1 −1
QNB,m = QWB,n , m = 0, 1, 2, … 14 46
m = Mn
The coherent correlation outputs are used to detect the
carrier frequency and/or phase deviations with respect to
the replica carrier (δf n , δ Ø n) as well as correlation envelopes
for the Prompt, Early, and Late code replicas. The detected
correlation envelopes are further accumulated for K Pdi
intervals and dumped. This is known as non-coherent inte-
gration and further improves the SNR. These non-coherent
P, E, and L outputs are used to compute code phase devia-
tions with respect to the replica code generator (δτn ).
Instead of the correlation envelope, some receivers may
detect and use correlation power for code tracking:
Em = I 2E,m + Q2E,m . Receivers also use various techniques
to reduce the total number of hardware accumulators
needed for signal tracking. For example, instead of proces-
sing separate Early and Late correlator outputs, the E-L
function necessary for computing δτn is derived from the
14 44 replica code generator and applied to a single complex
correlator. More detailed discussions of coherent and
non-coherent integration gain/limitations and signal track-
ing techniques are presented in Chapters 18 and 15,
respectively.
14.5.3 C/N0 Calculation
C/N0 is an important signal quality metric. There are two
commonly used methods to compute C/N0: the power ratio
method (PRM) and the variance summing method (VSM)
[33–35]. While both methods generate similar estimations
for the nominal signal, the PRM is known to show signs
of saturation at higher C/N0 levels, while the VSM perfor-
mance degrades more for signals experiencing rapid power-
level fluctuations. Reference [36] applied both methods to
several sets of data collected using a conventional and a
high-gain antenna during quiet and active ionospheric
 14.6 Channel Control State Machine 333

Pre-detection (Coherent) Integration, Tpdi Post-detection (Non-Coherent) Integration

HW Correlators (within SMP) SW Accumulators (within RDP)

L Pm,
E P, E, L
Em,
P IWB,m INB,m (P), E, L
Accumulate Accumulate Lm
& Dump & Dump Envelope Accumulate
rIF(k) QWB,m QNB,m Detection & Dump
Accumulate Accumulate
2 2
& Dump & Dump
Ip,m Qp,m Em = IE,m + QE,m
Replica Replica
Carrier Code Phase/
Frequency
Wideband Correlators Detection
ˆ ˆ
e –j 2πfIF,nkts + øn Integration time:Thw = 1 ms
Bandwidth:1/T
*
hw = 1 kHz δfˆn,δøˆ n δτˆi
Cl′(fc + α–1fˆd,n,kts– τˆ n)
Narrowband Correlators * The bandwidth of the correlator output is
NCO Commands and Code Generator Settings Integration time:M*Thw = M ms defined as the peak-to-null (i.e. single
Bandwidth*:1/MThw = 1/M kHz sided) bandwidth of it’s sinc function
(see Figure 14.16)

Processing
1/M 1/KM
Rates: >3MHz 1kHz
kHz kHz

Figure 14.17 Illustration of how hardware correlators integrate and dump for 1 ms and how software further coherently accumulates
multiples of these to dynamically adjust TPdi based on signal conditions (e.g. high-dynamics vs. high-sensitivity modes). Coherently
integrated outputs are detected to yield carrier phase/frequency and envelope discrimination. The envelopes are further integrated non-
coherently prior to code phase discrimination.

scintillation conditions to illustrate the deficiencies of the where Z2 is the average I and Q correlator output sequence
two methods. over an accumulation time period Taccu, and σ 2Z is the
Both methods estimate C/N0 using the correlation out- sequence standard deviation:
puts. The PRM method first computes the wideband and
narrowband power: 1 K 2
Z= I + Q2k 14 53
M K k−1 k
PWB = I 2WB,m + Q2WB,m 14 47
K
m=1 1
σ 2Z = Zk − Z 14 54
PNB = I 2NB + Q2NB 14 48 K − 1 k−1

The normalized power is given by The I and Q channel noise power is computed based on
PNB,k the variance of the noise accumulation:
NPk = 14 49
PWB,k
1 K
The average normalized power is then obtained over K σ 2IQ = Z − PC 14 55
2 k−1
consecutive normalized power values:
1 K The C/N0 is computed based on PC and σ 2IQ :
μNP = NPk 14 50
Kk=1
PC
Typically, in steady-state tracking, M is set to 20 and K to C N 0 = 10 log dB − Hz 14 56
2T accu σ 2IQ
50 to yield the update rate of 1 Hz C/N0 calculations. C/N0
is given by
μNP − 1
C N 0 = 10 log dB − Hz 14 51
T WB M − μNP 14.6 Channel Control State Machine
The VSM computes the average carrier power using the
following formula: Figure 14.18 depicts the channel control state machine state
diagram. The states are shown in the block diagram in the
PC =
2
Z − σ 2Z 14 52 left, while the functionalities of each state are summarized
and explained on the right. Detailed discussions on some of
334 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers

• SP high-level command: ‘acquire PRN(x) and track on channel(y)’

Initialization • SP provides initial Doppler and time estimate if available
• SP provides C/N0 estimates if available (initial acq. engine parameters)
• Setup detection thresholds, coherent/non-coherent intervals
Re-Acquisition • Compute delay-Doppler hypotheses (search space)
Potential • Return acquired signal parameters and search parameters (e.g. Tpdi)
Hit
• Verify persistence of signal at detected hypothesis
Verification
• Setup tracking channel with wide signal pull-in parameters
• Converge tracking loop filters to current dynamic state
Pull-In • Monitor and correct ‘false lock’ conditions (carrier/code sidelobes)
• Transition from wide FLL to narrow PLL, narrow coherent DLL
• Decode navigation message and initialize TOT register
Steady-State
Meas. • Update TOT and carrier phase accumulator
Tracking • Monitor tracking performance
N
Stress? • Challenging conditions: low C/N0, rapid fades, sudden dynamics
Y
• Low C/N0 and high dynamics signal tracking strategies
HOBYT* » FLL or FLL-aided-PLL, non-coherent wide-correlator-spacing DLL
» External sensor aiding
N
Lost? • Signal lost, but last-known-good parameters available
Y • Attempt reacquisitionorretiresignal tracking and set channel idle
Reassign * “Hold-On By Your Teeth!” credit: Phillip W. Ward, Navward Consulting
Channel

Figure 14.18 Typical flow diagram for a GNSS receiver signal acquisition and tracking channel control state machine.

the processes depicted in the diagram can be found in other
chapters. For example, acquisition is discussed in
Chapter 18. Signal tracking loops such as frequency lock
loop (FLL), phase lock loop (PLL), and FLL-assisted-PLL
are discussed in Chapter 15. Inertial aiding is covered in
Chapter 46. Other functions such as bit and frame synchro-
nization, raw symbols extraction from FLL and PLL track-
ing, preamble location, data decode, parity/CRC checks,
forward error correction, and pseudorange calculation
are straightforward processes that are well documen-
ted [37].
14.7 Correlator and Tracking
Channel Timing
Several time bases are present within a GNSS receiver. This
section describes what these are, how they are generated,
and how they interact with each other. Figure 14.19 illus-
trates the timing circuitry present in a typical low-chan-
nel-count GNSS receiver. In this type of receiver, data
transfers between the SMP and RDP are carried out using
a programmed input/output (PIO) interface. This type of
interface performs individual register read/write operations
that are mapped to a microprocessor’s I/O address space.
Even though the PIO interface is bidirectional,
Figure 14.19 shows separate read and write data busses
for clarity.
In order to avoid losses due to sign changes, the correla-
tion intervals in a tracking channel (within the SMP) must
be aligned to the incoming signal’s data and/or secondary
code symbol boundaries. These integration intervals,
referred to as SV time epochs, are derived from the replica
code generator. Since the range to each satellite is dynam-
ically changing, SV time epochs are not synchronous to
receiver time epochs.
Since computing a PNT fix is based on the principle of
trilateration at a given instant, ranges to each visible satel-
lite must be measured at precisely the same receiver-based
time instant. These receiver time epochs are derived from
the receiver’s reference oscillator, typically by dividing
the sampling clock by an integer value. It is important to
note that the reference oscillator is not an accurate timing
source compared to GNSS system times. Hence, any precise
timing outputs generated by the receiver (such as the pulse
per second, PPS, output) is synthesized by compensating for
the oscillator’s bias and drift characteristics that become
known after observing the PNT solution over time. In most
receivers‚ the reference oscillator itself is free running and
never adjusted since doing so can impact its characteristics
in unpredictable ways. The receiver epoch count represents
the receiver time, which can be directly read into software
and converted to the required absolute time scale. As
shown in Figure 14.19, receiver epochs latch the replica
code and carrier states of all channels into holding registers
that can be read though the PIO interface. These values
represent the highest-resolution components required to
 14.7 Correlator and Tracking Channel Timing 335

Receiver Epoch Logic Tracking Channel Logic

Latch Integer Cycles Fractional Cycles

Correlator Outputs

Clear
Accumulators Overflow
Cycle Carrier
Counter NCO
Replica Code

Replica Carrier Initialize/Update Carrier Rate/Phase

Sample Stream
PIO Write Write Bus

Divide Value Apply Epoch Initialize/Update Code Phase Code Rate

Programmable Epoch SV1ms Epoch Code Overflow Code

Sample Clock
Divider Counter Generator NCO
Rcvr. Epoch Interrupt
Apply Epoch Apply Epoch
Epoch Counter SV Time Integer Chips Fractional Chips
Generator

PIO Read Read Bus

SV Epoch Interrupt

Figure 14.19 Timing circuitry for a GNSS receiver employing a PIO interface.

compute the raw range measurements, which are SV TOT
and carrier cycles accumulated since last initialization,
respectively. As these values are latched, an interrupt is
generated to prompt software to read them as soon as pos-
sible (i.e. before the next interrupt). Values are read‚ and a
set of raw measures are computed, typically inside an inter-
rupt service routine (ISR). Figure 14.19 shows a program-
mable counter that may be used to set the receiver epoch
interval. This is typically set to the receiver’s measurement
update rate.
The software-based tracking algorithms that read corre-
lator outputs and produce numerically controlled oscillator
(NCO) rate steering commands are processed within the
RDP. The embedded microprocessor inside this block is
typically clocked by a different (often low-quality) crystal
oscillator. In general, there is no timing relationship
between software processing cycles and receiver time
epochs.
When a channel is initialized, write registers configure its
primary code PRN, initial code phase, and carrier/code
rates. Assuming that the replica code phase and carrier
Doppler are approximately aligned, the incoming signal
is “pulled in” and tracked by adjusting only the rates of
the carrier and code NCOs thereafter.
In early GNSS receivers, values written to registers went
into immediate effect. These receivers used the same chan-
nel to perform acquisition by employing serial search tech-
niques. The acquisition algorithm sets the code phase,
carrier Doppler (and optionally code Doppler scaled from
the carrier Doppler) and observes the correlator output
for some dwell time. Detecting a relatively large correlator
magnitude implies approximate alignment of the incom-
ing-signal parameters. Then, the software immediately
transitions to the pull-in and tracking phases. The
GP2021 12-channel correlator IC is an example of this
immediate-application technique (see the GP2021 data-
sheet at https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/data-
sheet/537/GP2021-pdf.php].
When separate acquisition and tracking resources are
used, it becomes necessary to initialize code phase for a
precisely known reference epoch (which is necessarily
the receiver time since no other precise time is available
at start-up). This way, when the acquisition resource pro-
duces a correlation peak, the corresponding replica code
phase that aligns with the incoming signal at a future time
can be computed and programmed into the code generator
of an available tracking channel. Figure 14.19 shows details
of how this is done using an Apply Epoch Generator. This
unit is programmed to output a one-shot “command apply”
that aligns with a future receiver epoch. This mechanism
can also be used to modify the states of the SV Epoch coun-
ters through software in order to align them to an SV’s TOT.
Alternatively, this counter is not adjusted, but the offset
that aligns the count to SV time is recorded and applied
in software. Note that the carrier cycle counter is typically
cleared after the previous count is latched. Whole cycles are
336 14 Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers
accumulated in software to avoid the need for wide coun-
ters in hardware.
As mentioned previously, correlation is always per-
formed with respect to SV time. Most receivers perform
integration in hardware for 1 ms and dynamically extend
the pre-detection integration time in software by coherently
summing these hardware correlator outputs (see
Figure 14.17). This avoids large numerical values building
up in the hardware accumulators, which would otherwise
require additional logic resources. This 1 ms hardware
accumulation scheme will continue to be applicable to
future receivers since the vast majority of GNSS signal
structures define spreading code periods, data symbol
lengths, and secondary code intervals that are integer divis-
ible by 1 ms.
The SV 1 ms epochs are derived from the code generator.
In the case of short algorithmically defined spreading code
sequences, SV epochs are generated by sensing the internal
states in the code generator that are PRN number invariant.
For example, the “all 1’s” state of the 10-bit G1 register cor-
responds to the SV 1 ms epoch for the C/A code family. In
other cases, it may be simpler to use a separate code phase
counter. This is the only option available for Galileo E1
memory codes. In this case, the code phase counter also
serves as the address to the spreading sequence stored in
memory.
When a 1 ms correlation operation is complete, the accu-
mulator values are transferred to holding registers‚ and the
accumulators are immediately cleared for the next interval
(known as accumulate and dump). The SV epoch triggers
an interrupt that notifies the RDP to read these registers
as soon as possible (i.e. before they are overwritten at the
next SV epoch). When an SV epoch interrupt occurs, the
processor determines which channel triggered the interrupt
and reads the corresponding registers. Since SV epochs for
different channels can occur at any time, it is possible to
receive additional interrupts while the current one is being
serviced. Arbitration or interrupt aggregation logic is used
to handle these cases depending on the implementation.
For example, when the ISR is done reading registers from
one channel, it checks an “interrupts flagged” register to
check for additional interrupts that may have occurred
and proceeds to read data from those channels before
returning. In general, this overlapped interrupt issue is
manageable for receivers that contain a relatively small
number of channels.
Modern GNSS receivers may actively use more than a
hundred channels (when tracking all visible GNSS and
Satellite-based Augmentation System (SBAS) signals at
multiple frequencies), with each containing multiple
correlator outputs. In this case, a PIO interface may not
be suitable due to the large number of register read/write
operations that need to be performed one by one. Moreover,
the large number of asynchronous SV epoch interrupts gen-
erated may become too complex to manage efficiently. In
this case, a burst transfer interface such as direct memory
access (DMA) is more appropriate. For DMA, memory seg-
ments are allocated and locked by the operating system
ahead of time to prevent them from getting cached. The
processor is able to read and write to these physical memory
addresses at any time. However, the rapid sequential trans-
fer of data to and from these memory regions is managed by
the DMA controller without processor involvement. Read
and write DMA transfers can occur at the same time in
full-duplex mode.
Figure 14.20 shows the timing circuitry for a GNSS
receiver that employs burst transfers. Here, data between
the SMP and RDP are exchanged in rapid full-duplex
bursts triggered by receiver 1 ms epochs. The DMA con-
troller within the SMP manages the transfer (bus master),
and there is no RDP-CPU involvement in the transfer. In
fact, during this time, the RDP may be processing data
from the previous epoch and writing to DMA upload
memory regions that will get transferred to the SMP at
the next epoch. As data transfer continues, a delayed
interrupt is issued to inform software that new data are
available (typically‚ correlator outputs are trans-
ferred first).
This 1 ms data exchange between the SMP and RDP
using a single interrupt significantly simplifies the hard-
ware/software interaction and also eliminates the need
for some hardware resources compared to a PIO-based
implementation. For example, all carrier and code replica
states in hardware are fully deterministic in software.
Hence, TOT and ADR/CP can be calculated in software
without the need for replica state counters and registers.
(Note: This statement is also true for PIO architectures that
apply NCO updates at receiver epochs, as shown in
Figure 14.19. However, not all receivers implement this
technique, as explained previously.)
The method used to transfer correlator outputs repre-
sents the most significant change between PIO and DMA
approaches. Since it takes some time for the DMA control-
ler to read individual correlator outputs, it is possible to
have values that correspond to neighboring SV epochs. This
is prevented by registering the correlator output a second
time with the SV epoch line. Since SV epochs slide past
receiver epochs due to SV motion, it is possible to have none
or two correlator dumps within a receiver 1 ms interval.
However, the occurrence of these events is infrequent

DMA Read Read Bus
DMA Holding Registers
Controller
Correlator Outputs
DMA Write
Accumulators
Rcvr 1ms Epoch
Rcvr. Epoch Interrupt Delay
Sample Stream
Apply Epoch
Divide Value Apply Epoch
Programmable
Sample Clock
Divider
Apply Epoch
Epoch Counter
Generator
Receiver Epoch Logic
Figure 14.20 Timing circuitry for a GNSS receiver employing a burst transfer interface.
(approximately every tens of minutes for MEO, depending
on Doppler) and can be compensated for in software.
14.8 Conclusions and Future Outlook
GNSS receivers have been extensively covered in the liter-
ature. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a historical
and forward-looking perspective of GNSS receiver develop-
ment. Fundamental concepts, practical design analysis, and
implementation strategies are presented to offer readers
insights which are not covered in the research literature.
In-depth mathematical treatment of receiver signal proces-
sing such as acquisition and tracking are covered in other
chapters of this book (Chapter 15 through 18). Other rou-
tine processing such as bit/frame synchronization, naviga-
tion data extraction, and range measurements have not
evolved much since the early GPS receivers. Readers are
referred to references provided in the chapter on these
topics.
The past decades have seen GNSS receivers evolve to
become highly specialized and customized for specific
applications. The future trend of GNSS receivers is
driven by the continued diverging needs of specialized
applications and to ensure efficient sensor integration.
Such needs will favor more open architectures and
standardization. While custom application-specific inte-
grated circuits (ASICs) have been demonstrated to be the
best in terms of performance and low power, software-
programmable efficient domain-specific ASICs will most
likely be the dominant platform for future GNSS recei-
vers due to their flexibility and the maturing enabling
technologies.
References 337
Tracking Channel Logic
Latch
Clear
Carrier
NCO
Replica Code
Replica Carrier Carrier Rate/Phase
Write Bus
Code Phase Code Rate
SV 1ms Epoch Code Overflow Code
Generator NCO
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15
GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking
Y.T. Jade Morton, R. Yang, and B. Breitsch
University of Colorado Boulder, United States
There has been extensive research and implementations of
various global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver
signal tracking algorithms. There are also several classic
treatments of the fundamentals of GPS/GNSS receivers
(e.g. see [1–4]). This chapter intends to provide an inte-
grated overview of the fundamentals of GNSS signal track-
ing and the latest developments in advanced signal tracking
techniques to improve sensitivity, robustness, and accuracy
of performance. The chapter will start with the objectives of
signal tracking, followed by a conceptual description of a
closed-loop tracking system. A brief conventional treat-
ment of code delay lock loop (DLL) is then presented. Car-
rier tracking is the more challenging and more intensely
researched subject. This chapter will summarize the con-
ventional phase lock loop (PLL) design. Tracking of simu-
lated GPS L1 signals will be used to illustrate the concepts
presented in the traditional implementations of DLL and
PLL techniques. Following the conventional PLL descrip-
tion, we present a state space-based feedback control theory
to demonstrate that some of the popular carrier tracking
loop implementations are fundamentally equivalent. PLLs
using the proportion-integration filter (PIF), Wiener filter
(WF), and Kalman filter (KF) implementations are dis-
cussed. Optimization strategies of carrier tracking for weak
signals and for receivers operating on dynamic platforms
are presented‚ and their performance is analyzed. Finally,
the latest developments in inter-frequency aiding will be
summarized. The code and data used to generate example
implementations can be downloaded by readers hosted at
the authors’ website [5].
15.1 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking
Loop Objectives
The purpose of GNSS signal tracking is to make continuous
and accurate estimations of the signal code and carrier
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
339
phase, which are then used to obtain the signal time of arri-
val (TOA) at the receiver. A by-product of the tracking loop
is the detection of navigation data bit edges, which is essen-
tial for navigation data decoding. The TOA is the signal
reception time at the receiver relative to its transmission
time at the satellite. The signal reception time is obtained
through estimation of the signal code phase or carrier
phase. While different GNSS signals may have varying sig-
nal structures, the fundamental concept and architecture
are similar. Figure 15.1 shows how the signal code phase
(bottom block) is related to the signal reception time tr at
the receiver (the top block) for the GPS L1 CA signal.
The top block in the figure shows a navigation data sub-
frame. The transmission time of the subframe is encoded
in the navigation data, referred to as the Z count.
A subframe is 6 s long and contains 300 navigation data bits.
Each navigation data bit is 20 ms long and contains 20 CA
code periods. Each CA code period has 1023 chips. A first
approximation for the receiver time at reception, tr (which
excludes signal travel and propagation effects), relative to
the broadcasted subframe transmission time tb is
t r = t b + N − 1 × 20 × 10 − 3 + M − 1 × 10 − 3 + τ
15 1
As shown in the figure, the receiver intercepted the signal
at the N-th bit, on the M-th code period within the N-th bit,
with a code delay time τ from the start of the code period.
While the values of N and M have to be resolved after bit
synchronization and navigation data decoding, the code
phase τ was estimated during coarse acquisition and will
be updated during the tracking process. One of the main
objectives of signal tracking is to estimate the fractional
code phase delay offset of the receiver reception time rela-
tive to the coarse code phase obtained from acquisition.
In addition to the code phase, a more accurate range
measurement is based on the signal carrier phase. The dis-
advantage of the carrier phase measurement is its cycle
340 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

tb tr
A Navigation Data Subframe

Bit Bit Bit Bit

Z Count
1 2 N 300

CA CA CA CA
1 2 M 20

Chip Chip Chip Chip

1 2 K 1023
τ

Figure 15.1 Illustration of the receiver signal interception time and signal code phase alignment.

ambiguities. Nevertheless, carrier phase measurements are objective) is often used as a control parameter in adaptive
used in all precision positioning applications after applying tracking algorithms, its estimation is a subject of a number
techniques to resolve the cycle ambiguities (e.g. Chapters of studies‚ and interested readers can refer to [6–8] and
18 and 19 in this book). The carrier phase measurement Chapter 14 in this book. The fifth objective is a natural
is also used to “smooth” the noisier code phase measure- product of the techniques that will lead to the first three
ments (e.g. Chapter 21). A signal’s carrier phase can be objectives. Subsequent bit and frame synchronization and
approximated as navigation data retrieval are straightforward processes
dϕ 1 d2 ϕ 2
and can be readily found online (e.g., see [9]).
ϕ t = ϕ t0 + t − t0 + t − t0
dt 2 dt 2
+ higher order terms
1 2
≈ ϕ0 + ω t t − t 0 + a t t − t0 15 2
2 15.2 GNSS Signal Tracking:
where ϕ0 is the initial phase at t0, ω(t) is the signal angular Conceptual Description
carrier frequency, and a(t) is the rate of the angular
frequency. Figure 15.2 shows the block diagram of a typical closed-
GNSS receiver tracking loops estimate the code phase, loop GPS signal tracking system. It consists of a reference
carrier frequency, and carrier phase by aligning the incom- generator, correlators, discriminators, and filters. For
ing signal with locally generated reference signals. When a some receiver implementations, other processes or
match is made, the reference signal parameters are taken as sources may also provide aiding parameters for the track-
the estimations for the ones in the input signal. How do we ing loop. For example, Section 15.3.6 discusses the code
know if the match is not a false alarm, and how much con- tracking loop using Doppler aiding from the carrier track-
fidence do we have in the match? A convenient and effec- ing loop. Section 15.5.4 focuses on inter-carrier aiding,
tive measure is the carrier-to-noise power ratio (C/N0) of where estimations from a carrier tracking loop having a
the tracked signal. A higher C/N0 is an indication that your nominal signal are used to aid another carrier tracking
tracking loop is doing well. loop with a weak signal transmitted from the same satel-
To summarize, GPS signal tracking objectives are to esti- lite. In Chapter 16, aiding from other satellite measure-
mate the following five quantities: ments is used in the vector processing architecture.
GNSS tracking loops are also often aided by measure-
1) Code phase
ments from other sensors. For example, in Chapter 45,
2) Carrier Doppler frequency
aiding using inertial sensors in loose, tight, and ultra-tight
3) Carrier phase
integration modes is discussed. In this chapter, we will
4) C/N0
limit our discussions to stand-alone GNSS receivers. In
5) Navigation data bit edge
this section, we will focus on the architecture, as shown
In this chapter, we will focus on techniques that aim to in Figure 15.2, without getting into the aiding portion
achieve the first three objectives. While C/N0 (the fourth of the scheme.
 15.2 GNSS Signal Tracking: Conceptual Description 341

Figure 15.2 Block diagram of a typical closed-loop Z (τ) ε + Nε

GNSS signal tracking process. Correlators Discriminators Filters
Input
baseband
signal xb (t) ε̂
Reference signal xr (t) Reference
generation

Aiding parameters

Other processes
or sources

15.2.1 Correlation R(δτ) is the code correlation function and δτ = τ − τ:

An incoming baseband GNSS signal’s power in xb(t) is well 1

below the noise floor, so its parameters cannot be measured
directly. Instead, correlation with a closely matching refer-
ence signal is used to bring the signal energy above the
noise floor. The result of this correlation can then be used
to estimate the discrepancy between the incoming and ref-
erence signal, as will be evident from the correlation’s ana-
lytical expression. A detailed discussion on correlation
operation is presented in Chapter 14. Only a brief summary
of the correlation operation in the tracking loop is pre-
sented here. Let the input baseband signal for a satellite
being tracked be
j ωd t + ϕ0
x b t = ADC t + τ e + Nx
where A is the signal amplitude, D is the navigation data, C
is the code, ϕ0 is the initial fractional carrier phase, τ is the
code phase, and ωd is the carrier Doppler angular frequency
in rad/s. Note that only one satellite signal is being consid-
ered, while others are lumped into the noise term Nx. When
the tracking loop reaches steady state, we can assume that it
generates accurate estimations of τ and ωd:
R δτ = C t C t + δτ dt 15 8
T T
At the peak of the correlation function,
jϕ0
Z 0 = ADTe + NZ 15 9
Equation (15.9) shows that the correlation process “wipes
off” the code and carrier modulations on the signal when
the reference is aligned with the input signal, leaving only
the accumulated signal amplitude over the correlation
interval. The initial phase of the signal is preserved. There-
fore, the correlation operation accumulates the signal
15 3 energy to allow a matched signal to rise above the noise
floor, while all other satellite signals’ energy and noise
are non-coherently averaged out. By examining the corre-
lator outputs, we can estimate the amount of “mismatch”
between the reference and the input signals’ parameters.
This is accomplished by a discriminator, which we will dis-
cuss next.

ωd ≈ ωd , τ ≈ τ 15 4 15.2.2 Discriminators

These estimations are used to construct a reference A discriminator is an estimator that provides a measure of
signal: one signal parameter while suppressing variations caused
by other signal parameters. For example, we can use the
xr t = C t + τ e jωd t
15 5 following function as a discriminator to estimate the initial
phase ϕ0 in (15.9):
The correlation between the incoming and reference sig-
nals over period T is Im Z 0
lϕ = tan −1 15 10
Re Z 0
jωd t + jϕ0 − jωd t
Z τ = AD C t+τ C t+τ e e dt + N Z
T
where Im and Re refer to the imaginary and real part,
15 6
respectively, of Z(0). If there is no noise, the discriminator
Applying the approximations in (15.4) to (15.6): will produce the initial carrier phase ϕ0. As a discriminator,
lϕ is a measure of the carrier phase while suppressing the
jϕ0 − j ωd − ωd T 2
Z δτ = ADTR δτ e + NZ 15 7 impact of the signal amplitude and data bit. Different
342 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking
discriminators are designed to estimate different signal
parameters. Some of the discriminators are constructed
using outputs from multiple correlators, while others
involve more complicated functions. We will discuss them
in more detail in later sections.
15.2.3 Filters
There is always noise in the data. A discriminator cannot
produce the true measure of a signal parameter. In order
to reduce the impact of noise on the accuracy of the dis-
criminator outputs, we have to apply appropriate filtering.
Typically, these are low-pass filters that allow the features
associated with the signal parameters to pass while
“smoothing” out the noise effects. But sometimes we have
to be very careful about the filtering operation because a
signal parameter may have features that are difficult to sep-
arate from the noise. For example, the receiver platform
may experience acceleration and random movement. We
do not want to treat the effects of these motions as noise.
GNSS receivers have also found wide-ranging applications
in remote sensing. Disturbances in the signals due to prop-
agation through the ionosphere, troposphere, foliage, or
reflections from Earth’s surface are desirable signatures
that allow us to infer the properties of the propagation
environments. Designing filters that can preserve the true
values of the signal, disturbance signatures, and receiver
platform parameters while suppressing unwanted random
noise is a challenging part of a tracking loop design. We
will discuss filter implementations for code, carrier, and
frequency tracking loops for nominal signals in Sections
15.3 and 15.4 and then address optimizations for weak
signals and for receivers on dynamic platforms in
Section 15.5.
Input baseband signal xb (t)
Coarse Doppler from acquisition
Initial code phase from acquisition
Carrier tracking
Carrier
δϕ + Nϕ
wipeoff Carrier Carrier
discriminator loop filter
Code
wipeoff
Code δτ + Nτ Code
Correlators loop
discriminator
filter
Code tracking
Figure 15.3 A generic GNSS signal tracking loop architecture.
15.2.4 Reference Generation
The output of a good tracking loop filter provides accurate
estimations for signal parameters such as carrier phase, code
phase, and carrier Doppler. These parameters are used to
generate a reference signal. The reference signal is then
fed back to the correlator to “wipe off” the code and carrier
from subsequent input signals. This process repeats itself
continuously as long as the receiver maintains lock of the sig-
nal, meaning that the reference signal parameters are within
certain bounds of the corresponding input signal parameters.
15.2.5 GNSS Signal Tracking Loop Architecture
While modern GNSS signals have multiple layers of mod-
ulations, the fundamental problems of signal tracking
can be broken down to two layers of modulations: the car-
rier and the code. A generic tracking loop architecture is
shown in Figure 15.3. The carrier and code tracking loops
are parallel and interconnected feedback control loops.
Each has its own discriminators that generate appropriate
error functions. Each has its own filter implementations to
mitigate noise effects while maintaining its signal features.
Each also has its own plant which generates the appropri-
ate reference signals. These reference signals are fed back to
the correlators to perform subsequent code and carrier
wipe-offs. As we will discuss later in this section, the carrier
tracking loop requires more frequent updating than the
code tracking loop due to its higher frequency.
15.3 GNSS Signal Code Tracking: DLL
The DLL estimates the code phase, which is the delay of the
beginning of the code period relative to the time of signal
interception. Figure 15.4 shows a generic block diagram
δϕ
Carrier
reference
δτ Code
reference
 15.3 GNSS Signal Code Tracking: DLL 343

Input Code phase output

baseband To carrier
signal tracking
ZE
loop
Early, prompt, late ZP Loop Early, prompt, late
Discriminator
correlators ZL filter code generators
Acquisition
output

Figure 15.4 DLL block diagram.

of the DLL with three correlators, computed using three early, and late code with the input code are also shown
references. There are implementation variations using in the figure.
two or more correlators. With multiple correlators, each Following the same reasoning that led us to (15.7)
can be constructed with a reference code that has a fixed and (15.9), we obtain all three correlators to be a scaled
delay time relative to the other reference codes. The relative version of the code correlation function with different
values of these multiple correlators enable the derivation of delays:
the delay time.
Z E δτ = αR δτ − d + N E 15 11
Z P δτ = αR δτ + N P 15 12
15.3.1 DLL Correlators
Z L δτ = αR δτ + d + N L 15 13
Figure 15.5 explains the concept of using three correlators
where
to achieve an estimate of the code delay τ. The top pulse
symbolizes the code associated with the input signal. Dur- jϕ0 − j ωd − ωd T 2
α = ADTe 15 14
ing acquisition or prior iteration of the tracking process,
the input signal code phase is estimated and used to con- Figure 15.6 shows a simplified version of the GPS L1 CA
struct the “prompt” reference code CP. Two additional ref- code correlation function. It ignores the correlation side
erence codes, the early code CE and the late code CL, are lobes to focus on the analysis of the relationships between
generated by time shifting −d and +d relative to the the early, prompt, and late correlators. The main correla-
prompt code. This magnitude of the time shift is called tion lobe is simply a triangle function, which can be
the correlator spacing. A commonly used correlator spa- expressed as
cing is half of a chip width: d = Tc/2. Figure 15.5 shows δτ
four scenarios: the prompt code is shifted relative to the R δτ = 1 − 15 15
Tc
− Tc − Tc Tc
input signal code by δτ = , , 0, and , respec- Since R(δτ − d) and R(δτ + d) are R(δτ) time-shifted by −d
2 4 4
tively. The correlation function values for the prompt, and +d, respectively, there is a unique relationship between

Incoming Incoming Incoming Incoming

signal signal signal signal

CE CE CE CE

CP CP CP CP

CL CL CL CL

L P
1 1 L 1 1 E P
P P E L
1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 L
E E
0 0 0 0
–Tc 0 –Tc τ –Tc 0 –Tc τ –Tc 0 –Tc τ –Tc 0 –Tc τ
Tc Tc Tc
δτ = δτ = δτ = 0 δτ =
2 4 4

Figure 15.5 Conceptual illustration of early, prompt, and late code references for δτ = −Tc/2, −Tc/4, 0, Tc/4.
344 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

| δτ – d | R(δ τ) 1
R(δ τ – d) = 1 – lτ = ZE − ZL 15 16
Tc α
1 | δτ |
R ( δ τ) = 1 – Under the noiseless assumption,
Tc
lτ = R δτ − d − R δτ + d 15 17
|δτ + d |
R(δτ + d) = 1 –
Tc Figure 15.7 depicts lτ as a function of δτ for d = Tc/2 and
d d
d = Tc/4.
δτ
–Tc δτ – d 0 δτ δτ + d Tc The highlighted areas in the figure show the regions
where the discriminator is linearly proportional to the code
Figure 15.6 Early, prompt, and late correlator function delay error δτ:
relationship.
2
lτ = δτ 15 18
Tc
the values of the three correlator functions. For the four
Equation (15.18) shows that lτ can be used to estimate the
code delay values shown in Figure 15.5, we can associate
code delay error δτ. However, this discriminator is only
the following correlator values with the prompt code
valid in the highlighted areas. It is evident that if the corre-
delays:
lator spacing is half the chip width, the discriminator will
1 1 work only if the actual code delay error is within half a chip
R δτ − d , R δτ , R δτ + d = 0, , 1 δτ = − T c
2 2 width. If the correlator spacing is a quarter of a chip width,
then the code delay error must be within a quarter of a chip
1 3 3 1
R δτ − d , R δτ , R δτ + d = , , δτ = − T c width for the estimator to work. When designing an
4 4 4 4
acquisition algorithm to obtain a rough estimation of the
1 1 code phase, one must make sure that the code phase bin
R δτ − d , R δτ , R δτ + d = , 1, δτ = 0
2 2 is sufficiently fine that the coarse estimation is within the
3 3 1 1 accuracy defined by the DLL’s correlator spacing. For
R δτ − d , R δτ , R δτ + d = , , δτ = Tc
4 4 4 4 receivers operating on high dynamic platforms, the
correlator spacing should be no more than the anticipated
The above analysis is for the ideal scenario where there is change in the code phase from one DLL iteration to
no noise in the input signal. In reality, noise must be taken another.
into consideration, as will be discussed in subsequent If we take noise into consideration, then
sections.
1
lτ = R δτ − d − R δτ + d + NE − NL 15 19
15.3.2 DLL Discriminators α

The above discussion associates the set of early, prompt, Again, let us assume d = Tc/2; within the center linear
and late correlator values with a unique prompt code delay region,
estimation error. The purpose of discriminators is to esti- 2 1
mate the code delay based on the computed correlator lτ = δτ + NE − NL 15 20
Tc α
values. We use a simple coherent discriminator, referred
to as the “null tracking discriminator,” to illustrate the Figure 15.8 illustrates the effect of noise on the discrim-
process: inator. The noise raises the value of lτ by the amount

lτ
lτ
1
0.5
0.5
δτ δτ
–1.5 –1 0 0.5 1 1.5 Tc –1.25 –0.75 –0.25 0 0.25 0.75 1.25 Tc
–0.5 –0.5
d = Tc /4
d = Tc / 2
–1

Figure 15.7 Noiseless null tracking discriminator for d = Tc/2 and d = Tc/4.
 15.3 GNSS Signal Code Tracking: DLL 345

Lτ ZE − ZL
lτ4 = 15 24d
ZE + ZL
lτ5 = Re Z E − Re Z L × Re Z P
15 24e
1 + Im Z E − Im Z L × Im Z P
ZE − ZL
NE – NL lτ6 = 15 24f
ZP
α
δτ
All these discriminators are linearly related to the code
Delay error phase error δτ within a limited range of δτ values:
lτ = βδτ 15 25
Figure 15.8 Null tracking with noise.
The scale parameter β may be related to the signal ampli-
tude, correlator integration time, correlator spacing, code
chip width, noise power, and so on, unless normalized
(NE − NL)/α. As a result, the zero-crossing point for lτ does
quantities such as lτ5 and lτ6, are used. For the normalized
not occur at δτ = 0. Instead, it occurs at
discriminators, β does not depend on the amplitude and
Tc correlator spacing, but is implicitly dependent on the inte-
Nτ = NE − NL 15 21 gration time because the time determines the noise level. If
2α
we want to avoid estimating signal parameters when apply-
This new zero-crossing point represents the amount of ing the discriminator, we will need to use the normalized
delay estimation error using this discriminator when there versions. But if we want to have discriminators that reflect
is noise. changes in signal parameters for adaptive processing, then
Assuming the correlator output noise is zero mean with we will need to use the other forms. Readers interested in
average power being N0, then more detailed discussions of the discriminators may consult
references [10–13].
Tc Tc N0
Nτ = 2N 0 = 15 22
2α AT 2 15.3.3 DLL Filter: Transformation from Analog
The corresponding delay estimation error has zero mean‚ to Digital Domain
and its standard deviation is Let us start with a general, simple noise reduction filter,
which is a weighted average of raw discriminator
Tc 1 1
στ = 15 23 estimations:
2 T C N0
t
2
where C = A /2 is the carrier signal power. Equation (15.23) yt = ωn x ξ dξ 15 26
0
shows that to reduce the estimation errors, we can do one or
more of the following: where x is the raw estimation, y is the filtered outputs, and
ωn is the weight. Since filtering is an operation that can be

•• Decrease the chip width Tc

Increase the correlation data length T
understood more directly in the frequency domain, we con-
vert (15.26) into its S-domain representation using the

• Increase C/N0 Laplace transform [14]:

X s
For GPS, its P code width is 1/10 that of the CA code. This Y s = ωn 15 27
is one reason why the P code is the more precise code. Since s
the code width is fixed for a given signal and C/N0 is deter- where X(s) and Y(s) are the Laplace transforms of x(t) and
mined by the input signal and receiver environment, the y(t), respectively. From (15.27), the S-domain transfer
only parameter we can control at the receiver signal proces- function for the simple noise reduction filter is
sing stage is the correlation integration time T.
Y s ωn
Some popular DLL code discriminators are the following: F s = = 15 28
X s s
lτ1 = Z E − Z L 15 24a
This transfer function can be described by the block dia-
lτ2 = Z E 2 − Z L 2
15 24b gram shown in Figure 15.9. It is a first-order filter because
lτ3 = Z E − Z L 15 24c the transfer function only includes one 1/s term.
346 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

a discrete sequence xd[n] at sampling interval ts, then the

X (s) ωn 1⁄ Y(s) discrete samples’ frequency domain representation is
s
1 ∞
Xd Ω = X c ω − kωs 15 29
Figure 15.9 S-domain block diagram for the simple weighted ts k = − ∞
averaging filter.
where Ω = ωt s = 2π ωωs , which relates the S-domain fre-
quency ω to the Z-domain frequency Ω. According to Shan-
Time-domain Frequency-domain
non’s theory, if the bandwidth of the CT signal ωc < ωs/2,
Laplace Transform
then the discrete baseband spectrum is a scaled replica of
Continuous: f (t) F(s) s = σ + jω
the CT spectrum:
Z Transform 1 1 Ω
Xd Ω = Xc ω = Xc 15 30
Discrete: f [n] F [z] z= re jΩ ts ts ts
Based on this impulse invariance principle, we can con-
Figure 15.10 Process flow schematics from continuous time struct the Z-domain representation of a band-limited filter
domain filter design to discrete time-domain implementation.
transfer function by following this procedure.

This S-domain representation has to be transformed to 1) Write the S-domain transfer function Hc(s) in its stand-
the discrete time domain for digital implementation. The ard form:
discrete counterpart of the S-domain representation is the
Z-transform. After obtaining the Z-transform of the filter N
Ak
transfer function, we have to also obtain the discrete differ- Hc s = 15 31
k=1
s − sk
ence equation in the time domain for real-time implemen-
tation. Figure 15.10 summarizes this process. 2) Apply the inverse Laplace transform to Hc(s) to obtain
There are a number of ways to convert a continuous time the filter time-domain impulse response hc(t):
(CT) filter to a discrete time (DT) filter for digital implemen-
tation. Commonly used approaches are the impulse invar- N
A k e sk t t≥0
iance method, the bilinear transformation [15], and the hc t = k=1 15 32
Euler transformation [16]. The impulse invariance method 0 t<0
is discussed below, while the bilinear and Euler transforma- 3) Sample the time-domain impulse response function
tions will be applied to the PLL in Sections 15.4 and 15.5, hc(t) at sample interval ts to obtain its discrete sequence:
respectively.
The impulse invariance method performs a linear map- N
ping between the continuous and discrete designs. hd n = t s hc nt s = t s Ak esk nts u k 15 33
Figure 15.11 illustrates the concept of the impulse invari- k=1
ance method. Consider a CT function xc(t). Its frequency 4) Perform the Z-transform to obtain the discrete domain
domain representation is Xc(ω). If xc(t) is sampled to form transfer function Hd(z):

CT xc (t) DT xd [n]

Time
Domain ts
t n
–4 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 4

Xc (ω) Xd (Ω)

Frequency
Domain
ω Ω
–ωc 0 ωc –2π 0 ω 2π
2π c
ωs

Figure 15.11 Impulse invariance linear mapping of a continuous time (CT) signal from S-domain to a discrete time (DT) signal in the
Z-domain.
 15.3 GNSS Signal Code Tracking: DLL 347

N
Ak Having obtained the Z-domain transfer function, we turn
H d z = ts 15 34 to the filter implementation. We take a backward approach
k=1
1 − es k t z − 1
by considering a general DT differential equation:
Figure 15.12 summarizes the above process.
N M
Now we follow this procedure to obtain the DT
ak y n − k = bk x n − k 15 36
transfer function for our simple first-order filter whose k=0 k=0
S-domain transfer function is represented by (15.28).
Comparing (15.28) with the standard form shown in Taking the Z-transform on both sides:
(15.31), we obtain
N M
k = 1, A1 = ωn , s1 = 0, t s = T ak z − k Y z = bk z − k X z 15 37
k=0 k=0
Substituting these parameters into (15.34), we obtain
its corresponding DT transfer function: The discrete domain transfer function is
ωn M
Fd z = T 15 35 bk z − k
1 − z−1
Y z k=0
Hd z = = 15 38
This transfer function can be described by the block dia- X z N
ak z − k
gram shown in Figure 15.13. k=0
Comparing Figures 15.9 and 15.13, the 1/s operation in
the S-domain is replaced by the sum of the original input Based on the above relationship, we arrive at the follow-
and a one-sample delayed output in the Z-domain. The ing filter implementation process in the DT domain:
scale factor ωn in the S-domain is replaced with a new scale
factor of Tωn in the Z-domain. Step 1: Write the system transfer function in its standard
It should be noted that the Z-transform has a region of form as shown in (15.38).
convergence (ROC), which is the set of z values for which Step 2: Identify the coefficients ak and bk.
Fd(z) converges to finite values. We have to be always care- Step 3: Based on the difference equation (15.36), compute
ful about the ROC when we perform a Z-transform. Fortu- the filtered output at the n-th sample:
nately, the impulse invariance linear mapping guarantees
that the filter frequency response in the discrete domain M N
1
yn = bk x n − k − ak y n − k
operates in the ROC. a0 k=0 k=1
15 39
Now, let us return to our simple first-order DLL discrim-
N
N
Ak Ak es t t 0
inator filter implementation. Comparing the filter’s
H c ( s) = hc (t ) = k =1 Z-domain transfer function shown in (15.35) with the
k =1 s sk
0 t <0
standard form in (15.38), we can identify the following
N
Ak N nonzero coefficients:
H d (z) = t s st 1 hd [ n] = t shc ( nts) = t s Ak es nt u[ n]
k = 11 e z k =1 b0 = Tωn , a0 = 1, a1 = − 1 15 40
Figure 15.12 Impulse invariance linear mapping of a filter from Substituting these parameters into (15.39) gives
S-domain to Z-domain.
1
yn = b0 x n − a1 y n − 1 = Tωn x n + y n − 1
a0
15 41
+
X (z) Tωn + Y (z)

+ 15.3.4 Linear Feedback System Model

1/
Z The first-order DLL loop filter presented above is only one
component of the DLL. In addition to the filter, there is a
feedback mechanism. This feedback source is the reference
Figure 15.13 First-order filter discrete time transfer function signal generated based on the filter output. Figure 15.14
block diagram. abstracts this feedback process in the S-domain.
348 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

Let us use L(s) to represent the raw discriminator gener- y [n]

+ x [n] +
ated code phase estimation in the S-domain. It contains T ωn + ˆl [n]
l [n] = +
both the true code phase offset and the system noise: βδτ [n] + Nτ [n] – +
LP 1/
l t = δτ + N τ Ls 15 42 z

The DLL output is a filtered version of the code phase off-

set estimation:
Figure 15.15 DT domain block diagram for the S-domain
LP feedback system shown in Figure 15.14.
δτ Ls 15 43
The transfer function for the first-order DLL shown in
Figure 15.14 is An arbitrary Boxcar filter
transfer function H(jω) transfer function
Ls ωn
H s = = 15 44
Ls ωn + s 1
Based on the procedure discussed in Section 15.3.3, we
can simply substitute the Z-domain function for the 1/s
operation in Figure 15.14 to obtain the DT block diagram f
–B/2 B/2
shown in Figure 15.15.
The dashed-line-enclosed area in Figure 15.14 is the sim-
Figure 15.16 Illustration of the equivalent noise bandwidth
ple noise reduction filter that we discussed in Section 15.3.3. concept.
The input to the filter x[n] is the difference between the raw
discriminator at the n-th sample and the (n-1)-th filtered
discriminator value. Therefore, we can write the DT itera- For the first-order DLL whose transfer function is
tive solution as the following: described by (15.44), we can compute its equivalent noise
bandwidth:
l n = l n − 1 + Tωn l n − l n − 1 15 45 ∞
ω2n ωn
B= df = 15 47
0 ω2n + ω2 4

Equation (15.47) shows that for the first-order DLL, the

15.3.5 Noise Bandwidth and Dynamic Response feedback linear model’s control parameter ωn is solely
A major objective of the filter is to reduce the noise impact determined by the filter noise bandwidth: ωn = 4B. A larger
on the estimations. The so-called equivalent noise band- ωn, and hence, a larger noise bandwidth B, allows the DLL
width B is a measure of the noise performance of a system. to promptly respond to changes in the input. For GNSS
We shall refer to it simply as the noise bandwidth in the rest signal tracking loops, their dynamic responses are exam-
of the chapter. It is defined as the bandwidth of an ideal rec- ined using the unit step response and frequency-
tangular filter (boxcar filter) that would pass the same modulated input response. The unit step response is the
amount of white noise energy as the filter with transfer system output if the input to the DLL is a unit step func-
function H(ω) tion whose S-domain representation is 1/s. The DLL out-
∞
put for the unit step function in the S-domain and time
1 2
B= 2 H ω df 15 46 domain is
H 0 0
1 ωn 1 1
L s =L s H s = = − 15 48
Figure 15.16 illustrates this equivalence concept. s ωn + s s ωn + s
δτ = 1 − e − ωn t = 1 − e − 4Bt 15 49
First order loop filter This DLL output shows that when the input jumps from 0
+ X (s) Y (s) to 1 at time t = 0, the output approaches 1 exponentially at a
Lˆ (s)
L (s) + ωn 1
/s rate determined by B. A larger B value will allow the output
– to approach the final value faster. Figure 15.17 shows the
DLL unit step responses for three B values: 5, 15, and
25 Hz. If we want a DLL that can respond to dynamic
Figure 15.14 Block diagram of the first-order DLL. signals, we should select large B values. Note, however, that
 15.3 GNSS Signal Code Tracking: DLL 349

Figure 15.17 Unit step response of the first-order 1

DLL for three different B values.

0.8

Step Response
0.6

0.4 B = 5Hz

B = 15Hz
0.2 B = 25Hz

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
Time (s)

a large B value is associated with poor noise performance. If This persistent error implies that for a receiver on a
the signal is weak and reducing noise impact is the priority, platform that experiences constant LOS relative satellite-
then a smaller B value should be used. Clearly, good receiver velocity, the DLL error will never go away. To min-
dynamic response and good noise performance have con- imize the error, we should select a large B value. This again
flicting requirements on B. conflicts with the noise performance requirement.
We can further probe the unit step error response: There are other ways to resolve the conflicts between the
noise and dynamic performance requirements. One of
1
E s = L s −L s = 15 50 them is to apply higher-order filters. Higher-order filters
ωn + s
have more control parameters to allow designers more
We apply the Laplace transform final value theorem to degrees of freedom to perform optimization. For a PLL, sec-
obtain the steady-state error: ond- and third-order filters are frequently implemented to
achieve this purpose. For a DLL, however, there is an easier
lim ε t = lim sE s = 0 15 51 way: carrier Doppler aiding.
t ∞ s 0

Equation (15.51) indicates that although it may take time

for the filter to respond to a sudden jump in the input, if 15.3.6 DLL with Carrier Doppler Aiding
given enough time it will eventually get there. The carrier tracking loop estimates the carrier Doppler fre-
A frequency-modulated input is very common in GPS quency fd_carrier. The carrier Doppler is related to the code
navigation applications. It represents a signal experiencing Doppler frequency:
a constant line-of-sight (LOS) velocity. Its mathematical
f code
representations in the time and S-domain are f d_code = f d_carrier 15 55
f carrier
Δω
l t = Δωt, Ls = 15 52 The code Doppler frequency is the code phase rate of
s2
change:
Similar to the case of the unit step response, we can deter-
dτ
mine the DLL error function as f d_code = =τ 15 56
dt
Δω Recall that the DLL loop filter input is simply the differ-
E s = 15 53
s ωn + s ence between the current raw code phase measurement
At steady state, and prior filtered code phase estimation. This difference
includes the measurement and estimation errors due to
Δω Δω both noise and the drift caused by the signal Doppler fre-
lim ε t = lim sE s = lim =
t ∞ s 0 s 0 ωn + s ωn quency. We can compensate for the Doppler drift by aiding
15 54 the filter with a code Doppler estimation scaled from the
350 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking
Doppler rate aiding from carrier tracking loop output
+
L (s) + ωn + 1/
–
carrier tracking loop. This way, we do not have to worry
about the frequency-modulated input component and need
only to focus on optimizing for the noise performance.
Figure 15.18 shows a block diagram of the code Doppler
aiding from the carrier tracking loop.
It is straightforward to modify (15.45) to include the car-
rier Doppler aiding:
l n = l n − 1 + T τ + ωn l n − l n − 1
15 57
15.4 GNSS Signal Carrier Tracking
Carrier tracking can refer to PLL or frequency lock loop
(FLL). A PLL is used to estimate the carrier phase, whereas
an FLL estimates the carrier frequency. In this section, we
will first discuss the fundamentals of the PLL, including its
discriminator and filter design, followed by a brief sum-
mary of the FLL. Since the PLL is the weak link in receiver
signal tracking, numerous studies in recent years have
been devoted to improving its performance. We will devote
Section 15.5 to advanced PLL filter designs.
15.4.1 PLL Linear Model
The PLL has been extensively studied [17]. It is used in
many practical circuits and systems. A PLL consists of three
basic components: a phase detector, a loop filter, and a car-
rier reference generator. Figure 15.19 shows the block dia-
gram of a traditional PLL. In a modern digital PLL, the
voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is replaced with a
numerical-controlled oscillator (NCO).
Input + δϕ + Nϕ ˆ
δϕ
ϕ (t) + Loop filter
–
ϕˆ (t)
Figure 15.19 Block diagram of a traditional PLL.
Figure 15.18 DLL with Doppler rate aiding from
carrier tracking loop output.
Lˆ (s)
s
The phase detector is also called a phase comparator. It
compares the phase of a sinusoidal input signal with the
phase of the carrier generated by the VCO (or NCO). The
output of the phase comparator is the phase error between
that of the input and the VCO. The loop filter reduces the
impact of noise on the outputs in the same way the DLL
loop filter reduces noise in the code phase discriminator
outputs. Since the carrier signal has a much higher fre-
quency, the carrier phase is more dynamic compared to
the code phase. A higher-order loop filter is needed for
the PLL. Finally, the VCO or NCO generates a new carrier
based on the filtered phase error output. The new carrier
signal will have a new frequency, which will effectively lead
to a smaller phase error between the input and the refer-
ence signal.
When designing a PLL for GNSS signals, we have to do
some extra work in order to facilitate the operation of the
phase comparator. Figure 15.20 is the block diagram of
the GNSS carrier tracking loop. At first glance, this block
diagram is very similar to the code DLL we discussed in
the previous section, with a few exceptions. These excep-
tions will be discussed in the following sections.
15.4.2 PLL Prompt Correlator
While the code DLL made use of all three correlators, the
carrier PLL only uses the prompt correlator. The prompt
correlator performs the same task it did for the code
DLL; that is, it wipes off the code and carrier from the input
signal to allow coherent integration of the input signal to
enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Using the same
notations and assumptions for the code DLL analysis,
the prompt correlator function is shown in (15.7). When
Voltage Output
controlled
oscillator ϕˆ (t)
 15.4 GNSS Signal Carrier Tracking 351

Figure 15.20 Block diagram of the GNSS signal Nav bit transition δϕ
carrier PLL.
+
Input
Prompt Nϕ Loop ˆ
δϕ Carrier Output
x (t)
correlator
Discriminator
filter
reference ϕˆ (t)
Zp generation

Carrier reference

the PLL is in steady state, we assume the following condi- Lϕ

π π Lϕ
tions are valid:
δτ ≈ 0, δωd = ωd − ωd ≤ a few Hz –π π ϕ –π π
ϕ

We can then approximate the prompt correlator as –π –π

follows:
Figure 15.21 A conventional carrier phase discriminator for (left)
Z P = AD e jϕ0 + jδωd t
dt + N Z D = 1 and (right) D = −1.
T
15 58
δωd T jϕ
= ADTsinc e + NZ Clearly, there is a problem with this conventional carrier
2
phase discriminator; without knowledge of the navigation
Here we introduce the following notation: data value, we cannot uniquely determine the carrier phase
δωd T value. This problem does not exist for data-less pilot chan-
δϕ = , ϕ = δϕ + ϕ0 15 59 nels such as the GPS L2C CL signal and the L5 Q channel
2
signal. For these pilot channels, we have a unique solution
where δϕ represents the average phase error due to the for the carrier phase based on the discriminator output.
Doppler frequency estimation error within the correlator For the data channel, the coherent carrier discriminator
integration period, and the prompt correlator phase is the can still be applied if we use aiding information to deter-
accumulated phase contribution from both the initial car- mine the navigation data ahead of time. Since GPS navi-
rier phase for the correlator data block T and the gation data repeats itself every 12.5 min (most other
phase error. GNSS data also repeat) before a new message is uploaded
As a function of the Doppler frequency error, ZP’s mag- from the control segment (which occurs no more fre-
nitude is a sinc function. Its main lobe width is determined quently than once every 2 h), we can use data messages
by the integration time T. A longer integration time will decoded from prior tracking. We call this approach data
limit the energy of ZP to a smaller Doppler frequency error wipe-off. For remote sensing applications such as radio
range. occultation, data bit streams are obtained using ground
monitoring stations and are used in post-processing to
remove the data bits from the signal before applying the
15.4.3 PLL Discriminators
discriminator function.
There are two types of phase discriminators: coherent and For the channels with data modulation and without aid-
non-coherent. There are a number of ways to construct a ing information on the data, a non-coherent discriminator,
coherent carrier phase discriminator. Below is an example: also called the Costas discriminator, can be used to “hide”
the effect of the data modulation. Table 15.1 lists four
lϕ = ATAN2 Im Z P , Re Z P 15 60
Costas discriminators.
Based on (15.58) and (15.60), in the ideal case where there Four examples of Costas discriminator values for a sim-
is no noise present: ulated GPS signal are shown in Figure 15.22. The most com-
monly used discriminator is Costas lϕ1, which has a linear
δωd T
ϕ= + ϕ0 , if D = 1 dependency on the true phase error at all phase error values
lϕ = 2 15 61
except near multiples of π/2, where the discriminator func-
ϕ − π, if D = − 1
tion is singular. Within the –π/2 and π/2 range, the ATAN
Figure 15.21 shows the discriminator and the accumu- function provides a direct and unique relationship between
lated phase relationship for D = 1 and −1. the discriminator and the phase error. The Costas lϕ4
352 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

Table 15.1 Four Costas carrier phase discriminators. δωd T

Im Z P ≈ ADTsinc sinϕ + N Zp_Im 15 62b
2
Discriminator definition Normalized discriminator output
When carrier phase lock is achieved, ϕ ≈ 0 and ejϕ ≈ 1.
lϕ1 = Im(ZP) × Re(ZP) 1 2 The Q channel is dominated by noise, while the
ATsinc δϕ sin 2ϕ
2 I channel is proportional to the navigation data value:
lϕ2 = ATAN(Im(ZP)/Re(ZP)) ϕ
Re Z P ≈ ADT + N Zp_ Re 15 63a
lϕ3 = Im(ZP) × sign(Re(ZP)) ATsinc(δϕ) sin(ϕ)
lϕ4 = Im(ZP)/Re(ZP) tan(ϕ) Im Z P ≈ N Zp_Im 15 63b

So, the prompt correlator output provides information

about the navigation data bit transitions. However, there
may be a 180 navigation data phase ambiguity in the
Costas lϕ1 I channel of the prompt correlator output; this ambiguity
Costas Discriminator Output (degrees)

150
Costas lϕ2
Costas lϕ3
can be resolved during frame synchronization.
100
Costas lϕ4 Costas discriminators are considered to be able to gener-
50 ate the most accurate velocity measurements and naviga-
tion data demodulation. They are sensitive to dynamic
0
stress and are the desired steady-state carrier tracking
–50 mechanisms.
–100

–150 15.4.4 PLL Filters: Traditional Approach

–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150 The carrier phase is more susceptible to dynamic stress
True Input Phase Error (degrees) because of the nearly 1000-fold increase in carrier fre-
Figure 15.22 Costas discriminator outputs as a function of quency over the code frequency. As a result, a minimum
phase error. carrier tracking loop is a second-order system (as opposed
to the first-order system for DLL). Figure 15.23 shows the
S-domain second-order PLL.
discriminator is equal to tan(ϕ). It only approximates ϕ
A second-order system is dictated by two parameters,
values when the error is small. For the example shown in
which we denote here as ωn and ξ. The corresponding
Figure 15.22, this approximation works only for ϕ < 35o.
S-domain transfer function is
The Costas lϕ1 and lϕ3 discriminators are proportional to
sin(2ϕ) and sin(ϕ), respectively. They are only linearly Lϕ 2ξωn s + ω2n
related to ϕ when ϕ is small. Additionally, there is a scale Hϕ s = = 2 15 64
Lϕ s + 2ξωn s + ω2n
factor of (ATsinc(δϕ))2 and ATsinc(δϕ), respectively. For
small ϕ values, sinc(δϕ) ≈ 1, both scale factors are functions With this transfer function, we can analyze the character-
of AT. In order to obtain phase estimation from the discrim- istics of the system, namely, the noise bandwidth and
inator output, we need to know the scale factor values. This dynamic responses, which are fundamental measures of
can be accomplished by finding the peak value of the the PLL performance.
prompt correlator, which is AT. To obtain the noise bandwidth, we replace s with j2πf in
In a traditional hardware-based receiver, the input signal (15.64) and substitute it into (15.46):
is down-converted to the I (in-phase reference) and Q (90o 1 ∞
2 ωn 1
out of phase) channels (see Chapter 14). In a software-based B= 2 H ω df = + 2ξ
H 0 0 4 2ξ
correlator approach, we simply down-convert the input sig-
15 65
nal to a complex baseband by multiplying a complex carrier
with the estimated Doppler frequency. The prompt correla- Recall from Section 15.3 that the first-order system noise
tor output is therefore complex. The real and imaginary bandwidth is B = ωn/4. For the second-order system, the
part of the prompt correlator represent the I and noise bandwidth depends on both ωn and ξ. The noise
Q channels, respectively: bandwidth impact on the carrier tracking loop performance
has been well documented in the literature [18]:
δωd T
Re Z P ≈ ADTsinc cosϕ + N Zp_ Re
2 B 1 2
var Δϕ = 1+ rad 15 66
15 62a C N0 2TC N 0
 15.4 GNSS Signal Carrier Tracking 353

Figure 15.23 Second-order PLL S-domain block

+ +
Lˆ ϕ (s)
diagram. Lϕ (s) + ωn2 1/ + 1/
s s
– –

2ξωn

1.6
102
B = 5,Costas
Carrier Phase Error (degrees)

B = 5,Coherent
B = 15,Costas 1.2
B = 15,Coherent

Step Response
101
0.8

B = 5Hz, ξ = 0.7
0.4
B = 5Hz, ξ = 0.2
B = 15Hz, ξ = 0.7
100
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 B = 15Hz, ξ = 0.2
C/No (dB-Hz) 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Figure 15.24 Carrier phase tracking error as a function of C/N0 Time (s)
and B for coherent and Costas discriminator implementations.
Figure 15.25 Unit step responses of the second-order system.

Figure 15.24 plots the carrier phase error standard devi-

ation as a function of C/N0 for B = 5 and 15 Hz for both
the coherent PLL and the Costas PLL. As expected, the
carrier phase error decreases as C/N0 increases. The lar-
ger noise bandwidth consistently introduces more error
in the measurements. For signals with lower C/N0, the
error difference is larger (the vertical scale is logarith-
mic). A Costas PLL has a poorer noise performance
compared to the coherent PLL, especially for signals with
low C/N0.
Both ωn and ξ impact the system dynamic responses.
Using a unit step input, the second-order system output is
1 1 2ξωn s + ω2n
Lϕ s = Hϕ s = 2
s s s + 2ξωn s + ω2n
Its corresponding time-domain response can be deter-
mined by performing an inverse Laplace transform
of (15.67):
e − ξωn t
lϕ t = 1 −
1 − ξ2
sin 1 − ξ2 ωn t + θ − 2ξsin
where
1 − ξ2
θ = tan − 1
ξ
Figure 15.25 plots several example unit step responses.
The red and blue lines correspond to B = 5 Hz, which
clearly shows that the system took a longer time to respond
to the unit step input compared to the curves with B =
15 Hz. The black and blue lines are generated with larger
ξ values (ξ = 0.7). They exhibit less oscillation compared
to the lines with ξ = 0.2. That is why ξ is also referred to
as the damping factor. Smaller ξ values are associated with
larger overshoot and oscillations when the output is
15 67
approaching the steady-state value.
A typical second-order PLL implementation uses ξ = 0.7,
ωn 1
B= + 2ξ = 0 53ωn. Once we have selected a suit-
4 2ξ
able value for B, we can compute the value for ωn. In
Section 15.5.2.1, we will offer explanations as to why these
are preferred second-order PLL parameters.
The steady-state error is another important measure of
1 − ξ2 ω n t the PLL. Based on the S-domain transfer function, we
can derive the error transfer function for the second-order
15 68 system:
354 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

s2 an adverse effect on the tracking loop noise performance.

Δϕ s = Lϕ s − Lϕ s = Lϕ s
s2 + 2ξωn s + ω2n Below is an analysis of the requirement of B values for
15 69 receivers to maintain carrier phase lock on accelerating
platforms.
Applying the final value theorem, we compute the Assuming that the receiver-satellite LOS acceleration is
time-domain steady-state carrier phase error. Table 15.2 a, the corresponding Doppler velocity vd and Doppler fre-
lists three types of dynamic inputs and their corresponding quency ωd for carrier frequency ω0 are
steady-state outputs. For the unit step and unit ramp input, vd at 2πa
the steady-state error is 0. For a unit parabolic input, the vd = at, ωd = ω0 = ω0 = t 15 70
c c λ
steady-state output error approaches 2 ω2n . If an input sig-
nal carrier phase is a ramp function, this means that its where λ is the carrier wavelength. The accumulated
Doppler frequency is the carrier phase being tracked by
first-order derivative must be a constant, and hence the sig-
the PLL:
nal’s frequency is also a constant. If an input signal carrier
phase is a parabolic function, then that implies that its sec-
t
πa 2
δϕ t = ωd dτ = t 15 71
ond-order derivative, which is the Doppler rate of change, is 0 λ
a constant. Since the Doppler effect is caused by the LOS
For the unit parabolic function as input, Table 15.2 shows
velocity between the receiver and transmitter, a constant
that the steady-state error of the tracking loop is 2 ω2n .
Doppler rate means that there is a constant velocity along
For the phase shown in (15.71), the steady-state error
the LOS between the receiver and the satellite. If a constant
will be
acceleration exists between the receiver and satellite, a sec-
ond-order PLL will never reach a zero steady-state error. πa 2 a a
lim δϕ t = rad ≈ 2π rad = 360 deg
A higher-order filter must be used, or external sources such t ∞ λ ω2n 4λB2 4λB2
as an inertial navigation system (INS) that provide an accel- 15 72
eration measurement should be used to aid the PLL. GNSS–
We have used B ≈ 0.53ωn in deriving (15.72).
INS integration is covered in Chapter 45 in Volume II of
The heuristic acceptable carrier phase error range within
this book.
which we can comfortably assume that the carrier phase
Table 15.2 shows that for a signal with constant acceler-
tracking loop maintains lock is σ ϕ < 15o. Substituting this
ation along the LOS of the receiver-satellite direction,
threshold into (15.72), we arrive at the following
the steady-state error is smaller for larger ωn values. Lar-
estimations in order for the PLL to maintain lock of the
ger ωn values correspond to larger B values, which have
signal:
For a = 1g, B = 18 Hz
Table 15.2 Steady-state error for three dynamic input types of For a = 10g, B = 55 Hz
signal.

15.4.5 PLL Digital Implementation

Unit step input Ramp input Parabolic input
We apply the same approach used to digitally imple-
1 1 2
Lϕ s = Lϕ s = Lϕ s = ment the first-order DLL to the second-order PLL. The
s s2 s3
linear model for a PLL with a second-order loop filter
lim δϕ t = 0 lim δϕ t = 0 2
t ∞ t ∞ lim δϕ t = implementation can be abstracted by the block diagram
t ∞ ω2n
shown in Figure 15.26.

+ + + Figure 15.26 Second-order PLL linear model in

+ ˆ [n]
Lϕ [n] + Tωn2 + + T + Lϕ
Z-domain.
– – + –
1/ 1/
z z

2ξωn
 15.4 GNSS Signal Carrier Tracking 355

To implement this second-order PLL digitally, we will T T

ϕ t1 = δωd t 1 + ϕ0 t 1 , ϕ t 2 = δωd t 2 + ϕ0 t 2
use the bilinear transformation here to convert the 2 2
S-domain transfer function to the discrete Z-domain 15 77
representation:
And
Hϕ z = Hϕ s −1
s = 12 11−z
15 73
+ z−1 ϕ0 t 2 − ϕ0 t 1 = δωd t 1 T 15 78
Substituting (15.73) into a second-order PLL S-domain From (15.77) and (15.78), we obtain the following
transfer function (15.64), we obtain relationship:
b2 z − 2 + b1 z − 1 + b0 δωd t 1 + δωd t 2 ϕ t2 − ϕ t1
Hϕ z = 15 74 δωd = = 15 79
a2 z − 2 + a1 z − 1 + a0 2 T
where Equation (15.79) shows that the average frequency of the
b0 = ω2n T 2 + 4ξωn T, b1 = 2ω2n T 2 , b2 = ω2n T 2 − 4ξωn T, two adjacent data blocks is the prompt correlator phase dif-
ference divided by the correlation integration time. Based
a0 = ω2n T 2 + 4ξωn T + 4, a1 = 2ω2n T 2 − 8, on this relationship, we can construct the following fre-
15 75
a2 = ω2n T 2 − 4ξωn T + 4 quency discriminator:
In Section 15.3, we inferred the DT domain input and ATAN2 Q t 2 , I t 2 − ATAN2 Q t 1 , I t 1
lf =
output relationship defined by (15.39) from the Z-domain 2π t 2 − t 1
discrete transfer function (15.38). Here‚ we follow ϕ t2 − ϕ t1
the same path to derive the difference equation for the = +Nf
2π t 2 − t 1
second-order PLL transfer function defined in (15.74): 15 80
1 b0 lϕ n + b1 lϕ n − 1 + b2 lϕ n − 2
lϕ n = The discriminator output can then be filtered using a
a0 − a1 lϕ n − 1 − a2 lϕ n − 2 first- or second-order filter. The filter implementation fol-
15 76 lows the same process as described for the DLL and PLL.
Because of the phase subtraction operation in the FLL dis-
criminator, FLL outputs tend to be noisier than PLL and
therefore have poorer noise performance compared to the
15.4.6 FLL
PLL. However, since the FLL tracks the changes in the
The FLL is a carrier tracking loop in which we estimate the phase, instead of the phase itself, it is more robust and
carrier frequency instead of the phase. An FLL is essentially can tolerate larger dynamic stress. As a result, an FLL is
a differential PLL and can be treated as a reduced-order often used to initialize a carrier tracking loop because of
PLL. The reduced order is made up by the FLL discrimina- the large phase errors at the initial stage of the tracking
tor implementation. An FLL discriminator requires inputs process. An optimal operational receiver tracking process
from two blocks of data as shown in Figure 15.27. will start with a wideband FLL to allow the receiver carrier
In Section 15.4.2, we derived the prompt correlator for tracking loop to lock onto the input signal carrier frequency
the carrier tracking loop (see (15.58)) and the prompt cor- within an operational range. Once this objective is
relator phase (see (15.59)). Denoting the mean time for achieved, the FLL bandwidth can be adjusted to a narrower
block k and k+1 shown in Figure 15.27 as t1 and t2, respec- range to further constrain the frequency estimation error.
tively, then At this stage, the FLL can be replaced by a PLL. The PLL
can also be initialized with a wide bandwidth, and then
transitioned to a narrow bandwidth as the carrier tracking
T T
loop reaches steady state.
The above process is implemented in parallel with a DLL.
Input data block k Input data block k+1 Because of the three orders difference between the carrier
and code Doppler frequency, a carrier tracking loop
t1 t2 requires more frequency updating compared to the DLL.
Typically‚ for signals of nominal strength, a DLL is updated
Zp [k] Zp [k + 1]
every 20 ms, while a PLL/FLL is updated every millisecond.
Figure 15.27 Illustration of data blocks used to construct an FLL Figure 15.28 captures the high-level procedure
discriminator. described above.
356 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

Figure 15.28 Practical GPS receiver signal

Acquisition Code DLL processing procedure.

Wideband Narrowband Wideband Narrowband

FLL FLL PLL PLL

15.4.7 Python Code and Example Simulation
Processing
Python programs that implement the procedures for code
and carrier phase tracking are available for readers to
download [5]. In this section, we present processing exam-
ples using simulated GPS signals. The file “data/sim-
RF_GPS-L1CA_5000_1250_complex_04s.mat” contains
4 s of simulated GPS L1 CA baseband signals sampled at
a rate of 5 MHz. The samples are complex floating-point
numbers with an IF at 1.25 MHz. Within the samples there
are six GPS L1 CA signals with corresponding parameters
given in Table 15.3. Figure 15.29 plots the Doppler fre-
quency trend over a 4 s interval for each satellite.
We run a tracking algorithm provided in the online code
under the file “track-and-plot.py.” The tracking loop is
initialized with code phase and Doppler frequency values
given in Table 15.3. The DLL uses carrier aiding and a
first-order loop filter with an equivalent noise bandwidth
of 1 Hz. The PLL uses the ATAN discriminator and a sec-
ond-order loop filter with bandwidths of 2, 5, 10, and 20 Hz.
Since we know the true phases used to generate the signals,
it is straightforward to calculate errors between true (τ, ϕ,
ωd) and estimated (τ, ϕ, ωd) signal parameters. Specifically,
for a given epoch, we compute the filtered error using the
posterior parameters estimates as
ετ = τ − τ +
+
εϕ = ϕ − ϕ 15 81
εωd = ωd − ωd+

Table 15.3 Parameters used to simulate a GPS L1CA signal.

PRN 4 7 10 15 29 32

C/N0 (dB-Hz) 45 47 49 47 41 Varies from 45 to 20

Initial code phase [chip] 20.46 250.64 511.5 932.98 420.04 0
Coarse Doppler frequency [Hz] 1000 −1000 2200 −3300 −3210 −4000
Doppler trend Flat Impulse Step Ramp Sinusoid Flat

Note: The Doppler trends are given in addition to the coarse Doppler frequency listed in the table.

60
flat
40 impulse
step
Doppler [Hz]

ramp
20 growing sinusoid

–20

–40
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Time [s]

Figure 15.29 Doppler frequency trends that are added to the simulated signals. The name for each trend has a corresponding entry in
Table 15.3.
 15.4 GNSS Signal Carrier Tracking 357

where “+” indicates the filtered or posterior parameter esti-
mate given as the reference parameter plus the filtered dis-
criminator output (e.g. τ + = τ − + δτ). Unfiltered errors are
obtained as
ετ = τ − τ − − δτ
− and filtered code phase have zero mean errors. For the
εϕ = ϕ − ϕ − δϕ
where “–” indicates prior parameter estimates (i.e. those
used in reference generation), and δτ and δϕ are the raw
code and carrier phase discriminator outputs. Below, we
examine the various tracking algorithm outputs for the
simulated satellite signals listed in Table 15.3.
Figure 15.30 shows the prompt correlator I and Q compo-
nents for PRN 4 and 32 signals, each containing a constant
Doppler frequency. The figure shows that when the track-
ing loop is in steady state, the real component has a nonzero
mean, while the imaginary component has a mean of 0. The
C/N0 for PRN 4 is constant, while for PRN 32 it linearly
decreases from 45 to 20 dB-Hz during the 4 s interval.
The magnitude of the real component output for PRN
32 decreases with decreasing C/N0, and there is hardly
any energy left at 4 s when the C/N0 dropped to 25 dB-Hz.
Figure 15.31 shows the filtered and unfiltered code phase
errors for the PRN 4 and PRN 32 signals. For PRN 4, the
code phase errors are well behaved‚ and both the measured
15 82
PRN 32 signal, the errors grow over time, and become
nonzero mean as the carrier tracking loop loses lock due
to low C/N0.
For both Figures 15.30 and 15.31, the PLL filter band-
width is 20 Hz. In the following figures (Figures 15.32–
15.36), 2, 5, 10, and 20 Hz PLL bandwidths are used. The
corresponding line colors for the various bandwidths are
shown on top of Figure 15.32.
Figure 15.32 shows the unfiltered carrier phase error and
filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for PRN
4. The filtered carrier phase approaches the true phase fas-
ter for higher filter bandwidths. Regardless of the filter
bandwidth, the unfiltered carrier phase is noisy, but always
centered on the true carrier phase.

0.2

0.1

0.0
I/Q Correlation Value

PRN 04
–0.1 20 Hz PLL Bandwidth

–0.2
0.2
PRN 32
0.1 20 Hz PLL Bandwidth

0.0
I
–0.1
Q
–0.2
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Time [s]

Figure 15.30 Real (I) and imaginary (Q) components of the prompt correlator output for the PRN 4 and 32 signals, each containing the flat
Doppler frequency trend.

0.2 PRN 04
20 Hz PLL Bandwidth
0.0
Code Phase Error [chips]

–0.2

0.2 PRN 32
20 Hz PLL Bandwidth
0.0
Unfiltered
–0.2 Filtered

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

Time [s]

Figure 15.31 Filtered and unfiltered code phase errors for the PRN 4 and 32 signals.
358 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

Bandwidth [Hz]
02 05 10 20
0.1
Measured Phase Error PRN 04
[cycles]

0.0

–0.1
0.1
Filtered Phase Error
[cycles]

0.0

–0.1

0
[Hz]

Filtered Doppler Error

–1

–2
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
Time [s]

Figure 15.32 Unfiltered carrier phase error and filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for PRN 4.

0.25
Measured Phase Error PRN 07
0.00
[cycles]

–0.25
–0.50

0.25
Filtered Phase Error
0.00
[cycles]

–0.25
–0.50

0.5
Filtered Doppler Error
0.0
[Hz]

–0.5

–1.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Time [s]

Figure 15.33 Unfiltered carrier phase error and filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for the PRN 7 containing an impulse
Doppler trend.

Figure 15.33 shows the unfiltered carrier phase error and
filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for the
PRN 7 signal, which contains the impulse Doppler trend.
Due to the near half-cycle change in phase (to which the
ATAN discriminator is insensitive) at 2 s, both the unfil-
tered and filtered carrier phases accumulate a ½-cycle
error. The Doppler frequency estimations show error
responses at 2 s. A larger bandwidth produces a larger error
response magnitude and faster recovery.
Figure 15.34 shows the unfiltered carrier phase error
and filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors
for the PRN 10 signal containing the step Doppler
trend. In this case, the jump in Doppler frequency
causes serious trouble for the lower filter bandwidths
(2 and 5 Hz), which lose lock of the signal entirely after
2 s. For the 20 Hz bandwidth, the PLL maintains lock of
the signal even right after the Doppler changes. For the
10 Hz bandwidth, the PLL loses lock of the signal for
 15.4 GNSS Signal Carrier Tracking 359

0
Measured Phase Error PRN 10
[cycles]

–2

–4

–6
0
Filtered Phase Error
[cycles]

–2

–4

–6

5 Filtered Doppler Error

[Hz]

–5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

Time [s]

Figure 15.34 Unfiltered carrier phase error and filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for the PRN 10 signal containing the
step Doppler trend.

0.2
Measured Phase Error PRN 15
[cycles]

0.0

–0.2

0.2
Filtered Phase Error
[cycles]

0.0

–0.2

0
Filtered Doppler Error
[Hz]

–2

–4
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Time [s]

Figure 15.35 Unfiltered carrier phase error and filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for the PRN 15 signal containing the
ramp Doppler trend.

around a half a second, while the Doppler frequency
estimate recovers to the true value. Over this time,
the unfiltered and filtered phases accumulate multiple
½-cycle slips.
Figure 15.35 shows the unfiltered carrier phase error and
filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for the
PRN 15 signal containing the ramp Doppler trend. For the 2
and 5 Hz bandwidths, the PLL loses lock after the Doppler
starts to increase at 2 s. For the 10 and 20 Hz bandwidths,
the PLL maintains lock, but the filtered phase and Doppler
have steady-state errors. The steady-state error is larger for
the lower filter bandwidth.
Figure 15.36 shows the unfiltered carrier phase error and
filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for the
PRN 29 signal containing the growing sinusoidal Doppler
trend. Similar to the case for PRN 15, with the 20 Hz band-
width the PLL maintains lock. The 2 and 5 Hz bandwidths
cause the PLL to lose lock immediately. The 10 Hz band-
width causes the PLL to lose lock around 2 s, when the
sinusoidal trend reaches maximum amplitude.
360 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking
5
Measured Phase Error
[cycles]
–5
5
Filtered Phase Error
[cycles]
–5
20
Filtered Doppler Error
[Hz]
–20
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Time [s]
Figure 15.36 Unfiltered carrier phase error and filtered carrier phase and Doppler frequency errors for the PRN 29 signal containing the
growing sinusoidal Doppler trend.
15.5 Advanced Carrier Tracking
As we pointed out in Section 15.4, the carrier tracking loop is
the most fragile component of a GNSS receiver. The simula-
tion signal tracking results discussed above illustrate the
challenges of carrier tracking for a weak signal and for a
dynamic signal. Optimization of the carrier tracking loop
is critical to robust and accurate receiver performances
under challenging conditions such as navigating in urban
canyons, under dense forest canopy, in interference (natural
and synthetic) environments, and on highly dynamic plat-
forms. It is also important for scientific applications such
as ionospheric scintillation and space weather monitoring
[19], tracking of radio occultation signals propagating
through the lower troposphere to retrieve atmospheric pro-
files [20], and coherent processing of GNSS reflections from
Earth’s surface for wind speed, surface roughness, ice and
snow coverage, and soil moisture measurements [21, 22].
The methodology presented in Section 15.4 is the well-
established approach to design a basic carrier tracking loop.
It is based on the discretization of an analog PLL. The crit-
ical element in this basic design is the loop filter because the
correlator has only one adjustable parameter (the integra-
tion time), and the discriminator design has been well stud-
ied [23–25]. The filter presented in the basic carrier tracking
loop is a PIF. Reference [26] provided a detailed analysis of
the PIF-based tracking loop performances for various levels
of thermal noise, receiver oscillator noise, and receiver
dynamic stress.
There are two major drawbacks to using the traditional
PIF-based carrier tracking loop approach. First, the reliance
PRN 29
3.0 3.5
on analog designs makes the digital filter analysis cumber-
some. Second, the mapping from analog (S-domain) to dig-
ital (Z-domain) is valid only if the product of the equivalent
noise bandwidth B and integration time T is sufficiently
small in order to ensure that the continuous update approx-
imation is valid. As the BT product value increases, the
tracking loop transfer function pole locations deviate from
the positions originally designed in the analog domain,
leading to unstable systems. This second drawback has seri-
ous implications for receiver carrier tracking for signals
under challenging conditions. Larger noise bandwidth
and a longer integration time need to be used to improve
tracking loop sensitivity and dynamic responses while
maintaining loop stability. These requirements imply
higher BT values.
Digital PLLs (DPLL) directly designed in the Z-domain
from first principles without reference to analog concepts
can overcome these limitations to some extent [27]. In par-
ticular, [28] presented a formulation using the controlled-
root method in which filter parameter values are deter-
mined for each set of BT values. This is achieved by control-
ling the root locations to follow constant-damping paths as
a function of BT. Reference [29] analyzed the theoretical
DPLL stability range, quantified the carrier tracking error
variance, and discussed the dependency of the phase input
noise and receiver design parameters. References [30, 31]
applied this technique for carrier tracking of weak GPS sig-
nals and demonstrated improved sensitivity performance.
While the controlled-root method improves the range of
the BT values without compromising the stability of the fil-
ter, there is still a limitation for the operational BT range for

higher-order loops, mainly because of the PIF-based filter
structure. For example, BT should be less than 0.4 for a
third-order system [32]. In the analysis presented in
Section 15.4.4, a receiver on a highly dynamic platform
may require a 55 Hz noise bandwidth. Weak signal tracking
often requires tens or even hundreds of milliseconds of inte-
gration time. If an integration time of 20 ms is used in con-
junction with a 50 Hz noise bandwidth, then BT = 1, which
is well over the DPLL operational range. Fundamental
improvements in the filter structure are needed for these
types of challenging applications.
The WF and KF are two popular filter implementations
for GNSS carrier tracking under challenging conditions.
A WF is a minimum mean square error (MMSE) estima-
tor. It assumes known spectral properties of the signal
and noise, both of which must be stationary linear sto-
chastic processes. With this assumption, a WF separates
an input signal from the noise in the frequency domain.
The WF-based PLL has been recognized to yield better
tracking accuracy than the PIF-based design. There have
been a number of studies that implement WF in carrier
tracking loops. For example, [23, 33] described a WF-
based carrier tracking loop that takes into consideration
thermal noise and receiver oscillator noise. Reference
[32] implemented a WF-based carrier tracking that sepa-
rated the carrier phase dynamics from thermal noise and
demonstrated minimized phase noise in the tracking
loop output. Receiver oscillator noise was not considered
in this case.
The KF is the optimal filter to estimate a signal corrupted
by white Gaussian noise. It is a model-based system with
signal models consisting of a state space model and a meas-
urement model. The state space model represents the signal
of a dynamic process driven by system noise, while the
measurement model describes measurements corrupted
by measurement noise. The state space model can be a
direct or error state model. KF-based PLLs implemented
using these two models are equivalent. Intuitively, a
model-based system should lead to better tracking loop per-
formance if the model is accurate. Various efforts have been
made with the goal of improving carrier phase tracking
loop performance using the model-based KF approach
for weak signals (e.g. see [34, 35]), for highly dynamic recei-
vers [36–38], and in environments where weak signals and
highly dynamic conditions coexist [39, 40].
References [41, 42] presented a generalized tracking loop
architecture that unifies the PIF-, WF-, and KF-based PLL
and also unifies PLL and FLL. In [41], a closed-form solu-
tion was derived for WF gain, which was verified to be
equivalent to the steady-state KF gain. PLL and FLL
tracking performances in the presence of thermal noise,
oscillator effects, and receiver dynamics were analyzed
for these filtering implementations and optimization
15.5 Advanced Carrier Tracking 361
strategies. The study shows that the minimum phase
tracking errors are slightly larger for PIF-based PLLs than
for WF- and KF-based PLLs. The surprising conclusion is
that if appropriately optimized, the PIF-, WF-, and KF-
based PLLs all lead to a similar sensitivity limit. In this sec-
tion, we will review the findings of this work.
The state space-based modeling approach was also
applied to seek optimal inter-carrier aiding strategies
[43]. The work was motivated by the need for robust carrier
tracking of signals experiencing frequency-selective fading.
This phenomenon occurs when there are severe multipath
interferences and ionospheric or tropospheric scintillation.
Two multi-frequency inter-carrier aiding techniques pre-
sented in [43] are summarized in this chapter. The first is
a joint tracking algorithm where carrier Doppler and
Doppler rate estimations from each carrier channel are
combined according to their frequency relationships,
respectively. The second is an optimal tracking scheme in
which the carrier amplitudes are used to weight the contri-
butions from each carrier channel estimation. Their imple-
mentation and performances are discussed at the end of
this section.
15.5.1 GNSS Carrier Tracking State Space
System Model
The generalized closed carrier phase tracking loop architec-
ture is established based on the state space model
xk + 1 = Axk + nk 15 83
Δϕk = HΔxk + νk 15 84
where x is the state vector, A is the system transition matrix,
H is the measurement matrix, n is the system noise vector,
Δϕ is the average carrier phase error, and ν is the measure-
ment noise. The subscript k indicates the time epoch of the
measurements.
In a GNSS carrier phase tracking loop, the average phase
error is the direct measurable quantity
Δϕk = ϕk − ϕk 15 85
Δϕk is obtained from a phase discriminator, as discussed
in Section 15.4.4. It is related to the error state vector
Δxk = xk − xk through the error measurement equation
(15.84). xk is the estimated state generated by the local ref-
erence plant:
xk + 1 = Axk + Buk 15 86
uk is the feedback controller, which is dependent on the
state feedback gain matrix K and the estimated error state
vector Δxk :
uk = KΔxk 15 87
362 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

T
v 3 − state x = ϕ0 ω ω 15 93b
+
ϕˆ xˆ Local Reference 1 T
x H
+
+
+
+
–
H
Generator (Eq. (86))
2 − state A = 15 94a
0 1
Δϕ = ϕ – ϕ̂ u T2
1 T
Δxˆ = x – x̂ 2
Error state
K 3 − state A = 15 94b
Estimator (Eq. (88)) 0 1 T
0 0 1
Figure 15.37 Block diagram of a closed-loop carrier phase
tracking system based on the state space model. T
2 − state H = 1 15 95a
2
The error state plant model can be obtained by differen- T T2
3 − state H = 1 15 95b
cing (15.83) and (15.86): 2 6
Δxk + 1 = AΔxk − Buk + nk 15 88 ϕ0 is the initial fractional phase (rad), ω is the carrier fre-
quency (rad/s) and ω is the frequency rate (rad/s2), and T is
Equations (15.88) and (15.86) are the error state space
the correlator integration time.
model for GNSS receiver closed-loop carrier tracking.
The system noise nk for GNSS carrier phase tracking
Figure 15.37 shows the block diagram of the error state
includes contributions from a number of sources. Some
space model.
examples include the receiver RF front-end oscillator phase
Figure 15.37 shows that the error state is estimated from
noise, platform dynamics-induced random walk noise,
the phase error measurement Δϕ. Reference [41] derived
oscillator vibration effects if a receiver is onboard an air-
the error state estimator to be
craft, and phase scintillation effects if a receiver is operating
Δxk + 1 = I − LH A − BK Δxk + LΔϕk + 1 during ionospheric scintillation or troposphere scintillation
15 89 (the latter is only prominent for radio occultation recei-
vers). The oscillator phase noise and platform dynamics
The above formulation shows that the state-space-
are the most commonly modeled noise contributions.
model-based tracking loop is characterized by three matri- Detailed analysis of oscillator vibration effects can be found
ces: the plant input matrix B, the state feedback gain
in [2, 3, 47]. Work has been done to analyze ionospheric
matrix K, and the state estimator gain matrix L. Reference [48–50] and tropospheric scintillation effects [51–53]. In
[41] provided a detailed analysis of the requirements of
this chapter, in order to focus on the state-space-based
these matrices. The analysis concludes that to ensure the model development process, we will only consider the oscil-
system controllability and stability, B and K must take
lator phase noise and the platform dynamics. Under this
the following values: assumption, the covariance matrices Q of the system noise
B = I; K = A 15 90 vector for two-state and three-state systems are

With these restrictions, the error state estimator (15.89) σ 2ϕ σ 2ϕω

and local reference generator (15.86) become 2 − state Q =
σ 2ϕω σ 2ω
Δxk + 1 = LΔϕk + 1 15 91 1 3 1 2
Tqϕ + T qω T qω
xk + 1 = Axk + ALΔϕk 15 92 2 3 2
= 2π f L
1 2
The remaining control parameter is the state estimator T qω Tqω
2
gain matrix L. Section 15.5.2 will provide a summary 15 96a
of the optimal L matrix for PIF-, WF-, and KF-based
σ 2ϕ σ 2ϕω σ 2ϕω
implementations for two-state and three-state systems,
which are typical for GNSS carrier tracking applications 3 − state Q = σ 2ϕω σ 2ω σ 2ωω 15 96b
depending on the anticipated receiver or signal dynamics. σ 2ϕω σ 2ωω σ 2ω
The state vector x, system transition matrix A, and the 1 3 1 5 1 2 1 1 3
Tqϕ + T qω + T qa T qω + 2 T 4 qa T qa
measurement matrix H for two-state and three-state sys- 3 20c2 2 8c 6c2
tems [44, 45] are 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 2
= 2π f L T qω + T 2 qω + 2 T 4 qa Tqω + 2 T 3 qa T qa
2 2 8c 3c 2c2
1 3 1 2 1
2 − state x = ϕ0 ω T 15 93a T qa T qa Tq
6c2 2c2 c2 a
 15.5 Advanced Carrier Tracking 363

where fL is the carrier frequency, qϕ (s2/Hz), and qω (1/Hz) be obtained through their closed-loop transfer function.
are the power spectral density (PSD) of the carrier phase For KF-based PLLs, their gain matrix is derived from the
noise and carrier frequency noise due to the RF front-end state and measurement models. Let L take the following
oscillator instability (which can be modeled by the oscilla- forms for the two- and three-state models, respectively:
tor h-parameters) respectively, qa (m2/s6/Hz) is the PSD of
T
the random walk process due to LOS receiver platform 2 − state L = α β 15 98a
acceleration, and c is the speed of light (m/s).
T
The main contributor to measurement noise is thermal 3 − state L = α β γ 15 98b
noise, which can be modeled as white Gaussian noise. It
is treated as uncorrelated with the system noise. The vari- The closed-loop transfer function for the state feedback
ance of the measurement noise is dependent on the specific tracking loop in Figure 15.29 is
phase discriminator implementation. For example, if a two-
quadrant arctan discriminator is used, the phase noise ϕk H zI − A − 1 AL
F z = = 15 99
measurement variance [26] is ϕk 1 + H zI − A − 1 AL
1 1
R = σ 2ν = 1+ 15 97 Substituting the expressions for A, H, and L from
2TC N 0 2TC N 0
(15.94a,b), (15.95a,b), and (15.98a,b), respectively,
the transfer functions for two- and three-state closed
15.5.2 Filter Gain Matrix L loops are

The filter gain matrix L for PIF-, WF-, and KF-based PLLs
for the two-state and three-state GNSS carrier tracking 2 β z− α + 2β
α + 3T T
F2 z =
loop was derived in [41] and will be summarized here. z2 + α + 2 β − 2 z + − α − T2 β + 1
3T

The PIF and WF are single-input, single-output systems, 15 100a

while the KF is a model-based system. Therefore, for PIF-
and WF-based PLLs, their steady-state gain matrices can

6α + 9Tβ + 7T 2 γ z2 − 12α + 12Tβ + 2T 2 γ z + 6α + 3Tβ + T 2 γ

F3 z = (15.100b)
6z3 + 6α + 9Tβ + 7T 2 γ − 18 z2 − 12α + 12Tβ + 2T 2 γ − 18 z + 6α + 3Tβ + T 2 γ − 6

These transfer functions will be compared with the PIF-,

WF-, and KF-based closed-loop PLLs to infer their L matrix In Section 15.4, we showed how to apply the impulse
composition in the following subsections. invariance and the bilinear transformation methods to con-
vert a transfer function from the S-domain to the Z-domain.
Here, we will follow [41] to apply the forward difference or
15.5.2.1 Gain Matrix for PIF-based PLL
Euler’s method:
For the PIF-based system, Figures 15.14 and 15.23 in
Section 15.4 show the first- and second-order S-domain z−1
s≈ 15 102
block diagrams. The third-order analog PIF is shown in T
Figure 15.38. The transfer functions for the second- (rewrit-
ten from (15.64)) and third-order closed-loop PLL using
PIF implementation are

2ξωn s + ω2n
H PIF2 s = 15 101a
s2 + 2ξωn s + ω2n

bn ωn s2 + an ω2n s + ω3n
H PIF3 s = 15 101b
s3 + bn ωn s2 + an ω2n s + ω3n Figure 15.38 Third-order analog PIF-based PLL block diagram.
364 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

The second- and third-order PIF-based closed-loop PLL in Z-domain are

2ξωn Tz + ω2n T 2 − 2ξωn T

H PIF2 z = 15 103a
z2 + 2ξωn T − 2 z + ω2n T 2 − 2ξωn T + 1

bn ωn Tz2 + an ω2n T 2 − 2bn ωn T z + ω3n T 3 − an ω2n T 2 + bn ωn T

H PIF3 z = 15 103b
z3 + bn ωn T − 3 z2 + an ω2n T 2 − 2bn ωn T + 3 z + ω3n T 3 − an ω2n T 2 + bn ωn T − 1

Comparing (15.100a.b) with (15.103a,b), the L matrix for estimation. Reference [41] derived the second- and third-
the two-state and three-state PIF-based PLL can be derived order WF-based PLL transfer functions as
as follows:
2 − z0 − z1 z + z0 z1 − 1
3 H WF2 z = 15 105a
α 2ξωn T − ω2n T 2 z 2 − z0 + z1 z + z0 z 1
LPIF2 = = 2 15 104a
β ω2n T 3 − z0 − z 1 − z2 z2 + z0 z1 + z0 z2 + z1 z 2 − 3 z + 1 − z 0 z 1 z2
H WF3 z =
z3 − z0 + z 1 + z 2 z2 + z0 z 1 + z 0 z 2 + z 1 z 2 z − z0 z1 z 2
α 11ω3n T 3 − 9an ω2n T 2 + 6bn ωn T 6 15 105b
LPIF3 = β = − 2ω3n T 2 + an ω2n T
γ ω3n T These transfer functions depend on parameters, z0,
15 104b z1, and z2, which are functions of the signal and noise
parameters, such as the integration time, system noise
As discussed in Section 15.4, the traditional PLL design covariances, and measurement noise variance. Readers
approach to transforming from the S-domain to the interested in knowing how to obtain these parameters
Z-domain defines certain heuristically selected values for are referred to [41].
the PIF-based system. Table 15.4 lists these predefined Comparing (15.100a, b) with (15.105a, b), the L matrices
values typically used in receivers [41]. The gain matrix L for WF-based PLLs are obtained:
can be computed using these predefined values.
α 1 + z0 + z1 − 3z0 z1 2
LPIF2 = =
β 1 − z0 1 − z1 T
15.5.2.2 Gain Matrix for WF-Based PLL 15 106a
A WF provides a statistical estimation of an input signal α
corrupted by noise in the MMSE sense. Its transfer
LPIF3 = β
function is obtained by spectral factorization of the auto-
correlation functions of the mean input signal and the γ
statistical z0 + z1 + z2 + 2 z0 z1 + z0 z2 + z1 z2 + 2 − 11z0 z1 z2 6

= 1 − z0 z1 + z0 z2 + z1 z2 + 2z0 z1 z2 T
1 + z0 z1 + z0 z2 + z1 z2 − z0 z1 z2 − z0 + z1 + z2 T2
15 106b
Table 15.4 PIF-based PLL parameters typically used in
conventional GPS receivers [41].

Loop Order Noise Bandwidth BN (Hz) Typical Values 15.5.2.3 Gain Matrix for KF-based PLL
A KF estimates the error state vector Δxk based on
wn
First BN = 0.25wn the measurement of Δϕk. Its gain matrix should minimize
4
the quadratic form Wk+1, where χ is an arbitrary n × 1
Second wn 1 + ξ2 ξ = 0.707
vector, Wk + 1 = E εk + 1 εTk + 1 is the error state estimation
4ξ BN ≈ 0.53wn
error covariance matrix, and εk + 1 = Δxk + 1 − Δxk + 1 is
Third wn + − bn
an b2n a2n an = 1.1
the state estimation error. εk + 1 can be computed utili-
4 an b n − 1 bn = 2.4 zing the measurement error model (15.84), the error
BN ≈ 0.7845wn state plant model (15.88), and the error state estima-
Source: From Yang et al. [41]. Reproduced with permission of IEEE. tor (15.89):
 15.5 Advanced Carrier Tracking 365

εk + 1 = I − Lk + 1 H Aεk + nk − νk + 1 Lk + 1 The KF implementation is initiated with a transient

15 107 process which eventually converges to a steady state. We
are more interested in the steady-state gain matrix:
Its error covariance matrix is LKF = lim Lk + 1 In order to compute LKF, we need to
k ∞
Wk + 1 = Nk + 1 + Uk + 1 R + HNk + 1 HT UTk + 1 obtain N∞, which is the solution to the discrete algebraic
− Nk + 1 HT R + HNk + 1 HT HNk + 1 , Riccati equation:
15 108 −1
AN ∞ AT − AN ∞ HT HN ∞ HT + R
15 115
where × HN ∞ AT + Q − N ∞ = 0
Nk + 1 = AWk AT + Q 15 109
The solution from (15.115) can be substituted as Nk+1
−1
Uk + 1 = Lk + 1 − Nk + 1 HT R + HNk + 1 HT HNk + 1 into (15.111) to obtain the numerical solutions for LKF:
15 110 −1
LKF = N ∞ HT R + HN ∞ HT 15 116
From (15.108), it is clear that the quadratic form χ Wk+1χ T

is a minimum when Uk+1 = 0. By setting (15.110) to 0,

we obtain the KF gain matrix: 15.5.2.4 Equivalence Between WF- and KF-based PLL
T −1 It is natural to suspect that the WF- and KF-based PLL may
Lk + 1 = Nk + 1 HT R + HNk + 1 H 15 111
be equivalent because their gain matrices were designed to
The corresponding error state estimation covariance is achieve MMSE performance for both the error state and full
state estimations. If this equivalence were true, we may use
Wk + 1 = I − Lk + 1 H Nk + 1 15 112 LWF as the closed-form representation of the steady-state
Note that in deriving the above optimal KF gain matrix L, LKF. Yang et al. [41] compared the analytic solutions of
no assumption was made regarding matrices B, K, and u. the gain matrices for WF and KF for several representative
The error state estimator is only a subsystem of the over- signals and system parameters. The results confirmed that
all feedback control loop shown in Figure 15.37. To obtain they are indeed equivalent. For example, Figure 15.39 shows
the overall system performance, we compute the variance the gain matrix element α, β, γ as functions of the integration
of the full state estimation using Eqs. (15.83) and (15.92):
30
T
E x k + 1 − x k + 1 x k + 1 − xk + 1 = AWk A T + Q α-KF-LQO α-KF-HQO
α-WF-LQO α-WF-HQO
= Nk + 1 25
β-KF-LQO β-KF-HQO
15 113 β-WF-LQO β-WF-HQO
γ-KF-LQO γ-KF-HQO
20
γ-WF-LQO γ-WF-HQO
Equation (15.113) shows that a minimal Wk corres-
Gain value

ponds to a minimal quadratic form χ T E xk + 1 −xk + 1 15

xk + 1 −xk + 1 T χ. Therefore, Lk + 1 defined in (15.111)
minimizes both the error state and full state estimation 10
errors, and hence is globally optimal for the feedback
control loop. Note that (15.83) and (15.92) are developed 5
under the assumptions B = I, K = A, and u = Kx. Further-
more, it is straightforward to show that the overall closed- 0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
loop PLL performance meets the MMSE criteria. This can T (ms)
be done by simply assuming that χ = HT (since χ can be
any arbitrary n × 1 vector): Figure 15.39 Gain matrix element α, β, γ as functions of
integration time T for a three-state PLL implemented with WF
T (lines) and KF (circles or dots) for a receiver on a highly dynamic
χTE xk + 1 − xk + 1 xk + 1 − xk + 1 χ
platform with qa = 10 (m2/s6)/Hz. Two types of receiver front-end
15 114
T oscillators are simulated: a high-quality oscillator (HQO)
= HE xk + 1 − xk + 1 xk + 1 − xk + 1 HT characteristic of an OCXO (dashed line) and a low-quality
T
oscillator (LQO) resembling a TCXO (solid line). The results show
=E H xk + 1 − xk + 1 xk + 1 − xk + 1 H that the WF and KF implementation yields the same optimal
2 gain matrix for the same signal and receiver parameters. Figure is
= E Δϕk taken from [41]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
366 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking
time T for a three-state PLL implemented with WF (lines)
and KF (circles or dots) for a receiver on a highly dynamic
platform with qa = 10 (m2/s6)/Hz. The results show that
the WF and KF implementations yield the same optimal gain
matrix for the same signal and receiver parameters. Also
note that two types of receiver front-end oscillators are sim-
ulated: a high-quality oscillator (HQO) characteristic of an
OCXO (dashed line) and a low-quality oscillator (LQO) typ-
ical of a TCXO (solid line). The oscillator quality is reflected
in the value of its h-parameters. For the LQO and HQO used
in this study, their h-parameters are
LQO h0 = 1 × 10 − 21 s2 Hz , h − 2 = 2 × 10 − 20 1 Hz
HQO h0 = 6 4 × 10 − 26 s2 Hz , h − 2 = 4 3 × 10 − 23 1 Hz
The same HQO and LQO will be used in subsequent
performance evaluations as well.
Figure 15.39 also revealed other characteristics of the
gain matrices. First, note that α and β, and hence the system
modeling error, are larger for a receiver with an LQO than
for one with an HQO. Therefore, more weight should be
allocated to the system prediction for a receiver with an
HQO. Second, increasing T will reduce the measurement
noise, which is desirable for weak signal processing. How-
ever, this is only true up to certain values. For the cases
shown in Figure 15.39, the filter gain parameters only
increase with increasing T values up to about 100 ms. More-
over, it is well known that the oscillator noise effect
increases with longer integration times. Therefore, one
needs to combine an appropriate integration time with
other filter design parameters to achieve optimal perfor-
mance. Finally, Yang et al. [41] noted that γ determines
the filter’s dynamic response, and the loop gains are more
sensitive to platform dynamics for a receiver with an HQO
than one with an LQO.
15.5.2.5 State-Space-Based PLL Optimization
Accuracy, sensitivity, and tracking thresholds under various
dynamic conditions are the main performance measures for
a PLL. Accuracy is captured by the tracking error variance,
which was discussed in the Section 15.5.2.3 and can be
expressed by (15.112). The steady-state variance is the solu-
tion of (15.115), which is dependent on the properties of the
receiver (such as oscillator quality and platform dynamics),
signal (C/N0 and carrier frequency), and PLL design para-
meters such as integration time T, filer gain matrix L, and
noise bandwidth B (if a PIF-based PLL is implemented).
While the receiver and signal properties are typically beyond
the control of the tracking loop designer, the PLL design
parameters can be optimized to minimize the tracking error
variance. Yang et al. [42] presented an analysis of the
optimization results for PIF-, WF-, and KF-based PLLs
and for some representative receiver and signal parameters.
Readers should consult the paper for the detailed analysis.
A few representative examples are given here to illustrate
the results. Figure 15.40 shows the optimal integration time
and phase error standard deviation for a three-state PLL as
functions of C/N0 for a receiver with an LQO and an HQO.
The PLL is implemented using PIF-, WF-, and KF-based
state space approaches. The receiver is on a low dynamic
platform (top) and a high dynamic platform (bottom plot).
In the phase error plots, the heuristic values of 15o and
30o for data and pilot channel carrier tracking threshold
are also plotted.
The plots show well-known trends in a quantitative
manner. For example, the optimal integration times for
all three filter implementations are higher for weaker sig-
nals. For a receiver with an HQO, the optimal integration
time is larger for the same signal than for a receiver with
an LQO. For a receiver on a higher dynamic platform, the
optimal integration time is smaller, while the phase noise
is higher. In addition, the oscillator noise effect becomes
less important to the phase tracking error for highly
dynamic signals. Finally, the minimum phase tracking
errors are slightly larger for PIF-based PLLs than for
WF- and KF-based PLLs. This is most likely due to the
higher degrees of freedom in WF and KF designs. Recall
that for LPIF, its α, β, and γ values are determined by the
noise bandwidth and integration time. For LWF and LKF,
their α and β values are determined by the oscillator prop-
erties and integration time T, while γ is determined by qa
and T. This decoupling of α and β with γ in the WF- and
KF-based PLL designs leads to their better optimization in
realizing MMSE performance.
For PIF-based PLL, the state space model approach leads
to a quantitative relationship between the noise bandwidth
and the signal and system parameters. Figure 15.41 shows
the noise bandwidth dependence on C/N0 for three repre-
sentative receiver dynamical conditions (static, low, and
high dynamic) and for an LQO and an HQO. The results
show that for all signal and system parameters, higher C/
N0 is associated with higher noise bandwidth, and that
the noise bandwidth for a receiver with an LQO should
be larger than one with an HQO. The noise bandwidth also
increases as the receiver dynamics increase.
To provide a quantitative design guideline for the optimal
integration time and noise bandwidth, Yang et al. [42]
derived the following analytic forms:
− μ1
T opt = b1 C N 0 s 15 117
− μ2
Bopt = b2 C N 0 Hz 15 118
where b1, b2, μ1, and μ2 are dependent on signal
dynamics, receiver oscillator qualities, and PLL filter
 15.5 Advanced Carrier Tracking 367

(a)
100
LQO-PIF
80 LQO-WF/KF
Topt (ms)

HQO-PIF
60
HQO-WF/KF
40

20
0
70
60 15°

50 30°
pθ –min (°)

40
0.5

30
20
10
0
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 44
C/No (dB-Hz)
(b)
60
LQO-PIF
LQO-WF/KF
40
Topt (ms)

HQO-PIF
HQO-WF/KF

20

0
100
15°
80
30°
60
pθ –min (°)

40
0.5

20

0
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 44
C/No (dB-Hz)

Figure 15.40 Optimal integration time and phase error standard deviation for a three-state PLL as functions of C/N0 for a receiver with an
LQO and an HQO. The PLL is implemented using PIF-, WF-, and KF-based state space approach and the receiver is on a low dynamic
platform (top, qa = 0.1 (m2/s6)/Hz) a high dynamic platform (bottom, qa = 10 (m2/s6)/Hz). Figure is taken from [42]. Source: Reproduced with
permission of IEEE.

implementations. Their values for several representative
cases are shown in Figure 15.42.
Tracking sensitivity is a measure of the robustness of the
PLL. The sensitivity limit can be computed using the opti-
mal integration time and noise bandwidth at the tracking
error threshold for data and pilot channels. The sensitivity
limit for PIF-, WF, and KF-based PLL are summarized in
Table 15.5 for the three representative dynamic scenarios
and for receivers with LQO and HQO front-ends. For static
receivers, the sensitivity is mainly determined by the
368 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

35 Table 15.5 PIF-, WF- and KF-based PLL tracking sensitivity limit
qa = 0 m2/s5
with phase error standard deviation at 15o and 30o for data and
30 pilot channels, respectively, and for signals having a range of
L qa = 0.1 m2/s5
Q dynamic parameters and for receivers with HQO and LQO [42].
25 O qa = 10 m2/s5
qa = 0 m2/s5
BNopt (Hz)

20 H qa = 0.1 m2/s5 LQO HQO

Q
O qa = 10 m2/s5
15 qa(m2/s6)/Hz PIF WF/KF PIF WF/KF

10 0 22/15 22/15 13/6 13/6

5 0.1 23/17 23/16 21/15 21/14

1 24/18 23/17 23/17 23/16
0
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 44 10 26/19 25/19 25/19 25/18
C/No (dB-Hz)
100 27/21 27/21 27/21 27/21
Figure 15.41 Noise bandwidth dependence on C/N0 for three 1000 29/23 29/22 29/23 29/22
representative receiver dynamics scenarios (static, low, and high)
and for receiver with an LQO and an HQO in the front-end in the PIF- Source: From Yang et al. [42]. Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
based PLL design [42]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

(a)
Topt = b1 (C/No)–μ1 (s)
0.8 0.8
receiver oscillator quality. The difference between receivers
LQO-PIF LQO-PIF with an HQO and an LQO can be 13 dB-Hz for a pilot chan-
HQO-PIF HQO-PIF
LQO-WF/KF LQO-WF/KF
nel and 6 dB-Hz for a data channel. For receivers on
0.6
HQO-WF/KF HQO-WF/KF
0.6 dynamic platforms, the signal dynamics may play a more
important role than the oscillator quality in determining
the sensitivity limit. The data in the table show that for
qa > 1 (m2/s6)/Hz, the tracking sensitivity limit is the same
b1

0.4 0.4
μ1

for the HQO and LQO. Higher signal dynamics will lead to
a lower sensitivity limit in general. The big surprise is the
0.2 0.2 performance of PIF-based PLLs. Although the PIF-based
PLL is suboptimal, its sensitivity limit is similar to that of
the WF- and KF-based PLLs. This indicates that despite
0 0 the different optimization criteria, the PLL performance
0 0.1 1 10 100 1000

qa((m2/s6)/Hz)
is mainly limited by the signal characteristics and receiver
hardware quality and less by the specific filter implementa-
(b) BNopt = b2 (C/No)μ2 tions. Finally, as expected, there is an approximately 6–8 dB
10 1
LQO-PIF LQO-PIF
improvement in the sensitivity limit for the pilot channel
HQO-PIF HQO-PIF over the data channel. And this difference is not affected
8 0.8
by signal properties, receiver front-end hardware, or PLL
filter design.
6 0.6
μ2
b2

4 0.4
2 0.2
0 0
0 0.1 1 10 100 1000
qa((m2/s6)/Hz)
Figure 15.42 Trends of b1 and μ1 versus signal dynamics for (left)
HQO and LQO for PLL with PIF and WF/KF implementations
and (right) b2 and μ2 versus signal dynamics for an HQO and an
LQO for a PIF-based PLL implementation. Figure is taken from
[42]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
15.5.3 State Space Model for FLL
Recognizing that frequency tracking is essentially differ-
ential carrier phase tracking, we can treat an FLL as a
reduced-order PLL. For example, a second-order FLL
achieves frequency tracking that is equivalent to a
third-order PLL in phase tracking. Therefore, the state
space model approach described above to PLLs is also
applicable to FLLs. The reader is referred to [41, 42]
for detailed formulations and optimization performance
of FLLs.
 15.5 Advanced Carrier Tracking 369

L1 Aggregate
Correlator Discriminator
Filter
L2
OT
L5 JT
C/N0
Filter Fundamental
Estimator
state estimation
ST
Reference
State estimation
Generator

Figure 15.43 Multi-carrier tracking architecture JT and OT along with single carrier tracking (ST). The ST utilizes single carrier inputs
to estimate the carrier state xi,k+1, while the JT linearly combines all carrier measurements to estimate the fundamental carrier state yk+1,
and then scales the estimation to the carrier state xi,k+1. The OT architecture optimizes the multi-carrier measurement combination
by taking into consideration the quality of each individual carrier channel. The figure is taken from Yang et al. [43]. Source: Reproduced
with permission of IEEE.

15.5.4 Inter-Carrier Aiding Yu et al. [60] implemented an aggregated predictive KF

Most contemporary GNSS satellites broadcast open signals
on multiple carriers. These signals’ carrier frequencies are
generated by multiplying a fundamental carrier frequency
with integers. For example, the GPS L1, L2, and L5 carriers
are related to the fundamental frequency of f0 = 10.23MHz
through a multiplier ηi which takes the value of 154, 120,
and 115, respectively:
f i = ηi f 0 15 119
The carriers transmitted from the same satellite and
intercepted by the same receiver share the same or similar
LOS propagation distance, velocity, and acceleration due to
the relative satellite-receiver motion. Therefore, the carrier
phases ϕi, Doppler frequencies fdi, and Doppler rates f di for
these carriers are all related to the corresponding para-
meters at the fundamental carrier by the multiplier ηi.
These relationships have been used to perform inter-carrier
aiding when one carrier is experiencing frequency-selective
fading due to interference [55], multipath [56], or iono-
spheric [57] or tropospheric scintillation [58]. The aiding
strategy is quite simple: the Doppler or Doppler rate
obtained from a healthy carrier is scaled to construct the
reference for the tracking loop of the compromised carrier.
There are also approaches that combine measurements
from multiple channels in a vector-based architecture to
perform joint tracking of multiple frequency signals. For
example, Henkel et al. [59] discussed a multi-frequency
vector PLL algorithm that combines vector processing of
multiple satellites and carrier aiding of multiple carriers.
for multi-frequency joint carrier tracking. Yang et al. [43]
extended the state space model architecture presented in
this chapter to multi-frequency carrier tracking. The paper
described two algorithms. The first was a joint tracking (JT)
algorithm based on a linear combination of multiple carrier
parameter estimations according to the carrier frequency
scaling. In the second algorithm, the carrier signal intensity
is taken into consideration to adjust the weight of each
carrier contribution to achieve optimized tracking (OT)
using combined multi-carrier parameter estimations.
Figure 15.43 illustrates the three basic architectures: single
carrier tracking (ST) without using inter-carrier aiding,
JT, and OT. In this section, we will summarize the state-
space-based approach to multi-carrier inter-frequency aid-
ing and performance assessment based on work presented
in [43].
15.5.4.1 State Space Model for Inter-Carrier
Aiding PLL
Because of the carrier frequency relationship to the funda-
mental carrier, the state vectors for the carriers are also lin-
early related to the fundamental carrier state vector. Note
that the fundamental carrier is only a “virtual” carrier as
there is no signal transmitted at that frequency. Using
the three-state system for GPS signals as an example, let
us denote the state vectors as xi, k, with i standing for L1,
L2, and L5 carriers and i = 0 for the fundamental carrier;
then the state vector for each carrier is
T
xi,k = φi,k ωdi,k ωdi,k 15 120
370 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

They are related to the fundamental carrier state vector For OT, the fundamental carrier state estimation is
obtained by the aggregated KF filter using multi-carrier
xi,k = ηi x0,k 15 121 measurements zk:
The system model and measurement model described in xOT OT
0,k + 1 = Ax 0,k + ALAKF zk 15 129
Section 15.5.1 are valid for all carriers. The system transi-
tion matrix A and the measurement matrix H are common where LAKF is the gain of the aggregated KF. It can be com-
for all carriers and remain the same as defined by (15.94b) puted following the structure of (15.116) while replacing H
and (15.95b), respectively. The multi-carrier system with MH from the OT measurement model (see (15.124))
model and the system noise covariance matrix for the i-th and Nk + 1 with N0, k + 1. The resulting fundamental car-
carrier are rier’s state error covariance matrix is
−1
T T
xi,k + 1 = Axi,k + 1 + ni,k 15 122 LAKF = N0,k + 1 MH Rk + MH N0,k + 1 MH

Qi = Q 15 123 15 130
Again, the i-th carrier state estimation can be obtained by
where Q is defined in (15.96b) with fL = fi.
scaling the fundamental carrier state in (15.129) using
The measurement model is captured by the following
(15.121). Alternatively, the OT carrier state estimation for
equation:
the i-th carrier can be obtained via the following:
zk = ΜHΔx0,k + vk 15 124
i,k + 1 = Axi,k + ηi ALAKF zk
xOT OT
15 131
T
where, zk = Δϕ1,k Δϕ2,k Δϕ5,k is the measurement The state estimation error covariance matrices for the i-th
vector, M = η1 η2 η5 , and vk = ν1,k ν2,k ν5,k T
T
carrier using JT and OT can be derived based on the state
is the measurement noise vector whose covariance estimations:
matrix is
η2j L j,k
σ 21,k 0 0 i,k + 1 = A I −
PJT
j = 1, 2, 5
H PJT
η21 + η22 + η25 i,k
Rk = 0 σ 22,k 0 15 125
0 0 σ 25,k η2j L j,k
T

I− j = 1, 2, 5
η21 + η22 + η25
H AT + Qi +
Both JT and OT implementations derive the fundamental
carrier state estimations from all available carrier measure- η2i T
η2j AL j,k σ 2j,k AL j,k
ments. For JT, the fundamental carrier state estimation η21 + η22 + η25 j = 1, 2, 5
is obtained from Δ ϕk , the linear combination of the
15 132
multi-carrier measurements:
T T
i,k + 1 = A I − LAKF,k MH Pi,k I − LAKF,k MH A
POT OT

xJT
0,k + 1 = Ax 0,k + AΔ ϕk 15 126 + Qi + η2i ALAKF,k Rk ALAKF,k T

15 133
η L1,k Δϕ1,k + η2 L2,k Δϕ2,k + η5 L5,k Δϕ5,k
Δ ϕk = 1
η21 + η22 + η25 Phase tracking error variance can be computed following
15 127 (15.114) by using the appropriate state estimation error
covariance matrices:
where L is the individual carrier channel filter gain matrix
σ JT JT
ϕi,k + 1 = HPi,k + 1 H
T
15 134
and the PIF-, KF-, and WF-based implementations
discussed in Section 15.5.2 can be used to optimize each σ OT OT T
ϕi,k + 1 = HPi,k + 1 H 15 135
individual carrier phase estimation. The fundamental state
estimation obtained from (15.126) is then scaled to obtain
each carrier state estimation using (15.121). Alternatively, 15.5.4.2 Multi-Carrier JT and OT Performance
the JT carrier state estimation for the i-th carrier can be The multi-carrier JT and OT performances were evaluated
obtained via the following: based on the phase tracking error standard deviation com-
puted using (15.134) and (15.135) and compared with that
i,k + 1 = Axi,k + ηi AΔ ϕk
xJT JT
15 128 of an optimized KF-based PLL for ST computed using
 15.5 Advanced Carrier Tracking 371

(a) (15.114) in [43]. Three scenarios were presented for triple-

102 frequency GPS signals‚ and the results are shown in
ST JT OT
L1 Figure 15.44.
L2
L5 Scenario 1: Two signals (L1 and L2) have nominal C/N0 at
45 dB-Hz, while one (L5) is attenuated between 10 and
Phase error (deg)

101
45 dB-Hz.
Scenario 2: One signal (L1) has nominal C/N0 at 45 dB-Hz,
while two (L2 and L5) are attenuated by the same
amount between 10 and 45 dB-Hz.
100
Scenario 3: All three signals are attenuated by the same
amount between 10 and 45 dB-Hz.

To ensure a fair comparison, the following receiver and

10–1 processing parameters are set for all three scenarios: T =
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
L5 C/No(dB-Hz), L1&L2 C/No = 45dB-Hz 10 ms, qa = 10−8(m2/s6), and oscillator parameters
h0 = 6.3 × 10−26(s2/Hz) and h−2 = 3.4 × 10−26(1/Hz). This
is a receiver with an HQO on a low dynamic platform.
(b)
102 The results show that for ST, the phase error increases
ST JT OT as the signal C/N0 decreases, as expected in all three sce-
L1
L2 narios. For JT, while the weak signal tracking error is
L5 smaller compared to ST, the nominal signal tracking error
Phase error (deg)

101 is larger. The amount of improvement in weak signal

tracking error and the degradation in nominal signal
tracking error using JT increases with decreasing weak
signal power and the number of weak carriers. For OT,
100 both nominal and weak signals show improvement in
tracking error‚ and the improvement is especially dra-
matic for very weak signals (below 30 dB-Hz) unless all
signals are equally weak. If all three signals are equally
10–1 weak, the JT and OT performance is similar.
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
L2&L5 C/No(dB-Hz), L1 C/No = 45dB-Hz
Reference [43] also processed real triple-frequency
GPS data using JT, OT, and ST implementations. The data
were collected using software radio front-ends with an
(c)
102 HQO on Ascension Island (7.9oS, 14.4oW) during a strong
ST JT OT
L1
ionospheric storm on 10 March 2013. Selective frequency
L2 fading up to ~25 dB occurred on all three carriers.
L5 Figure 15.45 shows the C/N0 estimated for the three
Phase error (deg)

101 carriers.
For real data processing, the integration time T was set to
1 ms, qa = 10−2(m2/s6) which captures the signal phase
scintillation dynamics, and the oscillator parameters are
100

oscillator parameters h0 = 6.3 × 10−26(s2/Hz) and h−2 = 3.4 × 10−26

10–1 (1/Hz). Three scenarios are shown in the figure. (a) Two signals
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 (L1 and L2) have nominal C/N0 at 45 dB-Hz, while one (L5) is
L1,L2&L5 C/No(dB-Hz) attenuated between 10 and 45 dB-Hz. (b) One signal (L1) has
nominal C/N0 at 45 dB-Hz, while two (L2 and L5) are attenuated by
Figure 15.44 Phase tracking error standard deviation for multi- the same amount between 10 and 45 dB-Hz. (c) All three signals
carrier tracking using JT, OT, and ST implementations for GPS L1, are attenuated by the same amount between 10 and 45 dB-Hz.
L2, and L5 signals. Common signal and receiver parameters are Figures are taken from [43]. Source: Reproduced with permission
used for all three implementations: T = 10 ms, qa = 10−8(m2/s6), and of IEEE.
372 15 GNSS Receiver Signal Tracking

Ascension lsland GPS PRN 24, 03/10/2013, UTC 19:59:01

55

45
C/No(dB-Hz)

35

25

L1 L2 L5
15
200 400 600 800 1000
Time (Sec)

Figure 15.45 C/N0 estimations for GPS PRN 24 L1, L2, and L5 signals on 10 March 2013 starting at 19:59:01 UTC. After about 400 s, all
three signals have amplitude fading up to ~25 dB with L2 having the deepest fading. Figure is taken from [43]. Source: Reproduced
with permission of IEEE.

Phase error (deg) Doppler error (Hz) Doppler rate error (HZ/S)
360 2 4
(a) (d) (g)
180 1 2
L1 0 0 0
–180 –1 –2
–360 –2 –4
ST JT OT
720 4 8
(b) (e) (h)
360 2 4
L2 0 0 0
–360 –2 –4
–720 –4 –8
360 2 4
(c) (f) (i)
180 1 2
L5 0 0 0
–180 –1 –2

–360 –2 –4
200 400 600 800 1000 200 400 600 800 1000 200 400 600 800 1000
Time (Sec) Time (Sec) Time (Sec)

Figure 15.46 Tracking error comparison on (a)–(c) phase, (d)–(f ) Doppler, and (g)–(i) Doppler rate for GPS PRN 24 L1, L2, and L5
signals using ST, JT, and OT implementations. During strong ionospheric scintillations, OT outperforms ST and JT with the smallest amount
of errors on carrier phase, Doppler, and Doppler rate estimations. JT mostly show improved performance over ST. However, there are
times when JT has larger errors compared to ST. This is most likely due to the degradation of a healthy carrier when it is used to aid
a weak carrier. Figure taken from [43]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

the same as above. Figure 15.46 show the phase, Doppler,
and Doppler errors for the three carriers using ST, JT,
and OT implementations. It is clear that OT yields the smal-
lest errors in all three parameters across all three carriers.
JT mostly shows improved performance over ST. However,
there are times when JT has larger errors compared to ST.
This is most likely due to the degradation of a healthy car-
rier when it is used to aid a weak carrier. More quantitative
comparison can be found in [43].
15.6 Conclusions
GNSS signal tracking is a challenging element in GNSS
receiver signal processing. As satellite navigation technolo-
gies find ever-increasing applications in environments
where signals are weak and on platforms that are highly
dynamic, accurate and robust GNSS tracking algorithms
are needed to ensure the availability and integrity of the
navigation solutions. While the conventional signal track-
ing algorithm design approach has been widely implemen-
ted in numerous operational systems, the state-space-based
architecture enables one to optimize tracking performance
based on the anticipated signal properties, receiver hard-
ware‚ and platform dynamics. This chapter provided a
review of the conventional tracking loop techniques and
the state-space-based system approach. Examples are used
to illustrate the performance improvement for optimized
designs. Simulation and real data, as well as the basic track-
ing algorithms, are available for download at the authors’
website [5].
While this chapter only focused on stand-alone receiver
signal processing, the future of advanced GNSS receiver
performances lies with the integration of GNSS measure-
ments with other sensors such as INS, other radio signals,
and other types of sources. These topics are addressed in
other chapters in this book. Readers should refer to Volume
II for these treatments.
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16
Vector Processing
Matthew V. Lashley,1 Scott Martin2, and James Sennott3
1
Georgia Tech Research Institute, United States
2
Auburn University, United States
3
Tracking and Imaging Systems, United States
Vector processing combines the two tasks of waveform
parameter estimation and position/velocity/time (PVT)
estimation into a single, quasi-optimal algorithm. Unlike
conventional scalar tracking loops where each satellite
signal is treated as an independent entity, vector processing
tracks all the available signals in unison. This is accom-
plished by directly controlling the local oscillators based
on the receiver’s PVT state vector. Vector processing is a
paradigm of receiver operation based largely upon the
Kalman filter.
Vector tracking has many advantages over scalar track-
ing. The most commonly cited advantage is increased
immunity to interference and jamming [1, 2]. The mini-
mum carrier-to-noise power density ratio (C/N0) at which
the receiver can operate is lowered by processing the signals
in aggregate instead of processing them separately. Vector
tracking algorithms also have the ability to bridge signal
outages and immediately reacquire blocked signals. More-
over, vector tracking loops have a greater immunity to
receiver dynamics than scalar tracking loops. A final advan-
tage: The vector tracking architecture allows the receiver’s
motion to be constrained in different dimensions, which
can be exploited by the receiver whose motion occurs
primarily in one or two directions, such as ships or
automobiles.
There are a number of different implementations of vec-
tor processing‚ and this chapter provides a survey of those
implementations. Conceptual design, processing architec-
ture, algorithm implementation details, testing results
using both simulation and real data, and performance anal-
ysis of the vector delay lock loop (VDLL), vector delay-
frequency lock loop (VDFLL), and vector phase lock loop
(VPLL) are presented. Example applications, including
positioning, timing‚ and specular multipath mitigation,
are used to showcase the power of vector processing.
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
377
16.1 Introduction and Fundamentals
of Scalar and Vector Processing
The vector tracking architecture is possible because of the
basic nature of global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs).
The principle behind GNSS is that a receiver’s position,
velocity, and time are determined by measuring the time
of arrival and frequency of the satellite signals. Vector
tracking algorithms exploit this basic idea and reverse the
process of events. Vector tracking receivers predict the time
of arrival and frequency of the received signals based on
estimates of the receiver’s position and velocity. Residuals
are formed in each channel of the receiver by taking the
difference between the predicted and received signals.
The estimates of the receiver’s position and velocity are
then updated using the residuals. Synchronization of the
receiver’s onboard oscillator to GNSS system time is a
critical component of this process. Predicting the GNSS sig-
nals requires knowledge of system time in addition to the
receiver’s position and velocity.
Figure 16.1 is a block diagram of a traditional GNSS
receiver architecture utilizing scalar tracking loops. Scalar
tracking loops in each channel are used to estimate the
pseudoranges and carrier frequencies for the available
satellites. A delay lock loop (DLL) is generally used for
estimating the pseudoranges, and either a Costas loop or
frequency lock loop (FLL) is used to estimate the carrier
frequency. (A phase lock loop can also be implemented,
although it is not strictly required for signal tracking.) The
estimated pseudorange and carrier frequency from each
channel are fed forward to the navigation processor. The
navigation processor in turn uses the pseudoranges and
carrier frequencies to estimate the receiver’s position,
velocity, and clock states. The navigation processor is typi-
cally an iterative least-squares algorithm or a Kalman filter.
378 16 Vector Processing
Antenna
Channel 1 Pseudoranges,
RF IF Signal Carrier Frequencies
Tracking
Front-end
Loops
Processing
Channel 2
Tracking
Loops
Channel j
Tracking
Loops
Figure 16.1 Traditional receiver architecture with scalar tracking loops feeding measurements to a navigation processor (note
that no information is fed back from the navigation processor to the tracking loops).
It is important to note that in Figure 16.1 the flow of
information is strictly from left to right. Each channel
of the receiver tracks its respective signal independent of
the other channels. Additionally, no information from
the navigation processor is routed back to the tracking
loops to aid in signal tracking. By virtue of its decentralized,
federated structure‚ the traditional receiver architecture
does not exploit the inherent relationship between signal
tracking (i.e. signal waveform parameter estimation) and
navigation state estimation (i.e. PVT estimation).
Figure 16.2 shows a block diagram of a receiver employing
vector tracking. Specifically, the architecture in Figure 16.2 is
a VDFLL. The pseudoranges and carrier frequencies are
predicted directly by the navigation processor, an extended
Kalman filter (EKF), for each available signal. The predic-
tions are based upon the current state vector of the EKF
and the satellite ephemeris.
16.1.1 Basic Kalman Filter Design and Operation
Before going further into how vector tracking works, it is
helpful to first describe how the states of the EKF in
Figure 16.2 are related to the pseudoranges and carrier fre-
quencies. The EKF’s state vector is used to predict the pseu-
doranges and carrier frequencies at the beginning of every
coherent integration interval. After the received and locally
generated signals are correlated, each channel of the
receiver in Figure 16.2 produces pseudorange and carrier
frequency residuals (i.e. the difference between the pre-
dicted and received values, plus noise). The EKF uses the
residuals to update its estimates of the receiver’s navigation
states and, in doing so, closes the vector tracking loop.
Position,
Navigation
Velocity,
Processor
Time
The minimal state vector of the Kalman filter used in a
vector tracking architecture typically includes the receiver’s
position (xu,yu,zu), velocity (x u , yu , zu), and clock bias (ctu)
and drift (ct u ):
xu
xu
yu
yu
xp = 16 1
zu
zu
− ct u
− ct u
In Eq. (16.1), xp (boldface) is the total state vector, and xu
and x u are the x-axis position and velocity components,
respectively. In general, lowercase bold letters denote
vectors and uppercase bold letters represent matrices. In
Eq. (16.1) and hereafter, the dot symbol ( ) is reserved for
the derivative of a variable with respect to time. The coor-
dinate frame that the position and velocity estimates in
Eq. (16.1) are referenced to is typically the Earth-centered
Earth-fixed (ECEF) frame, but any frame can be used
provided that the coordinate transformations are properly
performed. The clock bias and drift states are scaled by
the speed of light (c) to give them units of meters and meters
per second, respectively. The variable tu is positive when the
receiver’s clock is ahead of GPS system time (the product
−ctu is negative when the receiver’s clock is ahead of
GPS system time) [3, p. 68]. Additional states are often
appended to the ones shown in Eq. (16.1), such as
higher-order derivative states (e.g. acceleration, jerk) or
residual atmospheric error states.
 16.1 Introduction and Fundamentals of Scalar and Vector Processing 379

Antenna

Channel 1
RF IF Signal
Signal
Front-end
Correlation
Processing
Channel 2
Signal
Correlation

Pseudorange,
Carrier Frequency
Residuals
Channel j

Signal
Predicted
Correlation
Pseudoranges,
Carrier Frequencies

Updated State
Estimates Extended
Kalman
Filter
Propagation
&Prediction
Satellite
Ephmeris

Navigation Processor

Figure 16.2 Vector tracking receiver (vector delay/frequency lock loop) with fused signal tracking/PVT estimation via an extended
Kalman filter.

Figure 16.2 shows the EKF in the VDFLL predicting the
received pseudoranges. The pseudorange to the j-th satellite
(ρj) is a function of the satellite’s position (denoted by the
SV subscript) and the receiver’s position and clock bias
[3] (p. 69)
where
ρ j = Measured pseudorange to j – th satellite
βρ, j = Time – correlated pseudorange errors forj – th satellite
ηρ, j = White measurement noise for j – th satellite

2
ρj = x SV ,j − x u
2
+ ySV ,j − yu + zSV ,j − zu
2
+ ct u The time-correlated errors are due to atmospheric effects,
multipath, and satellite ephemeris errors, etc. Atmospheric
16 2 effects can be partially removed by using models of the
where ionosphere and troposphere. The residual time-correlated
errors are difficult to model precisely and vary slowly over
ρ j = Pseudorangeto j − th satellite time. They can be modeled by a first-order Gauss–Markov
x SV ,j , ySV ,j , zSV ,j = Position of j − th satellite process [4, pp. 423–428]. Using the first-order Gauss–
Markov model requires appending additional states to
x u , yu , zu = Receiver position the Kalman filter. For the sake of simplicity and clarity,
the time-correlated errors are omitted from the following
t u = Receiver clock bias
explanation in this section.
The actual pseudorange that is measured (ρ j) is corrupted In Figure 16.2, the filter predicts the received pseudor-
anges using its current estimate of the state vector and
by time-correlated errors (βρ, j) and white measurement
the received ephemeris from the broadcasting satellite
noise (ηρ,j) [4, pp. 423–428]:
(i.e. it is assumed that the ephemeris has been received
ρ j = ρ j + βρ,j − ηρ,j 16 3 and decoded). The predicted pseudorange for the j-th SV is
380 16 Vector Processing

2 f T,j
ρj = x SV ,j − x u
2
+ ySV ,j − yu + zSV ,j − zu
2
+ ct u f R,j − f T,j = − v TLOS,j a j
c
16 4 f T,j f T,j
f R,j − f T,j = − v TSV ,j a j + v Tu a j
The caret symbol (^) is used to signify estimates or predic- c c
tions based upon estimates of the filter. The measured pseu- 16 7
dorange residuals produced by each signal correlation
where
block are equal to the predicted pseudorange minus the
measured pseudorange: v LOS,j = v SV ,j − v u
x SV ,j
δρ j = ρ j − ρ j 16 5
v SV ,j = ySV ,j
The Greek letter delta is used to connote a residual or zSV ,j
difference in values (δ for scalars, Δ for vectors/matrices). xu
The pseudorange residuals are expressed as a linear func-
tion of the errors in the filter’s state vector, plus distur- vu = yu
bances (η), by linearizing Eq. (16.5) about the filter’s zu
predictions [3, pp. 69–73]: v T = Transpose of the vector v
δρ j ≈ ax,j δx u + ay,j δyu + az,j δzu − cδt u + ηρ,j 16 6 The second effect is the clock drift (i.e. the rate of change
of the clock bias) of the receiver’s clock. Clock drift is
where caused by the oscillator of the receiver deviating from its
nominal operating frequency. Frequency measurements
δx u = x u − x u
of the received satellite signals are affected by these
δyu = yu − yu deviations. The frequency of the received signal measured
by the receiver’s drifting clock (fj) is related to the true fre-
δzu = zu − zu
quency (fR, j) and the receiver’s clock drift (t u ) by [3, p. 75]
δt u = t u − t u
f R, j = f j 1 + t u 16 8
x SV ,j − x u
ax,j = Inserting Eq. (16.8) into Eq. (16.7) yields
rj
ySV ,j − yu f T, j f T,j
ay,j = f j 1 + t u − f T, j = − v TSV , j a j + v Tu a j
rj c c
16 9
zSV ,j − zu
az,j =
rj Rearranging Eq. (16.9) produces
2 fT, j fT, j
rj = x SV ,j − x u
2
+ ySV ,j − yu + zSV ,j − zu
2
f j − f T, j = − v TSV , j a j + v Tu a j − f j t u
c c
16 10
The tilde symbol ( ) over a value denotes that the quan-
tity is corrupted by noise or contains errors. In Eq. (16.6), The last term in Eq. (16.10) is simplified using the follow-
the terms ax, j, ay, j, and az, j are the elements of a unit vector ing approximation [3, p. 75]:
(aj) that points from the receiver’s estimated position to the
fT,j fj
j-th satellite. f j tu = ct u
Figure 16.2 also shows the carrier frequencies being pre- c fT,j
dicted by the EKF. The measured carrier frequency of the fT,j
received signals deviates from the transmission frequency f j tu ≈ ct u 16 11
c
due to two unrelated effects. The first effect is the Doppler
frequency caused by relative motion between the satellite Finally, the frequency as measured by the receiver for the
and the receiver. The frequency of the signal from the j- j-th satellite is equal to
th satellite (fR, j) at the receiver antenna is related to its fT,j fT,j fT,j
transmit frequency (fT, j) and relative line-of-sight (LOS) f j = fT,j − v TSV ,j a j + v Tu a j − ct u
c c c
velocity (vLOS, j) by [3, p. 74] 16 12
 16.1 Introduction and Fundamentals of Scalar and Vector Processing 381

Alternately, the measured Doppler shift (i.e. the differ- Eq. (16.6) (the position and clock bias errors being replaced
ence between the measured received frequency and the with velocity and clock drift errors):
transmit frequency) for the j-th satellite is expressed in
units of m/s by rearranging Eq. (16.12) into c
δρj ≜ fj − fj
fT,j
c
f j − fT,j = − v TSV ,j a j + v Tu a j − ct u
fT,j
δρj = ax,j δx u + ay,j δyu + az,j δzu − cδt u + ηρ,j
16 13
16 18
Examining Eq. (16.12), all the terms on the right-hand
side of the equation can be calculated from the broadcast where
ephemeris and the state vector of the EKF. The predicted
c
frequencies of the VDFLL are ηρ,j = η f ,j
f T,j
f T,j f T,j f T,j
f j = f T,j − v TSV ,j a j + v Tu a j − ct u Using the results of Eqs. (16.6) and (16.18), the pseudor-
c c c
ange/pseudorange-rate residuals produced for the j-th sat-
16 14 ellite in Figure 16.2 are related to errors in the basic filter
The carrier frequency residuals from each channel are states in (16.1) via
equal to the difference between the received (fj) and predicted δρ j ax,j 0 ay,j 0 az,j 0 1 0
(f j) values. The satellite velocities and transmit frequencies =
δρ j 0 ax,j 0 ay,j 0 az,j 0 1
can be calculated very accurately from the broadcast
ephemeris (see [5] for details on these calculations). There- δx u
fore, the differences between the true and predicted values δx u
for the satellite velocities and transmit frequencies are
δyu
assumed to be negligible. The errors in the LOS vectors
are also assumed to be negligible. Therefore, the difference δyu ηρ,j
+
between the true and predicted carrier frequencies is δzu ηρ,j
c T δzu
f j−f j = vu − vu a j − c tu − tu
f T,j − cδt u
16 15 − cδt u
Expanding the dot product operation yields 16 19
Equation (16.19) expresses the relationship between the
c
f j − f j = ax,j δx u + ay,j δyu + az,j δzu − cδt u observables (i.e. pseudorange/pseudorange-rate residuals)
fT,j
and the states of the EKF. The pseudorange residual in each
16 16 channel is a function of the position estimate errors, LOS
vector, and clock bias error. Similarly, the pseudorange-rate
where
residuals are determined by the velocity errors, LOS vector,
δx u = x u − x u and clock drift.
δyu = yu − yu
δzu = zu − zu 16.1.2 Generating Measurements from Signal
δt u = t u − t u Correlation

The measured carrier frequency contains errors caused
by receiver noise (ηf, j); therefore‚ the carrier frequency resi-
duals are equal to
c c
f j − f j = ax,j δx u + ay,j δyu + az,j δzu − cδtu + η
fT,j
The difference shown in Eq. (16.17) is referred to as the
pseudorange-rate residual (δρ j ) due to its similarity to
Figure 16.2 depicts a signal correlation block for each chan-
nel of the receiver. The inputs to each signal correlation
block are the received signal and the predictions of the nav-
igation processor. The outputs of each block are pseudor-
ange and carrier frequency residuals. The signal
f ,j
fT,j correlation blocks represent the signal processing that takes
16 17 place using the received signal, and the locally generated
signals that are controlled by the navigation processor.
Numerically controlled oscillators (NCOs) synthesize local
replicas of the satellite ranging codes and carrier signals
382 16 Vector Processing

based on the predictions of the navigation processor. The (ΔρN × 1 ) plus white noise (ηN × 1 ), and E{ } is the expected
received and locally generated signals are multiplied and value operator.
then summed over an integration interval. The results of Now, in a manner analogous to using scalar DLLs, the
the multiplication and summation operations at the end pseudorange errors are estimated using the equations in
of the integration interval are referred to as correlator Eq. (16.20) with the best linear unbiased estimator
outputs. (BLUE), also referred to as weighted least squares (WLS)
The correlator outputs are nonlinear functions of the [6, 7]. The BLUE estimate of the pseudorange errors and
difference in the phase and frequency of the received its associated mean and covariance are
and locally generated signals. Discriminator functions −1
operate on the correlator outputs to produce direct mea- Δρ = IT Rη− 1 I IT Rη− 1 Δρ
surements of pseudorange and carrier frequency errors. E Δρ = Δρ
Carrier-phase discriminators can also be used to produce −1
E Δρ − Δρ Δρ − Δρ T
= IT Rη− 1 I
measurements of the phase offset between the received
and locally generated signals. Discriminator functions = Rη
increase the effects of noise, but produce direct measure- 16 21
ments of the desired quantities for the Kalman filter.
Examining Eq. (16.21) reveals an important drawback of
Alternatively, the correlator outputs can be used directly
scalar tracking loops. As the number of available pseudor-
by the filter. Direct processing of the correlator outputs is
anges increases, the variance of the estimated pseudoranges
typically used in a VPLL, and discriminators are generally
remains constant. This is a direct result of the pseudoranges
used in the VDFLL. Discriminator functions and correla-
in Eq. (16.20) being modeled as completely uncoupled.
tor processing are discussed in the following sections on
Now, consider using the N pseudorange residual measure-
the VDFLL and VPLL.
ments to first estimate three positions and one clock bias
error. This is analogous to the VDLL approach where the
pseudorange residuals are used to update the filter’s estimates
16.1.3 A Simple Illustrative Example of the
of the receiver’s position and clock bias. Equation (16.22)
Advantages of Vector Tracking
relates the position and clock errors to the residuals:
Part of the advantage of vector tracking over scalar track- δx u
ing loops stems from the number of unknowns the two δρ1 ax,1 ay,1 az,1 −1 η1
δyu
algorithms are attempting to estimate, and how the = +
unknowns are related to the available measurements. δzu
A traditional receiver uses N scalar DLLs to estimate N δρN ax,N ay,N az,N −1 ηN
δct u
pseudoranges. In contrast, a VDLL uses N pseudorange
ΔρN × 1 = HN × 4 Δx4 × 1 + ηN × 1
residuals to estimate four states (i.e. three positions and
16 22
one clock bias). The following simple example illustrates
how vector tracking leverages this over-determined system The BLUE estimate of the position and clock bias errors,
of equations. and its associated covariance, are shown in Eq. (16.23):
First, assume that a receiver is tracking N satellites and −1
Δx = HT Rη− 1 H HT Rη− 1 Δρ
that a vector of N pseudorange residual measurements is
available with the following statistics: E Δx = Δx
−1
1 0 … 0 E Δx − Δx Δx − Δx T
= HT Rη− 1 H
δρ1 δρ1 η1 −1
0 1 0 = σ 2η HT H
= + 16 23
δρN δρN ηN In order to compare the quality of the estimates in
0 0 … 1 Eq. (16.21) from the scalar DLL approach with those
ΔρN × 1 = IN × N ΔρN × 1 + ηN × 1 produced from the vector approach in Eq. (16.23), the posi-
E ηN × 1 = 0N × 1 tion/clock bias errors must be related back to the predicted
E ηN × 1 ηTN × 1 = σ 2η IN × N = Rη pseudorange errors. Errors in the position/clock bias esti-
16 20 mates Δx − Δx are related to the predicted pseudorange
errors Δρ − Δρ by Eq. (16.24):
In Eq. (16.20), the vector of pseudorange residuals
Δρ − Δρ = H Δx − Δx 16 24
(ΔρN × 1 ) is assumed to consist of the true residuals
 16.1 Introduction and Fundamentals of Scalar and Vector Processing 383

Therefore, the covariance of the pseudorange errors from Equation (16.29) shows that in the case of four satellites
the vector tracking approach is and a full rank matrix H, the scalar and vector tracking
T −1
approaches yield unbiased predicted pseudorange residuals
E Δρ − Δρ Δρ − Δρ = σ 2η H HT H HT = σ 2η W with equal covariances. Now, imagine adding another satel-
16 25 lite’s pseudorange measurement. The covariance matrix of
the predicted pseudorange residuals from the scalar track-
In other words, the variance of the individual ing solution is now simply the noise covariance matrix with
pseudoranges is determined by multiplying the appropriate an additional row/column. The diagonal elements corre-
diagonal element of the matrix W by the noise variance σ 2η. sponding to the original four satellites do not change.
Comparing the pseudorange covariances in Eqs. (16.21) On the other hand, the vector tracking approach uses the
and (16.25), the vector tracking approach will yield smaller BLUE in Eq. (16.23) to estimate the position/clock bias
pseudorange variances when the diagonal elements of W is errors. From linear estimation theory, if H in Eq. (16.23)
less than one. has full rank, then the best linear unbiased estimator of
Let us consider the special case of four satellites to illus- the product FΔx for any matrix F is simply FΔxBLUE, where
trate that the vector tracking approach will yield xBLUE is the BLUE estimate of the parameters x [7]. Ignoring
pseudorange errors with smaller variances. The estimation the additional measurement would result in the same cov-
scheme analogous to scalar tracking yields pseudorange ariances for the predicted pseudoranges for the original
error covariances equal to the measurement noise covari- four satellites. Whatever weight is given to the additional
ance regardless of the number of satellites, as shown in measurement by the BLUE, it cannot increase the covar-
Eq. (16.21). The estimation approach based on the vector iances for the predicted pseudoranges for the original four
tracking paradigm first estimates the position/clock bias satellites. Including additional satellite measurements
errors from the pseudorange residuals (Eq. (16.22)). The using the BLUE will not increase the covariance of the
BLUE estimate of the position/clock bias errors (Δx ) in predicted pseudorange residuals and will generally reduce
Eq. (16.23) is based on solving the following normal the covariance of all the predicted pseudorange residuals.
equations [8]: In the case where N exceeds four and H contains four lin-
early independent rows, the pseudorange variances from
HT Rη− 1 H Δx = HT Rη− 1 Δρ 16 26
the vector tracking method in Eq. (16.25) will almost surely
When four satellites are available and the matrix H has be less than those in Eq. (16.21) and cannot be greater. In
full rank (i.e. the inverse of H exists), the estimate Δx that general, the diagonal elements of the matrix W will also not
satisfies Eq. (16.26) is be equal. Therefore, the decrease in the variance of the indi-
vidual pseudoranges will be different. The improvement in
Δx = H − 1 Δρ 16 27
tracking brought about by the vector-based approach will
To show this, simply insert Eq. (16.27) into Eq. (16.26) depend on which specific diagonal element of the matrix
and simplify: W is examined.
Equation (16.25) shows that the performance of vector
HT Rη− 1 H H − 1 Δρ = HT Rη− 1 Δρ
tracking is a function of how many satellites are available
HT Rη− 1 Δρ = HT Rη− 1 Δρ and their geometry. To determine the relative performance
16 28 advantage of the vector tracking algorithm for a typical GPS
receiver, the visible satellite constellation was recorded
The mean and covariance of the predicted pseudorange
every minute for about 14 h at Auburn University. For each
residuals based upon the solution shown in (16.27) are
satellite geometry, the effective gain in C/N0 was deter-
E Δρ − Δρ = E H Δx − Δx mined by examining the maximum and minimum diagonal
= E H Δx − H − 1 Δρ elements of the matrix W in Eq. (16.25). A nominal C/N0 of
45 dB-Hz was assumed for all the available satellites.
= E HΔx − Δρ
We must have a way of relating C/N0 to the pseudorange
= E HΔx − H Δx + η Eq 22
measurement variance in order to determine the improve-
= E HΔx − HΔx − η ment offered by vector tracking in terms of C/N0. It is first
= E −η assumed that the variance of the measurement noise is
=0 related to C/N0 by the formula shown in Eq. (16.30) [9, 10]:
T
E Δρ − Δρ Δρ − Δρ = Rη β2 β2
σ 2η = C N0 2 + C N0
16 30
16 29 2 T coh 10 10 4 T coh 10 10
384 16 Vector Processing
where
β = 293 3 meters
T coh = 0 02 sec
The formula in Eq. (16.30) corresponds to the thermal
noise error from a pseudorange discriminator. At 45 dB-Hz
and using a 20 ms coherent integration time, the noise
variance is about 34.1 m2. Therefore, the variance of the
estimated pseudoranges in Eq. (16.21) is also 34.1 m2 for
the scalar tracking approach. For the vector tracking
approach, it is assumed that all the satellites signals have
the same C/N0. The variance of the j-th pseudorange is then
equal to 34.1 m2 scaled by the j-th diagonal element of the
matrix W from Eq. (16.25). The pseudorange with the
maximum reduction in variance will have the smallest
corresponding diagonal element. Similarly, the pseudor-
ange with the minimum reduction in variance will have
the largest corresponding diagonal element.
The reduction in C/N0 required to make the pseudorange
residual covariances from the vector tracking approach
equal to the pseudorange residual covariances from the sca-
lar tracking approach is defined as the performance gain
from vector tracking. In other words, the performance gain
is by how much the C/N0 must be lowered for the vector
tracking algorithm to perform identically to the scalar
tracking approach.
The performance gain from vector tracking is determined
using the pseudoranges with the largest and smallest
Position Dilution of Precision
15
10
5
0 0
0 2
Effective Gain in C/NO (dB)
8
0
0 2
Figure 16.3 Top plot: Position dilution of precision and number of satellites during a 14 hour period at Auburn University. Bottom
plot: Maximum and minimum performance gain in C/N0 from vector tracking using the satellite geometry in the top plot. Average
maximum gain is 5.2 dB; average minimum gain is 1.54 dB.
variances. The reduction in C/N0 needed to make the largest
pseudorange variance equal to 34.1 m2 is defined as the
16 31 minimum gain in effective C/N0. Conversely, the reduction
in C/N0 needed to make the smallest pseudorange
variance equal to 34.1 m2 is defined as the maximum gain
in effective C/N0.
The position dilution of precision (PDOP) and the number of
visible satellites over the 14-h period are shown in Figure 16.3,
which also shows the maximum and minimum performance
gains versus time for the recorded data. The average maximum
performance gain is 5.2 dB, and it varies from 3.56 to 6.53 dB.
The average minimum performance gain is 1.54 dB, and it
varies from .26 to 3.23 dB over the data collection period.
This simple example demonstrates the advantages
offered by vector tracking. The improvement offered by vec-
tor tracking is contingent on several different variables.
Specifically, the number of satellite signals available and
the geometry of the visible satellite constellation determine
the relative advantage of the vector tracking approach. In
the case of four satellites, the two approaches yield the same
results. However, it is common for GPS receivers at low
latitudes to have eight to ten visible satellites. In these
situations, a significant advantage is offered by vector
tracking. The live-sky GPS data demonstrates the improve-
ment offered by vector tracking for a typical receiver. Over
an 18-h period, the average maximum and minimum
performance improvements are 5.2 dB and 1.54 dB,
respectively.
PDOP
#SV
10
Number of Satellites
5
4 6 8 10 12 14
Time (Hours)
Maximum Gain
Minimum Gain
4 6 8 10 12 14
Time (Hours)
 16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 385

This analysis reveals several caveats that must be consid- 16.2.1 Signal Processing and Implementation
ered when comparing vector tracking to scalar tracking.
This section discusses the implementation details of vector
For instance, it shows that the improvement from vector
tracking algorithms. Signal processing topics related to
tracking is a function of the number of available satellites
extracting measurements from the correlator outputs are
and their geometry. The weighted least-squares example
covered. Mechanizing the prediction of the satellite signals
also reveals that the performance improvement is different
based on the state vector of the VDFLL Kalman filter is also
for the various satellite signals being tracked. Furthermore,
explained.
in order to compare scalar and vector tracking‚ a common
Pseudorange and pseudorange-rate residuals must be cal-
metric must be selected. In the preceding example, the var-
culated to update the VDFLL navigation solution. The resi-
iance of the pseudorange estimates is used for the compar-
duals are calculated by processing correlator outputs. As
ison. Performing a valid comparison of the two approaches
previously stated, the residuals are not calculated by explic-
requires consideration of these issues.
itly comparing the predicted pseudorange to the measured
pseudorange as in a traditional GPS navigation filter.
Instead the comparison is made in the signal correlation
step. As in a traditional receiver design, six replicas of the
16.2 Vector Delay/FLL
received signals are generated: early, late, and prompt,
in-phase, and quadrature replicas are generated as a func-
A VDLL takes the place of the DLLs that are used in tradi-
tion of the filter state estimates. Block diagrams of the steps
tional receivers. Likewise, a VFLL replaces the carrier
used to generate the six correlator outputs are shown in
tracking loops present in a traditional receiver. The VFLL
Figures 16.4 and 16.5. As shown in Figure 16.4, the code
is a non-coherent carrier tracking algorithm, meaning that
and carrier NCO values are set using the navigation filter
the phase of the carrier signal is not estimated. Instead, the
solution. The code phase is advanced and delayed to gener-
VFLL only attempts to estimate the frequency of the carrier.
ate early and late replicas. The carrier phase is shifted 90 to
The advantages of frequency-only estimation are that (i) it
generate the quadrature carrier signal. Figure 16.5 shows
tends to be more robust at lower C/N0’s and in foliage and
the replica signals being multiplied by the received signal
(ii) predicting the frequency of the GNSS signals is straight-
and accumulated over the integrate-and-dump period to
forward based on satellite ephemeris. The drawbacks of fre-
generate the six outputs.
quency-only carrier tracking are that (i) demodulating the
The errors in the correlator outputs result from the differ-
navigation message is more difficult and (ii) the estimates of
ence between the true pseudorange and pseudorange rate
the carrier frequency produced are significantly more
and the predicted pseudorange and pseudorange rate from
noisy. In light of the trade-offs between coherent/non-
the navigation state vector at the start of the integration
coherent carrier tracking, the VFLL should only be used
period. Mathematical models for the six correlator outputs
in challenging environments where reliable coherent track-
are shown in Eq. (16.32).
ing is impossible.

Code Replica
Early +τ

Prompt NCO

Late –τ

Navigation
Filter
Carrier Replica
In-Phase

NCO

Quadrature 90°

Figure 16.4 Local replica generation block diagram.

386 16 Vector Processing

In-Phase
T = PDI
Early (IE)
Integrate
X
And Dump

Early
T = PDI In-Phase
Integrate Prompt (IP)
X X
And Dump

Prompt In-Phase
In-Phase T = PDI
Carrier Late (IL)
Integrate
X
And Dump

Received Correlator
Signal Late Outputs
T = PDI
Integrate
X
And Dump
Quadrature
Early (QE)
Early
T = PDI
Integrate
X X
And Dump
Quadrature
Prompt (QP)
Prompt
Quadrature T = PDI
Carrier Integrate
X
And Dump
Quadrature
Late (QL)
Late

Figure 16.5 Correlator output generation block diagram.

IE k = AR ρe + τ D k cos π f e T + θe + ηIE k
IP k = AR ρe D k cos π f e T + θe + ηIP k
IL k = AR ρe − τ D k cos π f e T + θe + ηIL k
16 32
of the replica signal. The function R(ρe) is the autocorrela-
tion of the C/A code parameterized by pseudorange error
ρe. The C/A autocorrelation function is given in
Eq. (16.33) as a function of the pseudorange error and
the C/A code chip width β.

QE k = AR ρe + τ D k sin π f e T + θe + ηQE k ρe ρe
1− <1
R ρe = β β 16 33
QP k = AR ρe D k sin π f e T + θe + ηQP k 0 otherwise
QL k = AR ρe − τ D k sin π f e T + θe + ηQL k As seen in Eq. (16.32), the correlator outputs are a func-
where tion of the error values needed to update the VDFLL nav-
igation filter. Discriminator functions are used to transform
C sin π f e T the raw correlator outputs into measurements of pseudor-
A= 2 T ange and pseudorange-rate error for the Kalman filter
N0 π f eT
measurement update. The pseudorange residual is calcu-
η = N 0, 1 lated as a function of the early and late power of the in-
The correlator outputs in Eq. (16.32) are normalized such phase and quadrature correlators as seen in Eq. (16.34) [9].
2
that the additive noise terms have unit variance. The vari- Y R k = IE k + QE k 2 − IL k 2 − QL k 2

ables fe, and θe represent the difference in frequency and 16 34

phase between the received carrier and the local replica.
The amplitude A is given as a function of C/N0, the prede- 2ρe k
Y R k = A2 k + ηR k
tection integration time T, and the carrier frequency error β
 16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 387

The first equation is the equation for the early minus late 16.2.1.1 Amplitude Estimation
power discriminator. The second equation is the mathe- An estimate of the signal amplitude is needed to compute
matical model of the discriminator value as a function of the pseudorange and pseudorange-rate residuals. For a
the received signal amplitude, the pseudorange error, the given integration period, the total received amplitude
chip width, and additive noise. The pseudorange residual including signal and noise is calculated using the discrim-
is calculated by solving the second equation of inator in Eq. (16.37).
Eq. (16.34) for ρe. Details on amplitude estimation are 2 2 2
Ak = IE k + IL k + QE k + QL k
provided later in this chapter.
The pseudorange-rate error is related to the time deriv- 16 37
ative of the phase error of the replica carrier through the Using the definition of the correlator outputs in
transmit frequency of the signal. Correlators from con- 2
Eq. (16.32), the expected value of A k is given by
secutive integration periods are used to calculate the
Eq. (16.38):
time rate of change of the phase error and transform
it into a measurement of pseudorange-rate error. The E Ak = A2 k + 4σ 2η k 16 38
navigation data bit must be constant for the two integra-
tion periods; therefore, the typical 20 ms integration where σ 2n k is the variance of the additive noise seen in
period is interrupted at the 10 ms mark to record the Eq. (16.32). It is clear from Eq. (16.38) that an estimate of
in-phase prompt (IP) and quadrature prompt (QP) the noise power is also needed to complete the calculation
accumulator values. The pseudorange-rate residual is of the residuals. Noise correlators are used to generate sam-
calculated from the cross-product discriminator shown ples of pure additive noise by purposely adding a large offset
in Eq. (16.35) [9]. to the C/A code replica. The large offset virtually nullifies
the contribution of the signal in the correlator output. Mul-
Y RR k = IP2 k QP1 k − IP1 k QP2 k 16 35 tiple noise samples are collected at the end of each integra-
tion period, and the noise variance is calculated using
Y RR k = A2 k R2 ρe k sin θe1 − θe2 + ηRR k
Eq. (16.39).
The correlator outputs from the first half of the 20 ms
1 N 2
integration period are given the subscript 1, and the outputs σ 2n k = η m 16 39
Nm=1 k
from the second half of the integration period are given the
subscript 2. The relationship between the cross-product dis- Typically A k 2 and σ 2n k are estimated using a Kalman
criminator and the change in the carrier-phase error for one or moving average filter, and the squared amplitude A2(k) is
epoch to the next is seen in the second equation of calculated from those estimates.
Eq. (16.35). Note that the carrier-phase error is assumed
C/N0 is also calculated using the estimates of A k 2 and
to be relatively constant over each 10 ms period. For small
σ 2n k . Equation (16.40) is used to calculate C/N0 in units
changes in the carrier-phase error from epoch 1 to 2,
of dB-Hz.
Eq. (16.35) is easily expressed as a linear function of the
change in phase error. The linear approximation of A k 2 − 4σ 2n k
Eq. (16.35) is given in Eq. (16.36) as a function of the pseu- C N 0 = 10 log 10 16 40
2Tσ 2n k
dorange-rate error ρe :
Note that Eq. (16.40) is only valid when the numerator is
c greater than zero.
Y RR k ≈ − A k R ρe k πT
2 2
ρe k + ηRR k
fT
16 36
16.2.1.2 Residual Variance
Note that Eq. (16.36) includes terms for the wavelength of In addition to the residuals, the variances of the residuals
c are needed to complete the measurement update of the
the transmitted signal and the total length of the inte-
fT VDFLL Kalman filter. Following the formulation in [9],
gration period in seconds T. The pseudorange-rate residual the variances of the pseudorange and pseudorange-rate
is calculated by solving Eq. (16.36) for ρe k . Assuming the residuals are defined by Eqs. (16.41) and (16.42),
pseudorange error is small, only the amplitude needs to be respectively.
estimated to calculate the residual for the Kalman filter
E η2R = 8σ 4F + 4A2 σ 2F f ρe 16 41
update.
388 16 Vector Processing

1 easily modified for other GPS signals and GNSS constella-

f ρe = 2ρ2e +
2 tions. The structure of the GPS C/A code is briefly reviewed
16 42
σ 4F A2 2 before explaining the operation of the vector delay/FLL.
E η2RR = + R ρe k σ 2F
2 4 Equation (16.45) shows the components of the L1 C/A
It is often convenient to calculate the measurement var- code signal [11]. The civilian GPS L1 signal consists of a car-
iance as a function of C/N0. Accordingly, the variances of rier at L1, a pseudo-random noise (PRN) sequence, and a
the pseudorange and pseudorange-rate residuals are low rate navigation (Nav) message. In the form shown in
repeated as a function of C/N0 in Eqs. (16.43) and Eq. (16.45), the PRN codes and Nav message are sequences
(16.44), respectively. of +/−1’s. The PRN sequences (i.e. C/A codes) consist of
1023 chips that repeat every millisecond. The Nav message
β2 β2 ρ2e 1 is broadcast at 50 bps and contains satellite ephemeris,
E η2R = + + m2
2 TC N 0 2
TC N 0 β2 4 almanac, and other data.
16 43
SL1i = 2Pc Gi t Di t cos ω1 t + ϕ 16 45

2 2R2 ρe k 1 c 2 where
E η2RR = + m 2 s2
TC N 0 2
TC N 0 πT fT Pc = Broadcast signal power
16 44 Gi t = PRN sequence, distinct to the satellite
Di t = Nav mesage
16.2.1.3 Predicting the Satellite Signals Using ω1 = Transmit frequency, L1 plus Doppler shift
the Vector Delay/FLL
ϕ = Nominal carrier phase
This section explains how the satellite signals are predicted
based on estimates of the receiver’s position and velocity The timing of the C/A code and Nav message is critical to
and current time. It is helpful to assume a specific signal receiver operation. As shown in Figure 16.6, the rising edge
structure to explain this process. The civilian GPS L1 C/A of any navigation bit coincides with the rising edge of the
code signal is used here as an example due to its widespread first chip of the C/A code. Furthermore, embedded in the
use and familiarity within the GNSS community. However, navigation message is the approximate time that the rising
the techniques used to predict the C/A code signals can be edge of the Nav message bit is transmitted. Actually, the

Rising edge of
Di(t)

+1
Di(t)

Time

–1
Rising edge of
first chip of Gi(t)

+1
Gi(t)

Time

–1

Figure 16.6 Relationship between rising edge of Nav message data bit Gi(t) and start of C/A code sequence Di(t).

time of the start of a subframe is provided, but the receiver
can use this to determine the time of any bit within the
subframe.
The actual GPS time when the Nav message is transmit-
ted differs from the (ideal) time contained in the Nav mes-
sage. This difference is caused by errors in the clock of the
broadcasting satellite. However, the Nav message also
contains the coefficients of a satellite clock correction
polynomial that a receiver uses to correct the time offset
of the satellite clock. Corrections are also applied for
relativistic effects and group delay (TGD). It should also
be noted that all the satellites broadcast their signals
synchronously. This means that in the absence of satellite
clock offsets, all the Nav bits would be broadcast at the
same time. The difference in the arrival times of the Nav
bits at the receiver would then be attributable to the
different paths taken by the satellite signals.
GPS receivers track the C/A code and maintain precise
estimates of its phase (i.e. the code phase). The phase of
the C/A code can be directly related to the signal’s time
of transmission because of the known timing relationship
between the C/A code and Nav bits. Consequently, predict-
ing the arrival time of the Nav bits is equivalent to predict-
ing the C/A code phases, assuming the navigation message
can be extracted from the receiver. The case where the
Transmission:
Nav Message: bit k-1 bit k bit k+1
Step One: ttm,A
Step Two: ~.02 sec
Step Three:
Samples
B C
Times
A: Sample that current state vector is referenced to
B: Sample corresponding to when the rising edge of the current Nav bit was transmitted
C: Sample corresponding to when the rising edge of the next Nav bit was transmitted
D: Sample corresponding to when the rising edge of the next Nav bit will arrive
Figure 16.7 Single channel timing diagram for VDFLL mechanization.
16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 389
received signal is too weak to extract the Nav message data
is not considered here.
The VDFLL exploits the structure of the GPS signals to
predict the code phases of the received signals based upon
its state vector. It is assumed that the Nav messages from all
the satellites have been decoded and that at least one set of
pseudoranges have been processed (i.e. the VDFLL has
been initialized, or equivalently, that a position has been
computed). The assumption is also made that the interme-
diate frequency (IF) signal is sampled and then operated on
by the receiver’s tracking loops. The state vector of the
VDFLL is then time referenced to a specific sample of
the IF data.
Figure 16.7 shows a timing diagram of a single channel of
the VDFLL. Point A in Figure 16.7 corresponds to the sam-
ple to which the state vector is referenced and is the current
time. For convenience, we assume that the current time at
point A is at the end/beginning of a Nav bit. From the Nav
message, the receiver can easily determine the satellite time
corresponding to when the rising edge of bit k was
transmitted.
The VDFLL now needs to predict when the rising edge of
Nav bit k + 1 is going to arrive, labeled point D in
Figure 16.7. Because sampled data is being used, this pre-
diction will correspond to a particular sample index. The
Reception at Receiver:
bit k-1 bit k bit k+1
ttm,B
A D
390 16 Vector Processing
locally generated C/A code for the satellite will then start at
this index.
Step one in Figure 16.7 is to determine the sample index
in the past that corresponds to when the rising edge of Nav
bit k was transmitted, that is, point B in Figure 16.7. The
sample index corresponding to point B (SB) is calculated
from the transit time of the signal (ttm, A) and the current
reference reception sample (SA):
fs
SB = SA − t tm,A 16 46
c
The symbols c and fs in the preceding equation are the
speed of light and the sampling frequency of the receiver,
respectively. The values needed in Eq. (16.46) should have
already been calculated, because they are all required to
process pseudorange measurements.
After determining the sample index corresponding to
when the rising edge of Nav bit k was transmitted (point
B), step two is to determine the satellite position, velocity,
and sample index when bit k + 1 would have been transmit-
ted (point C). This is done by adding 20 ms to the satellite
clock time and then calculating the satellite’s position and
velocity at this new time.
The sample index when Nav bit k + 1 was transmitted is
then found by taking the sample index when bit k was
transmitted, and adding to it the elapsed time (in samples)
between the consecutive Nav bits. The true GPS time
when Nav bit k + 1 was transmitted is calculated when
computing the satellite position at the next transmission.
The elapsed time should be very close to 20 ms since the
drift in the satellite clocks is very small over the Nav bit
interval.
Step 3 in the VDFLL mechanization is to add the transit
time of Nav bit k + 1 (ttm, B) to point C. The time of transit is
calculated using the satellite position at transmission (PSV),
the atmospheric delays for the signal (datmos), and the pre-
dicted position of the receiver (PRCVR ) at reception:
t tm,B = PSV − PRCVR + datmos c 16 47
The position and velocity of the receiver at reception is
determined by taking the state vector of the VDFLL at point
A and propagating it forward 20 ms. This also yields the
clock bias and drift of the receiver at reception. Calculation
of ttm, B typically requires iteration because the satellite
position in the ECEF frame is a function of the transit time.
Finally, point D (SD), the sample index when Nav bit k +
1 will arrive is calculated by adding the transit time and
clock bias of the receiver at reception (dclkbias) to point C:
t tm,B + ct u
SD = SC + 16 48
fs
The sample index SD is when the rising edge of the first
chip of the C/A code should occur.
Note that the propagation of the VDLL’s state vector
ahead by 20 ms is an approximation, because it is assumed
that the next Nav bit will arrive 20 ms after the previous one
– which is not exactly correct because of clock errors and
relative motion between the receiver and satellite.
We can evaluate the effects of relative motion on the
accuracy of this assumption by first considering that the
maximum observed Doppler shift by a stationary receiver
on Earth’s surface is about ±5 kilohertz at L1. This
translates to a LOS velocity of about 952 m/s, or 2130
mph. The change in the period of the Nav bits caused by
this magnitude of the LOS velocity is
0 02 s 952 m s
ΔT NAV = ≈ 63 ns 16 49
c
If the receiver is assumed to have the same LOS velocity
toward the satellite, the change in the Nav bit period is then
126 ns. The approximate pseudorange error incurred by
assuming the Nav bit interval to be 20 ms is then
ρerror = 126 10 − 9 s 952 m s ≈ 11 mm 16 50
This error is quite small, even for an extremely high
dynamic platform.
A second method of predicting the satellite signals for the
VDFLL is shown in Figure 16.8. There, the receiver first
processes a full set of pseudoranges at point A. The state
vector of the VDFLL is then referenced to point A, and
the receiver needs to predict the arrival times of the k +
1 Nav bits, shown arriving to the right of point A. The
receiver first calculates the sample (point B) corresponding
to GPS system time when the k Nav bits would ideally have
been transmitted. Point B corresponds to when all the Nav
bits labeled k would be transmitted if all the satellite clock
offsets were zero.
The receiver then adds 20 ms to point B to yield point C,
which corresponds to the sample when all the satellites
would ideally transmit the k + 1 Nav bits. The GPS system
time at point C is then the value of satellite time used to cal-
culate the satellite positions at the transmission of the k + 1
Nav bits.
The sample indexes corresponding to the time of trans-
mission for the satellites will generally not be the same
as point C because of the satellite clock errors. The actual
sample index of transmission for each satellite is deter-
mined by taking the satellite clock correction and subtract-
ing it from point C. This is shown graphically in Figure 16.8
by the skewed transmission times of the signals.
The receiver’s position and clock bias at reception are
again calculated by propagating the VDLL’s state vector for-
ward. However, the propagation times are different for each
channel due to the different signal arrival times. After pro-
pagating the state vector forward to the appropriate time,
Eqs. (16.47) and (16.48) are again used to calculate the
 16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 391

Nav Messages: Transmission: Reception at Receiver:

bit k-1 bit k bit k+1 bit k-1 bit k bit k+1
SV 1:

bit k-1 bit k bit k+1 bit k-1 bit k bit k+1
SV 2:

bit k-1 bit k bit k+1 bit k-1 bit k bit k+1
SV 3:

bit k-1 bit k bit k+1 bit k-1 bit k bit k+1
SV 4:

.02 sec
Samples

B C A

Times

A: Sample when receiver first processes a full set of pseudoranges

B: GPS system time when Nav bits would ideally be transmitted
C: GPS system time when subsequent Nav bits would ideally be transmitted

Figure 16.8 Timing diagram for alternate VDFLL mechanization.

sample index when the next (k+1) Nav bits will arrive. It xu
should be emphasized that the transmission sample xu
indexes have been adjusted for the satellite clock errors. yu
yu
x= 16 51
16.2.2 Kalman Filter Design zu
zu
The VDFLL replaces the scalar delay and FLLs with a single
− ct u
Kalman filter. This section discusses how to design the Kal-
− ct u
man filter for the VDFLL. Two different implementations
of the filter are possible: (i) the position-state filter and The essential elements of the state vector for the
(ii) the pseudorange-state filter. As their names imply, position-state VDFLL are the receiver’s position,
the state vector of the position-state filter is composed of velocity, and clock bias and drift. The position and
the receiver’s position, velocity, and clock states, and the velocity states are usually referenced to a global
state vector of the pseudorange-state filter is composed of coordinate frame, such as ECEF. The clock bias (tu)
the received pseudoranges and pseudorange rates. The and clock drift (t u ) are scaled by the speed of light (c) to
position-state formulation is typically used in actual imple- give them units of meters and meters/second, respectively.
mentation of vector tracking and deep/ultra-tight coupling. Additional states representing time-correlated atmospheric
The pseudorange-state formulation is primarily an artifice errors present in the pseudorange measurements are
used for comparative analysis of scalar and vector tracking. recommended. For the sake of simplicity, however, they
are omitted from the discussion here.
The dynamics of the filter state vector are
16.2.2.1 Position-State Kalman Filter Design
The basic state vector of the position-state VDFLL Kalman x = Ax + Bdyn w dyn + Bclk w clk 16 52
filter is as follows: where
392 16 Vector Processing

κ 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 0
dyn
02 × 2 κ 02 × 2 02 × 2 E w = 0
A=
02 × 2 02 × 2 κ 02 × 2 0
16 53
σ 2x 0 0
02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 κ
E w dyn wdyn,T = 0 σ 2y 0
0 1
κ= 0 0 σ 2z
0 0
0 0 0 The values for σ 2x , σ 2y , and σ 2z are selected based on the
1 0 0 expected level of receiver dynamics.
The statistics for the process noise driving the clock states
0 0 0 clk
w are
0 1 0 0
Bdyn = E wclk =
0 0 0 0
16 54
0 0 1 clk clk,T
σ 2b 0
E w w =
0 0 0 0 σ 2d

0 0 0 The values for σ 2b and σ 2d are based on rule-of-thumb num-

bers for the type of oscillator (compensated crystal, rubid-
wx
ium, etc.) the receiver uses [13].
wdyn = wy The state and covariance estimates of the Kalman filter
are propagated forward in time from one measurement
wz
update to another. The state estimates of the filter at time
0 0 k, having processed all measurements up to time k – 1,
0 0 are represented by x k k − 1 . The states are propagated
from time k – 1 to time k via
0 0
0 0 x k k − 1 = Ad T x k k 16 55
Bclk =
0 0 where
0 0
κd T 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2
−1 0
02 × 2 κd T 02 × 2 02 × 2
0 −1 Ad T =
02 × 2 02 × 2 κd T 02 × 2
wtu
clk
w = 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 κd T
wtu
1 T
The terms wx, wy, and wz are random processes used to κd T =
0 1
model unknown changes in the receiver’s velocity. Here,
these noise processes are assumed to be zero mean, T = Elapsed time between measurement k − 1 and k sec
white, and uncorrelated between axes. A multitude of
The state covariance at time k, having processed all mea-
more sophisticated models exist to model the receiver
surements up to time k – 1, is represented by P(k k − 1).
dynamics; see [12] for a comprehensive treatment of
The state covariance of the filter is propagated from time
motion models. The terms wtu and wtu represent the clock
k – 1 to time k using
phase and frequency error of the receiver’s local oscillator,
expressed in units of meters and meters per second, P k k − 1 = Ad T P k − 1 k − 1 ATd T + Qd T
respectively. 16 56
Under the assumption that the random processes are zero
mean, white, and uncorrelated between axes, the statistics where
for the noise vector wdyn are
 16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 393

Qd,x T 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 Table 16.1 Allan variance coefficients for various timing

standards [13]
02 × 2 Qd,y T 02 × 2 02 × 2
Qd T =
02 × 2 02 × 2 Qd,z T 02 × 2
Timing standard h0 h−1 h−2
02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 Qd,clk T
16 57 TCXO (low quality) 2 × 10−19 7 × 10−21 2 × 10−20
TCXO (high quality) 2 × 10−21 1 × 10−22 3 × 10−24
The first three diagonal terms in Eq. (16.57) are functions of −25 −25
OCXO 2 × 10 7 × 10 6 × 10−25
the process noise that model unknown receiver dynamics. The
Rubidium 2 × 10−22 4.5 × 10−26 1 × 10−30
matrices Qd, x(T), Qd, y(T), and Qd, z(T) are equal to
−22 −27
[12, p. 270]: Cesium 2 × 10 5 × 10 1.5 × 10−33

T3 T2
3 2 Source: Brown, R.G. and Hwang, P.Y.C. (2012), Introduction to
Qd,x T = σ 2x Random Signals and Applied Kalman Filtering, chap. 9, 4th Ed.,
2
T pp. 324–329, John Wiley & Sons.
T
2
T3 T2
The measurement update for a linear Kalman filter is as
3 2
Qd,y T = σ 2y 16 58 follows:
T2
T
2 x k k = x k k−1 + K k H k x k −H k x k k−1 + η k
T3 T2 16 62
3 2
Qd,z T = σ 2z
T2 where
T
2 x k k − 1 = Estimate at time k, given measurements up
The expected change in receiver velocity for the respec- to time k − 1
tive axis over the interval T should be approximately equal
K k = Kalman gain at time k
to [12, p. 270]:
H k = Observation matrix at time k
ΔVelocityx,y,z ≈ σ x,y,z T 16 59
η k = Measurement noise at time k
The values of σ 2x , σ 2y, and σ 2z should be selected in light of
The measurement update of the EKF used in the VDFLL
Eq. (16.59).
is slightly different than that shown in Eq. (16.62) for two
The last diagonal element in Eq. (16.57) corresponds to
reasons. First, the pseudoranges are nonlinear functions
the process noise driving the clock bias and drift states [13]:
of the EKF’s states. The term in brackets in Eq. (16.62)
T3 T2 represents the measurements as a linear function of the
S f T + Sg Sg
Qd,clk T = 3 2 16 60 states and therefore is inappropriate to use with nonlinear
T2 measurements. The nonlinear measurement update for the
Sg Sg T
2 EKF replaces the term in brackets in Eq. (16.62) with
The terms Sf and Sg (in units of meters and meters/
second, respectively) are approximately equal to [13] z x k + η k −z x k k−1
16 63
≈H k x k −x k k−1 + η k
h0
S f = c2 16 61
2 where
Sg = c2 2π 2 h − 2
z = Nonlinear measurement function
The terms h0 and h−2 in Eq. (16.61) are the Allan variance ∂z
Hk =
parameters specific to the oscillator used by the GPS ∂x k x k = x k k − 1
receiver. Table 16.1 provides values for several different
grades of oscillators commonly used in GPS receivers and The observation matrix H(k) in the EKF update is
as time references. Table 16.1 includes the h−1 coefficient re-interpreted as the partial derivative of the measurement
that corresponds to the flicker noise component of the function with respect to the states, evaluated at the esti-
clock process noise. The flicker noise is ignored in the mated state vector x k k − 1 . In the special case when z
approximation in Eq. (16.60) because it cannot be modeled ( ) is truly linear, Eqs. (16.62) and (16.63) are identical.
exactly with a finite-order state model; see [13, 14] for a The second reason the measurement update of the EKF in
discussion of the flicker noise term. the VDFLL is different than that shown in Eq. (16.62) is due
394 16 Vector Processing

to the manner in which the measurement data is generated. The statistics of the measurement noise v(k) are assumed
Figure 16.2 shows the VDFLL predicting the received pseu- to be
doranges and carrier frequencies based on its estimates of the E η k =0
receiver’s state vector. The process of predicting these
T
quantities based upon the filter’s state vector is represented E ηk ηk = Rη k 16 65
mathematically by the function z( ) in Eq. (16.63). However,
unlike what is shown in Eq. ((16.63)), the difference
between z(x(k)) and z x k k − 1 is never explicitly
calculated. Instead, the filter’s predictions are used to 16.2.2.2 Pseudorange-State Kalman Filter Design
generate the local replicas of the satellite signals. The The pseudorange-state formulation of the VDFLL filter is
received signals from the satellites and the locally generated an alternate implementation of the signal tracker/state esti-
replicas are correlated, and discriminator functions are used mator. The position-state filter is a more natural and
to produce pseudorange and carrier frequency residuals. The straightforward means of mechanizing the filter. The pseu-
difference shown in Eq. (16.63) is implicitly carried out via dorange-state filter is more of an analysis tool than an
the signal correlation blocks shown in Figure 16.2. implementation option. The architecture of the filter allows
Equations (16.6) and (16.18) express the relationship the designer to quantify the benefits of inter-channel aiding
between the pseudorange/pseudorange-rate residuals from separately from the benefits conferred simply by replacing
each channel of the receiver and the errors in the states of the fixed gain tracking loops found in many traditional
the VDFLL EKF. The observation matrix H(k) for the j-th receivers with Kalman filters. Due to its limited utility,
channel is equal to the pseudorange-state filter is only briefly covered here.
Equation (16.66) shows the state dynamics for all the
δρ j channels of the pseudorange-state Kalman filter.
zx k + η k −z x k k−1 =
δρ j δρ
x = Aρ xδρ + Bdyn,ρ wdyn + Bclk,ρ w clk
δρ j where
= H k x k −x k k−1 + η k δρ1
δρ j
Δx k k − 1
δρ1
δρ j ax,j 0 ay,j 0 az,j 0 −1 0
= Δx k k − 1 xδρ =
δρ j 0 ax,j 0 ay,j 0 az,j 0 −1
δρ j
+η k
δρ j
where
xu k − xu k k − 1 κ 02 × 2 … 02 × 2

xu k − xu k k − 1 02 × 2 κ
Aρ =
yu k − yu k k − 1 02 × 2
yu k − yu k k − 1 02 × 2 … 02 × 2 κ
Δx k k − 1 =
zu k − zu k k − 1 0 1
κ= 16 66
0 0
zu k − zu k k − 1
0 0 0
− ct u k + ct u k k − 1 ax,1 ay,1 az,1
− ct u k + ct u k k − 1 Bdyn =
δx u k k − 1 0 0 0
δx u k k − 1 ax,j ay,j az,j
wx
δyu k k − 1
wdyn = wy
δyu k k − 1 wz
=
δzu k k − 1 I2 × 2
δzu k k − 1 Bclk = −
− cδt u k k − 1 I2 × 2
wt u
− cδt u k k − 1 w clk =
wt u
16 64
 16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 395

The states of the pseudorange-state filter correspond to κδρ

d 02 × 2 … 02 × 2
the pseudorange and pseudorange-rate for each available
satellite. Equation (16.66) shows the filter being used to 02 × 2 κ δρ
Aδρ
d
estimate the errors in the predicted pseudoranges and pseu- d T =
dorange rates. The terms wdyn and wclk in Eq. (16.66) are 02 × 2
16 68
identical to the same terms in Eq. (16.52).
02 × 2 … 02 × 2 κδρ
d
Figure 16.9 shows a block diagram of a single channel of a
where
vector tracking receiver employing the pseudorange-state
1 T
formulation. At the end of every integrate-and-dump cycle, κδρ
d =
pseudorange and pseudorange-rate residual measurements 0 1
are produced. These are the difference between the true and
The covariance matrix Qδρ
d T is equal to
predicted values, plus noise. The residuals are multiplied by
the Kalman gain of the filter to produce corrections to the Qδρ δρ,clk
d T = Qd T + Qδρ,dyn
d T 16 69
predictions. The corrections are applied to the predictions
The matrix Qdδρ,clk T encapsulates the effects of the clock
to yield the updated, whole-valued state vector. The predic-
tions for the next integrate-and-dump cycle are then pro- process noise:
duced by using the updated state vector. Qd,t T … Qd,t T
The filter shown in Figure 16.9 operates in discrete time.
The covariance matrix of the filter is propagated to time k Qdδρ,clk T =
after a measurement update at k – 1 via Qd,t T … Qd,t T
16 70
P δρ
k k−1 = Aδρ
d T P δρ
k−1 k−1 Adδρ,T T + Qδρ
d T where
3 2
T T
16 67 S f T + Sg Sg
3 2
Qd,t T =
The discrete-time state transition matrix Aδρ
d T is T2
Sg Sg T
equal to 2

Antenna

Residuals Kalman
Channel 1
Gain
RF IF Signal
Signal δρ~ (k)
j
Front-end ~. Kδρ (k)
Correlation δρj (k) j
Processing

Predictions For Updated

Next Cycle Estimates
ρˆj (k + 1|k) . ρˆ j (k|k) +
.̂ x ρ dt .̂
ρj (k + 1|k) ρj (k|k)

ρˆ j (k|k – 1)
.̂
ρj (k|k – 1)
Prior
LOS Vectors, Estimate Estimates
Receiver Velocity Receiver PVT

Satellite
Position, Satellite
Velocity, Ephemeris
Acceleration

Figure 16.9 Single channel of a vector tracking receiver (vector delay/frequency lock loop) mechanized using the
pseudorange-state formulation.
396 16 Vector Processing

The variables Sf and Sg in Eqs. (16.61) and ((16.71)) are The position-state filter is the more practical and numeri-
identical. cally stable option. The pseudorange-state filter is intro-
The effects of unknown receiver dynamics over the duced because it provides a very simple and intuitive way
period T are modeled by the matrix Qδρ,dyn
d T : of designing scalar tracking loops that are equivalent to vec-
tor tracking loops, minus the inter-channel aiding that is
Qdyn
1,1 T Qdyn
1,2 T … Qdyn
1,j T
the hallmark of vector tracking.
Before deriving the equivalent scalar tracking loops from
Qdyn
2,1 T Qdyn
2,2 T … Qdyn
2,j T the pseudorange-state filter, let us first pause to examine
Qδρ,dyn
d T = how the different channels of the pseudorange-state filter
are coupled together. Examining Eqs. (16.72) and (16.74),
Qdyn
j,1 T Qdyn
j,2 T … Qdyn
j,j T
the pseudorange and pseudorange-rate residuals produced
where in each channel are functions of only the errors in the esti-
T3 T2 mates for that channel. In other words, the measurements
βi,j βi,j from the j-th channel are functions of only the errors in the
3 2
Qdyn
i,j T = j-th channel. Furthermore, the measurement noise covari-
T2
βi,j βi,j T ance matrix in Eq. (16.73) is block diagonal; that is, the
2
measurement errors between channels are uncorrelated.
βi,j = σ 2x ax,i ax,j + σ 2y ay,i ay,j + σ 2z az,i az,j Now, examining the discrete-time state transition matrix
16 71 in Eq. (16.68), we see that the errors in the j-th channel
at time k only affect errors in the j-th channel at time k
The variables σ 2x , σ 2y , and σ 2z in Eqs. (16.58) and (16.71) + 1. In light of these observations, how are the channels
are equivalent. of the filter coupled together in the pseudorange-state
The residuals produced by each channel are equal to the filter?
pseudorange/pseudorange-rate errors plus measure- The channels of the pseudorange-state filter are coupled
ment noise: together by the process noise covariance matrices in
Eqs. (16.70) and (16.71). Specifically, the off-block diagonal
δρ j k δρ j k elements of the process noise covariance matrices couple
= +η k 16 72
δρ j k δρ j k the channels together. Intuitively, this is explained by the
fact that the process-noise-related errors in the different
The statistics of the measurement noise η(k) are assumed channels all originate from the same sources, that is,
to be receiver dynamics and the clock noise processes.
E ηk =0 The channels of the pseudorange-state filter are
decoupled by eliminating (i.e. zeroing) the off-block diago-
T
nal elements of the process noise covariance matrices in
E ηk ηk = Rη k 16 73 Eqs. (16.70) and (16.71). The clock process noise covariance
matrix for the decoupled filter, denoted by the δρ∗ symbol,
Assuming all the channels report measurements at the
becomes
same instance, the observation matrix H(k) used in the Kal-
man gain calculation is an identity matrix: Qd,t T … 02 × 2
∗
H k = I2N × 2N 16 74 Qδρ ,clk
T =
d

The Kalman gain at time k is therefore equal to

02 × 2 … Qd,t T
δρ δρ δρ −1 16 76
K k =P k k−1 P + Rη k 16 75 where
T3 T2
S f T + Sg Sg
3 2
Qd,t T =
16.2.2.3 Decoupled Pseudorange-State Kalman Filter T2
and Equivalent Scalar Tracking Loops Sg Sg T
2
Two formulations of the VDFLL Kalman filter are
described in the proceeding sections: (i) the position-state Likewise, the process noise covariance matrix stemming
formulation and (ii) the pseudorange-state formulation. from the effects of unknown receiver dynamics becomes

Qdyn
1,1 T 02 × 2
∗
02 × 2 Qdyn
2,2 T
Qδρ
d
,dyn
T =
02 × 2 02 × 2
where
T3 T2
3 2
Qdyn
j,j T = β j,j
T2
T
2 receiver platform motion)
β = σ 2x a2x,j + σ 2y a2y,j + σ 2z a2z,j
j,j
∗ ∗
Using Qδρ d
,clk
T and Qδρd
,dyn
T in the Kalman filter
recursions results in the channels of the pseudorange-state
filter being decoupled. In other words, no information is
exchanged between the channels of the filter. Since the
channels are decoupled, the state vector can be decom-
posed into a number of two-state pseudorange/pseudor-
ange-rate filters, where each smaller filter only tracks a
given satellite. These smaller two-state filters are designed
with the same expected level of receiver dynamics and clock
process noise as the full VDFLL filter. The only distinction
between the VDFLL and the decoupled filters is the absence
of aiding between channels. Therefore, these smaller two-
state filters are the equivalent scalar tracking loops.
The ability to design equivalent vector and scalar track-
ing loops allows the performance benefits of inter-channel
aiding to be quantified. It also allows a designer to choose
the amount of information sharing between channels and
which channels may share information.
16.2.3 Performance Analysis of VDFLL and
Equivalent Scalar Tracking Loops
This section presents a side-by-side comparison of vector
and scalar tracking loops. The two algorithms are designed
using the same expected levels of receiver dynamics and
identical clock noise parameters. The only distinction
between the two algorithms is the presence of information
sharing between different channels of the receiver. The GPS
L1 C/A code is used as the reference waveform being
tracked.
The comparative analysis focuses largely on the tracking
threshold of the two algorithms. The tracking threshold of a
receiver is the lowest C/N0 at which the receiver can oper-
ate. The ability to maintain lock on the carrier frequencies
of the received signals determines the tracking threshold of
the VDFLL. For the purpose of analysis, a rule-of-thumb
tracking threshold is used to predict the performance of
16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 397
… the scalar and vector tracking loops. The rule-of-thumb
02 × 2
threshold for FLLs is [15, pp. 484–486]
… 02 × 2
3σ η,clk + f dyn ≤
1
16 78
4 T freq disc
… Qdyn
j,j T
where
σ η,clk = Standard deviation of frequency error in
locally generated signals from
measurement noise and clock sources
fdyn. = Frequency error caused by dynamic stress (i.e.
T freq disc = Coherent integration time used to
create the correlator outputs used in the
16 77
frequency discriminator
The right-hand side of the equality in Eq. (16.78) is based
on the unambiguous operating range of the frequency dis-
criminator. The correlator outputs are nonlinear functions
of the frequency mismatch between the received and pre-
dicted signals and other variables. A frequency discrimina-
tor is a mathematical function that transforms the
correlator outputs into a measurement of the frequency
mismatch. The unambiguous, linear operating range of a
frequency discriminator is determined by Tfreq. disc., the
coherent integration time used to create the correlator out-
puts used by the frequency discriminator. Generally, two
coherent integrations are performed back to back and yield
two sets of correlator outputs. The two coherent integra-
tions should take place during the same navigation data
bit interval, assuming data wipe-off is not being used. For
the L1 C/A code signal‚ the largest possible value of Tfreq.
disc. is therefore 10 ms [15, pp. 484–486].
The 1-σ version of the tracking threshold is used for the
analysis in this section:
1 1
σ η,clk + f ≤ 16 79
3 dyn 12 T freq disc
The Kalman filter equations are manipulated for the
scalar and vector tracking loops to provide the frequency
jitter σ η, clk and dynamic stress fdyn.. The following
section explains the information needed to perform the
analysis and how to compute the values of σ η, clk and fdyn..
16.2.3.1 Scenario Definition and Analysis Calculations
A receiver position is required to perform an analysis of the
tracking loops. The receiver position used here is 0 lati-
tude, 0 longitude, and 0 m altitude, all referenced to the
WGS-84 ellipsoid. The ECEF-x, y, z coordinates correspond-
ing to the receiver location are 6,378.137, 0, 0 km,
398 16 Vector Processing

respectively. This location is selected for the analysis Table 16.2 Satellite azimuths and elevations used in analysis
because it makes the conversion from global, ECEF coordi-
nates to local-level coordinates (i.e. East-North-Up (ENU)) SV number Azimuth ( ) Elevation ( )
very easy. The conversion from ECEF to ENU positions is
1 186.2 80.7
East = ECEF − Y 2 340.9 80.8
3 275.6 34.0
North = ECEF − Z 16 80
4 101.7 57.2
5 79.6 88.3
Up = ECEF − X – 6, 378 137 km
6 247.0 77.6
A satellite constellation is also required for the analysis. 7 60.2 15.2
The assumption that the satellite constellation is fixed is
8 141.3 33.6
made throughout this section. Clearly, this is not strictly
9 222.5 33.0
true‚ but the LOS vectors for the satellites change relatively
slowly over time and with respect to the receiver position. 10 148.3 75.8
Table 16.2 shows the azimuth and elevation of the satellites 11 0.9 60.1
used in the analysis. The satellite constellation in Table 16.2
was created using random draws and does not represent the
true constellation a receiver would observe at the equator variance. The relationship between the pseudorange meas-
on the Prime Meridian. Figure 16.10 shows a skyplot of urement variance (σ 2η,ρ ), C/N0, coherent integration time,
the satellite constellation used in the comparative analysis. and PRN chip length is assumed to be given by
The performance of the tracking loops is assessed as a Eq. (16.30), repeated here for convenience:
function of C/N0. Varying the C/N0 will affect the measure-
ment noise covariance matrix Rη. The type of discriminator β2 β2 2
σ 2η,ρ = C N0 2 + C N0
meters
used to transform the raw correlator outputs into measure- 2 T coh 10 10 4 T coh 10 10

ments of pseudorange and pseudorange-rate errors deter-

16 81
mines the function relating C/N0 to the measurement

0° Figure 16.10 Skyplot of satellite constellation used

in analysis; see Table 16.2 for the exact satellite
330° SV 2 30° azimuths and elevations.
80°

SV 11
60°
300° 60°
40°

20° SV 5
SV 3 SV 7
270° 0° 90°
SV 4

SV 9 SV 8
SV 6

240° 120°

SV 10

210° SV 1 150°

180°
 16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 399

where (i.e. 26.82 to 0 m/s) stopping distance of 129 feet (i.e.

39.32 m) corresponds to an average acceleration of about
C N 0 = Carrier to noise power spectral density dB − Hz
9.15 m/s2. A value of 7.5 m/s2 is used for a as a conservative
β = PRN chip length, 293.3(meter) for C/Acode estimate of the vehicle’s dynamics.
Tcoh = Coherent integration time (sec) Once the process and measurement noise statistics are
defined, the steady-state Kalman gains are computed for
The relationship between the pseudorange-rate measure- the position-state (Kss) and the decoupled pseudorange-
ment variance (σ 2η,ρ ), C/N0, coherent integration time, and state (Kδρ
∗
ss ) filters. The steady-state Kalman gains can be
carrier frequency is assumed to be computed by simply iterating the Kalman filter recursive
equations. The effects of measurement (i.e. thermal) and
2
c 2 2 clock process noise are then computed separately from
σ 2η,ρ = +
πT coh f o C N0 2
T coh 10
C N0
receiver dynamics for each filter.
T coh 10 10 10

For the position-state filter, the following equations are

2
meters sec iterated using the steady-state Kalman gain until the matri-
16 82 ces Pclk, η(k k − 1) and Pclk, η(k k) converge:

where Pclk,η k k − 1 = Ad T Pclk,η k − 1 k − 1 ATd T + Qclk T

T
Pclk,η k k = I − Kss H Pclk,η k k − 1 I − Kss H + Kss Rη KTss
c = Speed of light (meters/sec)
16 85
f o = Carrier center frequency, 154 × 10 23 MHz for GPS L1
where
The functions shown in Eqs. (16.81) and (16.82) corre-
02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2
spond to the pseudorange and pseudorange-rate discrimi-
02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2
nators used in [9] and [10]. The assumption is made in Qclk T =
Eq. (16.82) that the coherent integration time of Tcoh is 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2
divided into two equal dwell times for the pseudorange- 02 × 2 02 × 2 02 × 2 Qd,clk T
rate/frequency discriminator; that is, two adjacent coherent 16 86
integration times of Tcoh/2 are used. Using a coherent inte- The rationale for using the alternate covariance update
gration time of 0.02 s at a C/N0 of 45 dB-Hz results in the equation in Eq. (16.85) is that this form of the post-
following measurement noise statistics: measurement covariance update is valid for a general gain,
2
σ 2η,ρ 45 dB − Hz, 02 seconds = 34 1 meters not necessarily the optimal gain. The omission of the terms
related to the receiver dynamics in Eq. (16.86) means that
16 83
the steady-state Kalman gain Kss is not optimal for the aug-
2
σ 2η,ρ 45 dB − Hz, 02seconds = 0 0291 meters sec mented system in Eq. (16.85). The matrices Pclk, η(k k − 1)
The process noise for the receiver dynamics and clock and Pclk, η(k k) express the covariance of the state estima-
errors must be specified when designing the vector and sca- tion errors caused by the clock process and measurement
lar tracking loops. The receiver dynamics are modeled as noise only; the effects of the receiver dynamics are not
continuous white noise processes that act over the coherent included. The receiver dynamics are treated as determinis-
integration interval. The variance of the noise processes tic inputs for the purposes of analysis.
should be related to the change in receiver velocity by The covariance of the frequency errors between the
[12, p. 270]: received and locally generated signals induced by clock
and measurement noise for the position-state filter in
v k − v k − 1 ≈ σ x,y,z T coh steady-state is given by
2
f L1
Pss,freq = Hρ Pclk,η k k − 1 HTρ
aT coh ≈ σ x,y,z T coh c
16 84
a T coh ≈ σ x,y,z where
0 ax,1 0 ay,1 0 az,1 0 −1
In Eq. (16.84), the average acceleration of the receiver
0 ax,2 0 ay,2 0 az,2 0 −1
over the coherent integration time is denoted by a .
Hρ =
The value of a will depend on what type of platform the
receiver is mounted on. The process noise intensities used
here are based on the upper bounds for the straight 0 ax,j 0 ay,j 0 az,j 0 −1
line acceleration of a vehicle. A 60 to 0 miles per hour 16 87
400 16 Vector Processing

For the decoupled pseudorange-state filter, the following The steady-state error caused by an acceleration input is
equations are iterated using the steady-state Kalman computed by iterating Eq. (16.90) until δx(k + 1 k) con-
∗
gain Kδρ
ss :
verges to a constant value.
∗ ∗ ∗ The error state recursions for the decoupled pseudor-
Pδρ δρ δρ δρ,T
clk,η k k − 1 = Ad T Pclk,η k − 1 k − 1 Ad T + Qdδρ ,clk
T
ange-state filter are
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
Pδρ δρ
δρ δρ T
clk,η k k = I − Kss Pclk,η k k − 1 I − Kss + Kδρ δρ
ss R η Kss
,T ux
∗
Aδρ Bρd
∗ ∗
16 88 δxρ k + 1 k = d T I − Kδρ
ss δx
ρ
k k−1 + T uy
∗
Note that the process noise covariance matrix Qδρ
d
,dyn
T ∗
uz
is not included in Eq. (16.88). The covariance of the fre- + Aδρ
d T Kδρ
ss η k−1
quency errors between the received and locally generated 16 91
signals caused by measurement and clock noise in the
where
steady state for the decoupled pseudorange-state filter is
∗
simply the elements of Pδρ
clk,η k k − 1 corresponding to
0 0 0
κ 02 × 2 … 02 × 2
the pseudorange-rate states. ax,1 ay,1 az,1
In addition to the frequency jitter caused by clock and 02 × 2 κ … 02 × 2
measurement noise, the steady-state dynamic stress caused Bρd T =
by platform acceleration is also calculated. Platform acceler- 0 0 0
ation is modeled as a constant acceleration in one of the 02 × 2 02 × 2 κ
ax,j ay,j az,j
ECEF directions. To compute the effects of unknown inputs
into the filter, the error state recursions of the Kalman filter 0 T
are needed. The error in the state vector of the filter at time k κ= T2
0
given measurements up to time k – 1 is defined as 2
δx k k − 1 = x k − x k k − 1 16 89 The steady-state error caused by accelerations in the
decoupled pseudorange-state filter are determined by iter-
For the position-state filter in the steady state, the error ∗

state δx(k + 1 k) is related to the previous error state ating Eq. (16.91) until δxρ k + 1 k converges.
x(k k − 1) by
ux 16.2.3.2 Analysis Results
δx k + 1 k = Ad T I − Kss H δx k k − 1 + Bd T uy The results of the comparative analysis of a VDFLL and
equivalent scalar tracking loops are presented in this sec-
uz
tion. The Allan variance coefficients for a high-quality
+ Ad T Kss η k − 1
TCXO in Table 16.1 are used for the clock noise parameters
16 90 for both algorithms. A baseline process noise standard devi-
where ation of 7.5 T coh m/s2 is used to model the dynamics of a
T vehicle. A coherent integration time of 20 ms (i.e. a full nav-
T2 igation data bit interval) is used throughout the analysis.
2 The correlator outputs used in the frequency discriminator
T are assumed to be formed from the first and second halves
T2 of the 20 ms coherent integration. Hence, each set of corre-
Bd T = 2 lator outputs used in the frequency discriminator has a
T coherent integration time of 10 ms. The 1-σ frequency
T2 tracking threshold for this scenario is therefore 8.33 Hz;
2 see Eq. (16.79).
Figure 16.11 shows the frequency jitter from clock and
0
measurement noise for the vector and equivalent scalar
0 tracking loops. All the channels of the decoupled pseudor-
ux = Acceleration in ECEF − x direction ange-state filter lie on top of each other in the plot. Alter-
uy = Acceleration in ECEF − y direction natively, each channel of the VDFLL has a different level
uz = Acceleration in ECEF − z direction of frequency jitter at a given C/N0. All of the channels of
T = Time between measurement k − 1 and k sec the scalar tracking loops cross the 8.33 Hz 1-σ tracking
 16.2 Vector Delay/FLL 401

6.4141 dB-Hz 8.2879 dB-Hz Vector

Scalar
8.33 Hz Tracking Threshold

10
Frequency Jitter 1-σ (Hz)

3.8283 dB-Hz

1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
C/N0 (dB-Hz)

Figure 16.11 Frequency jitter from clock and measurement noise versus C/N0 with 11 satellites, Tcoh = 0.02 s, TCXO (high quality) clock,
and σ x,y,z = 7 5 T coh .

threshold at about 8.29 dB-Hz. The tracking threshold for Table 16.3 Satellite-by-satellite improvement (dB) in frequency
the different channels of the VDFLL varies from 6.41 to tracking threshold from vector tracking
3.83 dB-Hz. The improvement from vector tracking there-
fore varies from channel to channel. The improvement SV No 7.5 m/s2 7.5 m/s2 7.5 m/s2
number dynamics Accel. Up Accel. east Accel. north
from vector tracking varies from 1.87 to 4.46 dB in this sce-
nario in terms of tracking threshold with only clock and 1 4.46 5.99 4.06 3.37
measurement noise. The gain for each satellite is provided
2 4.18 5.77 2.39 1.19
in the second column of Table 16.3.
3 2.39 4.55 2.57 -.32
Figure 16.12 shows the frequency jitter plus one-third the
4 3.60 5.62 2.83 2.15
dynamic stress steady-state error caused by a 7.5 m/s2 accel-
eration in the Up direction (i.e. an acceleration in the pos- 5 4.46 5.93 4.53 0.93
itive ECEF-x direction) for the vector and scalar tracking 6 4.35 5.90 2.93 5.26
algorithms. The dynamic stress is divided by three in order 7 1.98 3.58 2.83 1.67
to use the 1-σ tracking threshold; see Eq. (16.79). The differ- 8 1.87 5.08 1.94 1.15
ent channels for both algorithms now all have different 9 2.42 5.08 2.89 1.88
responses versus C/N0. The improvement from vector 10 4.34 5.98 2.95 2.73
tracking is computed by examining the tracking threshold
11 2.92 5.14 .85 1.16
of each channel in vector and scalar tracking mode. The
maximum gain in tracking threshold for this scenario is
5.99 dB‚ and the minimum gain is 3.58 dB. Table 16.3 pro-
vides the improvement in tracking threshold for each chan- result is easy to understand in light of the skyplot of the sat-
nel in its third column. ellite constellation in Figure 16.10. The LOS to satellite 3 is
The improvement in tracking threshold for accelerations almost orthogonal to the north direction. Therefore, the
in the east and north directions are provided in the fourth scalar tracking loop for satellite 3 sees almost no dynamics
and fifth columns of Table 16.3, respectively. As shown in when the platform accelerates in the north direction. How-
the table, the improvement in tracking threshold for vector ever, it should be noted that even when the acceleration
tracking varies from situation to situation, and scenario to profile of the platform inherently favors a specific channel,
scenario. In fact, for an acceleration in the north direction, the scalar tracking loop for that channel still only manages
the scalar tracking loop for satellite 3 actually performs bet- to outperform the same channel in vector tracking mode by
ter than when satellite 3 is tracked by the VDFLL. This 0.32 dB.
402 16 Vector Processing

Vector
Frequency Jitter 1-σ + ( 13 ) Dynamic Stress (Hz)

Scalar
8.33 Hz Tracking Threshold
10

1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
C/N0 (dB-Hz)

Figure 16.12 Frequency jitter from clock and measurement noise and dynamic stress induced by an acceleration of 7.5 m/s2 in the
ECEF-X (i.e. Up) direction versus C/N0 with 11 satellites, Tcoh = 0.02 s, TCXO (high quality) clock, and σ x,y,z = 7 5 T coh .

16.3 Hybrid Vector-Scalar Processing loop. Three hybrid vector-scalar architectures are described
Architectures in the following sections.

In a pure vector receiver architecture, the code and carrier

16.3.1 VFLL-Assisted PLL Architecture
NCOs in each channel are driven directly by a central nav-
igation filter. The structure of the navigation filter may vary The first hybrid approach considered combines filtered car-
as previously described, but the individual channels do not rier frequency error estimates from the navigation proces-
rely on local loop filters to process the discriminator out- sor with the phase discriminator in a VFLL-assisted phase-
puts. The non-coherent VDFLL does not provide accurate lock loop (VFLL-assisted PLL) [16]. A block diagram out-
carrier phase for high-precision differential GPS solutions. lining the carrier tracking portion of the architecture is
Also, the single point position solution does not provide the show in Figure 16.13. The code discriminator is used to
accuracy (e.g. within centimeters) needed to directly pre- update the position and clock bias estimates of the naviga-
dict the phase of the received signal. Therefore, it is conven- tion processor following the typical VDLL implementation.
ient to form a hybrid vector-scalar architecture to combine Range rate measurements are calculated by combining the
the robustness of the VDFLL code phase and carrier fre- carrier frequency and frequency discriminator for each
quency tracking with the accuracy of the scalar phase-lock channel. The rate residuals are calculated compared to

IF Signal
Signal Δf
Discriminators
Correlation

Δϕ
Navigation
Loop Δfˆ Processor
NCO
Filter
Channel 1
Channel 2
Channel 3
Channel 4

Figure 16.13 Block diagram of VFLL-assisted PLL carrier-phase tracking architecture.

 16.3 Hybrid Vector-Scalar Processing Architectures 403

the range rate predicted by the filter states. After the
Kalman update, the filtered carrier frequency discriminator
is calculated as the difference between the carrier NCO
frequency and the a posteriori predicted carrier frequency.
The filtered carrier frequency discriminator and the raw
carrier-phase discriminator are then combined in the
VFLL-assisted PLL to update the carrier NCO. The loop fil-
ter can be implemented as a second-order FLL-assisted
third-order PLL as described in [15, pp. 463–464].
16.3.2 Local Carrier-Phase Kalman Filter
Cascaded VDFLL Architecture
In [17], a cascaded tracking approach is described wherein
the phase and frequency errors are estimated in local filters
for each channel. A master navigation processor is respon-
sible for estimating position, velocity, and time, and driving
the replica NCOs. The architecture is outlined in block dia-
gram form in Figure 16.14.
A local Kalman filter as described in [18] is used to esti-
mate phase, frequency, and frequency rate with updates
from either the correlator outputs or the discriminator out-
puts. Each channel provides pseudorange and pseudor-
ange-rate measurements to the master navigation filter‚
which returns the estimated code phase and carrier
frequency. The carrier frequency predicted by the naviga-
tion processor is combined with the carrier-phase error esti-
mate for the local Kalman filter to update the carrier NCO.
16.3.3 Co-Op Carrier-Phase Tracking
Architecture
The final hybrid tracking architecture was coined Co-Op
tracking in [19]. In the Co-Op architecture‚ two PLLs oper-
ate simultaneously; one tracks the local dynamics (i.e.
receiver motion and oscillator errors), and the other tracks
the non-local dynamics (i.e. satellite and atmospheric). The
PLL tasked with tracking the local dynamics processes dis-
criminator measurements from all channels in a set of com-
mon loops because the receiver and oscillator dynamics are
common to all channels. Individual PLLs are implemented
in each channel to track the non-local effects. Figure 16.15
shows the block diagram for the Co-Op carrier tracking
architecture. Code tracking may be performed with tradi-
tional carrier-aided scalar loops or a VDLL.
As seen in Figure 16.15, the inverted LOS unit vectors
G−1 are used to transform the phase errors into the position
and clock domain. The position and clock error observa-
tions are then processed by the common loop filters
FPVT(S). FPVT(S) can be designed with higher bandwidth

IF Signal .
Signal Kalman ρ
Correlation Disc. Filter

Δϕˆ
ˆf Navigation
Processor
NCO

Channel 1
Channel 2
Channel 3
Channel 4

Figure 16.14 Block diagram of cascaded vector tracking receiver architecture with local phase estimation.

IF Signal Δϕ
Signal
Discriminators ∊x
Correlation
∊y FPVT(s)
G–1 ∊z
F1(s) ∊t
Δϕ

NCO f1
f2
Channel 1 f3 H

Channel 2 f4

Channel 3
Channel 4

Figure 16.15 Block diagram of Co-Op carrier phase tracking architecture.

404 16 Vector Processing
(on the order of 20 Hz) to track LOS dynamics. In each
channel, Fn(S) tracks slow-changing effects like atmos-
pheric delays. As a result, Fn(S) can be implemented with
a significantly lower bandwidths (2 Hz) to reduce the meas-
urement noise. The outputs of the common loop filter
FPVT(S) and the individual filters Fn(S) are combined to
drive the carrier NCO. The combination of the two tracking
loops provides improved performance due to sharing of sig-
nal power in the common loop filter and the narrow band-
width local loop filters. In [19], a tracking sensitivity
improvement of approximately 10 dB-Hz was reported with
variations depending on the satellite geometry and total sig-
nal power.
The three hybrid vector-scalar receiver architectures
described here are designed to provide coherent carrier-
phase measurements while exploiting the robustness of
the VDFLL. Each design relies on accurate position, veloc-
ity, and time estimation to reduce the impact of large carrier
fluctuations caused by receiver and satellite dynamics. The
primary differences between the three implementations are
related to the filter design (i.e. Kalman or fixed gain) and
the combination of navigation filter feedback with local
phase error estimation for driving the NCO.
16.4 Coherent Vector Processing of
Satellite Navigation Signals: VPLL
In the previous sections of this chapter‚ the VDLL and VFLL
have been developed exploiting (i) the correlations between
LOS dynamical processes resulting from the over-determined
satellite constellation and (ii) the statistical independence of
post-correlator noise processes between satellites, owing to
orthogonal signals. These same statistical properties are
now exploited in the development of the VPLL.
Carrier-phase tracking supports centimeter or better
position fixing, in differential mode, some two orders of
magnitude more precise than with non-coherent tracking
of the navigation signal. However, carrier-phase tracking
is understood to be far more fragile than code and fre-
quency tracking, particularly in rapid and deep signal
attenuations and blockages, and in multipath environ-
ments. Therefore, extending the non-coherent vector track-
ing concepts previously discussed for mitigation of these
problems is of particular interest.
16.4.1 Waveform Estimation-Theoretic
Approach
The state dynamics underlying the estimation problem are
expressed as follows:
xp = Axp + Bdyn w dyn + Bclk wclk 16 92
The definition of xp is provided in Eq. (16.1) and the other
variables in Eq. (16.92) are defined in Eq. (16.52). This state
dynamics model is identical with that employed in many
conventional GNSS navigation processors, and in the
VDFLL development as well.
Critical in development of the VPLL structure is treat-
ment of uncorrelated drifts between satellites which could
be ignored in the previous VDFLL development: satellite
ephemeris and satellite clock errors, as well as tropospheric
and ionospheric propagation errors. These drifts are
lumped together for each satellite LOS, and are modeled
as second-order Gauss–Markov processes independent
between satellites, with correlation times on the order of
hundreds of seconds:
xSV = ASV xSV + Bsv w sv 16 93
In Eq. (16.93), xSV is a 2 NSV element column vector of
LOS delay and delay rate biases, NSV the number of satel-
lites, and ASV a block diagonal matrix with nonzero 2-by-
2 partitions.
In practice, the slowly varying error dynamics in
Eq. (16.93) are ignored in the design of the VDFLL because
drift variances are typically small as compared with the
VDFLL’s code error discriminator width of tens of meters,
and its frequency error discriminator width of tens of hertz.
For the VPLL, which operates at a resolution of millimeters,
augmentation with these drift states is critical.
In the limit, as lumped satellite drift errors (Eq. (16.93))
dominate the LOS dynamics induced by Eq. (16.92), the
inter-satellite correlations exploited by vector signal track-
ing are no longer available, and a decoupled signal tracking
design is optimal.
Having established a linear state model for dynamics rel-
ative to a nominal reference state, we now turn to the fun-
damental waveform observation model. For a single-
antenna receiver system, the scalar waveform at the recei-
ver’s RF stage output consists of NSV individual signal
components:
N SV
z t = ai di si t; xp , xsv,i + n t 16 94
i=1
where the underlying carrier for the i-th emitter is si(t)
scaled by signal amplitude ai, and keyed by phase shift
key data bits di. Importantly, all signal components are
driven, in common, by the user state dynamics including
user clock, as combined here in xp. From the carrier-phase
perspective, the state vector xp phase modulates each of the
NSV carrier components. Additionally, each of the signal
components is independently driven by bias terms contrib-
uted by satellite clock, ephemeris errors, and propagation
errors as lumped into the i-th partition of xSV, xSV, i.

In the preceding VDFLL development‚ an alternate LOS
dynamical model was developed‚ lending insights into why
the VDFLL channels are coupled. It was shown that off-
diagonal process noise blocks were the underlying feature
of the vector tracking approach. This realization was first
developed in [20, 21] and is further explored in [22].
We now extend the LOS dynamics model by incorporat-
ing the drift terms of Eq. (16.93). Casting the problem in this
frame somewhat reduces problem dimensionality, while
offering additional insight into channel coupling. The state
model follows as a linear transformation of the navigation
process (Eq. (16.92)) through satellite geometry, and with
Eq. (16.93) adding directly to the LOS dynamics:
Δ
tlos = Hxp + xSV 16 95
where H has been defined previously in the VDFLL devel-
opment in Eq. (16.63).
Equivalently, the observed waveform may be expressed
in terms of this LOS state vector:
N SV
z t = ai di si t; tlos t +n t 16 96
i=1
The above state and waveform observation equations are
the starting point for the development of the optimal esti-
mation structure, as well as for the development of
mean-square estimation error lower bounds. While the
state dynamics model itself is linear, the waveform observa-
tions are highly nonlinear in the states, in particular‚ owing
to phase modulations of the satellite carriers by state
dynamics.
It was recognized early in the development of the opera-
tional GPS system that error bounds incorporating details
of the signal structure and state dynamics would prove use-
ful in designing and contrasting alternative satellite naviga-
tion signal structures and constellations, and in comparing
spaced-based navigation configurations with then-
deployed ground-based radio navigation systems such as
LORAN-C.
In particular‚ Cramer–Rao mean-squared-error lower
bounds for the waveform estimation problem were desired.
To this end‚ an error-bound-equivalent linear estimation
problem was derived, one whose error covariance proper-
ties are identical to the mean-square-error lower bounds
in the nonlinear estimation problem [20–24]:
zbound equiv = Csignal tlos + v equiv 16 97
In Eq. (16.97), the matrix C (2 NSV by 2 NSV) incorpo-
rates details of the radio navigation signal structure as a gra-
dient of the signal structure components with respect to the
LOS state vector (Eq. (16.95)),
16.4 Coherent Vector Processing of Satellite Navigation Signals: VPLL 405
Δ
Csignal, i = ai ∇tlos si t;tlos 16 98
with vequiv a Gaussian noise vector of 2 NSV independent
elements, each having unit power spectral density.
Given the linear observation model Eq. (16.97) in the
error-bound-equivalent problem, performance bounds
were compared for civilian and military GPS signal struc-
tures, as well as for LORAN-C, under identical platform
dynamics. Insights were also gleaned as to the structure
of the maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) estimator
which could approach these error bounds [25]. It was deter-
mined that the optimal structure had coupled signal track-
ing channels, and that user motion and clock dynamics
were embedded in the coupled tracking channel structure.
Due to computational burdens and other real-time imple-
mentation complexities‚ it would be some years before a
real-time implementation was fully implemented and
tested.
16.4.2 Estimator Implementation
Returning to the waveform observation equation
(Eq. (16.96)), a realizable estimator is desired for extracting
the vector tlos. Given the Gaussian channel, without loss of
information the first step is projecting the underlying signal
components {si(t; tlos)} onto a set of orthonormal basis func-
tions spanning the signal space of interest.
Since satellite navigation systems are designed such that
their signals form mutually orthogonal sets over the satel-
lite constellation, the emitter signal set members them-
selves, shifted in time and frequency, form a complete
basis set for detection and estimation in the additive white
Gaussian channel (AWGN). This function is performed in
contemporary receivers in digital correlation hardware, as
shown in Figure 16.16. The resulting correlator outputs are
typically updated at rates below 1 kHz. The correlator front-
end is typically structured as a parallel set of correlators
each dedicated to a particular satellite, the reference gen-
erators of which consist of code and carrier waveform gen-
erators driven by digitally controlled oscillators (DCOs).
Following initial signal acquisition of a given satellite,
accomplished external to the vector tracker, the code and
carrier DCOs are adjusted such that the reference wave-
forms span the delay, frequency, and phase uncertainties
of that satellite.
Following this transformation, the correlator outputs
may be expressed as a function of the state vector compo-
nents of tlos, interpreted as correlator command errors after
compensation for frequency LOS values induced by nomi-
nal user and satellite velocity components, and adjusted for
known hardware command quantization errors in the
applied correlator command inputs:
406 16 Vector Processing

Figure 16.16 Downconversion, sampling‚ and

GPS correlation.
digital correlator bank
Antenna

RF/IF A/D mult-accum

code gen phase acc

4-40 MHz
code DCO carr DCO

100 Hz
commands

Δϕ1 VPLL, the on-time correlator outputs are utilized for phase
Δω1 and frequency tracking, with delayed and advanced corre-
lator outputs utilized for code tracking, either by means of a
set of delay-lock loops, or by the previously dis-
cussed VDLL.
Δϕi
Expressing the VPLL filter observables in vector form:
tLOS = Δωi 16 99
zcor,1 a1 d1 hcor,1 + Vcor,1

=
ΔϕNSV
ΔωNSV zcor,NSV an dn hcor,n + Vcor,NSV
As previously discussed, the above state partitions are 16 100
correlated due to the structure of the process noise covari-
ance matrices. where, for the i-th satellite:
In moving forward from here, the estimator development sin Δωi T c 2
takes a significantly different path as compared with the R Δτi cos Δωi T c + Δϕi
Δωi T c 2
developed VDFLL. Unlike the VDFLL development, where hcor,i =
sin Δωi T c 2
local parameter estimators (error discriminators) are used R Δτi sin Δωi T c + Δϕi
Δωi T c 2
to estimate correlator error states at each correlator epoch,
16 101
and with central estimator observables considered as linear
in the error states, in the VPLL the raw correlator outputs with the in-phase and quadrature Gaussian noise compo-
themselves are treated as the observables in the central fil- nents of vcor, i for the i-th satellite statistically independent
ter. With this approach, the central covariance model and of each other, and independent between satellites. Impor-
correlator outputs on all satellites are used to extract the tantly, the variances of these Gaussian components are
phase error states of each satellite. Correlator residual test- directly expressible in terms of the channel noise power
ing in the update process plays an important role in VPLL spectral density, without approximation, unlike the VDFLL
operation in reception environments with blockages and development‚ in which the post-discriminator noise statis-
multipath, as will be shown in subsequent field and labora- tics were approximated as Gaussian, and expressed in terms
tory tests. of both the channel power spectral density and signal
Expressing the correlator outputs in terms of error states, amplitude.
for the i-th satellite there are typically six sub-components Given the above nonlinear observation model
corresponding to in-phase and quadrature phase refer- (Eqs. (16.100) and (16.101)) and linear dynamics
ences, and late, early, and prompt code references. In the (Eq. (16.95)), ideally one would apply a MAP approach
 16.4 Coherent Vector Processing of Satellite Navigation Signals: VPLL 407

involving maximization of a multivariate a posteriori prob-
ability function over the vector parameter space [23]. Com-
putationally, such a maximization in real time appeared
prohibitive. A more practical line of attack was therefore
chosen: an EKF [22, 26–29]. This approach leverages the
LOS correlations in states between satellites, while at the
same time generating an error covariance model accurately
reflecting the signal fluctuations and residual testing func-
tions encountered in vehicular navigation applications. We
leave for future research a comparison between the EKF
and MAP estimators in this application.
Figure 16.17 illustrates the processing steps performed by
the vector processor in generating estimates of LOS phase
and frequency. In the implementation discussed here,
EKF vector processing resides in a dedicated floating-point
DSP processor. The outer loop of the EKF is the overall
phase and frequency update cycle, computed at a 100 Hz
rate, with the inner loop over individual sequential satellite

(a)

DCO command vector ephemeris aiding

update
phase observables,
DCO commands
(b)

extrapolate correlator
error states and main
covariance from k-1 processor
satellite correlation time Interface
(c)

read IQ data since last

100 Hz update, kth
vector filter satellite correlator data
100 Hz
update (d)

update amplitude
estimate, kth statellite
process
next
satellite’s (e)
correlator
data predict I,Q correlator
data, kth satellite

(f)
estimate data bit(s),
minimize residuals, kth
satellite

(g)

perform residual test

fail

(h) pass

observation matrix and

Kalman gain update,
correlator state update

all correlator data processed

Figure 16.17 100 Hz Vector processor filter cycle.

408 16 Vector Processing
measurement incorporations utilizing correlator data
received since the previous overall filter cycle. Also shown
are the interfaces between the DSP processor and a support-
ing main processor responsible for correlator hardware
input data collection, correlator command application,
vehicle position and velocity updates, and computation of
aiding values derived from nominal satellite velocity and
nominal user velocity data.
At the top of the 100 Hz (10 ms) loop, phase and fre-
quency command vectors for the next scheduled correlator
hardware application time are generated (see block (a)).
This DCO command vector, applied simultaneously across
all vector-tracked channels at the next scheduled applica-
tion time, is derived from correlator phase and frequency
error estimates extrapolated to the application time, aided
by satellite-user LOS accelerations induced by the nominal
satellite orbital velocity and nominal user position/velocity.
Finally, LOS phase values for each satellite are updated uti-
lizing the correlator hardware phase register values cor-
rected by the vector error state elements.
The inner processing loop is structured as a sequential
measurement incorporation of raw correlator data. In gen-
eral, correlation hardware dumps are asynchronous
between satellites. In the correlator model of interest
here‚ these hardware dumps occur in synchronization with
C/A code period roll-over, at a nominal rate of 1 kHz [30,
pp. 167–189]. On average ten correlator dumps occur on
each satellite over the 10 ms cycle. Prior to their sequential
processing, the I/Q correlator dumps are ordered from ear-
liest to latest dump time, by satellite.
At the top of the inner processing loop, the current cor-
relator error state and covariance is extrapolated from a
just-updated satellite to the next to be updated, with obser-
vation time tags referenced to the start of the earliest code
epoch available on that next satellite (block (b)). Because of
the structure of the process noise Q matrix, as discussed
previously in both VDFLL and VPLL developments, the
correlator error states and covariance for all tracked satel-
lites change with the measurement incorporations of each
satellite, in contrast with conventional tracking, wherein
the states are decoupled. Following state and covariance
extrapolation, the next available I/Q correlator data is read
for processing (block (c)). By contrast with the previously
described VDFLL where discriminator outputs (local
parameter estimators) are predicted to form a filter resid-
ual, with the VPLL the correlator data are predicted and
used in forming residuals. This prediction step, shown in
block (e), is completed following amplitude estimation, in
block (d).
Amplitude estimation utilizes a non-coherent I square
plus Q square statistic and second-order filter smoothing,
as previously described in the VDFLL development. At
nominal receiver noise floor values, this design has proved
successful in tracking amplitude fluctuations on the order
of 100 dB/s, or 1 dB per measurement time step.
Prior to performance of the filter update, data bit(s) are
estimated and residuals are tested for validity, blocks (f )
and (g). The data bit hypothesis test is implemented as a
minimization of residuals formed between the observed
and predicted correlator data for up to four possible data
bit patterns, given the bit rate of 50 Hz and filter cycle rate
of 100 Hz.
A powerful aspect of the VPLL approach is evaluation of
raw correlator measurement quality prior to the error state
update. In vehicular applications, a particularly common
scenario finds the direct path blocked in the presence of
strong multipath. With conventional signal tracking, gross
phase errors and cycle slippages result‚ rendering the phase
data problematic for precise positioning. The usage of local
error discriminators in a vector processor is also problem-
atic, particularly in the case of phase discriminators, whose
outputs experience noise spikes and/or biases, violating the
observation model assumptions of the central processor.
In the residual test, block (g), the minimized I and
Q residuals are compared against a statistical threshold, uti-
lizing the extrapolated system covariance matrix embody-
ing measurement acceptances and rejections in the
sequential estimation history. If a correlator residual test
fails, the processor skips to the next satellite; otherwise
the measurement incorporation step is performed. As will
be seen in the performance comparisons below, in recep-
tion conditions with signal dropouts and multipath, this
vector residual monitoring strategy is quite powerful.
Having passed the residual monitoring test‚ the final step
is I/Q residual measurement incorporation, block (h),
beginning with linearization of the I/Q observable equation
(Eq. (16.101)) with respect to the error states, evaluated at
the current best estimate of those states. In contrast with
the VDFLL, the EKF gains are directly driven by signal
amplitudes, with observation noise statistics directly
expressed in terms of the RF channel noise power spectral
density.
Kalman gains are then updated with the standard EKF
formulation, utilizing the observation model and most
recently extrapolated system covariance matrix. In particu-
lar‚ the (2 by 2 NSV) gain matrix maps the two element I/Q
residual vector over to the correlator phase and frequency
error states of all satellites.
16.4.3 Real-Time Configuration
Figure 16.18 shows a simplified block diagram for the
implemented prototype system, TAGR (TISI Advanced
GPS Receiver) [31]. The RF/IF front-end as well as
 16.4 Coherent Vector Processing of Satellite Navigation Signals: VPLL 409

parameter discriminators local loop filters

GPS digital correlator bank

Antenna
I/Q code loop
code discrim
(6) filter
RF/IF A/D mult-accum

code gen phase acc

4-40 MHz
code DCO carr DCO

GPS obs
50 Hz - PSR
- DR

1-10 Hz 100 Hz 100 Hz

Navigation Filter Vector Phase Estimator
Pos, Vel States: States:
1 Hz - Position re. nom. - phase errors
- Velocity - frequency errors
- Clock, clock drift - signal amplitudes
- float ambiguities
I/Q - data bits
all
ephemeris, chan ephemeris
DGPS

Figure 16.18 Processing block diagram.

correlator bank are specialized chips with the remaining
functions performed in two processors, the main navigation
processor and the vector phase processor blocks. As previ-
ously discussed‚ the main processor provides certain sup-
port functions to the vector processor loop. Additionally‚
emulation tools, as well as diagnostic and bus data capture
tools.
A number of critical implementation issues in the 100 Hz
VPLL loop were successfully addressed, as shown in the
performance evaluations of the next session:

•
in TAGR‚ the main processor is also responsible for signal
Delays in the transfer of observables from correlator
acquisition and code tracking, code tracking being per-
hardware to the EKF

•
formed in the prototype with conventional decoupled code
Computational burden and associated computational
tracking implemented with conventional code error discri-
lags in the EKF

••
minators and loop filters. Depending upon the application‚
it would be desirable to incorporate VDLL code tracking
functions within the main processor.
In TAGR, the correlator outputs are polled every 505 μs,
such that each 1 ms code epoch period is captured with
minimal latency and made available to the signal proces-
sing blocks. Phase error discriminator and phase loop filter
elements are bypassed when in vector tracking mode, with
the VPLL directly processing the I/Q on-time data from all
satellites at a measurement incorporation rate of 100 Hz.
Integration of the dual-processor real-time configuration
proved particularly challenging, requiring the development
of extensive VPLL algorithm simulation and correlator
Queuing delays in the correlator command pipeline
Quantization of correlator DCO phase and frequency
command registers
In the prototype, measurement incorporation and extrap-
olation computations were carefully compensated for com-
putational and queuing delay and quantization effects. The
implemented prototype vector processor utilized an Analog
Devices ADSP-21060 SHARC, capable of 120 Mflops, which
became fully loaded with eight satellites in VPLL tracking
mode. As a benchmark‚ it is instructive to compare the pro-
totype’s computational capacity with that of current proces-
sors, including today’s smartphone devices. Both Android
410 16 Vector Processing
and iPhone processors are structured with four to six pro-
cessing cores, each with a floating-point capability on the
order of 10 Gflops, some two orders of magnitude greater
than the processor used in the original prototype. Pending
detailed timing emulation analyses and porting of the
VPLL processor code to these processors‚ it appears that
all-in-view VPLL capability is feasible using but one
processor core, with a substantial computational reserve.
16.4.4 Performance Evaluations and
Comparisons
Before discussing VPLL performance‚ it is worthwhile to
summarize and contrast the primary approaches available
for performance evaluations:
1) Covariance Evaluation
• Statistical model for correlator channels and error
discriminators
••Steady-state covariance of the central filter
Dynamical errors for deterministic trajectories
derived from steady-state filter gains
2) Software Simulation
• High-fidelity simulation of correlator model outputs
and error discriminators (if utilized)
•• LOS trajectory, clock and satellite motion models
Correlator outputs drive the vector filters, non-
real-time
3) Hardware-in-the Loop Testing
••
Full implementation of real-time system
Correlator implemented in hardware or software,
depending on receiver model
••
(3a) Testing in field, or
(3b) Testing in lab with precision RF satellite constel-
lation generator
Method (1) was extensively employed in the preceding
VDFLL development of this chapter. While appropriate
for the evaluation and comparison of vector and conven-
tional code and frequency tracking, wherein the underlying
linearity assumptions for code and frequency error detec-
tors are justifiable, the nonlinearities of the carrier-phase
tracking process cannot be ignored and must be incorpo-
rated in performance evaluations. Method (2), which accu-
rately reflects the correlator output statistical model as well
as error discriminator output observables (if so utilized as
central filter observables), provides a very efficient and
accurate means for developing and contrasting system per-
formance, given that the filter algorithms are well defined.
A software package, TrackView, was developed and exten-
sively utilized in the development of the VPLL and its var-
ious augmentations [31], but will not be further discussed
here as it does not permit comparisons against commercial
or competitive receivers, the algorithms of which are
hidden.
Method (3) is the most accurate method for comparing
prototype VPLL algorithms against conventional high-
performance receivers, and those receivers purporting to
incorporate some level of vector tracking. The obvious dis-
advantage of Method (3) is the necessity for a fully imple-
mented receiver system and, for Method (3b) the
availability of a precision RF constellation generator. In
the following discussion, Methods (3a) and (3b) are both
utilized. A variety of well-respected conventional receivers
are compared against the real-time VPLL implementation.
Additionally‚ a receiver with Co-Op phase tracking (see
Figure 16.15 of the VDFLL section) is also included in
the testing [19].
Live van tests under typical vehicle blockage and multi-
path conditions are first discussed (Method (3a)), followed
by tests of static thresholds, multiple attenuations in
dynamics, and blockages combined with multipath with
the GPS RF signal generator (Method (3b)).
16.4.4.1 Preliminary Vehicle Tests
During initial algorithm and receiver development, and
prior to the availability of a precision RF constellation sig-
nal generator, live antenna signals were utilized for testing
and comparison purposes, with emphasis upon carrier-
phase tracking performance. Sub-centimeter performance
evaluations of real-time systems, under realistic operational
conditions, that is, with partially or intermittently blocked
signals and multipath, are particularly difficult to carry out.
In such tests‚ the GPS “truth system” is exposed to the same
reception environment as the receivers under test. The
truth system may itself suffer tracking anomalies across
multiple channels. A possible way out of this dilemma is
to detect receiver tracking anomalies by generating zero
baseline phase comparisons between receiver pairs. With
this approach‚ cycle slips and mis-tracking are readily
apparent since a match of output phase errors at the sub-
centimeter level, in both magnitude and timing‚ is
extremely unlikely, even between two receivers operating
with identical firmware.
Three receivers were aboard the test van: TAGR-a and
TAGR-b, both equipped with VPLL firmware, and a sur-
vey-grade conventional receiver, the Ashtech Z-12. All
three were connected to a common van antenna.
In the test scenario of interest, the test van repeatedly
passed beneath an overhead steel structure, a large com-
mercial billboard installation with an overhead catwalk
located within a parking area at a nearby office complex.
The van driver made repeated passes beneath this overhead
 16.4 Coherent Vector Processing of Satellite Navigation Signals: VPLL 411

0.25

6
0.2

0.15
5

0.1
Volts, Normalized

4
0.05

meters
3 0

–0.05
2
–0.1

1 –0.15

–0.2
0 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
GPS Time (offset by 250371.0 seconds)
GPS Time (offset by 250371.0 seconds)
Figure 16.21 Phase double differences (TAGR and Ashtech).
Figure 16.19 Signal blockages, vehicle tests.

of one such event is shown in Figure 16.20. Four of the

available six satellites are significantly attenuated in this
region. Scaling from the normalized voltage scale to deci-
6 bels, the attenuation depth is about 18 dB. Additionally,
because of the steel superstructure, substantial multipath
levels are no doubt present.
5
For plotting and comparison purposes‚ phase double dif-
ferences were formed between receiver pairs: with the high-
est elevation satellite used as reference, single differences
Volts, Normalized

4
for each receiver were formed followed by double differ-
ences between receivers.
3 Figure 16.21, which shows the phase double difference
plots between TAGR-a and Ashtech receivers‚ is very
revealing. During each of the reception anomaly regions,
2
multiple cycle slips and/or discontinuities are seen. The
first, at 83 s, involves two satellites. At 138 s, three or more
1 satellites are damaged. Finally, at 190 s, two satellites are
damaged. A gradual drift in double differences is observed
due to uncorrected time stamps on the TAGR raw phase
0
185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 data, whereas phase data time tags on the Ashtech are
GPS Time (offset by 250371.0 seconds) internally compensated for receiver clock drift.
As can be seen in Figure 16.22, the double differences
Figure 16.20 Signal blockage details.
formed between TAGR-a and TAGR-b exhibit no such
tracking discontinuities, except for a brief .04 m jump on
structure, returning to a clear reception zone after each one double difference. RMS double difference errors are
traverse. below 2 mm, over all three vehicle traverses.
Figure 16.19 displays 100 Hz amplitude estimates This is indicative of the advantages of VPLL’s direct pro-
recorded on TAGR-a during three complete circuits of cessing of raw correlator data and I/Q residual monitoring,
the test area, the repeated multiple attenuations coinciding combined with filter gain adaptations driven by signal
with passage beneath the steel structure. An expanded view amplitude estimates.
412 16 Vector Processing

0.2 tested on the same simulator pass, with amplitude changes

programmed live by the operator from the GUI.
0.15 In evaluating receiver performance with the laboratory-
generated GNSS constellation‚ double difference were
0.1 formed between computed phase truth and receiver out-
puts. Specifically, single differences was formed between
0.05
receiver phase outputs and computed truth, followed by
double differences between satellites.
meters

The JAVAD Position Systems (JPS) unit in these tests uti-

0
lizes a limited form of coupled channel phase tracking
known at Co-Op tracking [19]. In particular‚ this approach
–0.05
employs local tracking loops together with a central filter
sharing the outputs of local phase discriminators. While
–0.1
not based upon a stochastic approach, the local loops are
intended to track the slow inter-satellite drifts while the
–0.15 central filter is tuned to track user motion and clock
dynamics.
–0.2 Figure 16.24 (top plot) depicts the overall double differ-
40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220
GPS Time (offset by 250371.0 seconds) ence plot between the JPS output and simulator truth.
For clarity only one of the five double differences is plotted,
Figure 16.22 Phase double differences (TAGR-a and TAGR-b).
the other channels exhibiting similar behavior. Prior to
tracking damage‚ a gradual drift is observed between the
computed phase truth and receiver outputs, caused by
16.4.4.2 Static Threshold Tests, RF Simulator the offset between the RF simulator clock and the receiver
During its research activities‚ TISI made extensive use of clock. While the receiver may choose to blank observations
GPS RF signal simulators operated by the US Navy and during attenuation intervals, successful phase tracking
Air Force. One such simulator was a 10-channel GSSI through attenuation would manifest as a continuous func-
STR-2760 all-digital GPS signal generator, which was made tion with the same slope, on either side of the attenuation.
available for controlled tests of the VPLL against several Through the first two attenuations, tracking is maintained
high-performance civilian units purported to excel in their on all channels. At the onset of the 15 dB attenuation, at 140
carrier-phase signal tracking capabilities. s, blanking occurs. Upon signal recovery, phase data
Some signal generator operational challenges were expe- returns but with a phase offset of 2 m. Tracking damage
rienced and overcome during the test series. Figure 16.23 was more severe in subsequent attenuation intervals, and
shows signal amplitude estimates during a static threshold observed simultaneously across all channels.
test. Due to variations in signal generator output signal Prior to carrying out these tests‚ it was expected that
levels between runs, all receivers were simultaneously improved low-level signal tracking would be available from

2
Volts, Normalized

1.5

0.5

0
0 50 100 150 200 250
GPS Time (offset by 572640.0 seconds)

Figure 16.23 Signal amplitude estimates and static threshold test.

 16.4 Coherent Vector Processing of Satellite Navigation Signals: VPLL 413

the Co-Op tracking architecture. While a degree of coupling
is evident, in the form of bounded phase jumps following
each attenuation interval, the unit suffered major tracking
damage throughout the attenuation scenario. The full
range of user settings was explored in an attempt to achieve
better performance. Evidently there are some mechaniza-
tion issues.
Moving to the Trimble receiver, to speed its initial satel-
lite acquisition‚ the nominal Trimble receiver input was
started at an indicated C/N0 of 44 dB-Hz. Data from the
receiver was recorded at the maximum available rate of
10 Hz. Blanking, and phase retrace failure, was first
observed at 12 dB attenuation, corresponding to a C/N0
of 32 dB-Hz given the nominal signal amplitude adjust-
ment. The overall behavior is shown in Figure 16.24 (mid-
dle plot). Noting the phase scale factor on the plot, each
retrace failure is associated with large cycle count jumps,
in contrast to the unit with Co-Op tracking, which main-
tained bounded jumps throughout.
On the TAGR unit‚ raw phase data was collected at
TAGR’s native 100 Hz rate, without time tag correction.
Prior to scenario attenuations, the simulator signal ampli-
tude was adjusted for a receiver-indicated carrier-to-noise
ratio of 42 dB-Hz, equal to the other receivers under test,
with the exception of the Trimble unit. Figure 16.24 (bot-
tom plot) demonstrates continuous carrier-phase tracking
through all attenuations up to 25 dB, 17 dB-Hz, at which
point phase drifts occur. The VPLL algorithm remains
stable through and following the 25 dB attenuation
interval. Finer step adjustment in subsequent runs showed
tracking at a C/N0 of 19 dB-Hz. Per the earlier VDFLL
discussion in this chapter, the vector tracking threshold
is influenced both by the number of available satellites,
limited to six in the present test scenario, and the specific
satellite geometry.
In summary, the TAGR demonstrated its superiority over
the other units in this test, offering an improvement of
greater than 5 dB in tracking margin over its closest rival,
with six available satellites. The JPS unit blanked in the
27–30 dB-Hz range, with bounded jumps in the recovery
region. This bounded recovery behavior is indicative of
cross-channel coupling within that architecture. Unfortu-
nately, with all satellites simultaneously attenuated, the
coupled tracking appeared to lose effectiveness. Results
for the Ashtech Z-12 were also collected during this sce-
nario, exhibiting blanking followed by large magnitude
jumps at carrier-to-noise values below 29 dB-Hz.
16.4.4.3 Multiple Transient Blockages in Dynamics RF
Simulator
This scenario was developed to test the response of recei-
vers to combined blockage and dynamics, as might be
encountered during aircraft approach and landing maneu-
vers. Dynamics were limited to 2G acceleration and 2G/sec

4
3
2
1
meters

0
–1
–2
–3
–4
0 50 100 150 200 250

x 105
3
2
1
meters

0
–1
–2
–3
0 50 100 150 200 250

25
20
15
10
meters

5
0
–5
–10
–15
–20
0 50 100 150 200 250

Figure 16.24 Phase tracking dropouts and discontinuities during static test. Top: JPS receiver. Middle: Trimble receiver. Bottom: TAGR.
414 16 Vector Processing
1.5
Volts, Normalized
0.5
0
0 50 100
GPS Time (offset by 572640.0 seconds)
Figure 16.25 Signal amplitude estimates, multiple blockages in dynamics.
jerk, with a maximum velocity of 200 m/s. To meet FAA
(Federal Aviation Administration) system availability con-
straints, tests were performed with just six satellites. Fol-
lowing dynamics onset‚ three attenuation intervals were
defined, each consisting of overlapping 20 dB attenuations
of between 10 and 15 s durations. Attenuation rates were on
the order of 30 dB/second. Before onset of the attenuation
intervals, simulator power levels fed to each receiver were
adjusted to 42 dB-Hz, with the exception of the Trimble
unit, which was adjusted to 44 dB-Hz. Figure 16.25 shows
a plot of TAGR-estimated signal amplitudes for all six satel-
lites, through a complete scenario.
As previously discussed, in non-constant velocity regions,
a mismatch between the simulator’s output navigation tra-
jectory and its output signal carrier phase resulted in a saw-
tooth effect in phase double difference between the com-
puted truth phase and receiver phase. This is seen in the
subsequent figures as a dithering in carrier-phase double
differences during nonzero acceleration intervals.
Shown in Figure 16.26 (top plot) is the Co-Op receiver
double difference response through the three attenuation
intervals. In each of these regions‚ the unit exhibits blank-
ing, followed by recovery after signal amplitude restoration.
Beginning in the vicinity of the first double blockage, near
time 130, the two attenuated satellites go into blanking. Fol-
lowing signal restoration, the ideal response would be con-
tinuation of the double difference drift. Instead, the JPS
unit suffers phase jumps. At the second attenuation‚ the
“green” double difference exhibits still further tracking
damage, with the “blue” double difference appearing to
maintain continuity. Following the third attenuation inter-
val‚ both “green” and “blue” double differences are seen to
be discontinuous. As in the previous all-attenuated
150 200 250
scenario, it appears the channel coupling of this suboptimal
vector scheme is ineffective in preventing cycle slip
damage on satellites that are deeply attenuated for periods
of 10-15 s.
The Trimble receiver’s response to the scenario is shown
in Figure 16.26 (middle plot). Unlike the Co-Op unit‚ the
discontinuities here are very large and off-scale. In the
vicinity of the first double attenuation‚ the “blue” double
difference immediately goes into blanking, whereas the
“green” double difference initially dithers between blanked
and un-blanked states, finally remaining blanked until
5–10 s following signal amplitude recovery. After this
delayed recovery‚ a jump discontinuity is experienced.
By contrast with the above receivers, the TAGR unit’s
VPLL algorithm proves effective during all double 20 dB
attenuations in dynamics. This behavior is shown in
Figure 16.26 (bottom plot). Signal amplitude estimates eas-
ily tracked these attenuations, with filter gains adjusting
accordingly.
In summary‚ the TAGR VPLL prototype demonstrated
the capability of handling overlapping attenuations in
dynamics, in contrast to the Co-Op and Trimble units.
Not shown in the plots are the Ashtech results, which are
very similar to those of the Trimble.
16.4.4.4 Strong Specular Multipath RF Simulator
In live receiver environments, partially or completely
blocked direct signal paths combined with one or more
reflected paths are commonly experienced, the most severe
case being with the dirt path completely blocked, sometime
referred to as non-line-of-sight (NLOS) reception as dis-
cussed subsequently in this book. Conventional tracking
loop are captured by the multipath, resulting in integer,
 16.4 Coherent Vector Processing of Satellite Navigation Signals: VPLL 415

4
3
2
1
meters

0
1
–2
–3
–4
50 100 150 200 250

4
3
2
1
meters

0
1
–2
–3
–4
0 50 100 150 200 250

4
3
2
1
meters

0
1
–2
–3
–4
0 50 100 150 200 250

Figure 16.26 Phase dropouts and discontinuities with attenuation and dynamics. Top: JPS receiver. Middle: Trimble receiver,
Bottom: TAGR.

or non-integer phase measurement biases. As is demon-
strated below, residual monitoring of raw correlator data
in the VPLL is effective in detecting and rejecting the cor-
rupted correlator data.
In developing RF simulation scenarios for the specular
multipath case, limitations in the GSSI control software
prevented generation of multipath stronger than direct
path. In particular, NLOS conditions were not possible.
The maximum available multipath/direct voltage ratio,
0.5, was utilized, corresponding to a multipath power level
of −6 dB relative to the direct path. The multipath group
delay was swept between 0.3 and 0.5 C/A code chips.
Figure 16.27 depicts the multipath amplitude as a function
of time, showing multipath reaching its peak value at 165 s
into the simulation.
Figure 16.28 (top plot) shows the Co-Op response to the
multipath event. Shortly after the event onset‚ the receiver
begins blanking on the corrupted channel. Near the end of
the event‚ the unit once again begins providing phase out-
put. This occurs near the point where the multipath ampli-
tude falls below 10% of the direct path amplitude.
Following this unblanking, a bias of around −1.5 m is seen
in the carrier-phase double difference.
Examining the response of the Trimble unit, magnified in
Figure 16.28 (middle plot), two distinct blanking outages
are observed, the first occurring near the onset of the

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6 relative multipath amplitude
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
150 155 160 165 170 175 180

Figure 16.27 RF simulator multipath relative amplitude.

416 16 Vector Processing

2
1
0
meters

–1
–2
–3
–4
–5
–6
0 50 100 150 200 250

2
1
0
meters

–1
–2
–3
–4
–5
–6
0 50 100 150 200 250

2
1
0
meters

–1
–2
–3
–4
–5
–6
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Figure 16.28 Phase dropouts and discontinuities in multipath. Top: JPS receiver. Middle: Trimble receiver. Bottom: TAGR.

multipath and the second following a brief data enablement
near time 160 s. The receiver is seen to output biased data
for a brief period near 160 s. Following blanking, for 10 s the
unit once again outputs biased data.
Finally, the TAGR data in Figure 16.28 (bottom plot)
demonstrates a continuous output on all channels, the
modeling of inter-satellite drifts. Residual monitoring and
filter gain adaptation functions provided greatly enhanced
phase tracking in attenuations and multipath.
Implementation and performance improvement issues
continue as active areas for research. Fruitful areas for fur-
ther development include the following:

•
VPLL algorithm monitoring for high residuals in the corre-
lator domain. This approach enables detection and removal Rigorous integration of local and central state models for
computational efficiency

••
of the offending multipath-corrupted correlator data prior
to its usage in the state update process. Comparison between EKF and MAP estimators
In summary, the VPLL signal processing approach is seen Incorporation of receiver autonomous integrity monitor-
ing into the vector structure

•
to be beneficial in channels perturbed by strong specular
multipath. Unfortunately‚ simulator control software lim- Exploitation of multi-antenna vector diversity
configurations

itations precluded testing under full NLOS conditions,
which would have resulted in loop capture for all the con-
ventional receivers but, based upon software simulations
would have immediately triggered correlator residual rejec-
tion thresholds within the implemented VPLL algorithm
prior to usage of this corrupted data in the state update
process [26].
16.4.5 VPLL Conclusion
Coherent processing of GNSS signals in the vector mode
has many advantages over conventional tracking, as has
been demonstrated. The basic approach adopted was to
directly process correlator data, utilizing an EKF and state
••
Exploitation of multi-receiver differential configurations
Augmentation of the coherent vector structure with iner-
tial sensors
16.5 Conclusion
This chapter described the vector processing receiver
including an introduction to the fundamentals of vector
tracking, descriptions of relevant algorithms, and examples
illustrating the performance improvement over traditional
tracking methods. Detailed descriptions and analysis of

non-coherent VDFLL and coherent VPLL receiver architec-
tures were presented. Live-sky and RF simulator test results
were presented for a VPLL implementation. The analysis
and results presented in this chapter demonstrate the abil-
ity of vector tracking algorithms to outperform conven-
tional receivers.
Acknowledgments
Dr. Jim Sennott wishes to acknowledge a faculty fellowship
provided by the US Department of Transportation, Volpe
Transportation Systems Center, Cambridge, Massachu-
setts, which supported much of his early research in vector
tracking. Later development and implementation work was
supported by a Phase II SBIR contract N68936-98-C-0026,
funded by the US Navy, Point Mugu, California [31].
Finally, Dr. Sennott wishes to acknowledge the outstand-
ing effort and major contributions of David Senffner, who
was responsible for the code development and real-time
programming that made TAGR a reality.
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17
Assisted GNSS
Frank van Diggelen
Google, USA
17.1 Overview
Assisted GNSS (A-GNSS) dramatically improves the time to
first fix (TTFF). It does this by reducing the search space
required to find the signal. “But wait,” you might be think-
ing: “I thought A-GNSS simply replaces the broadcast
ephemeris with orbits over the Internet.” Yes, it does, but
that is the trivial part of A-GNSS; the more subtle and
far-reaching part is the reduction in the search space, which
not only reduces the TTFF, but enables high sensitivity as
well. How does assistance do all that? Read on.
This chapter explains the details of A-GNSS and the search
space; the next chapter explains high sensitivity. Most of this
chapter is dedicated to the theory behind A-GNSS: explain-
ing why it improves TTFF. The final section of the chapter
explains where assistance data comes from and provides
an overview of A-GNSS industry standards.
A-GNSS also has an effect on accuracy, but this is a sec-
ond-order effect of tracking more satellites sooner. There
are many techniques for explicitly improving accuracy:
Augmented GNSS (adding information from motion sen-
sors), Differential GNSS (DGNSS: adding information from
other receivers), and a whole family of DGNSS-like meth-
ods (PPP, RTK, etc.). Adding other measurements (such
as WiFi) can also improve accuracy, but this is not part
of the topic of A-GNSS. In the vernacular, the addition of
WiFi and other non-GNSS signals is known as Fused Loca-
tion. This chapter and the next are concerned with A-GNSS
for faster TTFF and higher sensitivity.1
Without A-GNSS (and the corresponding increase in sen-
sitivity) there would be no GNSS in smartphones since
1 GNSS Receiver designers like to joke that there are only two things
left to fix:
Bug of Type One: “You wanted a position, and you didn’t get it.”
Bug of Type Two: “You got a position, and you didn’t like it.”
A-GNSS fixes bugs of Type One.
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
419
smartphones have notoriously tiny GNSS antennas produ-
cing very weak signals.
Before a receiver can make any measurements or deter-
mine position, it must acquire the satellite signals; but
before it can acquire each satellite signal‚ it must find the
correct frequency for that signal and the correct code delay.
Once it has acquired the signals, a receiver needs to know
the broadcast time, and the ephemeris data containing the
satellite orbit and clock models; only then can the receiver
compute position. A-GNSS is the technique used to super-
charge the whole process, by providing ephemeris data in
advance as well as estimated time and location. This
dramatically speeds the TTFF. When signals are strong,
assisted TTFF is on the order of 1 s (compared to the order
of 1 min for an unassisted receiver).
Figure 17.1 shows an overview of an A-GNSS system.
Note that A-GNSS does not exempt the receiver from
receiving and processing ranging signals from the satellites;
it simply makes this task easier and minimizes the amount
of time and information required from the satellites.
This chapter is organized as follows:
Section 17.2 explains the signal search process, introduces
the frequency and delay search spaces, and shows how
the search space and TTFF are reduced with assistance.
If the assistance were perfect, then the search space
would be reduced to nothing; but the assistance positions
and times are simply estimates with errors2, and so the
search space size will depend on the size of these errors.
Section 17.3 shows the relationship of the frequency search
space to errors in assistance.
Section 17.4 shows the relationship of the code-delay search
space to errors in assistance.
Sections 17.3 and 17.4 also show that the search space
depends, additionally, on satellite speed and range rate.
2 If the assistance position and time were perfect, we’d be done, with
no need to compute position and time from GNSS.
420 17 Assisted GNSS

GNSS satellites

Cellular Network

A-GNSS Reference Network

Reference stations A-GNSS Receiver

Assistance:
Acquisition assist
Location server Almanac
Ephemeris Superset of
Frequency assistance
information
Time
Position (approx.)

Figure 17.1 A-GNSS system overview. Assistance data provides information that the GNSS receiver would ordinarily have received or
derived from the satellite signals alone. Assistance data is usually, though not necessarily, provided through a wireless network, commonly
over a cellular data channel. The A-GNSS receiver still has to make range measurements from the satellite, but it can do so much more
quickly, and with weaker signals, than an unassisted receiver.

Section 17.5 quantifies the satellite speed and range rate for
all GNSS constellations.
Section 17.6 quantifies the search space relationship to
assistance errors for all GNSS constellations.
Section 17.7 is a summary table of the search space size and
relationship to assistance errors for all GNSS constella-
tions and all civilian signals.
Section 17.8 explains where assistance data comes from and
summarizes the relevant industry standards.
Section 17.9 summarizes the chapter.
Sections 17.3 and 17.4 are largely from [1, chapter 3], a
book on A-GPS by the same author. The rest of this chapter
is a generalization to all GNSSs.
In the next chapter (titled “High-Sensitivity GNSS”), we
explain how the reduced A-GNSS search space leads to high
sensitivity for signal acquisition.
these frequency variables would scan all possible frequen-
cies – in an analogous way to how you might scan the dial
on a car radio looking for an unfamiliar radio station. At the
correct frequency‚ the receiver must find the correct code
delay for the correlators to generate a correlation peak. This
gives the GNSS receiver a two-dimensional search space for
each satellite signal. We call this the frequency/code-delay
search space.
Figure 17.2 shows the search space for GPS, in the L1
frequency band. For other constellations, and/or other
frequency bands‚ the search space has a similar appear-
ance, as summarized in Section 17.7.
Without any assistance, the domain of possible frequen-
cies is made up of the following:
• Unknown satellite Doppler (as shown Figure 17.2 and
Table 17.1)

•• Unknown receiver speed

17.2 Frequency/Code Search Space
Although each GNSS satellite transmits at known frequen-
cies (for example, GPS L1 = 1575.42 MHz), the signals are
not observed at the same frequency because of the Doppler
shift caused by the satellite motion and the receiver motion,
and because of any frequency offset in the receiver refer-
ence oscillator. A receiver with no a priori knowledge of
Unknown receiver reference oscillator offset
The receiver must search over the sum of these frequency
components to find and acquire the satellite signal.
With assistance orbits, time, and position, the receiver
can calculate the expected received frequency. If the assis-
tance time is accurate enough then the receiver might also
know the expected code delay. The search space would then
reduce dramatically, as illustrated in Figure 17.3.
 17.2 Frequency/Code Search Space 421

Correlation peak over freq/code search space. Entire frequency and code space is shown

0.9

0.8

0.7
Correlation output (normalized)

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
4
3
2 1000
900
1 800
0 700
–1 600
500
–2 400
–3 300
200
–4 100
Frequency offset (kHz) 0
Code delays (chips)

Figure 17.2 Frequency/code-delay search space for the GPS C/A code. The left horizontal axis shows the frequency search space caused
by satellite Doppler (−4 to 4 kHz for GPS at L1), the right axis shows the code-delay search space (1023 chips for the GPS C/A code). The
vertical axis shows the energy observed at the correlator outputs for each particular frequency and code delay. At the correct location in
the frequency/code-delay space‚ a strong SNR is observed, and the receiver acquires the signal.

Table 17.1 Frequency search space contribution from satellite The notion of assistance applies to all receivers, not just
Doppler for constellations in L1 band those that are connected to wireless networks. A receiver
can self-assist with previously stored data. So-called “cold,”
Satellites Doppler range (kHz), for signals in L1 band
(sorted by perigee) (for nominal orbits) “warm,” and “hot” starts are a primitive way of describing
BeiDou IGSO ± 2.2 assistance, where “cold start” means no assistance data,
QZSS IGSO ± 3.0
“warm start” means some assistance (such as approximate
time, position, and orbits from the almanac), and “hot start”
Galileo ± 3.4
means better assistance (such as time, position, and orbits
BeiDou MEO ± 3.7
from recent ephemeris). But these terms are not strictly
GPS ± 4.0 defined. “Hot” is often taken to mean that recently decoded
GLONASS ± 4.8 ephemeris is still valid – but for how many visible satellites?
With multi-constellation GNSS, the validity interval of
Note: The constellations are ordered by perigee (orbit closest point of broadcast ephemeris varies depending on the satellite sys-
approach), with the largest perigee on top. As satellites get closer to
Earth they move faster (this can be seen from Kepler’s second law). The tem. Also, satellites rise and set, so a decoded ephemeris
derivations of the values in this table are described in more detail in may still be valid while the satellite itself is no longer visible.
Section 17.5. So the “cold, warm, hot” temperature analogies become ever
422 17 Assisted GNSS

less useful, and it is better to replace them with quantitative
descriptions of the available assistance data.
With assistance time, position, and orbits, the receiver
works out the expected frequency and code delay for each
satellite; now the size of the search space becomes depend-
ent on the accuracy of the assistance. The rest of this chap-
ter quantifies this dependence in detail for all constellations
and all frequency bands. But before diving into the details
of assistance, let’s take a look at a single example to show
how much difference A-GNSS makes to TFFF.
17.2.1 A-GPS TTFF Example
Consider a GPS receiver starting up with no prior position
or time information (informally: “a cold start”). The
receiver must search all possible frequencies at which the
arriving GPS signal might be found. Suppose the receiver
has a TCXO (temperature-compensated crystal oscillator)
as a reference oscillator, rated at ±3 ppm (a typical specifi-
cation for TCXOs). That is, the TCXO offset may be any-
thing in this range. There are eight satellites visible
(although the receiver does not know this yet), and the
receiver is stationary.
The frequency search space consists of satellite Doppler
and receiver oscillator offset:
Frequency contributor Design range
Satellite Doppler −4.0 to 4.0 (kHz)
TCXO offset (±3 ppm) −4.725 to 4.725 (kHz)
Total frequency search space −8.725 to 8.725 (kHz)
Receivers are typically designed to search for signals in
frequency “bins,” where each bin is typically 0.5 kHz wide.
Our total search space is 17.45 kHz wide, so we need 35 fre-
quency bins to span the search space. Thus‚ our receiver
needs to search for all possible PRN codes (32 for GPS) in
35 different frequency bins, which gives a total of 1120
code/frequency bins.
Now consider the same receiver, but with ephemeris,
position, time, and frequency assistance data as illustrated
in Figure 17.3. Suppose the assistance time is accurate to
±2 s, the assistance position is accurate to 3 km, and the
assistance frequency is accurate to ±100 ppb. These are typ-
ical values for assistance from cell towers [2]. Now the
receiver can work out in advance exactly which satellites
are visible, and what their Doppler frequencies are, as

0.8
Location Server
0.6

0.4

0.2

0 10
–4.2
freq
Assistance: uen
cy
6
(kHz
Acquisition assist ) 0 4
)
2 h ips
(c
Almanac ay
4.2 0
e-del
cod
Ephemeris
reduce search space:
Frequency
Time frequency
Position code delay

Figure 17.3 Search space reduction by using assistance data. Almost any assistance data (even an approximate position, time, and
almanac) will reduce the frequency search space. Precise time (on the order of a millisecond accuracy or better) is required to reduce the
code-delay search space.
 17.3 Frequency Search Relationship to Assistance Errors 423

viewed from the assistance position. These values will be how we analyze the search space for all the variables, for all
correct but for the effect of the errors in the assistance GNSS constellations, in all frequency bands.
data. Now the frequency search space looks like this:

17.3 Frequency Search Relationship

Contribution
Assistance to search to Assistance Errors
Frequency contributor data accuracy space
17.3.1 Frequency Search Space versus Time
Satellite Doppler Time ±2 s ±1.6 Hza
Position ±2.7 Hzb For each satellite, we work out the expected Doppler offset
3 km based on assistance time, position, and orbits. How sensi-
TCXO offset (after calibrating ±100 ppb ±157.4 Hz
tive is this calculation to an error in assistance time? The
with assistance frequency)
Total frequency search −0.162 to answer is: not very. In this section‚ we quantify that answer.
space (kHz) 0.162 (kHz) A satellite’s relative Doppler frequency, as viewed from a
receiver on Earth, varies as the satellite rises and sets. Let’s
Notes: For GPS at L1:
a
The relationship of calculated Doppler to assistance time error is
suppose the range is from −F kHz to +F kHz. Also, suppose
0.8 Hz/s. that the maximum magnitude of rate of change is R Hz/s.
b
The relationship of calculated Doppler to assistance position error is Then, for each second of error in assistance time, the
0.9 Hz/km. expected Doppler will be wrong by, at most, ±R Hz. As
These relationships are explained in Sections 17.6.1 and 17.6.2.
we’ll see in Section 17.5, the values of R are on the order
of 1 Hz/s, while assistance time errors are on the order of
1 s. So assistance time errors affect Doppler prediction on
Now our total frequency search space is 0.324 kHz, so
the order of 1 Hz.
we need just one frequency bin of 0.5 kHz to span this
Note that Doppler rates are usually negative – since a ris-
space. Also, the receiver knows exactly which eight
ing satellite is moving toward you‚ its Doppler value is pos-
satellites are in view (because it works it out from the
itive, and as it reaches its zenith the Doppler tends to zero.
assistance ephemeris, position, and time). So now the
When it sets‚ it is moving away from you, and its Doppler
receiver needs to search only eight PRN codes in one
value is negative. So the overall Doppler trend for the sat-
frequency bin each. This is 140 times less than the unas-
ellite is: positive-zero-negative, and the average Doppler
sisted search space. The search time will be similarly
rate is negative. However, Earth is spinning beneath the
much smaller. If the receiver did not have enough cor-
satellite orbit, so you may observe positive Doppler rates
relators, and it needed to do a sequential search to find
for periods of time. The actual behavior depends on the
the signals, then the search time for the assisted case
observer’s location and the satellite orbit. In Section 17.5,
will be about 100× faster. On the other hand, if the
we’ll calculate Doppler rates for each of the different con-
receiver had millions of correlators, then it may be able
stellations, assigning a value of R for each type of satellite.
to search the unassisted space quickly, but at the cost of
a lot of power, and the assisted receiver will be about
100× more power efficient. 17.3.2 Frequency Search Space versus Receiver
Moreover, to compute its position, the receiver needs to Speed and Reference Frequency
have the satellite ephemeris (so it can work out the precise
Receiver motion adds to the range of unknown frequencies.
satellite positions to use in the navigation equations). In
For terrestrial applications, receiver motion is very small
the unassisted case‚ the receiver will need to decode the
compared to the satellite speeds, so the effect of receiver
ephemeris, which takes about 30 s in the best case scenario
motion on frequency is much smaller than the effect of sat-
(unobstructed views of the sky) and multiples of 30 s when
ellite motion. If a GNSS receiver is moving directly toward a
the satellites are blocked (even for a moment). The assisted
satellite at 1 m/s, the Doppler effect of receiver speed is
receiver already has the ephemeris from the assistance data,
and it can compute a position as soon as it has acquired four Lx ∗ 1 m s c Hz,
satellites.
where Lx is the GNSS frequency and c is the speed of light.
If all you wanted was an introduction to what A-GNSS is
If the receiver is moving directly away from the satellite,
about, then you could stop right here. But if this introduc-
the Doppler effect of receiver speed is
tion and example have made you curious to learn more,
then read on! The rest of this chapter will show you in detail − Lx ∗ 1 m s c Hz
424 17 Assisted GNSS

And if the receiver is moving perpendicular to the direc- 17.3.3 Frequency Search Space versus
tion of the satellite, then there is no Doppler effect from the Assistance Position
receiver speed. In general‚ the Doppler effect of receiver
The error in the assistance position will cause errors in the
speed is
expected Doppler, because the observed Doppler is a func-
Lx ∗s∗cosθ c tion of where you are observing the satellite from. The Dop-
pler (and its error) is also a function of the transmission
where s is the receiver speed, and θ is the angle between the
frequency. In this section‚ we will analyze, algebraically,
receiver velocity direction and the direction from the
the effect of a position error on the range rate, and in
receiver to the satellite. So, in general, the receiver motion
Section 17.6 we will apply the specific frequencies for each
has a different Doppler frequency effect for each satellite.
constellation, quantifying the effect of assistance position
For consumer applications‚ the only time that receiver
error on the expected Doppler.
motion has a large effect on the frequency range for acqui-
The satellite range rate equals the dot product of the
sition is when the receiver is in a commercial aircraft. Com-
velocity vector with the line-of-sight unit vector from the
mercial aircraft reach speeds of about 300 m/s, so the
user to the satellite, as illustrated in Figure 17.4.
frequency offset can be about 1.5 kHz for L1 frequencies.
A position error induces a line-of-sight vector error. The
Receiver speed can also affect the assistance reference
satellite range rate error equals the dot product of the veloc-
frequency, if that reference comes from a cell tower. We’ll
ity vector and the difference between the two line-of-sight
describe this effect below after explaining how cell tower
unit vectors:
frequency is used to assist the receiver.
A receiver oscillator, such as a TCXO, will have a fre- true satellite range rate = v etrue
quency offset of a few ppm (typically ±3 to ±5 ppm). The estimated range rate = v eest
frequency search space must include this unknown error.
range rate error = estimated range rate − true range rate
When the receiver is inside a cell phone, then the phone
VCO (voltage-controlled oscillator) provides a reference = v eest − v etrue
frequency when locked to a signal from the cell tower. Cell ≈v eest − etrue
tower frequencies are known to ±50 ppb at the tower, and
±100 ppb at the cell phone, so you have to account for ±100 The last equality is approximate because the angle θtrue
ppb error in your expected observed GPS Doppler [2]. between etrue and the satellite velocity is slightly different
However, if the receiver is moving, then the observed cell from the angle θest. The reason for making this approxima-
tower frequency is affected by the Doppler shift with tion is that it allows us to analyze the range rate error in
respect to the tower. As you drive toward a cell tower, terms of the magnitude of the assistance position error that
the observed reference frequency will increase by the ratio causes it, which is the purpose of this section.
of the receiver speed to the speed of light, s/c, or, expressed
in parts per billion:

s 2 998e8∗1e − 9

≈ s 0 3 ppb e θ
v
where s is the receiver speed in m/s. Range rate = v•e
If you are driving away from a cell tower, then the effect
has the same magnitude, but is negative. Note that this
error is on the reference frequency, and so it is in addition
to the Doppler effect of the receiver speed on the satellite
signal.
In summary, the magnitude of the combined errors of the
receiver speed and reference frequency, for a GNSS receiver
in a cell phone, is

assistance frequency error = Lx ∗s∗ cos θ c Hz

Figure 17.4 Observed satellite range rate equals the dot product
+ 100 + s 0 3 ppb 17 1 of the satellite velocity with the line-of-sight vector.

δx
α
Worst case: δx forms
base of isosceles
triangle, α ≈ 90°
Figure 17.5 Position error effect on line-of-sight vector.
We write |eest − etrue| in terms of the position error vector:
eest − etrue ≤ δx range
You can see this from Figure 17.5. The worst-case error
(=δx/range) occurs when the position error is such that it
forms the base of an isosceles triangle – as depicted in
the figure. Since the satellites are far away, this means
the worst-case position error direction is almost perpendic-
ular to the line of sight. There will be no error when the
position error is in the same direction (or the opposite direc-
tion) as the line of sight, since in these cases the line of sight
does not change at all, and so the computed range rate is
exactly correct. The position error in the figure has been
made large for visual clarity. In practice‚ we expect typical
A-GNSS assisted position errors to be a few kilometers.
In summary:
satellite range rate error ≤ v δx range 17 2
In Section 17.5 we’ll calculate the actual values of
Doppler errors as a function of position error for each of
the different constellations and frequencies.
17.4 Code-Delay Search Relationship
to Assistance Errors
17.4.1 Code-Delay Search Space versus
Assistance Time
We have just seen that time is a component of frequency
assistance, because we need to know the time (at least
17.4 Code-Delay Search Relationship to Assistance Errors 425
etrue
eest
eest – etrue = δx/range
approximately) to compute the expected satellite position
and velocity, and from that the expected Doppler. Now
we will look at time assistance for the purposes of providing
an a priori estimate of the code delay. For this purpose time
has to be accurate to milliseconds or better.
The code delay is a function of the receiver position, and
the receiver clock that generates the local correlator delay.
The complete range of possible code delays is the length of
the spreading code. If the accuracy of the receiver time is
not within the duration of the spreading code, then we can-
not provide any a priori estimate of the code delay. In this
case, the A-GNSS receiver will have to search all possible
code delays in each frequency bin.
If the receiver time is known well enough to narrow the
code-delay search, then the error in the fine-time assistance
has a one-to-one relationship to the expected code delay.
For each microsecond of time error, the code-delay search
space must be 1 μs.
17.4.2 Code-Delay Search Space versus
Assistance Position
If time accuracy is within the duration of the spreading
code, then assisted position accuracy becomes relevant to
the code-delay search.
17.4.2.1 Upper Bound on Code-Delay Search Space
If the assisted position accuracy is worse than 150 km, then
the expected code delay will be ambiguous to ±150 km, that
is 300 km – that is, 1 ms of code delay (1 ms at the speed of
light is approximately 300 km). Note that the effect of posi-
tion error is slightly more complicated because of the
426 17 Assisted GNSS
direction of the error and the satellite elevation; this is
examined further below. As an upper bound, however,
the relationship of the code delay search space to the
assisted position accuracy is 1 ms per 150 km.
17.4.2.2 Tighter Bounds on Code-Delay Search Space
The error in a priori position leads to an error in the
expected range and therefore the expected code delay.
We analyze the a priori position error in terms of horizontal
and vertical error. This is because the two errors have dif-
ferent effects on the range error, and also because the a
priori altitude is usually known to better accuracy than
the a priori horizontal position.
A horizontal position error of herror will induce a range
error of |rerror| ≤ cos(el)∗herror. You can see this from the
left-side diagram in Figure 17.6: we have constructed a right
angle triangle abc, the hypotenuse of this triangle is herror,
and the line segment ab equals cos(el)∗ herror. The range
error, rerror, is the distance from a to the base of the isosceles
triangle, (i.e. the isosceles triangle with base shown by the
dashed line, and apex at the satellite). In general, |rerror| is
less than |ab|, as you can see in the figure. The worst-case
rerror occurs when the horizontal error is in the direction of
the satellite, with equality when el = 0. This gives us the
following general relationship:
rerror ≤ cos el ∗herror
Using a similar construction‚ we can see that a vertical
position error of verror induces a range error:
rerror ≤ sin el ∗verror
b el
rerror Verror
a el c rerror
herror
Figure 17.6 Horizontal position error and range error: |rerror| ≤ cos(el)∗herror. Vertical position error and range error:
|rerror| ≤ |sin(el)∗ verror|.
Combining herror and verror, you might expect something
like a root sum of squares, but, because the cos and sin
terms already project the position error onto the range,
the combined result is
rerror ≤ cos el ∗herror + sin el ∗verror
You can see this by flipping the triangle abc, and stacking
the vertical and horizontal errors together, as done in
Figure 17.7.
There will be combinations of horizontal and vertical
error that partially cancel each other out, although the
upper bound is achieved in some circumstances. The
worst-case error occurs when the horizontal error is directly
along the azimuth of the satellite (toward the satellite) and
the vertical error is up. Also for the reverse: when the hor-
izontal error is directly away from the satellite and the ver-
tical error is down.
For typical A-GNSS applications‚ the value of herror will
be a few kilometers, and the value of verror will be a fraction
of a kilometer. These distances are so much smaller than
the range to the satellites that the right angle triangles con-
structed in the figures will almost exactly coincide with the
isosceles triangles, and the worst-case error will be achieved
with near equality.
As an exercise you can see just how close the right angle
triangles and isosceles triangles are to each other. For
example, if the satellite range is 20 000 km, you can show
that when the azimuth of the horizontal error is the same as
the azimuth of the satellite, and the elevation angle is 30 ,
then a horizontal error of 1 km induces a range error of
exactly
 17.5 Satellite Speed and Range Rate 427

herror
c a
el
el

Verror cos(el)*herror
b
sin(el)*verror

Figure 17.7 Combined horizontal and vertical position error and the effect on range error:
r error ≤ cos el ∗herror + sin el ∗verror

rerror = cos el ∗herror − δ Table 17.2 Search-space parameter dependence in the absence
of assistance
= 0 866 km − δ
where δ = (1/160) m. Search-space
That is, when the horizontal error is along the azimuth of component Section Search space depends on
the satellite, the upper bound on |rerror| is a tight upper
Frequency 17.2.1 Satellite range rate (= −Doppler),
bound to within a centimeter. and receiver oscillator rating
Conversely, when the azimuth of the horizontal error is
Code delay 17.2.1 Repeat period of spreading sequence
orthogonal to the azimuth of the satellite, then the induced
range error is zero. In general‚ we will not know the direc-
tion of the assistance position error‚ and so we will just
work with the worst-case |rerror|: parameters listed in Tables 17.2 and 17.3: satellite speed,
range rate, and range acceleration. We start with speed
rerror max = cos el ∗herror + sin el ∗verror 17 3
and range rate in the next section.
Because we will generally know the satellite elevation
(el), and the bounds on herror and verror, and verror is often
quite small, we can usually reduce the unknown search 17.5 Satellite Speed and Range Rate
space significantly by Eq. (17.3).
Now we have completed the algebraic analysis of the How fast do GNSS satellites move? This might seem like a
search-space relationship to assistance errors. And we’ve simple question with a simple answer: if R is the orbit
seen which parameters (such as satellite Doppler, speed, radius and T the period, then isn’t the speed = 2πR/T?
direction) affect which search-space components. Let’s But this answer is wrong, because the question is wrong.
summarize what we’ve learned in Tables 17.2 and 17.3. We cannot simply ask how fast a satellite moves, because
In Sections 17.6 and 17.7, we apply our algebraic analysis the speed of a satellite depends on the reference frame from
to the actual GNSS constellations to quantify the search which it is observed. The practically useful question is: how
space for each of them. To do this‚ we must quantify the fast does a satellite move in Earth’s reference frame.
428 17 Assisted GNSS

Table 17.3 Search-space parameter dependence on different types of assistance error

Search-space component Assistance error Section Search space also depends on

Frequency Time 17.3.1 Satellite range acceleration, and transmit frequency

Frequency Receiver speed 17.3.2 Receiver velocity relative to satellite direction, and transmit frequency
Frequency Ref frequency 17.3.2 Reference oscillator rating and (when reference frequency
is from a cell tower) receiver speed
Frequency Position 17.3.3 Satellite speed, range, and transmit frequency
Code delay Time 17.4.1 Nothing else; 1:1 relationship of search space to assistance
time error
Code delay Position 17.4.2 Satellite azimuth and elevation

Consider a satellite in a perfect geostationary orbit: it has an
orbital radius of 42,164 km, and it orbits in a plane aligned
with the equator. This satellite flies through space at over
3 km/s, but as viewed from Earth it remains stationary
because its orbit is exactly matched by the spinning Earth
beneath it. So its speed is more than 3 km/s through space,
but zero with respect to an observer on Earth. Likewise, for
any other orbit, we have to account for the rotation of Earth
when computing the observed satellite speed. This should
seem self-evident after reading this paragraph; however‚
we point it out because Earth’s rotation is sometimes over-
looked when people are focused on orbits, leading to faulty
analysis of satellite Doppler values.
A simple way to compute (a) satellite speed and (b) range
rate relative to an observer somewhere on Earth is as
follows:
a) Compute the satellite velocity in the ECEF (Earth Cen-
tered Earth Fixed) coordinate frame.
b) Project onto the line-of-sight vectors from many differ-
ent points on Earth.
This is what we do in the following two sections 17.5.1
and 17.5.2.
17.5.1 Satellite Speed
In this section‚ we compute satellite velocity in the ECEF
coordinate frame, producing satellite speed with respect
to an observer on Earth.
First‚ we use the nominal orbits for each of the GNSS con-
stellations to produce Figure 17.8. The nominal orbits para-
meters are shown in Table 17.4.
Repeating the exercise with actual orbits, and picking the
orbit that produces the maximum speed, we get Figure 17.9.
Current GNSS orbits in TLE (Two Line Element) format
can be found online at [10], and the orbits, methodology,
and links to software used in this analysis can be found
online at [11].
Table 17.5 shows a summary of the maximum speeds for
each of the constellations.
The values in the table are used in deriving the assistance
Doppler error in Sections 17.6.2 and 17.6.4.
17.5.2 Satellite Range Rate
In this section‚ we compute range rates by projecting the
satellite ECEF velocity onto the line-of-sight vectors from
points on Earth. In the following section, Section 17.6,
we use these range rates to get Doppler.
To show how range rates vary with observer location, we
pick a particular longitude, 0 , and three different latitudes:
90 , 45 , and 0 . Then we compute range rates from these
points for all satellites. Figure 17.10 shows the result. For
this figure‚ we used actual orbits obtained from [10, 11].
At the North Pole‚ the range rates are well behaved: rising
satellites are moving closer to the observer, and setting
satellites are moving further away. This behavior is gener-
ally true for any observer, but as we move closer to the
equator the location of the observer relative to the satellite
starts to influence the observed range rates. As you can see
in the plot, the range rates become more complex‚ some-
times getting larger, then smaller, then larger again as
the observer on Earth briefly “catches up” with the satellite
as Earth spins beneath the satellite orbit.
A similar plot for the Southern hemisphere produces sim-
ilar, symmetric results. Next we repeat this exercise, but on
a fine grid of latitude and longitude across the whole Earth,
and we record the maximum and minimum range rates at
each latitude. This produces Figure 17.11.
Repeating the above exercise for all constellations, we get
Table 17.6.
 17.5 Satellite Speed and Range Rate 429

Speed Of GNSS satellites (calculated in ECEF coordinate frame)

4000

3500

glo-nominal
3000

gps-nominal

beidou-meo-nominal
2500
galileo-nominal
ECEF Speed (m/s)

2000

1500
beidou-igso-nominal

qzss-nominal
1000

500
imss-navic-igso-nominal

0
80 60 40 20 0 –20 –40 –60 –80
Latitude of satellite sub-point (degrees)

Figure 17.8 Satellite speed (in ECEF coordinates) for each constellation vs. latitude, computed with nominal satellite
orbits listed in Table 17.4.

Table 17.4 Nominal orbit values

Satellites a, semi-major axis (km) i0, inclination angle (degrees) e, eccentricity Reference

GPS 26,559.7 55 0 GPS SPS Performance Standard

GLONASS 25,508 64.8 0 GLONASS ICD
BeiDou MEO 27,899 55 0 BeiDou ICD
BeiDou IGSO 42,157 55 0 BeiDou ICD
Galileo 29,601.297 56 0 Galileo ICD
QZSS IGSO 42,164 43 0.075 QZSS ICD
NAVIC IGSO 42,157 28 0 IRNSS/NAVIC ICD

References: GPS SPS [3], ICDs for constellations [4–9].

430 17 Assisted GNSS

Speed Of GNSS satellites (calculated in ECEF coordinate frame)

4000

3500

glo

3000
gps

beidou-meo
2500
galileo-MinusHiEcc
ECEF Speed (m/s)

2000

galileo-HiEcc
1500
beidou-igso
qzss

1000

500
imss-navic-igso-

0
80 60 40 20 0 –20 –40 –60 –80
Latitude of satellite sub-point (degrees)

Figure 17.9 Maximum satellite speed (in ECEF coordinates) for each constellation vs. latitude, computed with actual satellite orbits3
from [10, 11]. Two Galileo satellites have significant eccentricity [10–12]: they are analyzed separately from the rest of the Galileo
constellations, and are labeled “galileo-HiEcc” on the plot. Source: From [10–12].

Table 17.5 Global maximum speeds (ECEF) for each constellation (m/s), nominal and actual, with corresponding actual perigee distance
and altitude (km) (all numbers rounded to the nearest 10)

Galileo
GPS GLO BDS MEO BDS IGSO MinusHiEcc Galileo HighEcc QZSS IGSO NAVIC IGSO

Nominal (m/s) 3,190 3,580 3,100 2,840 3,040 — 2,260 1,490

Actual (m/s) 3,270 3,610 3,150 2,990 3,090 3,430 2,330 1,550
Perigee (km) 25,910 25,440 27,830 41,910 29,460 23,390 38,990 42,070
Min altitude (km) 19,540 19,070 21,460 35,540 23,090 17,020 32,620 35,700

The maximum speed occurs at perigee,4 and we show the perigee distance from the center of Earth, and the corresponding altitude in the last rows of
the table. To compute the minimum altitude‚ we used the perigee distance minus the mean radius of Earth.

3 Using NORAD TLE orbits from 15 January 2018.

4 From Kepler’s second law (equal areas in equal time), it follows that the maximum speed occurs at perigee, the closest point of approach to the
focus of the orbit at the center of Earth.
 17.5 Satellite Speed and Range Rate 431

Range rate vs time. Lat 90°, Lon 0°

1000 Max = 792 m/s

500
(m/s)

–500
Min = –788 m/s
–1000
0 6 12 18 24

Lat 45°
1000
Max = 765 m/s

500
(m/s)

–500
Min = –770 m/s
–1000
0 6 12 18 24

Lat 0°
1000
Max = 668 m/s
500
(m/s)

–500
Min = –686 m/s
–1000
0 6 12 18 24
UTC (hours)

Figure 17.10 Range rate from three points on Earth for all visible GPS satellites, using actual orbits from [10, 11]. Longitude = 0 , latitude
as shown on plots. Source: From [10–11].

17.5.3 Nominal versus Actual Orbits
In the previous two sections‚ we see that speed and range
rates are different for the nominal orbits and the actual
orbits. This is summarized in Tables 17.5 and 17.6. So,
two questions arise:
1) Why is there a difference?
2) Which values should we use for our analysis?
The difference from nominal speeds and range rates
comes from the differences in orbital radius (or, more
strictly speaking: semi-major axis) and eccentricity. Inves-
tigating the particular satellites that have the greatest speed
and range rate differences from the nominal values, we find
that they are the satellites with a combination of lower
semi-major axis and larger eccentricity. Lower satellites
move faster, and as they approach perigee (the closest point
of approach) they move faster still (this follows from
Kepler’s third and second laws, respectively). This behavior
is most visible in the two Galileo satellites with high eccen-
tricity, as you can see in Figure 17.9.
So, should we use nominal values or actual values in our
analysis? On the one hand, actual values are real. On the
other hand‚ they will change with time. If you are design-
ing an A-GNSS search scheme that will be in use for years
to come, or if you are reading this text years after it was
written, isn’t it better to work with nominal orbits for this
range rate analysis? To answer these questions properly‚
we look at the maximum range rate for each satellite,
and plot this versus the age of the satellite. We do this
for the two complete and mature constellations, GPS
and GLONASS.
432 17 Assisted GNSS

Max and MIn Range Rate vs Latitude, gps

1000
maximum, actual, 852 m/s
800
maximum, nominal, 764 m/s
600

400

200
(m/s)

–200

–400

–600
minimum, nominal, –764 m/s
–800
minimum, actual, –851 m/s
–1000
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
Latitude (degrees)

Figure 17.11 Maximum and minimum GPS range rates for all satellites observed from all points on Earth, using nominal orbits from [3]
and actual orbits from [10, 11]. Nominal orbits produce the symmetrical curves shown in light red and light blue. Source: From [3, 10–11].

Table 17.6 Global maximum magnitudes of range rate for each constellation (m/s) (rounded to the nearest 10)

GPS GLONASS BDS MEO BDS IGSO Galileo Galileo, high e QZSS IRNSS

Nominal 760 890 710 430 650 — 570 220

Actual5 850 900 720 450 670 1330 580 230

As you can see from Figures 17.12 and 17.13, there is a
general trend toward higher max range rates as satellites
age. This is supported by the underlying fundamentals.
From Kepler’s second law‚ we know that more eccentric
orbits have a greater range of speeds: satellites go faster
as they get closer to Earth. Each satellite is maneuvered
every now and then, and with each maneuver the orbit
can get slightly more eccentric. Furthermore, the orbits
are subject to forces such as solar radiation pressure, and
the gravity of the Sun, moon, and other celestial bodies;
these forces may disturb a once circular orbit.
This is not to say that these satellites are less accurate for
navigation – the more elliptical orbits are modeled just as
accurately as the more circular orbits, and when we
5 Using NORAD TLE orbits from 15 January 2018.
examine the broadcast ephemeris for these satellites‚ they
are accurate to approximately 1 m. The question here is
which values to use when designing the frequency search
space for A-GNSS acquisition. And the fact that there is a
linear trend to the range rates suggests that it is prudent
to use the maximum values from the actual orbits. This
adds about 10% to the size of the frequency acquisition
search space, but it makes it more likely that you will be
using the right values several years from now.
The orbits we used in generating these plots are saved in
[11], so you can replicate the above plots. And, if you are
reading this years after the plots and tables were created
(2018), you can obtain fresh orbits from [10], generate sim-
ilar plots, and see for yourself if the linear trend of max
range rate with age has continued.
 17.5 Satellite Speed and Range Rate 433

Max range rate of satellites vs age, GPS

860

840

trend: 2.7 m/s per year

820
Max ∣ range rate∣ (m/s)

800

780

760

740
0 5 10 15 20 25
Age of satellite (years)

Figure 17.12 Maximum |range rate| for each GPS satellite, using orbits from [10, 11]. The maximum range rate for a nominal GPS orbit is
764 m/s. Note that all satellites less than five years old have range rates close to the nominal value, and there is roughly a linear trend with
age. Source: From [10–11].

Max range rate of satellites vs age, GLONASS

906

904

902

900
Max ∣range rate∣ (m/s)

trend: 0.4 m/s per year

898

896

894

892

890

888
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Age of satellite (years)

Figure 17.13 Maximum |range rate| for each GLONASS satellite, using orbits from [10, 11]. Source: From [10–11]. The maximum range
rate for a nominal GLONASS orbit is 890 m/s. The three satellites with the smallest maximum range rate (clustered at the bottom of the
plot with the same age) were all launched on the same rocket. Satellites released from the same rocket tend to have similar eccentricity
and semi-major axes.
434 17 Assisted GNSS

17.5.4 Summary can see that, for each 1 s of assistance time error, the Dop-
pler calculated from the assistance data will have a maxi-
In Section 17.5 we computed satellite speeds in the ECEF
mum error of 0.8 Hz. Assistance time is usually good to
coordinate frame, and satellite range rates. Next we will
within 2 s [13], so the time-error effect on Doppler is very
use these values and similar analysis to compute Doppler
small compared to the total Doppler search space.
values and Doppler rates for each constellation, and apply
In Section 17.6.3, we repeat this analysis for all civilian
these values to the algebraic expressions computed earlier
signals on all GNSS constellations, and we collect the
in this chapter. In this way‚ we will quantify the relation-
results for all signals and constellations in the big tables
ship of all assistance data to time and position errors. Then
of Section 17.7.
we summarize the results to answer the questions: which
initial conditions of assistance data matter the most, and
by how much? 17.6.2 Doppler Assistance versus Assistance
Position, GPS
In Section 17.3.3 we showed that
17.6 Numerical Values for Assisted
satellite range rate error ≤ v δx range
Search Space
where:
In Sections 17.3 through 17.4.2, we showed an algebraic
analysis of how the A-GNSS search space changes with |v| is satellite speed (in the ECEF coordinate frame)
errors in the assistance time and position. Now we will δx is the error in assistance position.
apply actual orbits to the analysis to quantify the A-GNSS
For actual GPS orbits,6 the minimum range to a satellite
relationship to these errors for all constellations and fre-
is 19,553 km, and the maximum speed is 3,270 m/s (as we
quencies of civilian signals. Finally, at the end of this sec-
saw in Section 17.5). Thus, for each 1 km error in assistance
tion, we will summarize all these values in one grand
position, the computed satellite range rate error is
GNSS assistance table.
range rate error ≤ v δx range
17.6.1 Doppler Assistance versus Assistance = 3270 m s ∗ 1 km 19553 km
Time, GPS
= 0 167 m s
Doppler rates depend on the transmission frequency, as
And the Doppler error is
well as on the location of the observer. We begin with an
analysis of the range acceleration (i.e. the rate of change Doppler error = range rate error λ,
of range rate), and having found the maximum value we
where λ is the wavelength of the signal.
can compute maximum Doppler rates at different frequen-
For GPS, L1, this gives us the max. Doppler error as (0.167
cies. Figure 17.14 shows the observed range accelerations
m/s)/ (0.19 m) = 0.9 Hz. That is, for each 1 km of assistance
for all GPS satellites over 24 hours, as viewed from different
position error, the Doppler calculated from the assistance
places on Earth. The figure illustrates how the range accel-
data will have a maximum error of 0.9 Hz. Assistance posi-
eration varies with latitude.
tion is often good to a few kilometers, so the position-error
Figure 17.14 shows that from these five positions on
effect on Doppler is small compared to the total Doppler
Earth, the maximum magnitude of the GPS range acceler-
search space.
ation is 0.16 m/s2. What about the range acceleration as
Notice that both assistance time and assistance position
viewed from other locations? We repeat the above exercise
errors (in seconds and kilometers, respectively) have a sim-
on a grid of latitude and longitude across the whole Earth to
ilar small effect on the assistance Doppler error. We saw
produce Figure 17.15.
earlier (A-GPS TTFF example of Section 17.2.1) that the
To get the maximum Doppler rate, we use
A-GPS Doppler search space is dominated by the error in
Doppler = range rate λ, the local oscillator offset. Now we have seen why.
Maximum Doppler rate = maximum range In the following sections‚ we repeat this analysis for all
civilian signals of all GNSS constellations, and we collect
acceleration λ, 17 4
the results for all signals and constellations in the big tables
where λ is the wavelength of the signal. of Section 17.7.
For GPS, L1, we get the maximum Doppler rate = (0.16
m/s2)/(0.19 m) = 0.8 Hz/s. Knowing this Doppler rate we 6 Using NORAD TLE orbits from 15 January 2018.
 17.6 Numerical Values for Assisted Search Space 435

Range acceleration vs time. Lat 90°, Lon 0°

0.2
Max = 0.15 m/s2
0.1
(m/s2)

0
Min = 0.01 m/s2

–0.1
0 6 12 18 24

Lat 45°
0.2
Max = 0.14 m/s2
0.1
(m/s2)

0
Min = 0.03 m/s2
–0.1
0 6 12 18 24

Lat 0°
0.2
Max = 0.12 m/s2
0.1
(m/s2)

0
Min = –0.06 m/s2
–0.1
0 6 12 18 24

Lat –45°
0.2
Max = 0.13 m/s2
0.1
(m/s2)

0
Min = –0.03m/s2
–0.1
0 6 12 18 24

Lat –90°
0.2
Max = 0.16 m/s2
0.1
(m/s2)

0
Min = 0.01 m/s2

–0.1
0 6 12 18 24

Figure 17.14 GPS range acceleration versus latitude and time, using actual orbits in [11]. At the North Pole the rotation of Earth does not
affect the observed satellite orbit, and so the ranges behave in a simple and consistent way for all satellites. As you get closer to the
equator, the observed accelerations are more complicated, as the equator spins beneath the satellite orbit. The same pattern exists from
the South Pole to the equator.

17.6.3 Doppler Assistance versus Assistance
Time, GNSS
As in Section 17.6.1 for GPS, we now compute the maxi-
mum and minimum observed range acceleration for all
GNSSs on a grid of latitude and longitude across the whole
Earth. This produces Figures 17.16 and 17.17.
Using Eq. (17.4), the maximum Doppler rate = maximum
range acceleration / λ; with the maximum range accelerations
from the above figures, we derive Table 17.7 for L1/B1/E1.
The point to take away here is that there is very little sen-
sitivity in the assistance Doppler to errors in the assistance
time of a few seconds.
436 17 Assisted GNSS

Max and Min Range Acceleration vs Latitude, GPS

0.2

maximum, actual, 0.16 m/s2

0.15

maximum, nominal, 0.14 m/s2

0.1
(m/s2)

0.05

–0.05
minimum, nominal, –0.08 m/s2
minimum, actual, –0.09 m/s2
–0.1
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
Latitude (degrees)

Figure 17.15 Global maximum and minimum GPS range acceleration using nominal orbits from [3] and actual orbits from [10, 11],
computed for a grid of latitude and longitude across the whole Earth. The maximum magnitude is 0.16 m/s2. Source: From [3, 10–11].

Max and Min Range Acceleration vs Latitude, GNSS MEOs

0.35 gal, hi-ecc, max 0.34 m/s2

0.3

0.25

0.2
glo max 0.18 m/s2

0.15 gps max 0.16 m/s2

beidou max 0.12 m/s2

(m/s2)

0.1
gal, minus hi-ecc, max 0.11 m/s2

0.05

–0.05 gal, minus hi-ecc, min –0.07 m/s

beidou min –0.08 m/s
gps min –0.09 m/s2
–0.1 glo min –0.09 m/s2
gal, hi-ecc, min 0.11 m/s2

–0.15
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
Latitude (degrees)

Figure 17.16 Global maximum and minimum range acceleration for all GNSS MEOs using actual orbits from [10, 11], computed for a grid
of latitude and longitude across the whole Earth. Notice that (apart from the high-eccentricity satellites) all the constellations have a
similar “whale tail” shape to the curves, with higher acceleration for the lower and faster satellites. As we saw in the plot of satellite
speeds, GLONASS, with the lowest of the GNSS MEO orbits, has the highest speed. Galileo, with the highest MEO orbits, has the least speed
and acceleration (not counting the two Galileo satellites with high eccentricity). Source: From [10–11].
 17.6 Numerical Values for Assisted Search Space 437

Max and Min Range Acceleration vs Latitude, GNSS IGSOs

0.06
qzss max 0.06 m/s2

beidou max 0.04 m/s2

0.04

0.02 navic max 0.02 m/s2

(m/s2)

–0.02 navic min –0.02 m/s2

–0.04 qzss min –0.04 m/s2

beidou min –0.04 m/s2

–0.06
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
Latitude (degrees)

Figure 17.17 Global maximum and minimum range acceleration for all GNSS with inclined geosynchronous orbits (IGSOs). Using actual
orbits from [10, 11] computed for a grid of latitude and longitude across the whole Earth. Notice that QZSS (which has high eccentricity, by
design) has a similar shape as Galileo satellites with high eccentricity, although the accelerations for IGSOs are much lower because of
their high altitude. Source: From [10–11].

Table 17.7 Assistance Doppler relationship to error in assistance time (Hz/s) in L1 frequency band

GPS GLO (M) GLO (K) BDS (MEO) BDS (IGSO) GAL GAL (hi-ecc) QZS (IGSO) IRNSS-NAVIC

@ L1/B1/E1 0.8 1.0 1.0 0.6 0.2 0.6 1.8 0.3 N/A

Table 17.8 Assistance Doppler relationship to error in assistance position (Hz/km) in L1 frequency band

GPS GLO (M) GLO (K) BDS (MEO) BDS (IGSO) GAL GAL (hi-ecc) QZS (IGSO) IRNSS-NAVIC

@ L1/B1/E1 0.9 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.4 0.7 1.1 0.4 N/A

Section 17.7 shows a table of the assistance Doppler to derive the numerical values of the relationship of the
search space for all civilian signals on all GNSSs. assistance Doppler to error in the assistance position. Using
the minimum satellite range and maximum speed from
17.6.4 Doppler Assistance versus Assistance Table 17.5, we get Table 17.8.
Position, GNSS As with the previous section, the point to take away here
is that there is very little sensitivity in the assistance Dop-
As in the GPS analysis of Section 6.2 above, we use the
pler to errors in the assistance position of a few kilometers.
formula
The magnitude of the error (per kilometer of position error)
satellite range rate error ≤ v δx range is similar to the previous section (per second of time error).
438 17 Assisted GNSS
In summary, we get about 1 Hz of Doppler assistance
error for each second of assistance time error, and for each
kilometer of assistance position error.
Section 17.7 shows a table of assistance Doppler search
space for all frequency bands on all GNSSs.
17.7 A-GNSS Search Spaces
Quantified for All Constellations
The following tables (Tables 17.9–17.11) summarize eve-
rything that has been explained and derived in this chap-
ter. These tables can be used as a handy look-up if you are
working with A-GNSS and you already understand what
these values mean. For a reminder of how to derive of
these values‚ see the relevant sections in this chapter.
17.8 Where Assistance Comes From:
Sources and Standards for A-GNSS
17.8.1 Overview
Figure 17.1, at the beginning of this chapter shows the over-
view diagram of an A-GNSS system. All A-GNSS systems
include a reference network of GNSS reference stations
and location servers. The GNSS reference stations collect
broadcast ephemeris (BE) and other data and measure-
ments from the satellites, and distribute this data and/or
derived data in the form of satellite orbits and clock infor-
mation: almanac, ephemeris, acquisition assistance; refer-
ence position, time, and frequency. We’ll describe each of
these elements in turn.
17.8.2 Reference Network
A-GNSS reference networks are either open networks, such
as the International GNSS Service (IGS) network, or propri-
etary networks operated by GNSS companies, such as
Broadcom’s Worldwide Reference Network [14, 15]. In
either case, a reference network is a group of GNSS recei-
vers collecting BE and measurements from the GNSS
constellations.
The IGS is a voluntary federation of over 200 self-
funding agencies, universities, and research institutions
in more than 100 countries [16]. The data from these sta-
tions is freely available, but which GNSS constellations are
supported by any station, and the uptime of any station,
depend on the independent operators of the stations.
Thus, some companies choose to operate their own
reference networks for greater reliability and coverage
of all constellations.
17.8.3 Location Servers
A “location server” is, in practice, a group of computers that
aggregates the data from the reference network, and redis-
tributes it over a wireless network, and/ or derives further
data, such as Long Term Orbits, and distributes these as
well. The BE data is typically good for at most a few hours
(e.g. 4 h for GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS; 30 min for
GLONASS). This is why companies derive longer-term pre-
dictions of the satellite orbits and clocks, and distribute
these as well. This enables phones (and cars, tablets,
watches, etc.) to store valid assistance data every now
and then, and have it available instantly; instead of having
the delay or limitation of an over-the-air download when
they need to acquire GNSS signals. Long Term Orbits for
A-GNSS were pioneered by Global Locate Inc. [14, 15],
and subsequently incorporated into industry standards
[17, 18]. The same technology is now known by several
names, including Long Term Orbits, Extended Ephemeris,
and XTRA. In all cases‚ these include predicted orbits and
satellite clock information, accurate to a few meters over
several days. An in-depth description of Long Term Orbits
is provided in [1, chapter 8].
17.8.4 Almanac, Ephemeris
In an A-GNSS system, “Almanac” and “Ephemeris” have
the conventional meanings common in GNSSs. Almanac
contains the six Keplerian parameters7a, e, i, Ω, ω, and M0,
and these are useful for computing satellite positions within
~100 km accuracy, good enough to know which satellites
are visible, and where they are in the sky to within a frac-
tion of a degree of azimuth and elevation.
Ephemeris contains the more accurate definition of the
orbit, usually the same format as described in the respective
constellation ICDs/Interface Specifications. Long Term
Orbits may be distributed in standard ephemeris format,
using several sequential ephemeris “slices” for each few-
hour window of ephemeris validity. In this way‚ several
days of orbits are encoded into several sequential ephem-
eris, each valid for several hours.
7 The six Keplerian parameters describe the shape (a semi-major axis,
e eccentricity) and orientation (Ω longitude of ascending node, ω
argument of perigee, i inclination) of the orbit ellipse, and the position
of the satellite along the ellipse (derived from Mo, mean anomaly).
Table 17.9 Total frequency search space contribution from satellite Doppler using nominal orbits

Acquisition parameter Units Notes

Frequency band GPS GLO (M) GLO (K) BDS MEO BDS IGSO Galileo Galileo (high e) QZSS IGSO IRNSS IGSO BDS = BeiDou Phase 3

L1/B1/E1 1.575E+09 1.605E+09 1.575E+09 1.561E+09 1.575E+09 1.575E+09 - Hz

L2/B3/E6 1.228E+09 1.246E+09 1.248E+09 1.269E+09 1.279E+09 1.228E+09 - Hz
L5/B2a/E5a 1.176E+09 - - 1.176E+09 1.176E+09 1.176E+09 1.176E+09 Hz
L3/B2b/E5b - - 1.202E+09 1.207E+09 1.207E+09 - - Hz
S - - - - - - 2.492E+09 Hz

Max range rate, 760 890 890 710 430 650 - 570 220 m/s Nominal orbits. Rounded
nominal, |δv| (m/s) to nearest 10
ppm = (|δv|/c)1e6 2.54 2.97 2.97 2.37 1.43 2.17 - 1.90 0.73 ppm
δf (kHz) @ L1/B1/E1 3.99 4.77 4.68 3.70 2.24 3.42 - 3.00 - kHz
δf (kHz) @ L2/B3/E6 3.11 3.70 3.71 3.00 1.82 2.77 - 2.33 - kHz
δf (kHz) @ L5/B2a/E5a 2.98 - - 2.79 1.69 2.55 - 2.24 0.86 kHz
δf (kHz) @ L3/B2b/E5b - - 3.57 2.86 1.73 2.62 - - - kHz
δf (kHz) @ S - - - - - - - 1.83 kHz

Note: Plus and minus each of these values is the search space required when there is no position or time assistance.
Table 17.10 Total frequency search space contribution from satellite Doppler using actual orbits from [10, 11]

Acquisition parameter Units Notes

Frequency band GPS GLO (M) GLO (K) BDS MEO BDS IGSO Galileo Galileo (high e) QZSS IGSO IRNSS IGSO BDS = BeiDou Phase 3

L1/B1/E1 1.575E+09 1.605E+09 1.575E+09 1.561E+09 1.575E+09 1.575E+09 - Hz

L2/B3/E6 1.228E+09 1.246E+09 1.248E+09 1.269E+09 1.279E+09 1.228E+09 - Hz
L5/B2a/E5a 1.176E+09 - - 1.176E+09 1.176E+09 1.176E+09 1.176E+09 Hz
L3/B2b/E5b - - 1.202E+09 1.207E+09 1.207E+09 - - Hz
S - - - - - - 2.492E+09 Hz

Max range rate, 850 900 900 720 450 670 1330 580 230 m/s Actual orbits, January 2018.
actual, |δv| (m/s) Rounded to nearest 10
ppm = (|δv|/c)1e6 2.84 3.00 3.00 2.40 1.50 2.23 4.44 1.93 0.77 ppm Using actual orbits
δf (kHz) @ L1/B1/E1 4.47 4.82 4.73 3.75 2.34 3.52 6.99 3.05 - kHz
δf (kHz) @ L2/B3/E6 3.48 3.74 3.75 3.05 1.90 2.86 5.67 2.38 - kHz
δf (kHz) @ L5/B2a/E5a 3.34 - - 2.83 1.77 2.63 5.22 2.28 0.90 kHz
δf (kHz) @ L3/B2b/E5b - - 3.61 2.90 1.81 2.70 5.36 - - kHz
δf (kHz) @ S - - - - - - - 1.91 kHz

Note: Plus and minus each of these values is the search space required when there is no position or time assistance.
Source: From TLE orbits for GNSS constellations: https://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/; specific TLE orbits used in this chapter: pnt21book.com, Assisted GNSS.
Table 17.11 Relationship of assisted frequency (Doppler) to errors in assistance time and position using actual orbits from [10, 11]

Acquisition parameter Units Notes

Frequency band GPS GLO (M) GLO (K) BDS MEO BDS IGSO Galileo Galileo (high e) QZSS IGSO IRNSS IGSO BDS = BeiDou Phase 3

Max range acceleration, 0.14 0.18 0.18 0.12 0.04 0.10 - 0.16 0.02 m/s2 Nominal orbits
nominal (m/s2)
Max range acceleration, 0.16 0.18 0.18 0.12 0.04 0.11 0.34 0.06 0.02 m/s2 Using actual orbits
actual (m/s2)
Doppler vs Assisted Time
(Hz/s)
@ L1/B1/E1 0.84 0.96 0.95 0.62 0.21 0.58 1.79 0.32 - Hz/s Using actual orbits
@ L2/B3/E6 0.66 0.75 0.75 0,51 0.17 0.47 1.45 0.25 - Hz/s
@ L5/B2a/E5a 0.63 - - 047 016 0.43 1 33 0.24 0.08 Hz/s
@ L3/B2b/E5b - - 0.72 0.48 0.16 0.44 1.37 - - Hz/s
@S - - - - - - - - 0.17 Hz/s

Doppler vs Assisted Position

(Hz/km)
@ L1/B1/E1 0.88 1.01 0.99 0.76 0.44 0.70 1.06 0.38 - Hz/km Using actual orbits
@ L2/B3/E6 0.69 0.79 0.79 0.62 0.36 0.57 0.86 0.29 - Hz/km
@ L5/B2a/E5a 0.66 - - 0.58 0.33 0.53 0.79 0.28 0.17 Hz/km
@ L3/B2b/E5b - - 0.76 0.59 0.34 0.54 0.81 - - Hz/km
@S - - - - - - - - 0.36 Hz/km

range rate error/km 0.167 0.189 0.189 0.147 0.084 0.134 0.202 0.071 0.043 m/s per km Using actual orbits
<= max speed/min dist.

These tables are copied from a spreadsheet that you can access from the book’s website, pnt21book.com
On this spreadsheet you can view the formulas that produce these numbers. You can also make a copy for your own use. If the author is made aware of any typos in the printed tables, they will be corrected in the tables
on the website (along with credit to the persons first reporting each error). Submit your feedback via the “Feedback” link at pnt21book.com.Source: From TLE orbits for GNSS constellations: https://www.celestrak.
com/NORAD/elements/; specific TLE orbits used in this chapter:
pnt21book.com, Assisted GNSS.
442 17 Assisted GNSS
17.8.5 Acquisition Assistance, UE Assisted
and UE Based
Acquisition assistance is an alternative way of communi-
cating satellite orbit and clock data to the receiver‚ and it
is used in systems where the receiver position is computed
at the location server. This is known as “UE Assisted” oper-
ation. “UE” stands for “User Equipment,” meaning a
phone with a GNSS receiver.
For assistance data provided over a cellular network, there
are two approaches: UE-Assisted GNSS and UE-Based
GNSS. In UE-Assisted GNSS, the position is calculated at
a server, and the GNSS receiver’s job is only to acquire the
signals and send the measurements to the server. The server
calculates the assistance data and delivers it in a form known
as “Acquisition assist,” which is a list of visible satellites, and
their expected (Doppler) frequencies at the receiver. In the
UE-Based approach, all the calculation is done at the
receiver. The assistance data is in the form of almanac and
ephemeris, and approximate time and position.
So, UE-Assisted or UE-Based are simply operational dif-
ferences, and there is no conceptual difference between the
two. The analysis we’ve done in this chapter applies equally
to both approaches.
UE-Based A-GNSS is far more common (and more
useful) than UE Assisted.
17.8.6 Reference Position, Time, and Frequency
Before signal acquisition, a UE-Based or autonomously
operating receiver uses the satellite orbits and the a priori
receiver position, time, and frequency offset to compute
the Doppler and code delay of each satellite, as we have dis-
cussed in depth in this chapter. The a priori position, time,
and frequency come from the A-GNSS reference network.
Position is commonly the location of the cell tower closest
to the receiver, although WiFi location is also often used.
For an autonomously operating receiver, or one with Long
Term Orbits but no current data connection, the most
recently known position is used.
Reference time comes from network time, or a real-time
clock in the receiver. Reference frequency commonly
comes from a cell tower reference frequency, usually good
to 100 ppb [2].
The OMA8 Location Working Group has been instru-
mental in setting location service standards for mobile
8 There are bowls of alphabet soup in telecommunication and location
standards. LBS: Location Based Services, LPP: LTE Positioning
Protocol, MLS: Mobile Location Services, OMA: Open Mobile Alliance,
RRLP: Radio Resource Location-services Protocol, SUPL: Secure User-
Plane Location, and 3GPP: 3rd Generation Partnership Project.
location, roaming location, and end-to-end solutions for
emergency services. OMA SUPL [20] is the industry stand-
ard framework for positioning over the user plane. SUPL
2.0 is deployed globally utilizing 3GPP control plane posi-
tioning protocols like Radio Resource Location Services
Protocol (RRLP) [17] and LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP)
[21]. SUPL 3.0 added multiple positioning technology
enhancements with improved performance, resulting in a
much better user experience. OMA has extended LPP as
LPPe 2.0 [22] to support SUPL 3.0 features. OMA MLS
[23] provides an API to Location-Based Services (LBS)
applications to obtain device location. MLS consists of
Mobile Location Protocol (MLP), Roaming Location Proto-
col (RLP), and Location Privacy Checking Protocol (PCP).
DynNav [24] is the latest OMA standard being developed
and aims to provide real-time delivery of travel assistance
data including lane detection using SUPL. Figure 17.18
shows the relationships among the different standards
and standardization bodies.
Assistance data is provided by commercial companies,
for a fee, or to support their products, for example:
• Google offers free SUPL services to all Android devices.
The Google SUPL server supports UE-Based A-GNSS
(GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo) SUPL 1.0/2.0 standards
and provides assistance data in RRLP and LPP formats.
• Spime Inc provides SUPL services [25], compliant with
many SUPL Location Platforms and integrated with lead-
ing GPS chip manufacturers. The solution supports
AGPS SUPL 1.0/2.0 standards in UE-Assisted/UE-Based
mode.
•
ComTech Telecommunications provides an end-to-end
system for operators using Xypoint SUPL Server [26].
The Xypoint SUPL server supports A-GPS SUPL 1.0 in
UE-Assisted/UE-Based modes.
17.9 Summary
We have seen that A-GNSS dramatically reduces the TTFF
by reducing the signal search space. There are two dimen-
sions to this space: code delay (measured in chips or micro-
seconds) and frequency (measured in kilohertz or parts per
million). The frequency search space is the more interesting
of the two.
The code delay search is usually dealt with by the massive
parallel correlation capability of modern receivers, but the
frequency search space always benefits from assistance,
especially since the width of a frequency search bin narrows
proportionally with increasing coherent-integration time –
a necessary part of high sensitivity (see next chapter).
 References 443

GSM, UMTS E-UTRA

3GPP 3GPP

RRLP, RRC LPP, LPPe

User Plane (wireless internet)

OMA
SUPL
(same information specified in LPP, LPPe, RRLP, RRC)

Figure 17.18 Venn diagram showing organization of industry location standards. The air interfaces (GSM, UMTS, E-UTRA etc.) are shown
by the outermost rings. The standardization bodies (3GPP and OMA) specify the standards for each of the communication protocols. The
SUPL standard makes use of the same information specified by 3GPP, but for delivery over the user plane.

In the example of Section 17.2.1, we saw that A-GNSS 17.9.1 Exercises

reduces the frequency search space by more than 100×
compared to an unassisted search.
In Section 17.3 and 17.4, we derived the analytical rela-
tionships between the assisted search space and the (inev-
itable) errors in the assistance position and time. We saw
that these relationships are simple for code-delay (1:1 rela-
tionship with time error; and linear relationship with posi-
tion error, dependent on satellite azimuth and elevation).
The relationships are more complicated for frequency off-
set, and depend on satellite speed and range rates, which
vary with constellations.
In Section 17.5, we quantified satellite speeds and range
rates for all GNSS constellations, both nominal and actual.
In Section 17.6, we used these numerical values to quantify
the assisted search spaces for all constellations. We saw that
the frequency search space is affected very little by typical
errors in assisted position and time. Assisted position errors
of 1 km and assisted time errors of 1 s each affect the fre-
quency search space by roughly 1 Hz.
In Section 17.7 we made a comprehensive table with the
A-GNSS search space values for each constellation and all
civilian frequency bands. This table is available as a spread-
sheet online from the book’s website: pnt21book.com.
Finally in Section 17.8, we described where assistance
data comes from, and the industry standards that are used.
At pnt21book.com you can find exercises to try for yourself,
and worked solutions.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Y. T. Jade Morton (University of Colorado, Boul-
der) and Grace Gao (University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham-
paign) for their comprehensive edits, suggestions for how to
make the logic flow better, and how to consolidate informa-
tion into fewer plots. Thanks to Supriya Patil (Google) for
her contributions to Section 17.8.
References
1 van Diggelen, F., A-GPS, Assisted GPS, GNSS, and SBAS,
Artech House, 2009.
2 3GPP TS 45.010, 3rd Generation Partnership Project;
Technical Specification Group GSM/EDGE Radio Access
Network; Radio subsystem synchronization. “The BTS shall
use a single frequency source of absolute accuracy better
than 0.05 ppm.” “The MS carrier frequency shall be
accurate to within 0.1 ppm.”
444 17 Assisted GNSS
3 GPS SPS Performance Standard, 2008, http://www.gps.
gov/technical/ps/2008-SPS-performance-standard.pdf
4 IS-GPS-200, Rev H., GPS Interface Control Document,
Navstar GPS Space Segment/Navigation User Interface, GPS
Systems Directorate, September 2013.
5 GLONASS Interface Control Document (ICD), Version 5.0,
Coordination Scientific Information Center, Moscow, 2002
www.glonass-ianc.rsa.ru
6 BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Signal In Space Interface
Control Document Open Service Signal (Version 2.1). China
Satellite Navigation Office November 2016.
7 Galileo ESA, Galileo Open Service Signal In Space, Interface
Control Document OS SIS ICD, European Space Agency /
European GNSS Supervisory Authority.
8 QZSS ICD, “Quasi-Zenith Satellite System Interface
Specification, Satellite Positioning, Navigation and Timing
Service (IS-QZSS-PNT-001),” March 28, 2017, http://qzss.
go.jp/en. Accessed 18 February 2018.
9 IRNSS/NAVIC ICD, “Signal in Space ICD for standard
positioning service, version 1.1,” ISRO-IRNSS-ICD-SPS-
1.1, Aug 2017, https://www.isro.gov.in/. Accessed
18 February 2018.
10 TLE orbits for GNSS constellations: https://www.celestrak.
com/NORAD/elements/
11 Specific TLE orbits used in this chapter: pnt21book.com,
Assisted GNSS
12 Falcone, M., Galileo System Status, ESA, ION GNSS+,
September 2016, Portland, Oregon.
13 3GPP TS 34.171 3rd Generation Partnership Project;
Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network;
Terminal conformance specification; Assisted Global
Positioning System (A-GPS); Frequency Division Duplex
(FDD), Specifies coarse-time assistance to 2 seconds,
fine-time to 10 microseconds.
14 van Diggelen, F., Global Locate Indoor GPS Chipset &
Services, ION-GPS, Salt Lake City, Sep 2001.
15 Lundgren, D. and van Diggelen, F., “Assistance When
There’s No Assistance. Long-Term Orbit Technology for
Cell Phones,” GPS World Magazine, October 2005.
16 http://www.igs.org/network Access 18 February 2018.
17 3GPP TS 44.031 V14.3.0 (2017-12), 3rd Generation
Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group GSM/
EDGE Radio Access Network; Location Services (LCS);
Mobile Station (MS) - Serving Mobile Location Centre
(SMLC) Radio Resource LCS Protocol (RRLP) (Release
14), 2017.
18 3GPP TS 49.031 V7.6.0 (2008-03), 3rd Generation
Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group GSM/
EDGE Radio Access Network; Location Services (LCS); Base
Station System Application Part LCS Extension (BSSAP-LE)
(Release 7), 2008.
19 3GPP TS 34.171, 3rd Generation Partnership Project;
Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network;
Terminal conformance specification; Assisted Global
Positioning System (A-GPS); Frequency Division Duplex
(FDD), Specifies coarse-time assistance to 2 seconds,
fine-time to 10 microseconds.
20 OMA-AD-SUPL-V3_0-20110920-C, Open Mobile Alliance,
Secure User Plane Location Architecture Candidate
Version 3.0 – 20 September 2011.
21 3GPP TS 36.355 V14.4.0 (2017-12), 3rd Generation
Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio
Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access
(E-UTRA); LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP) (Release
14), 2017.
22 OMA-RD-LPPe-V2_0-20141202-C, Open Mobile Alliance,
LPP Extensions Requirements Candidate Version 2.0 –
02 December 2014.
23 OMA-AD-MLS-V1_4-20150224-C, Open Mobile Alliance,
Mobile Location Service Architecture Candidate Version
1.4 – 24 February 2015.
24 OMA-ERELD-DynNav-V1_1-20150804-A, Open Mobile
Alliance, Enabler Release Definition for Dynamic
Navigation (DynNav) Approved Version 1.1 –
04 August 2015.
25 Northstar SUPL http://www.spime.com/supl.htm
26 Xypoint SUPL Server – http://www.telecomsys.com/
products/location-based-services/infrastructure-GSM/
SUPL.aspx

18
High-Sensitivity GNSS
Frank van Diggelen
Google, USA
18.1 Overview
The existence of GNSS in smartphones depends on high
sensitivity, because the GNSS antennas are so small and
the signal so weak inside the phone. However, high sensi-
tivity has applications far beyond smartphones, sometimes
literally far beyond: high-sensitivity GNSS receivers are
employed in GEO satellites to acquire and track the weak
signals transmitted from GNSS satellites on the other side
of Earth [1]. For most of this chapter, when we talk about
high sensitivity, we mean high acquisition sensitivity,
because signal acquisition is the primary challenge in the
presence of weak signals. Tracking sensitivity is relatively
trivial compared with acquisition sensitivity, but there
are times when we will want to focus on the details of track-
ing sensitivity, and then we will explicitly say so. Otherwise,
when we discuss sensitivity, you should think of acquisition
sensitivity. We saw in the previous chapter how A-GNSS
sets the stage for high sensitivity by reducing the acquisi-
tion search space. In this chapter‚ we explain how the
receiver takes advantage of the reduced search space to
integrate longer in each frequency–code search cell.
A complete quantitative analysis of A-GPS sensitivity is
given in [2, chapter 6]. Here‚ we will summarize the anal-
ysis of [2], and then extend it to show how different signal
structures in different GNSSs affect receiver complexity,
size, cost‚ and power consumption. When it comes to sen-
sitivity, all GNSS signals are not created equal‚ and what’s
best is not immediately obvious. As you will see, simpler
may be better; and more complicated signal design can
be counterproductive. In the final section‚ we discuss the
question: if you could design a new GNSS signal set, what
should the signals look like?
At the website pnt21book.com, you can access, copy, and
play with the spreadsheets used in this chapter. You can
also download high-resolution versions of certain figures
for use in your own publications.
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
c18.3d 445
445
18.2 Analyzing Sensitivity
The essence of analyzing receiver sensitivity is to follow the
signal from the antenna, through the receiver front-end
then to the output of the correlators in the baseband, as
shown in Figure 18.1. The key analysis is how the signal
strength at the antenna relates to the carrier-to–noise den-
sity ratio (C/N0) and to the observed signal-to-noise ratio
after the correlators. Remember that the value you actually
observe in a receiver is the magnitude of the correlator out-
put (the height of the autocorrelation triangular peak1). The
art of designing a high-sensitivity receiver is to make the
correlation peak high when the signal is weak.
18.3 Receiver Architecture
We’ll begin with a generic simplified block diagram of the
signal generation path in a GNSS satellite (Figure 18.2).
This is to show how all GNSS signals are constructed,
and then we’ll show a similar simplified block diagram
for a GNSS receiver.
Figure 18.3 shows a simplified standard GNSS receiver
architecture. As we’ll see later, receivers are usually more
complicated, and the implementation of some of these
blocks may be in software. But all receivers have the func-
tional blocks shown here, and this diagram is a useful ref-
erence for explaining sensitivity.
1 Current and planned satnav systems provide signals using various
spreading modulations: Binary Phase Shift Keying-Rectangular
(BPSK-R), Binary Offset Carrier (BOC), and BOC variants. BPSK-R
spreading modulations have a triangular autocorrelation response
(ACR). BOC spreading modulations have a more complicated ACR
(resembling a “W”) that is still approximately triangular in the
center [10]. Bandlimiting in receiver processing causes a slight
rounding of the ACR peaks.
15/12/2020 10:08:05 PM
 446 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

S
N0
N

Signal strength (dBm) C/N0 (dB-Hz) SNR (dB)

referenced to here typically referenced to here measured here

RF Front End Baseband

from antenna
LNA A-D Correlators & integrators

Figure 18.1 Signal path through the receiver showing where we measure signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Other values, C/N0 and signal
strength, are not directly measured but computed. The receiver processing-gain is the relationship linking signal strength to C/N0 to SNR.
The figure gives an indication of what it is we are measuring, or computing, in each case. Signal strength is a measure of the rms
power of the signal received from the satellite. Although we can’t see it in practice, we can imagine the signal is a sinusoid at the antenna.
Most of the noise in the system comes from the front-end. Once that signal passes through the front-end, the noise is significantly
greater than the signal. N0 is the measure of noise power density (noise power per hertz of bandwidth). After the correlators and
integrators, the signal has been transformed to the triangular correlation response‚ and SNR means the power ratio of the triangle height
to rms noise.

Code repeats Data includes: Sensitivity analysis begins with the RF front-end analysis
frequently Ephemeris, Time
followed by analysis of the baseband. The RF front-end
analysis quantifies the noise. The signal processing gain
of the baseband is what gives a receiver high sensitivity.
Spreading code Data
Carrier frequency

18.4 Front-End Analysis

In the signal path through the receiver, there are several

Figure 18.2 Simplified block diagram of signal generation at a
satellite. This figure shows how a signal is generated for a single
center frequency. The carrier frequency is in the gigahertz
range (e.g. 1.176 GHz for L5, 1.575 GHz for L1). The spreading
codes2 always repeat frequently, on the order of once per
millisecond (e.g. for the open signals on L1: every 1 ms for GPS,
GLONASS, and QZSS; every 4 ms for Galileo). The data rate is much
slower than the code rate, and is not present on the pilot
component. The key to high sensitivity in the receiver is that many
copies of the spreading code can be accumulated and added to
each other, boosting the SNR.
2 There may be overlapping codes and symbols on the same signal,
such as with BOC modulation, but the essence of all spreading codes is
that they change the phase of the carrier as shown in this simplified
block diagram, and they repeat frequently.
places where we would like to know signal strength or
SNRs: the antenna port, the input to the baseband, and
the output of the correlators. Of these, the only place where
we directly measure a signal is the SNR at the baseband out-
put. At the antenna and baseband inputs‚ the GNSS signal
is much weaker than the noise and not directly measure-
able. To know C/N0 (carrier-to-noise-density ratio) or sig-
nal strength, we must back-calculate from the SNR at the
baseband output.
Back-calculating from the baseband-output SNR to the
baseband-input C/N0 is straightforward, since the base-
band gain is known from the receiver design. You can
see two examples of worksheets for this calculation in
Tables 18.5 and 18.6 later in this chapter.
To relate C/N0 to the signal strength at the antenna port,
we need to know the noise figure (equivalently, noise tem-
perature) of the front-end, and this is the subject of the next
subsection.

c18.3d 446 15/12/2020 10:08:06 PM

 18.4 Front-End Analysis 447

BASEBAND BLOCK REPEATED ONCE PER CHANNEL

locally generated copy

of PRN code
code delay

locally generated copy

of PRN code

correlation peak
code delay

locally generated copy

of PRN code
+ noise

correlation peak
code delay

received PRN code

integrate

correlation peak
IF
RF + noise
Front End
Correlate Σ
fIF + fD

fIF + fD

local
NCO
oscillator
fIF + fD – fe

Figure 18.3 Standard GNSS receiver architecture, showing blocks that are common to all receivers. The satellite signal arrives at the
antenna along with some RF noise. The front-end includes amplifiers, filters‚ and analog to digital (A-D) converters. After the front-end,
we have the baseband section of the receiver. The mixer acts to remove the carrier from the signal, leaving just the original digital
sequence that was created at the satellite – this comprises the spreading codes and the broadcast data. At the correlators, the receiver
generates local replicas of the spreading codes and multiplies them by the received signal. If the correlators are correctly aligned
with the incoming signal, we will observe the correlation peak, highlighted yellow in the figure. The baseband block is repeated once per
channel, so that each channel can acquire a different satellite signal.

Sometimes C/N0 is expressed as an equivalent value at
the antenna port by adding the front-end noise figure to
the C/N0 at the baseband.
18.4.1 Front-End Noise Figure
Figure 18.4 shows just the front-end of the receiver. Friis’s
formula shows how to compute the contributions of ther-
mal noise from each of the components of the front-end.
The figure shows a typical front-end layout: antenna, cable
and filter, LNA (low-noise amplifier), cable and filter,
down-converter.
All front-ends will have a similar layout. Certain details
may change (e.g. there may or may not be a filter before the
first LNA, and the first cable may be so short that its gain is
very close to one), but the analysis of this example front-end
will be similar for any other front-end.
Most of the noise in the GNSS signal comes from the ther-
mal noise in the front-end itself (this is ironic: if only we
didn’t have a front-end, we’d have much less noise –
we’d also have no GNSS receiver). About a third of the noise
comes from external sources of radiation, and we call this
sky noise. Its effect is accounted for in the number TA,
the so-called “effective temperature of the antenna,” or sim-
ply “antenna temperature.” This is not a literal tempera-
ture; it is the equivalent temperature of a resistor that
would generate the same noise that the antenna is receiv-
ing. For a GNSS, TA is quite low. The number we use for
TA is 130 K; see [3, section 3.D.1]. If the GNSS receiver is
connected to a simulator, however, then the noise arriving
at the antenna port is the thermal noise from the simulator,
in this case TA = T0.
Friis’s formula in Figure 18.4 shows us how to assign a
single noise figure, F, to the entire front-end. We use this
noise figure in the relationship between the signal strength
(dBm) and the carrier-to-noise-density ratio, C/N0 (dB-Hz).
The effective temperature is related to the noise power
density by
N0 = k∗Teff ,
where k is the Boltzmann constant, 1.3807 × 10−23 J/K.
Note that the units of N0 are J/K∗K = J = W.s = W/Hz.

c18.3d 447 15/12/2020 10:08:06 PM

 448 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

+ noise

IF
RF
Front End fIF + fD

GPS Antenna
Cable & Filter Cable & Filter Down Converter
TA

LNA
IF
G2 G4
G1 = 1/F1 F2 G3 = 1/F3
F4

(F2 – 1)T0 (F3 – 1)T0 (F4 – 1)T0

Friis’s formula: Teff = TA + (F1 – 1)T0 + + +
G1 G1G2 G1G2G3
= TA + (F– 1)T0

Figure 18.4 Friis’s formula for the front-end. The formula gives the effective temperature of the front-end, Teff, in terms of the noise
figures and gains of each stage. The effect of the sky noise at the antenna is accounted for in TA, the effective noise temperature
of the antenna. The contribution of each following stage to the effective temperature is the ambient temperature of that stage (T0)
multiplied by the noise figure minus one, divided by the gains of all the previous stages. If a stage has a large gain (like the LNA), it amplifies
both the signal and the noise inputs to that stage, minimizing the effect of any additional noise sources that come later. The second
line of Friis’s formula gives us the noise figure of the entire front-end, F.

18.4.2 dBm and dB-Hz 18.4.3 Measuring C/N0 at Baseband Input

Received signal power is expressed either in signal strength
(dBm) or as a carrier-to-noise-density ratio, C/N0 (dB-Hz).
These are equivalent scales, once we know the effective
temperature Teff, or the noise figure F, of the front-end.
To convert from signal strength to the carrier-to-noise-
density ratio, we simply divide by the noise power density,
which was given to us by Friis’s formula. If we are working
in decibels, which comes from the log10 of power, then the
division becomes subtraction. And if we are using signal
power units of dBm (decibel milliwatts) we convert to
dBW (decibel watts) before doing the subtraction. This
gives us the following formulas:
C N0 dB Hz = signal strength dBW − 10 log 10 k∗Teff
= signal strength dBm − 30 − 10 log 10 k∗Teff
18 1
where the units of k∗Teff are watts/hertz.
Figure 18.5 shows a slide rule for converting between
dBm and dB-Hz.
or Antenna?
C/N0 is typically referenced to the baseband input, as illus-
trated in Figure 18.1, but it can also be referenced to the
antenna port. There are benefits to both approaches.
18.4.3.1 C/N0 at Baseband Input
The advantage of referencing C/N0 to the baseband input is
that most of the noise (i.e. most of the “N0”) comes from the
front-end itself, as explained above. Hence‚ the C/N0 refer-
enced to the baseband input contains all the RF noise pres-
ent in the signal at the baseband. Also, there is a direct
relationship between the SNR at the correlator outputs
and the C/N0 at the baseband input. This relationship is
expressed by the worksheets below, and depends on the
coherent and non-coherent integration parameters, but
not the noise figure of the front-end.
The disadvantage is that to calculate the equivalent signal
strength at the antenna, we need to know the front-end
noise figure, and use the slide rule of Figure 18.5.

c18.3d 448 15/12/2020 10:08:07 PM

 18.4 Front-End Analysis 449

–190 –185 –180 –175 –170 –165 –160 –155 dBW

Signal strength –160 –155 –150 –145 –140 –135 –130 –125 dBm

C/N0 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 dB-Hz

Smaller Teff and F Larger Teff and F

move lower scale move lower scale
this way this way

C/N0 is the ratio of Signal strength to Noise power density –140 dBm = 34 dB-Hz
Noise power density depends on the Noise Figure for F = 1.9dB = 1.55 ratio
Signal strength is usually expressed in dBm
⇔Teff = 290K, with signals from space
C/N0 is expressed in dB-Hz

C/N0 = Signal strength (dBm) – 30 – 10*log10(k*Teff),

where Teff = TA + (Fratio– 1)T0

Figure 18.5 Slide rule for dBm dB-Hz conversion for C/N0 at baseband. The top scale shows the signal strength in dBm, decibel
milliwatts (and in light gray the equivalent dBW, decibel watts). The bottom scale shows the matching C/N0 in units of dB-Hz. The relation
between the dBm and dB-Hz differs with the noise figure and effective temperature as shown. The scales are shown with an offset of 174
dB, which corresponds to F = 1.9 dB and Teff = 290 K if we are using signals from space. If you are using a simulator, then TA is larger, and
the lower scale must be shifted a further 1.9 dB to the right. You can access the spreadsheet where these values are computed at
pnt21book.com.

18.4.3.2 C/N0 at Antenna Port What’s the deal with these strange units, and why do they
The advantage of referencing C/N0 to the antenna port is seem to be different on the left and right of an equal sign?
that you can directly calculate the equivalent signal This is explained next.
strength at the antenna port:
To obtain received signal strength in dBW, use the fol-
lowing equation:
18.4.4 Explanation of RF Units (dBm, dB-Hz,
signal strength dBW = C N0 dB-Hz dBm/Hz, etc.)
+ 10∗ log 10 k∗Teff dBW Hz The units in this equation may look non-intuitive.
We highlight them in this paragraph to explain:
where
SS dBW = C N0 dB-Hz + 10∗ log 10 k∗Teff dBW Hz
C/N0 is for the signal at the antenna,
k = the Boltzmann constant 1.3807 × 10−23 (J/K), These units look strange because we are dealing with log
Teff is the antenna effective temperature (K). values. To get clarity, look at the ratios:

For signals from space, Teff = 130K see 3, section 3 D 1 , SS W N0 W Hz =C W N0 W Hz = C N0 Hz ,

10∗ log 10 k∗Teff = − 207 5 dBW Hz and multiply both sizes by N0:
For signals from a simulator, Teff = 290 K,
SS W = C N0 Hz ∗N0 W Hz
10∗ log 10 k∗Teff = − 204 dBW Hz

To obtain the received signal strength in dBm, adjust Now substitute k∗Teff for N0, and take log10 of both sides.
dBW numbers by +30 dB: Then you get the dB equation:

For signals from space signal strength dBm 10∗ log 10 SS W = 10∗ log 10 C N0 Hz ∗k∗Teff W Hz
= 10∗ log 10 C N0 Hz + 10∗ log 10 k∗Teff W Hz
= C N0 dB-Hz − 177 5 dBm Hz
SS dBW = C N0 dB-Hz + 10∗ log 10 k∗Teff dBW Hz
For signals from a simulator signal strength dBm
= C N0 dB-Hz − 174 0 dBm Hz Final note: dB-Hz is sometimes written dB.Hz or dBHz.
dB-Hz has been used in this chapter.

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 450 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

18.5 Correlation and Coherent noise-free signal

Integration sample
future samples
In this section‚ we develop the SNR worksheet for coherent incoming
integration. First‚ we explain correlation and idealized
signal
coherent integration. By “idealized” we mean in the
absence of any bandlimiting effects, so that all noise sam-
ples are uncorrelated with each other in time. Next‚ we con-
sider the bandlimiting effects of the front-end filters, the local copy τ
quantization effects of the A-D converters, the effects of fre- of PRN
quency offset‚ and code alignment. Then we are ready to
construct the coherent integration section of the SNR
worksheet.

18.5.1 Correlation and Ideal Coherent ∑

Integration
This section provides a step-by-step construction to explain
correlation gain and coherent integration. This is to com-
τ
plement the analytical model provided in chapter 2, Funda-
mentals of Satellite Navigation, section 6.3.
To explain correlation gain, we first consider an idealized single correlator
case of coherent integration, where the signal and noise have Figure 18.6 Correlator producing a single point on the noise-free
infinite bandwidth, the noise is white (uncorrelated in time), triangular correlation response. The correlator offset or delay, τ,
and there is no quantization or frequency mismatch. We produces the same offset between the correlator output and the
explain correlation of spreading codes, and the idealized peak of the correlation response.
SNR gain that results. Then, in Section 18.5.2, we will
remove the idealized assumptions (infinite bandwidth, All GNSS systems use spreading codes with good autocor-
uncorrelated noise, and others), and show how to compute relation properties: When the correlation delay is zero,3
the actual coherent gain. then the normalized correlation peak magnitude is one,
The purpose of this approach is fourfold: by definition (you normalize the correlation by dividing
the summed value by the number of samples); for any other
1) It provides a bottom-up derivation of the coherent gain.
delays‚ the codes give very low correlation values.
2) It allows us to write the actual coherent gain as we do in
Figure 18.6 shows the incoming signal (in the absence of
Eq. (18.4): actual coherent gain = ideal coherent
noise) along with the locally generated copy of the spreading
gain + Δ, where the units are dB, and Δ is the sum of
code. In this figure‚ we show a single correlator multiplying a
all implementation losses.
sample of the incoming signal by the corresponding sample
3) It provides insight into a rule of thumb: coherent gain
of the locally generated code. You can imagine the incoming
equals 30 dB for 1 ms of coherent integration. This is
signal and local copy moving from right to left through the
approximately true for most receivers‚ and you will find
correlator (as if they were traces on an oscilloscope). We
this result after we take filtering loss into account in the
show future samples, spaced at two samples per chip, in light
next section. But a benefit of doing the bottom-up anal-
gray. As each sample reaches the correlator‚ it is multiplied
ysis is to show why the coherent gain behaves this way,
and added, generating the correlation response. The local
what aspects of receiver design make this relationship
copy of the spreading code is shown with a delay of τ com-
true, and what would change it.
pared to the actual signal. This corresponds to the same offset
4) It allows us to emphasize the link between coherent
τ from the correlation peak.
integration and non-coherent integration. For non-
coherent integration‚ the noise in adjacent samples 3 A correlation delay of zero means that the locally generated copy of
really is uncorrelated, and the actual gain has the same the spreading code is exactly aligned with the received code from the
form as the ideal coherent gain: Eq. (18.3). satellite. That is, τ = 0 in Figure 18.6.

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 18.5 Correlation and Coherent Integration 451

signal noise
sample
sample
future samples
incoming
incoming
signal noise

local copy τ τ
local copy
of PRN
of PRN

∑ ∑

signal magnitude grows uncorrelated noise

linearly with Mc samples σ grows as Mc
τ

idealized SNR grows as

2
Mc2 Mc = Mc

Figure 18.7 Idealized analysis of a correlator producing a single point on the noisy correlation response. The signal is (conceptually)
represented by splitting the noise-free spreading code from the noise. The noise-free correlation triangle is then added to the
noise to produce the (actual) noisy correlation triangle. The figure shows the idealized case where neither the signal nor the noise is
bandlimited. This allows us to write the SNR growth as Mc. In practice‚ the signal and noise are bandlimited, and this is dealt with as an
implementation loss (see next section, 18.5.2).

Next we show the code as well as the noise on the incom-
ing signal, Figure 18.7. The noise and signal will be together
in real life, but we have separated them for the purpose of
explaining coherent integration. As time passes, the corre-
lator will accumulate signal and noise. After Mc samples4
have been accumulated‚ the noise-free correlator output
will have grown by Mc, provided that the locally generated
code maintains phase coherency with the incoming signal.
We call this coherent integration. Meanwhile the uncorre-
lated noise will have accumulated as Mc (the sum of Mc
uncorrelated random variables with standard deviation σ is
σ Mc) [4, 5]. Remember that at this stage we are still mak-
ing the idealized assumption that the noise is uncorrelated
in time – we will remove this assumption in the next
section.
4 Remember we are taking the approach of analyzing idealized
coherent integration first (where the signal and noise have infinite
bandwidth, and the noise is white) before adding in the real-life losses.
This approach has several benefits, as explained at the beginning of this
section. At this stage, it may occur to you: Wait! Are you saying we can
increase gain simply by increasing sample rate? The answer for an
idealized system is Yes. For a real-world system, the answer may also be
yes, depending on the specific sample rate and the noise bandwidth,
and is explained and quantified in the next section with the value ΔIF.
A note on the notation: we try to keep the notation clear
by using N for noise, M for counting, and T for time; all with
appropriate subscripts. We also use T for temperature, the
context usually making clear which is temperature and
which is time (to aid this: T (italicized) always means time,
not temperature). For reference, a glossary of notation
appears at the end of this chapter.
Now we examine the SNR of the accumulated correla-
tion. We define the SNR as the ratio of the post-correlation
signal power to the noise power:
2
PS S
SNR ≔ = 18 2
PN σN
where S is the amplitude of the correlation peak, and σ N is
the standard deviation of the noise; and we assume the
noise is zero-mean so that σ N is also the rms value of the
noise. If the noise is not zero-mean, then we redefine S
as the amplitude of the of the correlation peak above the
expected noise mean value (see Section 18.6.2).
Do not confuse S with the signal power – we define S as
the amplitude of the correlation peak because our focus is
the processing of this peak. Also, since we define the SNR as

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 452 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS
we do, it is useful to think of the peak magnitude as the “S”
in “SNR.”
Note that in some publications [6, 7], the SNR is defined
as the magnitude ratio of S over σ N; this can be convenient
(because when we look at correlation peaks, we can see the
magnitude), but it is not standard. In this book, we stick to
the standard usage of the SNR as a power ratio. When we
need to show magnitude ratios, we will explicitly say so.
With idealized coherent integration (meaning infinite
bandwidth and uncorrelated noise), the signal magnitude
grows by Mc, and the noise standard deviation by Mc ;
2 cally of 1, 2, 3, or 4 bits), and this affects the processing gain.
thus‚ the SNR will grow as Mc 2 Mc = Mc , for uncorre-
lated noise.
In dB, the ideal coherent gain is
ideal coherent gain = 10 log 10 Mc 18 3
Let’s put some numbers to the variables to give an idea of
typical gain: for the GPS C/A code, the code length is 1023
chips, and a typical receiver will sample at a rate of two sam-
ples per chip. After 1 ms of coherent integration, the gain is
10∗ log 10 1023∗2 = 33 1 dB
5
where 1023∗2 is the number of coherent samples (Mc).
Does this mean that if we doubled the sample rate that
we would double the gain? For an idealized system (with
infinite bandwidth and white noise), the answer is yes;
for a real system with high enough bandwidth‚ the answer
is: yes, almost. But what is “high enough”? To answer this
properly‚ we quantify all the implementation losses in the
next section. We will see that with a full accounting of the
implementation losses, there is an increase in gain with
increased sample rate, but the size of the increase becomes
less and less as the sample rate increases. In plain English:
we continue to get increased gain from an increased sam-
pling rate until the sample rate approaches the filtered
noise bandwidth. This is explained in [2, chapter 6] and
below in Section 18.5.2.1.
18.5.2 Implementation Losses
So far we have used explicit and implicit assumptions in the
following way:
• The signal was not bandlimited. Thus, the spreading code
appeared as a true square wave and the correlation func-
tion a true triangle. This allowed us to assert that the sum
5 The units here are dB, because we are taking ten times the log of a
power ratio. The ratio in question is the correlation peak SNR after
integrating Mc samples compared to the same SNR after one sample.
See the Appendix:, dB Review, at the end of this chapter for a refresher
on decibels.
c18.3d 452
of Mc correlations grows linearly as Mc. In practice, the IF
signal will be bandlimited by the filters in the front-end,
and this causes rounding of the square waves, and of the
correlation peak.
• The noise samples were uncorrelated with each other.
This allowed us to assert that the sum of Mc noise samples
causes the standard deviation to grow as Mc . In prac-
tice, the noise will be bandlimited, and therefore not
entirely uncorrelated from one sample to the next.
• There was no quantization. In practice, the A-D converter
must quantize the analog signal into a digital signal (typi-
•
There was no frequency mismatch. In practice, the refer-
ence signal into the mixer will not exactly match the sum
of the IF frequency and satellite signal Doppler shift, and
this causes the correlation peak to decay as a sinc function.
• The code alignment gave us a sample of the correlation peak.
In practice, before signal acquisition, the code will have a ran-
dom alignment‚ and we will usually have post-correlation
samples on either side of the correlation peak, but not right
at the peak. This causes loss in the observable SNR.
• Remember that we are primarily focused on acquisition
sensitivity, and so frequency mismatch and code align-
ment can significantly limit our achievable gain.
These effects are summarized in Figure 18.8, which
shows the relevant parts of the receiver: the antenna, a
bandpass filter, the LNA, A-D converter, mixer, and corre-
lators. The parts that are responsible for less than ideal
coherent integration are shaded in gray. The figure also
shows what a portion of the spreading code would look like
at each stage if we could see it. Before the A-D converter the
signal is analog, so it is best represented as a continuous
line. After the A-D converter the signal is digital, sampled
at discrete times, so it is best represented as discrete points.
We show the sampled signal in dark dots after the A-D con-
verter. Before this we show the corresponding places on the
analog signal as very light dots, just to show were the
sampled data comes from.
In this section, we show the effect of each of these prac-
tical limitations so that we can write the actual coherent
integration as
actual coherent gain = ideal coherent gain + Δ
Δ = ΔIF + ΔQ + ΔF + ΔC
18 4
where Δ represents the implementation losses:
ΔIF = IF filtering loss (on the signal and the noise)
ΔQ = Quantization loss
ΔF = Frequency mismatch loss
ΔC = Code alignment loss
15/12/2020 10:08:07 PM
 18.5 Correlation and Coherent Integration 453

Light dots show where the analog signal Dark dots show the actual samples
will be sampled at the A-D converter after the A-D converter

ideal filtered quantized frequency code

mismatch alignment

A-D Correlators
IF signal

Figure 18.8 Receiver components responsible for filtering, quantizing, frequency mismatch‚ and code alignment effects on the ideal
coherent gain. A portion of the spreading code is shown to illustrate the effect. After the filter‚ the code will not be perfectly square,
but will have rounded edges as shown. After the A-D converter‚ the samples will be quantized. After the mixer‚ the magnitude of the signal
will be affected by the frequency mismatch, and the magnitude roll-off is described by the sinc function, sin(x)/x. And, after the
correlators, the observed SNR will be affected by the code alignment.

Then we can construct the coherent integration work- Ideal and band-limited correlation response.
1
sheet using Eq. (18.4). When we work these worksheets,
it is convenient to have gains appear positive and losses
appear negative. This makes it easy to scan down a column
R(τ)

0.5
of the worksheet and see how the net baseband gain is
achieved. Thus‚ we adopt the convention that a loss of
1 dB is written as −1 dB. 0
–1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5

Bandlimited peak height = 0.9

1
18.5.2.1 Bandlimited Signals and Filtering Loss, ΔIF
The front-end filtering causes the IF signal to be
R(τ)

bandlimited. This affects the SNR in two ways: 0.5

1) The correlation peak will not be a perfect triangle,

because the spreading code is not a perfect square wave,
but instead has rounded edges and nonzero rise times, as
shown in Figure 18.9. This lowers the correlation peak,
reducing the ‘S’ in the SNR.
2) The noise will not be white (uncorrelated). Thus, as we
integrate the signal and the noise, the noise standard
deviation will not grow as Mc but rather as something
larger. This increases the “N” in the SNR. Note that the
ideal coherent gain in Eq. (18.3) suggests that we could
increase the coherent gain indefinitely simply by
increasing the sample rate, if the noise were uncorre-
lated. If you think about correlated noise, then you real-
ize that as sample rate increases we must eventually
reach a rate where the noise in one sample is almost
identical to the noise in the previous sample; so eventu-
ally there would be very little increased gain from sum-
ming repeated samples of the signal and noise. But at
lower sample rates there will indeed be a noticeable
increase in gain with an increase in sample rate.
0
–1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
Correlator dealy τ (chips)
Figure 18.9 Ideal correlation response (top) and response
with bandlimited signal (bottom) for an example signal.
The bandlimited response is delayed by the effect of the filtering;
this delay will be part of the common bias in the navigation
solution. The peak height is reduced by the effect of the filtering
on the signal. This causes an implementation loss from the ideal
coherent gain
Also note that, before summing the bandlimited
noise, we multiply the received signal by the spreading
code, and this decorrelates the noise wherever there is a
+1/−1 transition in the code. So it is not so easy to com-
pute the effect of the noise correlation analytically. In
[2], a procedure is developed for performing numerical
analysis, and we use this approach to obtain the result in
Table 18.1.

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 454 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

Table 18.1 IF Filtering loss for A-D sample spacing of 2 samples/ Table 18.2 Minimum quantization loss as a function of number
chip, and one-side filter bandwidth of 1.5 chipping rate of bits for any signal (for GNSS signals, quantization loss
magnitudes are slightly greater)
IF filtering loss (to within 0.1 dB)
Effect on SNR of rounded correlation peak −0.5 dB Number of bits Minimum quantization loss
Effect on SNR of noise correlation 0.0 dB
1 −1.96 dB
2 −0.55 dB
3 −0.17 dB
4 −0.05 dB
Note that the noise correlation effect is 0 dB (to within 0.1
dB). Let’s discuss this for a moment: In the correlator, the
noise is multiplied by the spreading code before it is inte-
grated. The spreading codes are, by design, almost ran- Table 18.3 SNR losses from quantization (for rectangular
dom‚ and so when the noise is multiplied by them, each symbols, two-sided receiver bandwidth equal to twice the chipping
rate, Nyquist sample rate)
noise sample becomes decorrelated with following samples
more than one chip away. This contributes to the result
Number of Number of Minimum
shown in the table. The result would be different with a
quantizers Levels quantizer bits quantization loss (dB)
higher sample rate (say, 10 samples/chip – as shown in
[2, chapter 6), where the correlation code will have much 2 1 −2.43
less decorrelation effect on the noise (because it affects only 4 2 −1.01
every 10th sample), and there will be more noise correla- 8 3 −0.63
tion loss from the idealized coherent gain. However, for sig-
16 4 −0.51
nal acquisition, sample rates of 2 samples/chip are typical
32 5 −0.48
in most receivers‚ and we have used these values in
Table 18.1.

18.5.2.3 Frequency Mismatch Loss, ΔF

18.5.2.2 Quantization Loss, ΔQ
Table 18.2 shows the minimum quantization loss as a func-
tion of the number of bits, for very weak signals in the pres-
ence of Gaussian noise [3, 8].
Table 18.3, from [9], shows the SNR losses that will occur
from quantization of a GNSS signal.
For actual quantization losses‚ we need to account for the
combination of bandlimiting and sampling rate. The key is
not the ability to reproduce the waveform after quantiza-
tion (as in typical digital signal processing) but to preserve
the correlator output SNR. Losses from a 1-bit A-D con-
verter can be higher than 2 dB at the Nyquist rate sampling
and small pre-correlation bandwidths, or lower than 2 dB if
the pre-correlation bandwidth is narrow and the sampling
rate is much higher than Nyquist. For a given pre-
correlation bandwidth, you can trade off sampling rate
for number of bits – a very powerful trade space discussed
fully in [10, chapter 15].
In our SNR worksheets‚ we will recognize the quantiza-
tion loss at the AD converter, using Table 18.3. However,
depending on the receiver architecture, there may be other
quantization losses to deal with. In some receivers with
massive hardware correlation, partial sums of the correla-
tion results are performed, quantized, and stored, to be
added to other partial sums. In this case‚ the effect of this
secondary quantization must also be accounted for.
In Figure 18.3, we showed the ideal situation where the fre-
quency from the numerically controlled oscillator (NCO)
exactly matches the frequency from the front-end. In prac-
tice, there will be a frequency mismatch. An offset, f Hz,
between the reference frequency and the signal frequency
at the mixer will cause a roll-off of the correlation
response of
frequency mismatch loss = sin π f T c π f Tc
18 5
where f is the frequency mismatch in Hz, and Tc is the
coherent integration time in seconds. This effect is illus-
trated in the 3D image of the correlation peak shown in
Figure 18.10.
So, for example, if f were 100 Hz and Tc were 1 ms, then
frequency mismatch = sin π∗100∗10 − 3 π∗100∗10 − 3
= sin 0 1π 0 1π
= 0 984
= – 0 14 dB
18 6
In the previous chapter (Assisted GNSS), we discussed a
search for the signal over different frequency bins. In this
chapter, we assume that we have found the signal in one

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 18.5 Correlation and Coherent Integration 455

Correlation peak over freq/code search space. Zoomed in around peak delay.

0.9

0.8

0.7
Correlation output (normalized)

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
4
3
2 255
254
1 253
0 252
251
–1 250
–2 249
–3 248
247
–4 246
245
Frequency offset (kHz)
Code delays (chips). Zoomed in.

Figure 18.10 Correlation response showing (triangular) code roll-off in one axis, and sinc function of frequency roll-off in the other axis.

of the frequency bins, and then we treat the frequency offset
as an unknown value within the known boundaries of the
frequency bin. If we are doing an acquisition analysis, we
may set the unknown frequency offset to half the frequency
bin spacing to estimate the expected SNR loss. Or, if we are
doing a worst-case analysis, we may set the frequency offset
to match the frequency bin spacing.
18.5.2.4 Code Alignment Loss, ΔC
If the locally generated replica of the spreading waveform is
perfectly aligned with the received spreading waveform
from a satellite,6 then we will get a correlation result at
6 If the spreading modulation uses rectangular symbols‚ then the
spreading waveform alignment is the same as the spreading code
alignment. In general, the alignment includes the effect of alignment of
the spreading symbols as well as the spreading code. For simplicity of
terminology‚ we refer to the effect as “code alignment,” even though,
strictly speaking, we should say “spreading waveform alignment.”
the correlation peak. However, if there is any offset in
the alignment of the spreading codes and symbols‚ then
the autocorrelation result (ACR) will be below the expected
correlation peak, and the observed SNR will be reduced.
For example, Figure 18.6 shows a correlator offset of τ pro-
ducing a sample offset from the peak of τ. The reduction in
observed SNR is proportional to the square of the correlator
alignment (for a triangular autocorrelation response, like
this example); if the correlators are misaligned from the
received signal by a quarter chip, then the correlator output
will be one quarter of the way down the ideal correlation
peak as shown in Figure 18.11. Recall that we define the
SNR as the ratio of powers, so the SNR will be (Peak
SNR)∗(3/4)2. For the general case, see the following
analysis.
For triangular ACR, the code alignment analysis is quite
simple, and yields the following elegant result from [2].
For triangular ACR, with correlator delay hypotheses
spacing of 1/M chips:

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 456 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

1/8 1/8
1/4

... cycle
repeats

1/8 1/8 1/8

best case worst case
Average distance of highest sample from peak = mean ([0, 1/8, 1/4, 1/8]) = 1/8

Figure 18.11 Code alignment analysis example: for triangular ACR. The figure shows alignment yielding best, average‚ and
worst-case observed SNR, with half-chip hypothesis spacing. One of the samples is colored white so that you can see the code phase
change by 1/8th chip each time. In the best case‚ the code alignment is perfect‚ and the correlation result is at the correlation peak. In
the worst case‚ the code alignment gives correlator results equally spaced about the ideal correlation peak. Before acquisition‚ the
actual alignment error is random, uniformly distributed between best and worst case, so that the expected alignment loss will be the
average; in the case of half-chip spacing, −1.2 dB.

• Average code alignment loss before acquisition =

20log10((4M − 1)/(4M))dB.
covered in Sections 18.5.1 and 18.5.2. For the example of
GPS C/A, we set the sample rate to 2 samples/chip, which

• Worst-case code alignment loss = 20log10((2M − 1)/

(2M))dB.
For more complicated ACRs (such as those for binary off-
set carrier (BOC) modulation, with a “W” shape), you can
adapt the above result for samples in the middle, triangular
part of the “W.”
18.5.3 SNR Worksheet
We are now ready to construct the SNR worksheet for
coherent integration, Table 18.4. We have filled the work-
sheet with values that are typical for a receiver during sig-
nal acquisition.
The first three columns (A, B, C) show the general formu-
las that you can use for different constellations and signals.
The fourth column (D) shows an instance of the equations
for the GPS C/A signal.
This worksheet is available for you to copy and play with
at the book website pnt21book.com.
In the “Front End” section of the worksheet, we compute
the value of the SNR at the IF output of the front-end. In
line 4, we compute the C/N0 at the end of the analog sec-
tion. Remember that C/N0 is the ratio of carrier power to
noise power density, i.e. noise power in 1 Hz of bandwidth.
In line 7, we multiply N0 by the two-sided IF bandwidth to
get the total noise power. Then, in line 8, we subtract this
noise power from the signal power to get the IF SNR.
In the “Coherent Addition” section of the worksheet, we
apply the coherent integration analysis that we have just
gives us the ideal coherent gain of 33.1 dB in line 14.
In lines 15, 16, 17, and 18, we list the implementation
losses, all with values explained in Section 18.5.2.
In line 20, we add the implementation losses to the ideal
coherent gain to get the actual coherent gain.
In line 21, we add the IF SNR (from line 8) to the actual
coherent gain, and this gives us the coherent SNR in dB.
Finally, in the last line we compute the √SNR magnitude
ratio from the dB value.
It is useful to end the worksheet with a magnitude ratio
since when we view the correlation peak, such as in the fig-
ures in this and the previous chapter, a magnitude (not a
squared value) is usually how we show it.
When switching between ratios and dB, we use 10log10
when the ratio is a power ratio, and 20log10 when the ratio
is a magnitude ratio. If you’d like a refresher on why this is
so, see the appendix at the end of this chapter.
18.5.4 Coherent Integration Limitations
Now let’s analyze what the worksheet reveals. With a signal
strength of −128.5 dBm (the minimum guaranteed GPS L1
C/A received signal strength into a 3 dBi linearly polarized
antenna [11]) and coherent interval Tc = 1 ms, we obtain a
detectable signal after the correlators, but only just. The
√SNR ratio is 3.6; that is, the correlator peak magnitude
is 3.6 times the noise standard deviation. As we search
across the frequency–code search space (explained in
Chapter 17), we have to set a detection threshold above
which we will interpret the correlation peak as valid.

c18.3d 456 15/12/2020 10:08:08 PM


Table 18.4 Coherent Integration Worksheet: Signal strength to post-correlation SNR analysis (example showing GPS signal strength
of −128.5 dBm and 1 ms coherent integration). This worksheet is available at pnt21book.com
Suppose we chose a threshold of 3σ, then the noise will be
above the threshold with a relative frequency7 of 0.3%. Now
keep in mind that when we search for the signal we search
over frequency bins, each with more than a thousand sam-
ples. (For GPS, the C/A code is 1023 chips; at 2 samples/
chip, one frequency bin has 2046 samples. The Galileo
Open Service code is four times longer.) So the noise will
exceed a 3σ threshold many times in each frequency bin.
In summary, 3σ is a low threshold for reliable signal detec-
tion. How do we make it higher?
For the rest of this analysis you can copy the spreadsheet
from pnt21book.com and change the values yourself to see
7 The area under 3σ tails of a Gaussian cumulative density function
(CDF) is 0.3%, and the noise distribution on the post-correlation GNSS
signal is very close to Gaussian.
c18.3d 457
18.5 Correlation and Coherent Integration 457
what happens. If you lower the initial signal strength
to values typically seen out of smartphone antennas,
−140 dBm, you’ll see that the √SNR value goes to 1σ. That
is, the correlation peak is no higher than the noise, the signal
is undetectable. So maybe we should do longer coherent inte-
gration. Using the worksheet you’ll quickly see that, with a
signal strength of −140 dBm, boosting Tc to 100 ms gives a
√SNR ratio of almost 10σ. Hooray! Is this the answer to all
our sensitivity issues: can we simply integrate coherently for
a long time (like 100 ms) and detect GNSS signals in a
phone? Unfortunately‚ the answer is no! When the coherent
interval grows much larger than 1 ms, other effects come
into play to limit the process gain. We’ll discuss this next.
The most obvious problem with long coherent integra-
tion is the presence of the data bits that change the polarity
of the received code. However, this is by no means the only
problem, and if it is surmounted (by data bit wipe-off, or by
15/12/2020 10:08:09 PM
 458 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS
Table 18.5 Coherent Integration Worksheet: Signal strength to post-correlation SNR analysis (example showing GPS signal strength
of −140 dBm, and 100 ms coherent integration).
Note: Unfortunately, the result of √SNR = 9.6 is not possible in practice because of limitations not yet shown in the worksheet.
using a pilot channel), there are still other restrictions to
coherent integration time. We now look in turn at the effect
on coherent integration of data bit transitions, frequency
error, and the receiver velocity.
18.5.4.1 Data Bit Transitions and Data Wipe-Off
To analyze data bit transitions‚ we take a time-domain view
of coherent integration. In the time domain, coherent inte-
gration is a sequential operation, summing peaks 1 ms at a
time. Ideally‚ the sequential data would look like
Figure 18.12, and the three peaks would sum together to
give an integrated peak three times higher. However, when
a data bit transition occurs‚ the phase of the signal changes
by 180 , and the time-domain view of coherent integration
would look like Figure 18.13 In this case‚ the integration
across three code epochs produces no benefit at all, since
the last two peaks cancel each other out.
If the time is known to an accuracy of a millisecond, and
the data bits were known in advance, then one can perform
c18.3d 458
“data wipe-off,” whereby the data bit transitions are com-
pensated for, so that we can coherently integrate across
bit transitions. However, this is by no means a panacea,
nor even achievable in many cases, nor even desirable.
First, before signal acquisition (when sensitivity is most
important), a receiver may not know the time to millisec-
ond accuracy. Second, it is desirable for GNSS signals of
the 21st century to have an anti-spoofing capability such
as Navigation Message Authentication [12], which makes
data bits unpredictable. And finally, even if we could do
data bit wipe-off‚ it might have little benefit since there
are other limitations to coherent integration intervals,
namely‚ the reference frequency error and change in the
receiver velocity. These are discussed next.
18.5.4.2 Maximum Frequency Error versus Coherent
Integration Time
The phase of the correlation response will change if the
locally generated code does not have exactly the same
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 18.5 Correlation and Coherent Integration 459

Correlator
response

coherent
sum

Figure 18.12 Time-domain view of coherent integration across three code epochs. For this illustration‚ we are using a correlation replica
that is one duration of the spreading code (with rectangular spreading symbols) and showing the time-domain view of three successive
epochs. In each epoch‚ we have a similar correlation response, and these are added coherently (i.e. without a change of phase).

Data

180° phase change from data bit transition

Correlator
response

coherent
sum

Figure 18.13 Time-domain view of coherent integration across three code epochs, with the effect of an uncompensated data bit
transition. The phase of the received spreading code will change by 180 , and the phase of the correlation response will also change.
Thus‚ if we integrate coherently across this data bit transition‚ we add up positive and negative peaks that cancel each other out,
nullifying the expected benefit of the coherent integration.

frequency as the received spreading code. To get the fre-
quency right‚ we must know the satellite Doppler and
the frequency offset of our reference oscillator and the
receiver velocity. In general‚ we will not know these values
a priori, and there will be a phase error that changes with
time. The cumulative effect of this phase error on the cor-
relation peaks is shown in Figure 18.14.
The effect of the receiver velocity is dealt with below; for
now we will focus only on the reference frequency error.
The effect of frequency error was described in Eq. (18.5)
and Figure 18.10. For a coherent integration time of Tc sec-
onds, the correlation response rolls off as a sinc function
with a null at 1/Tc hertz. Conversely, if the reference
frequency uncertainty is F hertz, then there is an upper
bound on coherent integration time of 1/F seconds. And
as the frequency error approaches F hertz, the actual gain
of the coherent integration will approach zero (ratio), or
−∞ dB.
18.5.4.3 Maximum Velocity Change versus Coherent
Integration Time
Any uncompensated change in the receiver velocity will
affect the coherent integration gain. One way to visualize
the effect of the receiver velocity is to think of the receiver
moving through a GNSS wavelength (which is approxi-
mately 19 cm at L1). When the receiver has the right

c18.3d 459 15/12/2020 10:08:09 PM

 460 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS
Sequential correlation results do
not look so much like this ……
as like this ……
The correlation peaks change phase as a function of: satellite Doppler,
receiver oscillator error and drift, and receiver motion.
Figure 18.14 Time-domain view of coherent integration across three code epochs, with phase change from unknown frequency errors.
The sine wave shown in the figure rotates through π in three code epochs. As the phase changes, the correlation peak from the
second epoch disappears‚ and the correlation peak from the third epoch changes phase by 180 . If these three correlation peaks
were integrated‚ they would completely cancel out.
frequency (fIF + fD) at the mixer in Figure 18.3, then the
phase of the signal after the mixer stays constant, but if
an uncompensated change in the receiver velocity causes
the incoming fD to change‚ then the effect on the signal
is the same as shown in Figure 18.14, and integration will
annihilate itself as the phase change creates positive and
negative correlation results.
Unmodeled receiver motion change of 19 cm in the direc-
tion of the satellite, during the coherent interval, will cause
a phase shift through 360 and annihilate the L1 signal after
coherent integration.
The speeds shown in Figure 18.15 correspond to the first
null of the frequency roll-off (or, in other words, the veloc-
ity that moves the receiver through one wavelength of the
L1 GNSS signal). The figure thus gives an upper bound on
coherent integration time for any given unmodeled change
in velocity. Of course‚ it is good practice to choose a prac-
tical limit on coherent integration time less than complete
annihilation, and we should also be aware of the effect of
slower speeds; these will cause some frequency loss, quan-
tified by the sinc function described in Section 18.5.2.3.
18.5.5 Coherent Integration Benefits
One of the limitations of coherent integration – a change in
the receiver velocity – can be turned into a benefit if the
receiver clock frequency is already known and the receiver
dynamics can be accurately measured. In practice, this
means that you are already tracking enough satellites to
compute the receiver position, velocity, clock offset‚ and
c18.3d 460
frequency. Then, if you have an accurate measure of change
in velocity (e.g. from inertial sensors in a phone and/or
wheel sensors in a car), you can compute the expected Dop-
pler for each satellite very precisely (e.g. to within 1 ppb),
and increase the coherent interval so that the width of a fre-
quency bin narrows to a similar value.
You’ll see from Table 18.5 that Tc = 100 ms corresponds
to a bin width of 2 Hz. Thus‚ Tc = 200 ms would correspond
to a bin width of 1Hz (frequency bin width scales linearly
with 1/Tc). For the rest of this section, let’s suppose we have
Tc = 200 ms and thus a frequency bin width of 1 Hz (this is
less than 1 ppb for a GNSS signal).
Now, we saw in chapter 17 that the receiver speed effect
on Doppler is
Lx ∗speed∗cosθ c,
where θ is the angle between receiver direction of motion
and the line of sight to the satellite.
Let’s look at a numerical example: suppose receiver speed
= 1 km/h = 0.278 m/s and carrier frequency = L1, then the
Doppler effect of receiver speed is
1 575e9∗0 278∗cosθ 3e8 Hz = 1 31 cosθ Hz ≈ cosθ ppb
That is, each 1 km/h of receiver speed contributes approx-
imately 1 ppb Doppler frequency if the receiver is moving in
the direction of the satellite, and cosθ ppb otherwise. So if
you have a long coherent interval, like Tc = 200 ms, and
the receiver clock frequency error has been removed, then
the coherent integration will be exquisitely tuned to the
actual Doppler frequency of the line-of-sight (LOS) signal.
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 18.5 Correlation and Coherent Integration 461

Maximum unmodeled velocity of frequency vs coherent integraton

100 62
Unmodeled receiver velocity of frequency (km/h, ppb)

80 50

60 37

(mph)
40 25

20 12

0 0
0 20 50 100 150 200 250 300
Coherent integration time (ms)

Figure 18.15 Change in receiver velocity in the direction of the satellite, which will annihilate the L1 signal after coherent integration.
This gives an upper bound on coherent integration time. A vertical line is shown at 20 ms, the period of a GPS data bit, to show that data
wipe-off and coherent integration longer than one data bit only makes sense if the receiver velocity and acceleration are well known and
tightly integrated into the correlation and signal search.

The benefit of this is that any non-line-of-sight (NLOS) mul-

tipath signals arriving from other directions will have a dif-
ferent Doppler by (cosθLOS − cosθNLOS)s ppb, where s is the
receiver speed in km/h, and θNLOS is the angle of the NLOS
signal. Remember that our bin width is less than 1 ppb in this
example, and the sinc function rolls off dramatically outside
the bin. The result is that most multipath signals are severely
attenuated compared to the LOS signals.
It is as if the combination of a long coherent interval, accu-
rate knowledge of the receiver clock frequency, and the
receiver velocity (and therefore signal Doppler) has synthe-
sized a highly directional antenna pointed directly at this one
satellite. This is an analogy: long coherent integration is not
exactly like a directional antenna. Long coherent integration
produces high gain along the edge of a cone with an opening
angle 2θ, as shown in Figure 18.16. But it is useful to think of
it as a high-gain directional antenna – since the effect is the
same so long as there are no NLOS signals that also have an
incident angle at the antenna close to θ (i.e. no NLOS signals
that have a direction along the edge of the cone).
By tuning each channel appropriately, with vcosθk for each
satellite k, the same effect can be achieved for all satellites.
Figure 18.16 Long coherent integration with a frequency bin
Thus, in the absence of interfering NLOS signals also with matched to the Doppler effect of the receiver velocity will have
angles of θ, you can see that long coherent intervals plus a high gain at frequency offsets of vcosθ. This produces directional
knowledge of the receiver velocity can be used to advantage. gain along the edge of the cone with opening angle 2θ.

c18.3d 461 15/12/2020 10:08:10 PM

 462 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

This approach is known as ultra-tight-integration of INS
aiding, and it has been researched for many years (see, for
example, [13] and the references therein). However, this tech-
nique has traditionally required expensive motion sensors and
has not yet been widely used in consumer GNSS; it is an area
currently being exploited as sensor technology improves [14].
The above explains how to take advantage of long coher-
ent integration properties once we know exactly where the
signal is in the frequency search domain. However, we have
to find the signal in the first place – and so we must return
to the acquisition problem where, for the reasons described
in Section 18.5.4, the coherent integration interval is lim-
ited to a few milliseconds. So, how do we get the required
sensitivity when we have limited coherent interval? The
answer is: non-coherent integration.
18.6 Non-Coherent Integration
Non-coherent integration is the process of integrating the
magnitude of the signal after repeated short coherent inter-
vals. This removes the phase sensitivity that limits coherent
integration intervals, for example: if there is a 180 phase
change‚ then coherent integration annihilates itself, but
this will not happen if we limit the coherent intervals to
avoid significant phase changes, and then add up the mag-
nitudes of these results. We will now explain the details and
build up the non-coherent worksheet so you can see exam-
ples for yourself.
18.6.1 I,Q Channels
In the above discussion of coherent integration‚ we saw that
satellite data bits, reference frequency offset, and receiver
motion all contribute to phase changes of the observed sig-
nal and the correlation response. To deal with these phase
changes‚ we now consider both the I (in-phase) and
Q (quadrature) channels. In Figure 18.3, we showed a sim-
ple block diagram of a receiver, with only the in-phase
channels. Now we must elaborate, as shown in
Figure 18.17. High-sensitivity receivers have I and Q chan-
nels for each signal tracked. By using I and Q channels, the
signal energy never gets lost as the phase changes; it just
wanders back and forth between I and Q, and we can

+ noise
+ noise

IF Massively
RF
Front End
Parallel Σ
fIF + fD Correlator
fIF + fD

For simplicity, we showed the receiver architecture like this ↑

But, now we must add the details of I and Q channels, like this ↑

coherent
fIF + fD + fe integration

+ noise I Massively
Parallel Σ ( )2
non-coherent
integration
Correlator
IF
RF
Σ
fIF + fD
Q Massively
Parallel Σ ( )2
Correlator
90°
fIF + fD + fe

Figure 18.17 Receiver block diagram showing both I and Q channels for a single channel. The signal is split after the IF stage, and
there are two mixers. The Q (quadrature) mixer has a reference frequency input that is shifted by 90 from the I (in-phase) reference
frequency input. The result is that, as the input signal changes in phase, the signal energy in the correlation response will move from the
I correlators to the Q correlators, and back, allowing us to recover the correlation peak by squaring and adding the results of the I and
Q correlators. The entire baseband block is repeated once per channel, but for simplicity this is omitted from the figure.

c18.3d 462 15/12/2020 10:08:10 PM


recover the correlation peak by squaring and adding the
results of the I and Q correlators. Once we have done this
squaring operation, further integration is known as non-
coherent integration.
Note that the residual frequency error is almost always
present in practice, even if you had a perfectly calibrated
reference oscillator. As discussed in the previous chapter,
the observed Doppler frequency of the satellite changes
by ~1 Hz per kilometer of distance from the assumed posi-
tion. And, more importantly, the residual frequency is a
function of your acceleration, ~1 Hz of frequency error
for every 1 km/h change in speed. So, unless a GNSS
receiver has a perfect reference oscillator, and has a known
velocity and acceleration8 at an already known location, the
I and Q channels will exhibit a frequency dependence as
shown. If we plan to integrate for a long time, then squaring
and adding of I and Q is necessary to remove the frequency
dependence, and this is discussed in detail in the next sec-
tion. It is a common mistake to assume that the squaring is
done only to remove the effect of unknown data bits from
the signal. While it is true that squaring does have this
effect, this is really a by-product of something you have
to do anyway. So, even if you are integrating a pilot chan-
nel, with no data bits, you will still need non-coherent inte-
gration to achieve high sensitivity.
18.6.2 Root Sum of Squares (RSS) and
Squaring Loss
In this section, we first explain the RSS operation, after
which we will see the effect of RSS on the noise and
the SNR.
We will show that the RSS operation would have no effect
on the peak magnitude of the correlation response if there
were no noise. But in the presence of noise‚ the RSS causes
three changes:
1) The correlation peak magnitude changes.
2) The mean value of the noise rises. During coherent inte-
gration the noise has a mean value of zero, but after RSS
the noise will have a nonzero mean. This lowers the
effective value of the correlation peak.
3) The standard deviation of the noise changes.
The combination of these three things changes the SNR,
and is known as “squaring loss.”
First, let’s look at RSS in the absence of noise.
Figure 18.18 shows a representation of the noise-free signal
before the correlators. We can represent the in-phase sig-
nal as
8 In practice, this usually means the receiver must be stationary.
c18.3d 463
18.6 Non-Coherent Integration 463
I and Q channels, pre-correlation
I = dk(t)cos(ωt)
Q = dk(t)sin(ωt)
dk = prn code and data,
ω = residual frequency error
Figure 18.18 Representation of noise-free signal before the
correlators. The signal consists of a digital component modulated
by the residual frequency error at the mixer. The I and
Q components of the signal differ in phase by 90 .
I = dk t cos ωt 18 7
where
dk is the digital part of the signal, i.e. the spreading code and
the data bits, and
ω is the residual frequency error.
Then the quadrature signal will be
Q = dk t sin ωt 18 8
Figure 18.14 showed a representation of sequential corre-
lation results with phase changes from residual frequency
errors. The correlation peak in the I or Q channel will
change in phase at the same frequency ω as the pre-
correlation I and Q. That is, on either the I or Q channel,
the correlation peak will be positive, then go to zero, then
negative, and so on. In the other channel‚ the same effect
happens, but with a phase shift of 90 . By using Eqs. (18.7)
and (18.8), we can see what happens to the signal in the
absence of noise. Remember that Eqs. (18.7) and (18.8)
describe the signal at the input to the correlators. After mul-
tiplying by the local replica of the code, dk(t − τ), and sum-
ming the result, we get Eqs. (18.9) and (18.11). If we are
doing data bit wipe-off, then dk(t − τ) will include the
180 phase transitions of the known data bits provided by
the assistance data.
The post-correlation value of I (in the absence of noise) is
Tc
I= dk t cos ωt dk t − τ 18 9
where Tc is the coherent integration time.
Equation (18.9) is nonlinear because of the cos(ωt) term,
but we can approximate it by a linear equation. This is
because, by design, the frequency bins are constructed so
that the value of Tc is a small fraction of the period of the
residual frequency offset (if it were not then, as discussed
above, the coherent integration would simply add up corre-
lation results of opposite phase, and reduce the energy
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 464 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

I and Q channels, post correlation

For this example, all signal

S0 energy is shown in I channel

σN0
I
Mean I noise = 0

σN0
Q
Mean Q noise = 0

(1) (1) The correlation peak magnitude

changes
S
σN < 2.σN0 (2) The mean value of the noise is
(3)
above zero. So the effective peak
I2 + Q2 (2) magnitude, S, is reduced.
(3) The RSS operation changes the
standard deviation of the noise
(1)+(2)+(3) = “squaring loss”

Figure 18.19 Representation of the correlation response of the I channel and the Q channel, as well as the RSS value I2 + Q2 .
The mean value of the noise on I and Q is zero, shown by the thin dark horizontal lines.

instead of increasing it). Thus‚ we can write the post- where Rτ is the correlation response function for a correla-
correlation value of I as the linear equation tor delay τ.
Tc
Thus‚ the effect of the RSS operation, in the absence of
I= dk t cos ωt dk t − τ noise, is to return exactly the same correlation result as if
there had been no residual frequency error. However, the
Tc
values of I and Q also include random noise, not shown
≈ dk t cos θ dk t − τ
18 10 in Eqs. 18.11 and 18.12. The RSS operation on the combined
Tc
signal and noise causes the three changes shown in
= cos θ dk t dk t − τ
Figure 18.19.
= cos θ Rτ The RSS operation causes three changes:

where θ is the average value of ωt over the interval Tc.
At the beginning of the integration interval‚ the phase
ωt = ωt0; at the end, ωt = ω(t0 + Tc). And, by design, Tc 1/
ω, so the phase change is a small fraction of a cycle, allow-
ing us to linearize Eq. (18.9) and obtain Eq. (18.10).
So, I is the expected correlation response function Rτ,
modulated by the residual phase error θ.
Similarly‚ for Q we have
Q ≈ sin θ dk t d k t − τ
18 11
= sin θ Rτ
Now if we square and add these post-correlation values of
I and Q, we get
1) The correlation peak magnitude changes.
2) The mean value of the noise rises; this lowers the effec-
tive value of the correlation peak.
3) The standard deviation of the noise changes.
These three effects taken together create the so-called
squaring loss.
The squaring loss is the ratio of the SNR after the RSS
operation to the SNR before. Remember that before RSS
we have correlation results on both I and Q channels, so
we define the SNR as the coherent SNR:
2
S0
coherent SNR ≔ 18 13
2 σ N0

I2 + Q2 = cos 2 θRτ 2 + sin 2 θRτ 2 S0 is the signal peak (above zero). The noise terms in
I and Q are random variables with standard deviation
= cos 2 θ + sin 2 θ Rτ 2 18 12 σ N0. The noise in I is uncorrelated with the noise in Q,
= Rτ 2 which is why the combined coherent noise standard devi-
ation is 2 σ N0 [4, 5, 15]. We sometimes refer to coherent

c18.3d 464 15/12/2020 10:08:11 PM

 18.6 Non-Coherent Integration 465

SNR as the pre-squaring coherent SNR to emphasize the 2

2 π 1 1 3
point that the squaring operation has not yet happened. ≈ α− + + 3 + , α > 1 6755
4−π 2 2α 8α 16α5
After the RSS operation, we have a different S (defined as
18 16
the peak height above the nonzero mean value of the noise,
as illustrated in Figure 18.19) and different noise: These polynomial equations may not improve your intu-
2 itive understanding of squaring loss, but they are very use-
S ful in the worksheets of Tables 18.6 and Table 18.9. To
post RSS SNR = 18 14
σN develop your intuition about the behavior of the system
The equation for the squaring loss is with different SNRs, download and play with these work-
sheets and refer to Figure 18.20.
post RSS SNR
squaring loss ≔
coherent SNR
18 15 18.6.3 Non-Coherent Integration Worksheet
S2 2 σ 2N0
= ∗
σ 2N S0 2 We now have all the analysis and information we need to
extend the coherent integration worksheet (Table 18.4)
Analysis of this function can be done using expected
with non-coherent integration to give us the non-coherent
values of σ 2N ; this is done in [2], yielding the result shown
integration worksheet.
in Figure 18.20, and the polynomial expression shown in
Recall that in Table 18.5 we looked at an example with
Eq. (18.16).
GPS signal strength = −140 dBm, and we saw that we could
Polynomial approximations of the post-RSS SNR have
acquire the signal only after an impractically long coherent
been derived by Lowe [7]: let α = 2γ , that is, α is the interval (like 100 ms). Moreover, if we had a coherent inter-
√SNR magnitude of I or Q alone (assuming the power in val of 100 ms, we would have frequency bin width of 2 Hz.
each was equal) before squaring. Thus, α2/2 = γ, the coher- Also, in the previous chapter, we saw that A-GNSS reduces
ent SNR. Then: the frequency search space from 17.45 kHz (for unassisted
π α2 α4 α6
2 GPS) to 0.324 kHz (for A-GPS). So, even with A-GPS, if we
post-RSS SNR ≈ − + , α ≤ 1 6755 have a frequency bin width of 2 Hz, we would have to
4−π 4 64 768
search 162 bins to find the signal. Thus‚ the total search

Squaring loss : = Post RSS SNR (dB) - Pre RSS coherent SNR (dB)
6

–3
Squaring loss (dB)

–6

–9

–12

–15

–18

–21
–20 –15 –10 –5 0 5 10 15 20
Coherent SNR before squaring (dB)

Figure 18.20 Squaring loss in dB versus coherent SNR of the signal before squaring, from [2]. Our convention is that when the RSS
operation reduces the SNR‚ then the squaring loss is shown as negative. Source: From van Diggelen [2].

c18.3d 465 15/12/2020 10:08:11 PM

 466 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

Table 18.6 Non-coherent Integration Worksheet: signal strength to post-correlation SNR analysis (with example showing GPS signal
strength of −150 dBm, and 10 ms coherent integration). This worksheet is available at pnt21book.com

Note: RF analysis is the same as in the Coherent Integration Worksheets, and so rows 4–7 are hidden for simplicity.

time would be 162∗0.1s = 16.2 s; you would need to know
the data bits in advance (to wipe them off ) and, even then,
if the receiver clock or velocity changed by a small amount9
the search would fail.
Now the magic of non-coherent addition: we can solve the
acquisition problem with a 10× weaker signal (−150 dBm)
while limiting coherent integration to a realistic 10 ms,
which gives a 10× wider frequency bin width of 19 Hz.
Now, the total number of bins is 324 Hz/19 Hz = 17. The
total dwell time in each bin is 0.5 s (row 26 of the worksheet),
9 The coherent integration is completely annihilated if the receiver
velocity changes by 19 cm/Tc = 0.19m/0.1 s = 7 km/h. Also, the signal
moves from one bin to another if the receiver clock frequency changes
by 2 Hz, or 1.3 ppb. Typical crystal oscillators found in smartphones
will regularly change the frequency at a rate of 1 ppb/s or more, so
while you search for the signal at 100 ms coherent integration‚ it will be
moving from one 2-Hz-wide bin to another. By the time you get to
where the signal was, it may not be there anymore.
and the total search time is 17∗0.5 s = 8.5 s. This is about half
the search time from the coherent-only example of
Table 18.5. With 10× wider frequency bins, we are 10× less
susceptible to signal annihilation from changes in the
receiver velocity. Also, the receiver clock must change by
10× more to move the signal from one bin to another.
Summary: non-coherent integration finds a 10× weaker
signal in half the time that coherent integration could,
while providing 10× more margin for the receiver clock
and velocity change.
Non-coherent acquisition schemes like this are how
receivers in smartphones find and acquire weak signals
around −150 dBm. If you have an Android phone10 there
10 Unfortunately, at the time of writing, no iPhones can display GNSS
C/N0, not even which satellites the GNSS receiver is tracking, thanks to
the limitations in the iOS core location APIs [16].

c18.3d 466 15/12/2020 10:08:11 PM


are many apps that display GNSS C/N0, and you can readily
observe your phone acquiring signals around 24 dB-Hz
(equivalent to −150 dBm, as explained by the slide rule
in Figure 18.5). The limit on acquisition sensitivity for
phones is around −156 dBm. This is a practical limit driven
by the search time required, the stability of the local oscil-
lator, and changes in the phone velocity. By playing with
the non-coherent worksheet‚ you can see for yourself
how the total search time increases dramatically for signals
below −156 dBm. Of course, if you had a very stable oscil-
lator and a stationary receiver, there are almost no theoret-
ical limits to sensitivity. But this “in-lab” sensitivity may be
of little practical use for regular users.
We have not yet analyzed how Doppler performs time
companding of the complex envelope.11 This also limits
coherent integration times unless you compensate for it
by generating a time-companded replica. And, with non-
coherent integration, the result is code Doppler that limits
the number of non-coherent integrations, although this is
not a practical limitation for typical non-coherent intervals
such as shown in the worksheet. The number of non-
coherent integrations can be extended if you do code Dop-
pler compensation. We will not go into further detail here,
but you can find more information in [10].
This completes the explanation of how A-GNSS and sig-
nal integration combine to give high sensitivity. Now,
knowing all the above, we are equipped to analyze what
makes a GNSS signal good. In the next section‚ we will com-
pare the existing GNSS signals to one another, and in the
final section we will discuss the question: if you could
design new GNSS satellites, what would the signals
look like?
18.7 GNSS Signal Comparison
In this section‚ we’ll use the knowledge we’ve gained in this
chapter to analyze what makes a GNSS signal good, and
then we can compare different GNSSs from the point of
view of signal acquisition and sensitivity.
18.7.1 Consumer GNSS Receiver Evolution
First‚ we’ll look at the evolution of consumer GNSS archi-
tecture to date. You’ll see that acquisition speed and sensi-
tivity have been the main drivers of receiver architecture,
and that architecture has evolved rapidly to take full advan-
tage of the characteristics of the GPS C/A code. Next‚ we’ll
11 The phenomenon of time companding is described by Betz in [10,
section 3.2.1], and code Doppler compensation is described in [10,
section 16.3.5].
c18.3d 467
18.7 GNSS Signal Comparison 467
look at the cost constraints of consumer GNSS. Then, look-
ing at the cost-benefits of new codes and higher data rates,
the theme will emerge that GPS L1 C/A code was designed
almost perfectly for good acquisition sensitivity in con-
sumer GNSS.
In 1993, when GPS reached initial operational capability,
receivers had just a few correlators. They would search one
code delay at a time, store and accumulate the results, and if
there was no energy, move on. Time to acquire satellites
was large, and acquisition was only successful if the signals
were strong. (That is, if you were outside, holding the
receiver nicely, and not under a tree. Readers of a certain
age may remember this era well.) Next came banks of cor-
relators, in modest numbers that could give benefits like
early-late tracking once the signal was found, see
Figure 18.21. Once A-GPS became the premier emerging
technology for E-911, designers started using large numbers
of correlators in earnest. Matched filter architectures
appeared, where you could search an entire code epoch
in parallel, and then multiple frequency bins of entire code
epochs in parallel. Note that the memory size grows in pro-
portion, as you need to store all the possible hypotheses
since you are accumulating them all in parallel.
This approach was pioneered from 1999 through 2001
[17–19], and now all consumer receivers have some form
of massive parallel correlation, although most these days
are implemented as shown in the final block diagram
(Gen 4) – by using Fast Fourier transforms FFTs and
inverse FFTs to implement the convolutions. With the
FFT approach, you save on total chip size, but memory
remains the dominant factor in cost and size; keep that
in mind when we discuss cost constraints – but first we
must look at the benefits driving this architecture
evolution.
As you add correlators, you can get greater acquisition
sensitivity for a given time to acquisition; because, as you
increase the number of parallel searches, you can increase
the integration time. This has a one-to-one effect on sensi-
tivity, if we look at it as sensitivity in decibels versus
resources on a log scale.
Figure 18.22 shows four receivers spanning 20 years from
1993 to 2013. With just a few correlators you can search a
few thousandths of a bin; in the late 1990s you could search
a large fraction of a bin, and today the receiver in your
phone can search over one hundred full bins in parallel.
So instead of spending time doing serial searches, it can
spend its entire time accumulating signal at every possible
code-frequency hypothesis, and achieve acquisition sensi-
tivity of −156 dBm.
By the way, if we had done the same thing 20 years pre-
viously, when the industry was at the top-left data point on
the curve, the modern chip would have been bigger by
15/12/2020 10:08:11 PM
 468 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

Samples Correlator 1 Samples Correlators 1–4

Results
Correlator 2 Correlators 5–8 Results

Correlator 3 Correlators 9–12

•••
Correlator n Correlators n–m

Gen 1 Gen 2

Samples Correlators 1–2046 FFT

Samples Sample Multiply
Storage IFFT

Correlators 2047–4092 Results

Gen 4
Results

Correlators 4092–6138

•••

Correlators n–m

Gen 3

Figure 18.21 Pictorial representation of the four generations of GNSS receivers. Single correlators in Gen 1, where signals were searched
one code delay at a time. This was followed by banks of correlators in Gen 2, and then matched filters with full-epoch correlations in Gen 3.
In Gen 4, correlations are done in the frequency domain, where a multiplication is the same as a convolution in the time domain.

Acquisition Sensitivity (@ fixed TTFA of 10s) vs. number of code-epoch bins

Trimble
–130 dBm
these are actual receivers built
from 1993 to 2013

–140 dBm
SiRF
Global Locate

–150 dBm

Broadcom

–160 dBm

10–3 10–1 10–2 1 10 100

Number of full code-epoch bins that can be searched in parallel

Figure 18.22 Acquisition sensitivity versus number of correlators. The horizontal axis shows the number of full code-epoch searches (this
corresponds to the number of correlators, but as we get to very large numbers of correlators it is more meaningful to talk in terms of full
code epochs). The figure shows how there is a one-to-one correspondence in acquisition sensitivity to the number of correlators.

c18.3d 468 15/12/2020 10:08:11 PM


10 iterations of Moore’s law, that is 210, which is a thousand
times bigger.
So you see that the GNSS industry has followed a rapid
evolution to search the space defined by the GPS C/A code,
because of this 1:1 cost-benefit curve.
A quick summary before we look at more modern
signals:
The cost benefit of adding search capability is good. And
most consumer chips support massive parallel searches for
all available GNSS signals on L1. Memory now drives chip
size (to store all those parallel hypotheses). When you read
about modern GNSS signals in academic journals, you will
often read that memory is very cheap today (thanks to
Moore’s law), and this justifies longer codes. But let me give
you the consumer market perspective on cost: the memory
on a modern consumer GNSS chip is about 65% of the cost –
as you can see on the pie chart in Figure 18.23.
Twenty years previously, if we had built the same chip,
the memory would still have been approximately 65% of
the cost of the chip. That is, the relative cost of the memory
hasn’t changed over time. And the reason that there are
over a billion new GNSS phones each year is that the price
of components is very competitive – and you don’t neces-
sarily get to say: “50 cents doesn’t sound like a lot to me,
so I’ll double memory size to accommodate a new long
code”. If you look at a bill of materials (BOM) breakdown
of components in a phone [20, 21], you’ll find that most
chips in a phone cost around a dollar or less. So if any
one of these chip manufacturers changes their chip size
and cost by, say, 50 cents, then they may suddenly be
50% more expensive than their competitors, and the benefit
of that extra cost had better be spectacular, or else they have
just priced themselves out of the cell phone market. You
RF
GNSS chip, actual size
Memory Logic
Figure 18.23 Pie chart showing relative size of the main
components of a consumer GNSS chip.
c18.3d 469
18.7 GNSS Signal Comparison 469
could summarize the competitive cost constraints on man-
ufacturers as, It’s percents, not cents.12
18.7.2 Cost-Benefit Analysis
Now we’ll look at some of the new GNSS signals available
to us and apply a cost-benefit analysis to them, with partic-
ular focus on acquisition sensitivity. By the time you read
this, more new signals will have come online (e.g. BeiDou
3 and GPS L1C), and you can do a similar cost-benefit anal-
ysis on them, using the approach developed here.
Figure 18.24 shows some of the signals available to us on
L1. The longer the spreading code, the more hypotheses we
must store for massive parallel searches, and so the search
memory cost scales linearly as shown.
Because Galileo has BOC spreading codes‚ we need 1/3
chip spacing if we are to maintain the same acquisition
code alignment loss as for GPS C/A with ½ chip spacing
(see Section 18.5.2). Or, with larger spacing than 1/3 chip,
we will incur acquisition signal loss on Galileo that we do
not get with GPS C/A. This 1/3 spacing adds further to the
RAM needed for storing search results. Instead of 4× more
search RAM than GPS C/A it could be as much as 6× more.
The main benefit of the longer spreading codes is
improved autocorrelation and cross-correlation properties.
This is important to GNSS system designers if they want to
put different systems on the same frequency and affect the
noise floor as little as possible. But, from the point of view of
high acquisition sensitivity for consumer GNSS, the best
thing is to have shorter spreading codes. Cross-correlation
rejection is an issue with highly sensitive receivers – you
can get spoofed by your own dynamic range when a satellite
is blocked entirely and you “acquire” a cross-correlation
from a visible strong satellite. So it is true that the longer
codes will help prevent this, but the cross-correlation issue
is less of a problem in practice than you might think, and
there are other methods to identify cross-correlation.
There is a related benefit with code rates and associated
chip length. If the chip length is small, the correlation peak
is sharper – analogous to GPS P-code, this gives more accu-
racy. Galileo uses BOC spreading modulation, so although
the chip length is the same as GPS the correlation peak is
not a simple triangle, but a “W,” with a sharper main peak
than GPS. Thus‚ we expect similar accuracy for Galileo as
12 Readers not involved in phone manufacturing may say, “but from
the consumer point of view, a few cents added to the price is no big deal
at all, so a few square millimeters of chip size doesn’t matter.” This is
false logic. First: it is wrong to compare BOM cost with retail price. But
more importantly, design decisions are not made like this; they are
made in a competitive environment where chip A is competing with
chip B, and price comparisons are made in percents. You may think
that this should not be so, but this is how it is.
15/12/2020 10:08:12 PM
 470 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

Signal Components GPS GLONASS BeiDou 2 Galileo Galileo

Data Pilot
Carrier 1575.42 1602 1561.098 1575.42 1575.42
Spreading code length 1023 511 2046 4096 4096

½ search RAM 2x search RAM 4x search RAM >4x search RAM

(because of overlay code –
discussed next)
Benefit of a faster code/BOC is sharper correlation peaks:
GPS GLONASS BeiDou 2 Galileo Galileo
Data Pilot
period 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 4 ms 4 ms
chip length (approxm) 300 m 600 m 150 m 300 m 300 m
BOC BOC
BeiDou and Galileo should be more accurate

Figure 18.24 GNSS cost, in terms of random access memory (RAM) size, of different spreading code lengths and different chipping rates.
Differences from GPS C/A are highlighted with red text.

Mean pseudorange measurement error, urban streets Mean pseudorange measurement error, rural freeway
80 80
GPS GPS
70 GLONASS GLONASS 70 GLONASS
BDS BDS

60 60
GPS
Average Residual[m]

Average Residual[m]

50 50

40 40

30 BDS 30

20 20

10 10

0 0
–155 –150 –145 –140 –135 –130 –125 –155 –150 –145 –140 –135 –130 –125
signal strength [dBm] signal strength [dBm]
Urban Rural

Figure 18.25 Error in measured L1 pseudoranges, for GLONASS, GPS‚ and BeiDou. The correspondence of accuracy with code-chip length
is clear.

we see for BeiDou; in fact, we expect slightly better accu-
racy because the Galileo BOC(1,1) correlation peak is
sharper than that of BDS B1I’s BPSK-R(2) spreading mod-
ulation. For full details of these signals‚ see [10].
This benefit is quite dramatic, as you can see in
Figure 18.25. These two plots show the mean pseudorange
residuals for GLONASS, GPS‚ and BeiDou. These are post-
fit residuals, computed using known true positions. In
other words, these plots show the mean error in the pseu-
dorange measurements. The left plot is for measurements
taken while driving in a dense urban environment. The
right plot is while driving on rural freeways.
Notice how the errors are in the order that we would
expect from the chip length. This is an interesting benefit
of BeiDou and Galileo – you get better accuracy, especially
with continuous tracking, but BeiDou and Galileo take a lot
more memory to do parallel searches.
So in practice what does this mean? It means receivers
will use all these codes; it just doesn’t pay to build massive
parallel search capability for all of them – rather it’s better
to search on GPS and GLONASS, acquire enough signals to
set the local clock, and then do a fine-time narrow search
for the longer codes of BeiDou and Galileo, In other words,
put the “A” back into C/A code,13 and use it for acquisition
13 The GPS C/A code was named for “Coarse/Acquisition.” It is a
coarse code in the sense that it has a 10× wider chip than the GPS
P (Precise, military) code. It is an Acquisition code in the sense that it
was designed to help a military receiver acquire the signal before
switching to tracking the P-code.

c18.3d 470 15/12/2020 10:08:13 PM


of longer codes, precisely as originally intended, only not
for GPS P-code, but across different GNSS systems and dif-
ferent frequencies, such as L5.
Now, to conclude this analysis, we return to acquisition
sensitivity. For many consumer applications, GNSS is on,
gets a fix, and is off. So you never care much about tracking
sensitivity. Second, acquisition sensitivity is what drives
chip architecture – since once you have acquired the signal,
you need very few correlators to continue to track it. So for
the rest of this section we’ll focus on how signal design
affects acquisition sensitivity and receiver architecture.
We saw in Section 18.6.3 that acquisition sensitivity
beyond −140 dBm is achieved with a combination of coher-
ent and non-coherent integration. Coherent integration
time is limited by
•• Unknown changes in receiver velocity
Unknown clock frequency drift
• Unknown bit transitions
Remember that before we have acquired signals we usu-
ally don’t know the bit timing, even with A-GNSS, because
typical time assistance is not as good as 1 ms with respect to
GNSS time. So if you were to design a GNSS system opti-
mally for consumer use, the best bit rate would be some-
where in the range 20 to 100 ms. With moderate velocity
changes, coherent integration beyond 20 ms doesn’t work
(regardless of bit transitions) because the change in user
motion annihilates the coherent integration. So 20 ms is
a logical lower limit for bit transitions. With better integra-
tion of motion sensors, as discussed in Section 18.2.3.5, you
might know your velocity changes accurately. In that case,
the receiver clock drift becomes the limiting factor, since
your integration will fail if the signal moves from one fre-
quency bin to another during the search. So‚ in summary:
if you want the best GNSS system for the consumer of today
(who doesn’t have tightly integrated sensors and a priori
knowledge of velocity changes), you would want a data
bit length of exactly 20 ms, which is what we have
with GPS.
Now you might ask, why do you need data bits at all if
you have Assisted GNSS? The answer is, because we get
more accuracy if we have precise time of day to compute
the correct satellite position from ephemeris. Most cellular
networks are not synchronized precisely to GNSS [22], and
we get precise time of day by decoding the GPS HOW
(handover word), or equivalent data from another constel-
lation. So A-GNSS has an interesting relationship with data
– we want it, but not too much of it.
With this discussion in mind, let’s return to the various
GNSS systems, and consider the different codes, including
overlay codes. From the point of view of coherent interval,
an overlay code is similar to a data bit, since it limits your
c18.3d 471
18.7 GNSS Signal Comparison 471
maximum coherent interval before you know the bit tim-
ing. Of course‚ the overlay codes are known, so you could
take advantage of that with much more memory – and I’ll
address that next, but just for now consider any bit transi-
tion to be unknown, whether it’s a data bit or an overlay
code transition. Then, if you limit yourself to a 2 dB bit-
alignment loss‚ you get these maximum coherent intervals
of 20 to 100 ms. The way this works is that, before you know
the bit timing, you just ignore bit transitions, integrate
away, and “eat” the occasional loss from a bit transition;
resulting in 2 dB of energy loss with these coherent inter-
vals [2].
Again GPS, with 20 ms data bits, comes out the best,
unless we add more memory.
Now let’s focus on the Pilot signal of Galileo. Note that it
has a 100 ms overlay code, so it could (and probably will)
give a significant benefit at some time in the future – but
to take advantage of this code we will need significantly
more search hypothesis memory (as previously explained),
and known a priori velocity and velocity changes, as dis-
cussed above.
Also, if you use only the Galileo pilot you lose half the
power. If you use both pilot and data, that increases the
number of correlators, and the related processing. So this
makes it yet harder (and thus further in the future) for
the theoretical advantage of the pilot code to become a
practical reality in consumer products. Nevertheless, there
is a nice symmetry between the natural limits of 20 ms and
100 ms discussed above, and the designs of the systems
shown here.
Putting all the above together, we can make an acquisi-
tion sensitivity cost-benefit curve for some hypothetical
GNSS chips, as shown in Figure 18.26. Here, we imagine
a single-system chip. The starting point is a GPS-only chip
which would be about 2×2 mm to achieve −156 dBm acqui-
sition sensitivity (this size-to-sensitivity is based on existing
chips and the correlator versus sensitivity curve shown in
Figure 18.22.)
For this plot‚ imagine a GLONASS-only chip that takes
advantage of the shorter GLONASS code: it would be smal-
ler and cheaper than the GPS chip, but with loss of acqui-
sition sensitivity because of the GLONASS overlay code of
10 ms, so it takes us backward on the benefit curve.
BeiDou and Galileo each cost more to get the same sen-
sitivity, because of their longer codes and higher data rates.
And so you see quite a different cost-benefit curve than the
one we originally followed as GPS chips evolved over the
20 years from 1993; see Figure 18.22.
As mentioned with the discussion about 100 ms overlay
code, there is a point on the graph in Figure 18.26 way out
to the right and at higher sensitivity that we can get to with
a priori velocity measurements and much greater memory.
15/12/2020 10:08:13 PM
 472 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

Signal Components GPS GLONASS BeiDou Galileo Galileo

Data Pilot
Carrier 1575.42 1602 1561.098 1575.42 1575.42
C/A code length 1023 511 2046 4096 4096
2nd code length 2 20 25
period 20 ms 20 ms 100 ms
chip length 10 ms 1 ms 4 ms
Data bit rate 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms 4 ms
2 ms GEO

–153 dBm
–156 dBm Relative size of (fictitious) single-constellation
chips, and acquisition sensitivity

GLO GPS BDS GAL Chip size (@ 40 nm)

2×2 mm ~2x

Figure 18.26 Acquisition sensitivity cost-benefit of various GNSS codes, as a function of data rates and code length. The figure
shows the spreading codes, including secondary (or “overlay”) codes. Red numbers in the table highlight differences from GPS.

Speaking of the future, the L1C signal will be on GPS III,
with an operational constellation in the 2020s to 2030s.
L1C will have an 18 s overlay code. With enough search
capability you could find this signal and resolve time ambi-
guity simultaneously (because, remember, assistance time
is typically good to a couple of seconds). So there certainly
are benefits to the new signals that will accrue, eventually.
But it may be a long time yet. And so this brings us to the
summary of this section.
We’ve seen that acquisition sensitivity is the feature that
drives consumer chip architecture and size, and this is pri-
marily because of search memory. The GPS C/A code is
near-optimal for weak-signal acquisition in consumer pro-
ducts; any other single-constellation chip using existing sig-
nals would either be less sensitive or more expensive.
There are useful features in newer GNSS (such as Galileo
and GPS III), but we are several years from full benefit for
acquisition sensitivity. Thus, we currently see mobile
phones with GPS+GLONASS chips, and we see GPS and
other constellations, but we seldom see a combination that
excludes GPS.
18.8 Designing Future GNSS Signals
18.8.1 Introduction
If you could design new GNSS satellites, what would the
signals look like? In this section‚ we’ll make the argument
that great simplicity provides the greatest good for the
greatest number. But more than that: because each satellite
has finite power; fewer, simpler signals will be stronger and
may thus provide the greatest good for all users.
Depending on what is being done with GNSS‚ there are
different characteristics that are important: accuracy, multi-
ple access interference, interference susceptibility, and so
on. Optimizing a signal for one may not necessarily help
another. But stronger signal power, like a rising tide that lifts
all boats, will improve all of these characteristics. And so we
pose this question for GNSS researchers: if the power of a sim-
ple signal is large enough, does it surpass the performance ben-
efits of a more complex but weaker signal?
In the rest of this chapter‚ we’ll take a look at the array of
civilian GNSS signals, and then make a proposal for a much
simpler system. Then we’ll analyze this proposed system
using the tools from this chapter. The point we will make is
that fewer, simpler signals result in more signal power,
producing benefits for receiver battery life and cost, as well
as producing improved performance because of increased
SNR. To keep the argument clear‚ we keep this
section short – and at the end‚ we give a list of issues we
haven’t mentioned and that should be considered. The pur-
pose of this section is not to design a system in a few pages,
but to stimulate discussion and debate‚ especially around
the prevailing trend toward ever more complex signals which
are not necessarily used by the majority of receivers, nor
necessarily better than the simpler signals they replace.
18.8.2 Existing GNSS Signals, and a Proposed
Alternative
Table 18.7 shows the civilian signals for different GNSSs.
The first thing you’ll notice is that each GNSS system has
at least half-a-dozen civilian signals or signal components.
Each signal component consumes a similar amount of bat-
tery power at the satellite for generating the signal, and at
the receiver for tracking the signal. By reducing these to two

c18.3d 472 15/12/2020 10:08:13 PM

 18.8 Designing Future GNSS Signals 473

Table 18.7 GNSS with global constellations, signals and signal components existing or planned by 2025

Frequency (MHz): 1164-1214 Total # of signal

Band name: L5/E5/L3 1215-1300 L2,E6 1559-1610 L1/E1 components

GPS III L5I, L5Q L2C L1 C/A, L1Cp, L1Cd 6

GLONASS-KM L5OCM, L3OC L2OF, L2OC L1OF, L1OC 6
Galileo E5a-I, E5a-Q, E1-B, E1-C 6
E5b-I, E5b-Q
BeiDou 2,3 B2-I, B2-aD, B2-aP, B2b-D, B2b-P B1-I, B1-C 7
Simple GNSS L5P L1 eC/A 2

Note: These are all the unencrypted civilian signals supported by the various GNSS. Signals that are planned, but not in production as of April 2020,
are in gray. In the last line‚ we show the “Simple GNSS” approach, which we propose and analyze in this section. References for data in
table: [23–32].

The data bit duration is chosen 5× longer than current

Table 18.8 Candidate modulation scheme for Simple GNSS
signals GPS C/A, that is, a slower data rate. Why do we want a
slower data rate? New GNSS signals are often designed with
Frequency (MHz): 1176±10 1575±1 faster data rates, but this is counterproductive because of
Signal name: L5P L1 eC/A the practical limits it brings to coherent integration. The
arguments in favor of faster data rates include the fact that
Modulation BPSK BPSK you can wipe off the data for extra sensitivity. But this is a
Spreading code length 100 ms 10 ms false and circular argument, because to wipe off the data
Chipping rate 10.23 Mcps 1.023 Mcps bits you need to know the data in advance, and if you know
Chip length (approx.) 30 m 300 m the data, you don’t need the satellite to transmit it at a
Data bit duration — 100 ms high rate.
The Simple GNSS proposal takes advantage of two
expected sources of aiding and assistance:

1) Expected sensor integration for a priori velocity knowl-

signals, we gain an approximately 3× increase in signal
power from the same batteries. Or you could get the same
power as existing signals with a 3× smaller (and cheaper)
satellite and less than 1/3 the launch cost.
Now‚ let’s look at a candidate signal modulation scheme
for Simple GNSS, and then analyze this candidate. We
choose the L1 and L5 frequency bands for a like-to-like
comparison with existing signals. However, later, in
Section 18.8.3, we will show how higher frequency bands
may be better for consumer GNSS.
Table 18.8 shows a candidate modulation scheme for our
proposed Simple GNSS signal. Let’s briefly review the moti-
vation and consequences of these choices.
The new L1 eC/A signal (enhanced Coarse/Acquisition),
as its name suggests, is meant for acquisition. We’ve seen
that shorter code lengths are better for receiver search
memory. In Section 18.2.5, we saw that a receiver chip of
2×2 mm, at 40 ns process nodes, can search 100 code epochs
in parallel and achieve −156 dBm acquisition sensitivity
with current GPS signals. A similar size chip will be able
to search as fast for a 10× longer signal after three iterations
of Moore’s law, that is, at a process node of 14 nm.
edge, as described in Section 18.5.5. This enables coher-
ent integration times up to 200 ms (for signal structures
such as L5P with no data bits).
2) Expected wireless network connectivity at least once per
week by almost all devices. With network connectivity
just once per week‚ a device can get orbits for the next
week and time to a few seconds accuracy. The orbits
are predicted, and network time can be maintained with
a real time clock to a few seconds of accuracy [33].
The proposed signals have no data on L5P, and data on
L1 eC/A with no forward error correction, like the existing
GPS C/A signal, but a slower data rate with a longer bit
length. The purpose of this is primarily to allow the
receiver to compute the precise time of day shortly after
signal acquisition. With a 100 ms data bit length, you
can determine precise time without decoding any data bits
at all. This is because receivers can do coarse-time naviga-
tion [2, chapter 4; 34], determine their position to better
than ±40 m, and then uniquely resolve the 100 ms time
ambiguity (in Chapter 17 we saw that satellite range
changes by less than 800 m/s, or 80 m in 100 ms, in

c18.3d 473 15/12/2020 10:08:13 PM

 474 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS
GPS nominal orbits). Thus, given A-GNSS data with time
accurate to a few seconds, the time to first fix (TTFF) for
this proposed signal is the same as the acquisition time –
there is no need to decode any data from the satellite.
So why have any data at all? Because, in the absence of A-
GNSS assistance data, the receiver can still get a fix once it
has decoded the broadcast satnav data and time. To keep
the unassisted TTFF low, the broadcast ephemeris will be
simpler than existing broadcast ephemeris. This comes at
the cost of a few meters of accuracy. For full accuracy,
the receiver would need network connectivity to get precise
orbits from A-GNSS assistance.
The candidate L5P modulation scheme is chosen to give
maximum benefit while tracking. There is no need for any
data at all on L5P; the receiver can decode anything it needs
on L1 eC/A and use L5P to obtain the most precise possible
range or phase measurement by having a very high SNR.
The chipping rate of L5P has been chosen to give a sharp
correlation peak for the accuracy benefits illustrated in
Figure 18.25.
Now let’s use our sensitivity worksheets to compare this
proposed signal to existing signals. In Table 18.9 you’ll see
that we have added a “Future GNSS” tab to the worksheet,
which you can access at www.pnt21book.com. We show a
like-for-like comparison of tracking sensitivity. In each
case, we assume that the receiver is assisted by A-GNSS
data (as discussed above, this is available to any device with
network connection at least once per week). Also we
assume that the device has sensor integration for a priori
velocity knowledge. As explained in Section 18.5.5, coher-
ent integration times can be extended – but only to 20 ms
in the case of GPS C/A because of the limitation of
unknown data bits (note that knowing predicted orbits
from A-GNSS is not the same thing as knowing the actual
broadcast data bits, which change every 2 h).
The worksheet shows that we can track the C/A signal to
−159 dBm, while with the same total integration time we
can track the L5P signal down to −163.6 dBm, that is, 4.6
dB of extra sensitivity, thanks to the longer coherent inte-
gration time supported by the L5P signal structure.
Now recall that a same-sized satellite with 3× fewer sig-
nals can concentrate all its power in those few signals. For
example, GPS III has six civilian signal components: C/A,
L1Cp, L1Cd, L2C, L5I, and L5Q. The total power of these
six components is −120.55 dBm (−150.55 dBW), as shown
in Table 18.10. By splitting this power between just two sig-
nals, they can each be −123.55 dBm, almost 5 dB stronger
than GPS C/A.
The two spreadsheets, Tables 18.9 and 18.10, show that
the proposed L5P signal gives 4.6 dB more tracking
c18.3d 474
sensitivity than GPS C/A, and 5 dB stronger transmitted
power from the satellite. Combined‚ we get almost 10 dB
(10×) greater effective sensitivity than in current GNSS
receivers. This will increase most performance parameters,
including accuracy, availability, and robustness to interfer-
ence, jamming‚ and spoofing.
18.8.3 Issues to Be Discussed Further
18.8.3.1 Acquisition Sensitivity
In general‚ acquisition sensitivity involves more than initial
sync to the spreading code. If a signal has a data message,
and/or overlay codes, you may need to sync to these and the
message frame before you can usefully use the signal. This
is a further drawback of the more complex signals. As
explained above, the 100 ms data bit length of the proposed
eC/A allows you to go directly from bit sync to precise time
of day using coarse-time navigation to uniquely resolve the
100 ms time ambiguity. There is no need for syncing to
overlay codes or the message frame (if you are not familiar
with coarse-time navigation, see [2, chapter 4; 34]; this
technique is now standard in most A-GNSS receivers,
which make up more than 90% of all GNSS receivers.
18.8.3.2 Sunsetting Signals
The proposal for Simple GNSS is to have fewer signals. If
this proposal were used with an existing system, then which
signals do you turn off, and how much warning do you give
users of the sunsetted signals? Let’s discuss this first in the
context of GPS: the lifetime of GPS satellites is nominally
12 to 15 years, according to gps.gov. But the satellites actu-
ally last much longer. As of March 2019, the oldest opera-
tional GPS satellite was 25.5 years old; the median age of all
operational GPS was 12 years [35, 36]. The current design of
GPS III has already been commissioned for the first 11 satel-
lites, scheduled through 2025. The timeline for future satel-
lites shows the first “Future Enhancements” as scheduled
for SV29 in 2033 [36, slide 8]. Thus, if we began designing
a scheme such as Simple GNSS in 2020‚ it would take
13 years before the first such satellite could possibly be
launched as part of the GPS system. Let’s suppose we
replaced all existing civilian signals with the eC/A and
L5P proposed here. We would begin sunsetting the oldest
GPS satellite in 2033. With the current lifetime of GPS satel-
lites, it would be another decade (2043) before half the old
constellation had been replaced. You quickly see that the
problem is not that we might too quickly replace old tech-
nology, but that we are already late in planning for the
future.
15/12/2020 10:08:14 PM
 18.8 Designing Future GNSS Signals 475

Table 18.9 Receiver sensitivity comparison of GPS C/A with proposed L5P signal

Note: The worksheet shows the different received signal strengths that result in the equivalent Final SNR. This shows the different tracking
sensitivity that can be achieved with these two signals. This spreadsheet is available at www.pnt21book.com.

What about other constellations? Most GNSS receivers
today are multi-constellation receivers. Also, many of the
newest satellites belong to regional systems (such as QZSS
and NaviC/IRNSS) that supplement other systems. Maybe
the best way to bring a new signal concept into production
is as part of one of these regional systems.
18.8.3.3 Signal Design versus Power Increase
The previous section showed that we are about a quarter of
a century away from being able to replace a GPS satellite by
a simpler design with fewer, more powerful signals. One
way out of this slow lane may be to separate the proposed
signal design from the power increase, and consider adding

c18.3d 475 15/12/2020 10:08:14 PM

 476 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS
Table 18.10 Signal power accounting, showing how the six signal components on GPS III add up to −150.55 dBW
Note: If divided between just two signals (instead of six), the same available power produces signals at −153.55 dBW (−123.55 dBm), almost
5 dB stronger than GPS C/A. This spreadsheet is available at www.pnt21book.com.
a signal like L5P without removing all existing signals. This
may be a way to get the signal in space sooner, while also
extending the sunsetting period for legacy signals. Also,
GPS III satellites, and QZSS, support L1C, which is an
acquisition signal with many desirable characteristics.
A fruitful area of future study may be to consider a combi-
nation of L1C (at 1575.42 MHz) as an acquisition signal and
L5P (at 1176.45 MHz) as a high-accuracy, high-sensitivity
tracking signal.
18.8.3.4 Multi-Access Interference (MAI)
As we get more signals from multiple constellations of
GNSS satellites, and greater sensitivity in the receivers,
the issue of MAI becomes significant. MAI, in short, is
the problem of interference in one signal by another in
the same frequency band. If we had a nice strong signal, like
eC/A and L5P, with a received signal power of −120.5 dBm,
then we have to take care of interference, such as cross-cor-
relation, with other signals at much weaker power. This is
an area that must be addressed before implementing any
new signal. See [10, section 5.7] for more on MAI.
18.8.3.5 SNR
SNR is far from the only metric. However, SNR is the
measure of the signal that we “see” inside a GNSS receiver.
c18.3d 476
Before ending this chapter, take a last look at Figure 18.1 at
the beginning of the chapter. This figure reminds you that
the signal actually visible in the receiver is the post-
correlation peak, and this is where we measure the SNR.
Most other desirable characteristics of a GNSS receiver
can be directly linked to the SNR. For example: accuracy,
availability, and robustness to interference, jamming‚ and
spoofing are all related to SNR – as the SNR improves, so
do all these measures. If one is planning a new signal with
greater power or better high-sensitivity properties, then it is
also useful to quantify the relationship between the
increase expected in the SNR, and the other metrics of
interest.
18.8.3.6 Frequency Bands
We have discussed the accuracy benefits of the higher chip-
ping rates of the GNSS signals in the L5 band. However, the
impact and benefit of L1-L5 dual frequency receivers in
consumer products, especially phones, has been somewhat
muted by the fact that the L5 signal has a wavelength that is
34% longer than L1 (25.48 cm, vs 19.03 cm). This makes it
even harder to create an effective antenna in a phone or a
watch for L5 than it already is for L1.
L1 GNSS antennas in phones produce signals that are 8.5
dB weaker (in the median) than the nominal GNSS signals
15/12/2020 10:08:15 PM

received from a 3dBi linearly polarized antenna [37]. L5 sig-
nals in phones are weaker still, with losses of several dB rel-
ative to the L1 signals seen in phones.
So, if we were to design a signal for best performance in a
phone, what’s the best frequency band? Generally speaking,
the lower the frequency (and the longer the wavelength), the
less attenuation from rain, foliage, windows, and so on; but
we also get less antenna efficiency from small antennas. Any
frequencies below 10 GHz are considered decent in the sense
of signal penetration, such as L, S, C, and X bands. Satcom
systems in the X-band (7.25-8.4 GHz) have found good trade-
offs in signal penetration vs antenna size. The Navic GNSS
system, with an S-band signal at 2.492 GHz has a wavelength
of 12 cm, and this could lead to much better received signal
strengths in consumer products like phones and watches, if
the 2.4 GHz WiFi were removed.
Ideally, we would have the signal design characteristics
discussed above w.r.t. the proposed Simple GPS L5P, but
in a higher frequency band.
18.8.4 Designing GNSS: Summary
For consumer GNSS, weak signal performance dominates
receiver architecture and user experience. The proposed
Simple GNSS gives an approximately 10× improvement
in the effective tracking sensitivity, and consequent
improvements in accuracy, availability‚ and robustness to
interference. It also gives improvements in the TTFF by
enabling instant removal of time-of-day ambiguity follow-
ing data bit sync. This would profoundly improve perfor-
mance for the over 4 billion GNSS users who experience
GNSS through their smartphones and cars. But even if
we ignore the appeal of improving performance for the
99% of GNSS users, a more profound realization may be
the answer to this question: For any application (not neces-
sarily consumer), if the SNR of the Simple GNSS signal is
10× greater than for an existing GNSS signal, does the
stronger, simpler signal surpass the performance of the
more complex, weaker, signal? This is a question that will
take more discussion and analysis to answer, but the
answer could impact GNSS design through the 21st cen-
tury. The tools developed in this chapter provide a starting
point for this discussion.
Appendix: dB Review
If you’ve ever wondered whether you should be taking
10log10 or 20log10 to get dB, then you will find it useful
to remember the original definition of a dB: A dB, decibel,
is a tenth of a bel, and a bel is a ratio of power. It then fol-
lows that a ratio of powers expressed in decibels is 10 times
c18.3d 477
Glossary of Notation 477
the ratio in bels (just like it takes 10 times as many deci-
meters as meters to cover the same distance).
Now, what if you want to express a ratio of voltages in
decibels? Well, one answer is that you can’t – decibels
are defined as a ratio of powers – but a better answer is that
you can express the square of the ratio of voltages in deci-
bels: voltage ratio in dB = 10 log10(V/V0)2, and this is equiv-
alent to 20 log10(V/V0).
Similarly, when dealing with other magnitude ratios, you
must square to get a power ratio.
Important dB details are summarized as follows.
dB Summary
Definition dB = 10 log10 (ratio of power to a reference
power)
Reference power power in dBW = 10 log10 (power in watts)
= 1 watt
Reference power power in dBm = 10 log10 (power in
= 1 milliwatt milliwatts)
Decibels of magnitude ratio in dB = 10 log 10 V V0 2
magnitude ratios
= 20 log 10 V V0
Historical Aside
The bel was defined by Alexander Graham Bell, the inven-
tor of the telephone, to express the ratio of sound intensity
(power) to the minimal audible sound at the same fre-
quency. So, decibels are thoroughly Scottish.
Alexander Graham Bell (born in 1847, Edinburgh, Scot-
land) defined the bel in terms of logarithms.
Logarithms were invented by John Napier (born in 1550,
Merchiston, Scotland).
And today we use decibels most commonly to express
power with respect to watts, after James Watt (born in
1736, Greenock, Scotland).
Acknowledgments
I am thankful to John Betz for his many edits and advice on
this chapter. However, I am responsible for any remaining
errors or unsubstantiated opinions.
Glossary of Notation
We make use of italics to help distinguish certain variables
from other similarly named; for example‚ T is the ambient
temperature used in the front-end analysis, and Tc is the
coherent integration time. Note that the following table
15/12/2020 10:08:15 PM
 478 18 High-Sensitivity GNSS

defines these values as used in this chapter. The table is not References
meant to imply that all these definitions are universally
applied in GNSS; indeed, as we’ve discussed above, some 1 Mittnacht, M. et al., “Commercial use of GNSS signals in
of them (e.g., C/N0 and SNR) are defined differently in GEO,” IFAC Proceedings, Vol. 37, Issue 6, June 2004, pp.
other texts. 1097–1102.
Notation used in this chapter. Arranged alphabetically, 2 van Diggelen, F., A-GPS, Assisted GPS, GNSS and SBAS,
with Greek letters interspersed after the matching Roman Artech House, 2009.
letter. 3 Parkinson, B., Spilker, J., Axelrad, P., and Enge, P., Global
Positioning System: Theory and Applications, Washington,
ACR Autocorrelation response
D.C.: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
A-GPS Assisted GPS Inc., 1996.
A-GNSS Assisted GNSS 4 Helstrom, C., Probability and Stochastic Processes for
C/N0 Carrier-to-noise-density ratio Engineers, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of
2 California, San Diego, 1981.
Coherent SNR Coherent SNR = γ≔ S0 2σ N0
5 Yates, R. and Goodman, D., Probability and Stochastic
ΔC Code alignment loss
Processes, Wiley, 1999.
ΔF Frequency mismatch loss
6 van Diggelen, F., Indoor GPS I, Course 240A, ION GPS
ΔIF IF filtering loss 2001 Tutorials, Navtech Seminars and GPS Supply,
ΔQ Quantization loss September 2001.
F Noise figure 7 Lowe, S., “Voltage Signal-To-Noise Ratio SNR Nonlinearity
2 Resulting from Incoherent Summations,” JPL-NASA,
γ γ = coherent SNR≔ S0 2σ N0
Technical Report, 1999.
I In-phase signal (see also Q)
8 Sturza, M.A., “Digital direct-sequence spread-spectrum
LOS Line of sight receiver design considerations,” Proceedings of the Fourth
Mc Number of coherent integration samples Annual WIRELESS Symposium, Santa Clara, California,
Mnc Number of coherent integration samples February 12–16, 1996
N Noise 9 Hegarty, C.J., “Analytical model for GNSS receiver
NLOS Non–line of sight implementation losses,” Navigation: Journal of the
Q Quadrature signal (see also I) Institute of Navigation, Vol. 58, No. 1, Spring 2011,
pp. 29–44.
RSS Root sum of squares, I2 + Q2
10 Betz, J., Engineering Satellite based Navigation and Timing,
Rτ Correlation response function for a correlator IEEE Wiley, 2016.
delay τ
11 IRN-IS-200H-003, “GPS interface specification,” Navstar
S Mean amplitude of correlation peak above
GPS Space Segment/Navigation User Interfaces, 9
mean noise, after RSS
December 2015.
S0 Mean amplitude of coherent correlation peak
12 Fernandez-Hernandez, I. et al., “A navigation message
Squaring loss (Post-RSS SNR)/(coherent SNR) authentication proposal for the Galileo Open Service,”
SNR Post-correlation signal-to-noise ratio, defined in Navigation: Journal of The Institute of Navigation,
this chapter as the ratio of the post-correlation
March 2016.
signal power to the noise power: (S/σ N)2
2
13 Petovello, M.G., O’Driscoll, C., and Lachapelle, G., “Weak
SNR, coherent coherent SNR = γ≔ S0 2σ N0 signal carrier tracking using extended coherent integration
σ N0 Standard deviation of noise on I or Q channels with an ultra-tight GNSS/IMU receiver,” European
σN Standard deviation of RSS noise Navigation Conference 2008, Toulouse, France, April 2008.
T Ambient temperature 14 Faragher, R., “Ubiquitous navigation using S-GPS and D-
TA Effective temperature of antenna Tail,” ION-GNSS+, September 2017, Portland, Oregon.
15 Grinstead, C.M. and Snell, J.L., Introduction to Probability,
Teff Effective temperature (usually of the entire
front-end) 2nd Ed., American Mathematical Society, 2003.
Tc Coherent integration time
16 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation.
Accessed 23 March 2019.
Tnc Non-coherent (or total) integration time
τ Correlator delay 17 Abraham, C. and van Diggelen, F., “Indoor GPS: The no-
chip challenge,” GPS World, 1 September 2001.

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18 van Diggelen, F., “Global locate indoor GPS chipset &
services,” ION-GPS 2001, Salt Lake City, Utah,
September 2001.
19 van Diggelen, F., “Indoor GPS theory & implementation,”
IEEE Position Location and Navigation Symposium, Palm
Springs, 2002.
20 van Diggelen, F., “Who’s your Daddy? Why GPS rules
GNSS,” Stanford PNT Symposium, Keynote,
14 November 2013.
21 van Diggelen, F., “Who’s your Daddy? Why GPS will
continue to dominate GNSS,” Inside GNSS, March/
April 2014.
22 3GPP TS 34.171 3rd Generation Partnership Project;
Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network;
Terminal conformance specification; Assisted Global
Positioning System (A-GPS); Frequency Division Duplex
(FDD), Specifies coarse-time assistance to 2 seconds, fine-
time to 10 microseconds.
23 Whitney, C.S., “GPS status & modernization progress,”
ION GNSS+ 2017, Portland, Oregon.
24 Karutin, S., “GLONASS programme update,” ION GNSS+
2016, Portland, Oregon.
25 Chatre, E., “Galileo programme status update,” ION GNSS
+ 2017, Portland, Oregon.
26 Quiles, A., “Galileo system status update,” ION GNSS+
2017, Portland, Oregon.
27 https://gssc.esa.int/navipedia/index.php/
Galileo_Signal_Plan Accessed 23 March 2019.
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28 Ma, J. and Shen, J., “Development of BeiDou Navigation
Satellite System – A system update report,” ION GNSS+
2017, Portland, OR.
29 IS-GPS-200, Rev H., GPS Interface Control Document,
“Navstar GPS Space Segment/Navigation User Interfaces,”
GPS Systems Directorate, September 2013.
30 GLONASS, Interface Control Document (ICD), Version 5.0,
Coordination Scientific Information Center, Moscow, 2002
www.glonass-ianc.rsa.ru
31 Galileo ESA, “Galileo Open Service Signal In Space,”
Interface Control Document OS SIS ICD, European Space
Agency / European GNSS Supervisory Authority.
32 “BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Signal In Space
Interface Control Document Open Service Signal” (Version
2.1). China Satellite Navigation Office, November 2016.
33 Lundgren, D. and van Diggelen, F., “Assistance when
there’s no assistance, long-term orbit technology for cell
phones, PDAs,” GPS World, 1 October 2005.
34 van Diggelen, F. and Abraham, C., “Coarse-time A-GPS;
Computing TOW from pseudorange measurements, and
the effect on HDOP,” ION GNSS 2007, Fort Worth, Texas.
35 https://www.gpsworld.com/the-almanac/ Accessed
26 March 2019.
36 Whitney, C.S., “GPS status & modernization progress,”
Director, GPS Directorate, Stanford PNT Symposium 2018.
37 van Diggelen, F., and Enge, P., “The World’s first GPS
MOOC and Worldwide Laboratory using Smartphones,”
Proceedings of ION GNSS+, Tampa FL, Sep 2015.
15/12/2020 10:08:15 PM

19
Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)
Sunil Bisnath
York University, Canada
19.1 Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to describe the concepts and
theory involved in relative GNSS positioning and naviga-
tion. While most GNSS positioning and navigation is con-
sidered point positioning and makes use of the receiver
navigation solution, various types of relative positioning
form a small but vitally important subset of GNSS position-
ing necessary for precise applications and/or applications
requiring high levels of performance integrity, such as sci-
entific applications, land and hydrographic surveying,
machine control, and precision guidance.
The chapter begins by describing the concepts and advan-
tages of relative positioning in contrast to point positioning,
and the conceptual and terminological similarities and dif-
ferences between differential and relative positioning.
A brief description of the generic GNSS observables used
and a catalog of measurement errors are then provided,
in order to present the necessary mathematical modeling
and relative baseline estimation. Central to precise relative
positioning is carrier-phase integer ambiguity resolution,
which is described, along with an algorithmic case study.
All of these concepts are brought together to create RTK
processing, as well as the follow-on network RTK proces-
sing. The chapter concludes with a discussion of recent
developments in relative positioning in terms of additional
signals, multi-constellations, and multi-processing modes,
such as network RTK combined with precise point posi-
tioning (PPP).
19.2 Relative Positioning
The vast majority of GNSS applications make use of low-
cost, single-frequency antennas and receivers for horizontal
and vertical few-meter-level positioning, navigation‚ and
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
481
timing (PNT) at the one-sigma statistical confidence level,
ranging from time synchronization for utilities and finan-
cial institutions, to cell phone localization, to fleet manage-
ment and car navigation systems, to recreational receivers
and even safety-of-life applications. These applications
make use of the point positioning mode of measurement
processing, also known as the receiver navigation solution.
If sub-meter- to few-millimeter-level positioning is
required, then some form of augmentation of GNSS point
positioning is required, resulting in various forms of differ-
ential or relative positioning.
This section describes the concepts and theory of relative
positioning. GNSS observables and the error sources affect-
ing them are described and summarized in order to com-
plete the theoretical discussion. The functional and
stochastic models used in relative positioning are pre-
sented. Various baseline positioning estimation models
are presented, along with various aspects of estimation
and positioning performance examples.
19.2.1 Concepts and Theory
In point positioning, the position of the receiver’s antenna
phase center is determined with respect to the corrected
ranges to the GNSS satellites, which are in turn determined
with respect to the relevant constellation’s tracking stations
(ground segment). This geometry is illustrated in Figure 19.1
and captured in the fundamental “satnav” equation, which
relates the measured range ρ with the satellite position vec-
tor ρ sv and the to-be-determined position vector ρrcv via
ρ= ρ sv − ρrcv 19 1
As can be seen, the often-used term absolute positioning is
a misnomer, for, in geodesy, all quantities are determined
with respect to some reference – or datum. For example,
GPS satellite ephemeris information is transmitted in
482 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)
Satellite
(antenna phase center)
ρ⃑SV
ρ ~ 700 km
Receiver
(antenna phase center)
ρ⃑rcv
Center
of mass
Earth
Figure 19.1 Satellite-receiver measurement geometry in point
positioning.
WGS84 coordinates, so GPS point positioning solutions are
in WGS84 coordinates.
As opposed to point positioning, differential measure-
ment processing approaches make use of (i) a reference sta-
tion GNSS receiver at a known location to calibrate
measurement error observed in point positioning estima-
tion and (ii) spatiotemporal correlation in some measure-
ment errors to reduce or almost remove the effects of
these error sources on measurements.
Calibration can be performed in either the state domain or
the observation domain. In the state domain, the point posi-
tion estimates at the reference receiver are differenced from
the reference coordinates to produce x, y, z, or equivalently,
latitude, longitude, height corrections at each epoch for a
remote receiver at a to-be-determined location. In the obser-
vation domain, the observed range (typically pseudorange
measurement) from each tracked satellite to the reference
receiver is differenced from the theoretically “correct” range
between each satellite and the receiver reference coordi-
nates, producing range corrections. (Pseudorange) range rate
corrections are typically also produced to reduce the number
of full range corrections needed over time for transmission
from the reference receiver to the user receiver. The observa-
tion domain approach typically allows for improved differen-
tial positioning over the state domain approach. Ref. [1]
provides a detailed description of this process.
How well a range calibration at a reference receiver cor-
rects a measured range at a remote receiver depends on a
number of factors, but primarily on the distance between
the two receivers – the baseline length, and the age of
the correction. In varying amounts, this spatiotemporal
decorrelation occurs for the satellite orbit error, ionospheric
Satellite
~20,000 km
(Not to scale)
Homogeneous
ionosphere (refraction)
Homogeneous
troposphere (refraction)
~ 20 km
Receivers
kilometers
Figure 19.2 Spatial decorrelation of atmospheric refraction
errors.
refraction‚ and tropospheric refraction (see, e.g. [2]). These
errors will be briefly described later in this section.
Figure 19.2 illustrates the effect of spatial decorrelation
due to the constituent atmospheric refraction effects. Fun-
damentally, if the baseline is short, for example, a few kilo-
meters, the signal transmitted by a satellite travels through
essentially the same portions of the atmosphere, and there-
fore is refracted by near-similar amounts – at the meter or
sub-meter level. Therefore, these range corrections become
less effective with increasing baseline lengths.
Current usage is limited to certain safety-critical naviga-
tion applications that require meter-level horizontal posi-
tioning, as well as certain integrity measures, such as the
US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Wide Area Aug-
mentation System (WAAS) and similar systems used for
civilian aircraft navigation, and the US National Differential
GPS (NDGPS) service and similar national coast guard
DGPS/DGNSS services for coastal marine navigation.
While the terms differential positioning and relative posi-
tioning tend to be used interchangeably in the literature,
strictly speaking, differential positioning is as previously
described, whereas relative positioning involves the deter-
mination of the (relative) vector bAB between a reference
receiver A’s position X A and a remote receiver B’s position
X B , as shown in Figure 19.3.
The position of B is equal to the addition of the relative
vector to the position of A, as stated in Eq. (19.2).
X B = X A + bAB 19 2
As will be described, the computation of this relative vec-
tor is very different from the differential correction
approach, and can provide for very accurate remote station
coordinate determination. Unlike point positioning and
DGNSS, which typically rely on single-frequency pseudor-
ange measurements from a single constellation, relative
positioning processing typically consists of multi-frequency

B biased. The range is also biased by a number of other fac-
b⃑ AB
A
XB⃑
X⃑A
Figure 19.3 Geometry for relative positioning.
processing of all available pseudorange and carrier-phase
observables, increasingly from multiple GNSS (and
Regional Navigation Satellite Systems – RNSS) constella-
tions. Like DGNSS, relative positioning accuracy over short
data arcs is a function of the baseline length. Relative posi-
tioning processing is based on modeling of baseline mea-
surements, management of measurement errors, and an
estimation process. In order to describe these components,
the observables used are now concisely defined.
19.2.2 Observables
The generic observables in GNSS are the pseudoranges
(also referred to as simply the codes), the Dopplers, and
the carrier phases (also referred to as the integrated Dop-
plers or simply the phases) (see, e.g. [1, 3, 4]). Pseudoranges
from different signals are measured by receiver correlation
processing of incoming modulations of the underlying sig-
nal carrier wave. Doppler observables are derived by mea-
suring discrete samples of the incoming carrier wave. And
carrier-phase observables are made by accumulating the
count of carrier cycles and fraction of cycles after signal
(re-)acquisition. See Chapters 14 and 15 for detailed expla-
nations of receiver operation and signal tracking, respec-
tively. For precise positioning and navigation, carrier-
phase measurements are essential and, to a lesser extent,
pseudoranges.
The pseudorange is a measure of the time taken for a
modulated signal to be transmitted from the satellite to
the receiver, and is measured indirectly by computing the
temporal shift in a receiver replica of the pseudorange bit
pattern to match that of the incoming code. The pseudor-
ange observable represents, as its name suggests, a biased
measure of the geometric range between the transmitting
satellite’s antenna phase center and the receiving antenna’s
phase center. As each satellite and each receiver maintain
its own clock, each of which has a level of error and is not
synchronized with the other clocks, the measured range is
19.2 Relative Positioning 483
tors, including atmospheric refraction and equipment
delays (also known as hardware delays or equipment
biases) of various types dependent on the individual
satellite and form of the pseudorange modulation of the
underlying carrier signal. These effects are typically para-
meterized as follows (with error terms described in more
detail in the subsequent section) in units of meters as
Pki,f ,P t i = ρki t k + dt k t k − dt i t i c + I ki,f t i + T ki t i
+ MPki,f ,P t i + dkf ,P t i + di,f ,P t i + ε f ,P ti ,
19 3
where Pki,f ,P t i is the P -type pseudorange measurement
made at the reception time (ti), for receiver i from satellite
k at frequency f. All GNSS frequencies have code modula-
tions of various types, with varying levels of precision, some
of which are encrypted.
ρki t k is the geometric range from satellite k to receiver i at
the transmission time (tk).
k k
dt (t ) and dti(ti) are the mutually exclusive satellite and
receiver clock errors, respectively.
k
I i,f t i is the delay due to the accumulated ionospheric
refraction along the line of sight from satellite k to
receiver i at frequency f.
T ki t i is the delay due to the accumulated tropospheric
refraction along the line of sight from satellite k to
receiver i.
MPki,f ,P t i is the delay due to the P -type pseudorange multi-
path on frequency f.
k
d f ,P t i and di, f, P(ti) are mutually exclusive P -type pseudor-
ange satellite and receiver equipment delays on fre-
quency f.
εf, P(ti) is the P -type pseudorange measurement noise on
frequency f.
The geometric range is a function of the satellite position
( x k ) and receiver position ( x i ), with the determination of
the latter usually being the objective:
ρki t k = x k − xi = x k − x i + yk − yi + zk − zi
19 4
The carrier-phase observable parameterization is similar
to that of the pseudorange, aside from a change in sign of
the ionospheric refraction and the carrier-phase ambiguity.
Unlike a pseudorange, a carrier phase is not biased satel-
lite/receiver clock synchronization (or equivalent range)
measurement, but rather the biased sum of partial phase
cycle measurements at the start of tracking and continuous
484 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)

satellite antenna
N′ = bs + N + br
N′ : ambiguity terms
N : integer ambiguity – whole wavelength cycles
φ′(t3)
bs : fractional satellite initial phase
φ′(t2) br : fractional receiver initial phase

φ(t) = φ′(t) + N′
N′ N′ N′ φ′(t) : receiver cumulative phase measurement
φ(t) : phase observable
t1 t2 t3 (all units of cycles)

receiver antenna

Figure 19.4 Carrier-phase effective ranging components from signal acquisition (t1) through tracking (t2 and t3) and the
accumulation of phase measurements.

count of received cycles afterward. This situation of carrier-
phase ranging, with no measurement gaps or cycle slips, can
be illustrated geometrically in Figure 19.4.
The typical parameterization of the carrier-phase observ-
able in units of cycles is
ff k k
φki,f t i = ρ t + f dt k t k
c i f εf, φ(ti) is the carrier-phase measurement noise on fre-
ff k
− dt i t i − I ki,f ,φ t i + T t i + N ki,f
c i
+ MPki,f ,φ t i + dkf ,φ t i + di,f ,φ t i + ε f ,φ t i ,
19 5
where φki,f t i is the carrier-phase measurement made at the
reception time (ti), for receiver i from satellite k at fre-
quency f.
ρki k
t is, as with the pseudorange observable, the geometric
range from satellite k to receiver i at the transmission
time (tk).
dtk(tk) and dti(ti) are, as with the pseudorange observable,
the mutually exclusive satellite and receiver clock errors,
respectively.
I ki,f ,φ t i is the phase advance due to the accumulated iono-
spheric refraction along the line of sight from satellite k
to receiver i at frequency f. This value is the same as for
the corresponding frequency f pseudorange, except for
the change in sign.
T ki t i is, as with the pseudorange observable, the delay due
to the accumulated tropospheric refraction along the line
of sight from satellite k to receiver i.
N ki,f is the integer ambiguity on carrier-phase frequency f.
This term represents the number of unknown carrier-
phase cycles from the first epoch of observation, and
therefore is constant. In the event of a receiver loss of
lock on the signal, a cycle slip is said to have occurred,
and the re-acquired signal will have a new integer
ambiguity.
MPki,f ,φ t i is the delay due to the carrier-phase multipath on
frequency f.
k
d f ,φ t i and di, f, φ(ti) are mutually exclusive carrier-phase
satellite and receiver equipment delays on frequency f.
quency f.
Equation (19.5) can also be converted to units of meters:
Φki,f t i = ρki t k + dt k t k − dt i t i c − I ki,f ,Φ t i
+ T ki t i + λ f N ki,f + MPki,f ,Φ t i
+ dkf ,Φ t i + di,f ,Φ t i + ε f ,Φ t i 19 6
The major differences between the pseudorange and car-
rier-phase observables are that the pseudoranges are actual
timing/ranging signals that are only precise to tens of cen-
timeters, while the carrier phases are ambiguous timing/
ranging signals that are precise to the few-millimeter level.
From the parameterization, the ionospheric refraction
affects a pseudorange and carrier-phase measurement of
the frequency with the same amplitude, but opposite sign.
The carrier-phase multipath and satellite and receiver
equipment delays are, as with the measurement noise,
orders of magnitude smaller than those of the comparable
pseudorange.
19.2.3 Error Sources
In order to discuss the measurement errors that are miti-
gated by relative positioning techniques and those that
remain and need to be managed, a brief description of
GNSS error sources is presented here. Additional detail
can be found in, for example, [1, 2, 4, 5]. One way to cate-
gorize major GNSS error sources is in terms of their origin:

Table 19.1 Major GNSS error sources categorized in terms of
transmission, propagation‚ and reception
Source of error Error
Transmission Orbit error
Clock error
Antenna biases
Equipment delays
Propagation Relativistic effects
Ionospheric refraction
Tropospheric refraction
Phase windup
Reception Multipath
Antenna biases
Equipment delays
Clock error
Receiver noise
Site displacements
transmission – occurring at the satellite; propagation –
occurring during transmission; and reception – occurring
at the receiving station. Such a classification is given in
Table 19.1 and briefly expanded upon in the text that
follows.
Transmission errors: GNSS satellite positions are pro-
vided in broadcast transmission messages at the meter
level. Estimates of these orbits in post-processing and
short-term extrapolation for real-time use can be produced
at the few-centimeter level. GNSS satellite clock error cor-
rections are known at a similar equivalent ranging level as
the orbits. Satellite antenna phase center offsets and phase
center variations are a result of the inherent characteristics
of antennas and can range from the few-millimeter to few-
centimeter level. Estimation of these antenna errors can
reduce them to the few-millimeter level. Various equip-
ment delays occur at the satellite, depending on the satellite
model and specific signal generation and signal circuitry.
Some of these delays are estimated and disseminated by
the constellation owner, others can be estimated through
terrestrial reference network processing, and others remain
unaccounted for. Residual delays can remain at the milli-
meter level.
Propagation errors: Both special and general relativity
affect GNSS satellites and their signals, in relation to the
orbits of the satellites, the satellite clocks, the transmitted
signals, and the receiver clocks. Corrections are either built
into the GNSS constellation or are accurately modeled in
measurement processing. Free electrons in the ionosphere
refract incoming GNSS signals. As the ionosphere is a dis-
persive medium, this refraction can be calibrated with dual-
frequency measurements, partially estimated with models,
or estimated with the GNSS measurements themselves, all
with varying levels of accuracy (centimeter to millimeter
19.2 Relative Positioning 485
level). Tropospheric refraction is caused by neutral mole-
cules in that region impinging upon the EM signals and
can be partially estimated with models, or estimated with
the GNSS measurements themselves, all with varying levels
of accuracy (centimeter to millimeter level). Phase windup
affects only the carrier-phase measurements, as they are
circularly polarized‚ and any relative rotation between
transmitting and receiving antennas will therefore increase
or decrease the accumulated phase measurement. Phase
windup can be accurately modeled to the millimeter level.
Reception errors: Multipath results in incorrect signal cor-
relation due to accumulated signals traversing multiple
paths to reach the receiving antenna. Various antenna
and receiver hardware designs have reduced this effect,
but centimeter-level phase and many decimeter-level pseu-
dorange multipath is common in highly reflective environ-
ments. Receiver antenna biases and equipment delays are
analogous to those at the satellite antennas/transmitter,
though the receiver effect tend to be slightly larger.
Receiver clock error is substantially larger than that for
the satellite clocks, given the relatively low quality of the
receiver oscillators. Receiver noise consists primarily of
thermal noise that can only be reduced through measure-
ment averaging. Site displacements effects include solid
Earth tides and ocean loading, which can be modeled to
the few-millimeter level.
GNSS error management falls into one or a combination
of the following options: (i) elimination, (ii) modeling,
(iii) estimation, or (iv) neglect. In relative GNSSs, the fol-
lowing mitigation approaches are adopted. Satellite and
receiver clock errors, as well as many of the satellite and
receiver equipment delays‚ are eliminated through a proc-
ess referred to as “double differencing,” which will be
described in the next section. Orbit errors, satellite and
receiver antenna biases, and some satellite equipment
delays are reduced through double differencing and/or
modeled based on external GNSS-derived estimates. Rela-
tivistic effects are modeled. If necessary, on long baselines,
phase windup and site displacement effects are also mod-
eled. Ionospheric refraction can be mostly eliminated
through dual-frequency processing; however, for carrier-
phase integer ambiguity isolation, estimation is usually per-
formed. Tropospheric refraction can be modeled to a lim-
ited extent, followed by estimation. Multipath and
receiver noise tend to be lumped together in measurement
noise and are reduced through optimal estimation techni-
ques. From the DGNSS discussion, the spatiotemporal
nature of the projected orbit, and ionospheric and tropo-
spheric errors in relative positioning means that for very
short baselines, for example, 1 km, these errors are effec-
tively eliminated, and as the baseline is lengthened, their
effects are magnified.
486 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)
19.2.4 Mathematical Modeling
The relative GNSS processing technique is based on a set of
linear combinations of the pseudorange or carrier-phase
observables known as differences: “single difference,”
“double difference,” and “triple difference,” as they are
simply mathematical differences of the observable. Two
of the earliest published sets of results of relative GPS using
differencing are [6] and [7]. Multiple instances of Eqs. (19.3)
or (19.6) at, for example, one receiver to multiple satellites
would produce the same receiver clock offset if the mea-
surements are made simultaneously at the receiver. There-
fore, taking the mathematical difference between two of
these equations would eliminate the common receiver
clock offset in a between-satellite, single difference.
Although distances between receivers and satellites are
not the same, and therefore the transmission times and
reception times are not the same, the satellite clocks are
very stable, so it can be assumed that the satellite clock
errors are the same for small mis-synchronizations. The
carrier-phase single difference between two receivers A
and B and satellite j can be mathematically represented
by Eq. (19.7) and illustrated in Figure 19.5.
j
ΦB,f j
t − ΦA,f j
t = ΦAB,f j
t = ρAB t + cdt AB t
j j j
− I AB,f ,Φ t + T AB t + λ f N AB,f
j j
+ MPAB,f ,Φ t + dAB,f ,Φ t + εAB,f ,Φ t
19 7
Note that the difference shorthand AB stands for B − A.
The satellite clock term is eliminated along with the satel-
lite equipment bias term. For short baselines, the atmos-
pheric effects greatly decrease, and the measurement
error increases following the law of error propagation.
Differencing two between-satellite, single differences
between a receiver/satellite pair results in a double differ-
ence, as presented in Eq. (19.8) and illustrated in
Figure 19.6 for receivers A and B and satellites j and k.
As for the single difference, the satellite-related biases are
j
A B
Figure 19.5 Between-satellite single-difference geometry
between two receivers A and B and satellite j.
j k
A B
Figure 19.6 Double-difference geometry between two receivers
A and B and two satellites j and k.
eliminated, the atmospheric terms for short baseline cases
are further reduced, and the measurement error is further
increased. The relative vector between receivers A and B is
the key portion of the estimated state.
j jk jk jk
ΦkAB,f t − ΦAB,f t = ΦAB,f t = ρAB t − I AB,f ,Φ t
jk jk jk jk
+ T AB t + λ f N AB,f + MPAB,f ,Φ t + εAB,f ,Φ t
19 8
GPS, Galileo‚ and BeiDou make use of code division multi-
ple access (CDMA), meaning that transmitted satellite
modulations are differentiated by different codes;
whereas GLONASS uses frequency division multiple access
(FDMA), where satellite transmissions are differentiated
by different frequencies of the underlying carrier signals. As
such, a slightly different formulation is required to produce
GLONASS double differences, accounting for the unique sat-
ellite frequencies – see, for example, [1] and [4] for further
details.
Double-difference-based GNSS relative positioning is the
industry and scientific standard. In Eq. (19.8), the relative
position vector between the reference and the user (rover)
receiver is estimated, along with residual ionospheric and
tropospheric refraction, and double-differenced, carrier-
phase integer ambiguity terms. The ambiguity terms can
be considered nuisance parameters, as they do not provide
the sought-after information – such as the relative position
vector – but are necessary to solve for the overall system
state. As such, the relative static and kinematic functional
models can contain datum defects, which need to be
removed through additional constraints (see, e.g. [1]), some
of which will be discussed in later sections.
The final difference considered for some forms of relative
positioning, as well as for quality control strategies, is the
triple difference. If the double difference is considered over
two adjacent epochs, the difference of these two compound
differences is referred to as a triple difference, or a between-
epoch double difference. The carrier-phase triple difference
between receivers A and B and satellites j and k, between
epochs t1 and t2 is represented in Eq. (19.9) for the CDMA
case and illustrated in Figure 19.7.

j(t2)
k(t2)
j(t1)
A(t1) B(t2)
A(t2)
Figure 19.7 Triple-difference geometry between two receivers A and B and two satellites j and k, between epochs t1 and t2.
jk jk jk
ΦAB,f t 2 − ΦAB,f t 1 = ΦAB,f t 12 = ρAB t 12
jk
− I jk jk
AB,f ,Φ t 12 + T AB t 12
jk jk
+ MPAB,f ,Φ t 12 + εAB,f ,Φ t 12
This formulation requires that there are no losses of lock,
also referred to as cycle slips, on any of the four signals
being tracked. If this requirement is satisfied, the double-
differenced integer ambiguity terms are eliminated, elimi-
nating the need to estimate them. Again, the resulting
measurement has greater noise which, for the triple differ-
ence, limits its utility in relative positioning applications.
The differencing functional model for relative GNSS posi-
tioning leads to a number of stochastic modeling issues.
While differencing allows for the elimination of various sat-
ellite and receiver clock and equipment terms from the
functional model, measurement errors are propagated
and increased in magnitude through differencing. The
alternative is undifferenced processing, which will be
briefly described later in this chapter and in Chapter 20.
Significant mathematical correlations also arise from
mathematical differencing, which need to be taken into
account for accurate processing and affect the estimation
process. [1] shows, through the application of the law of
error propagation, that for carrier-phase measurements
(and analogously for pseudorange measurements) the car-
rier-phase double-difference covariance for raw, independ-
ent carrier-phase measurements with variance σ 2 is
2 1
2σ 2
1 2
Aside from mathematical correlation, the observables
have relative weighting; for example, the C/A-code on
GPS L1 can be measured with a precision of a few tens of
centimeters in low-multipath environments, and the
19.2 Relative Positioning 487
k(t1)
B(t1)
associated L1 phase at a few millimeters. Therefore, σ C/
A 100 σ Φ, meaning that if pseudorange measurements
are used in conjunction with phase measurements, the
former can be used to produce approximate positions and
estimate phase ambiguities, at which point the latter can
19 9
be used for precise positioning. Finally, the quality of
incoming signals from lower elevation angles with respect
to the receiver is reduced due to greater atmospheric refrac-
tion, lower receiver antenna gain, and so on. Therefore, it
becomes prudent to apply an elevation angle filter or sig-
nal-to-noise weighting scheme to all measurements. Eleva-
tion angle weighting typically comes in the form of an
exponential function giving full weight to zenith measure-
ments and decaying down to lower elevation angles. An ele-
vation mask (or cutoff ) ranging from 5 to 15 above the
horizon is also customary, in order to completely remove
measurements at the lowest elevation angles.
19.2.5 Estimation Process
Pseudorange and carrier-phase measurements can be com-
bined to produce an overall observation model. [8] devel-
oped a four-observable model for GPS measurement
processing over short distances. This model is shown in
Eq. (19.11), where the nomenclature from Eqs. (19.3) and
(19.6) has been simplified, and most terms have been
neglected. This model has come to be known as the geom-
etry-free epoch solution. Over short baselines and consider-
ing doubling differencing, the first element of the vector of
unknowns can be reduced to ρ. The system of equations
19 10
then consists of four equations with four unknowns, and
could be solved directly, were it not for the high noise level
of the pseudoranges. Ideally, over a static baseline, enough
measurements would be accumulated over many epochs to
accurately estimate the ambiguity terms, and therefore pre-
cise relative position.
488 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)

P1 1 1 0 0 For static processing, a single baseline least-squares esti-

Φ1 1 −1 λ1 0 mator in either batch or sequential form can solve the prob-
= 2
P2 1 f1 f2 0 0
2 Mathematical correlations occurring from observable double
Φ2 1 − f1 f2 0 λ2
ρ + c dt k − dt i + T εP 1
I εΦ1
+ 19 11
N1 εP 2
N2 εΦ2
Processing can be made more effective by application of
the mathematically synthesized wide-lane carrier-phase
linear combination [8, 9]:
c error and atmospheric refraction. Additional observation
φwl = φ1 − φ2 , where λwl =
f1 − f2
Equations (19.11) and (19.12) can be implemented into a
least-squares filter to obtain wide-lane ambiguity estimates.
As this wavelength is approximately four times longer than
the base GNSS carrier phases, accurate estimation of the
unknown number of cycles is straightforward. Once the
wide-lane ambiguity is estimated, the ionosphere-free car-
rier-phase linear combination produces ambiguities that
are a linear combination of N1 and the known wide-lane
ambiguity, therefore allowing the determination of N1
and N2 [10]. See [4] for the detailed derivations.
The basic linearized observation model for the carrier-
phase observable at one epoch is shown in Eq. (19.13),
where the subscript “0” refers to an approximate posi-
tion/coordinate, and no atmospheric refraction errors or
multipath are present. Note that this equation template
uses the first satellite as the reference satellite for all inde-
pendent double-differenced pairs and no cycles slips or ris-
ing/setting satellites are accounted for.
lem and equivalently provide reliable positioning results.
differencing must be accounted for in the stochastic model.
The sequential least-squares approach provides higher com-
putational efficiency for larger datasets. Other sequential
options include Kalman or Bayesian approaches. The
sequential approaches ease the management of measure-
ment quantity changes due to rising and setting satellites,
carrier-phase cycle slips, and so on. Additional error model-
ing is required as baselines increase in length, due to the
increased magnitude of some error sources, specifically orbit
86 cm length, especially for static processing, compensates for
longer baselines, in that the additional measurements aver-
19 12
age down error in state estimates. Early research lead to
accurate so-called float (i.e. real-valued) phase ambiguities,
which could simply be rounded to fixed integers. More robust
and effective methods were then developed, as will be dis-
cussed in the next section.
Batch network adjustments strategies are well developed –
see, for example, [4] – and are used to remove any misfit
between vector baseline determinations within a network of
GNSS-determined baselines. Aside from accounting for math-
ematical correlations, only dependent double-differenced
baseline measurements are selected for processing.
In kinematic processing, rank deficiencies exist without
constraining the relative positioning functional model.
Sequential least-squares or extended Kalman filtering
are typically used for the optimal estimation process.
The power of measurement averaging to determine posi-
tion states is greatly diminished; so near-instantaneous
methods of carrier-phase integer ambiguity estimation
are desired.

ΔX B
X k − X B0 X j − X B0 Y k − Y B0 Y j − Y B0 Z k − Z B0 Z j − Z B0
− − − λf 0 … 0 ΔY B
ρkB0 ρBj 0 ρkB0 ρBj 0 ρkB0 ρBj 0
Φjk εΦjk
AB,f
X l − X B0 X j − X B0 Y l − Y B0 Y j − Y B0 Z l − Z B0 Z j − Z B0 ΔZ B AB,f

− − − 0 λf … 0 εΦjl
ΦjlAB,f ρlB0 ρlB0 ρlB0 N jk
ρBj 0 ρBj 0 ρBj 0 AB,f
AB,f

= +
N jlAB,f

Φjn εΦjn
AB,f
X n − X B0 X j − X B0 Y n − Y B0 Y j − Y B0 Z n − Z B0 Z j − Z B0 AB,f

− − − 0 0 … λf
ρnB0 ρBj 0 ρnB0 ρBj 0 ρnB0 ρBj 0
N jn
AB,f

19 13

19.2.6 Performance
Static, double-differenced-based relative positioning with
fixed carrier-phase ambiguities can produce millimeter or
even sub-millimeter results over short baselines [10]. [11]
reports few-millimeter-level results over medium baselines
with daily solutions. [9] reports centimeter-level position-
ing accuracy over long baselines with daily solutions. [12]
reports few-centimeter-level post-processing positioning
accuracy over long kinematic baselines. Since these pio-
neering results were published, such positioning accuracies
have become more consistent with GNSS measurement
processing and have been more readily available from sci-
entific and commercial software and service providers.
In a slightly different research direction, a great deal of
attention was given to quickly resolving carrier-phase
ambiguities for short- and medium-baseline processing
for real-time use. Static initialization involved the static
determination of the starting vector [13]. Kinematic initial-
ization required determination of ambiguities on the fly
(OTF), which allowed for approximation of the initial base-
line vector and subsequent improvement [14, 15]. These
techniques lead to the development of RTK, which requires
substantial effort to quickly, efficiently, and correctly esti-
mate double-difference carrier-phase ambiguities in real
time, and is the subject of the next section.
19.3 Ambiguity Resolution and RTK
The previous discussion regarding relative positioning
focuses attention on the desire or need to fix carrier-phase
ambiguities to integers. Applying this integer constraint
would be making use of the physical nature of this cate-
gory of estimation unknown, and therefore, it is a very
strong argument to make use of all information available
in the estimation process. In practice, carrier-phase ambi-
guity resolution (AR) allows for fast position solution
initialization and re-initialization for both static and kin-
ematic scenarios, and more consistent solutions from
epoch to epoch – all of which permits relative positioning
to be used for a wide range of applications in the form of
RTK processing.
This section begins with the concepts involved in AR.
Examples of AR approaches are described, followed by a
brief case study of the LAMBDA method. The application
of AR methods to the baseline estimation process is
described. Various aspects of performance are presented,
along with RTK implementation issues, including data
communications protocols.
19.3 Ambiguity Resolution and RTK 489
19.3.1 AR
It was realized early in relative GNSS research that fixing
carrier-phase ambiguities to their correct integers greatly
improved positioning accuracy and repeatability, especially
over longer distances [9] or with short data collection per-
iods, when limited measurements make the estimation of
float ambiguities difficult. Research rapidly moved from
static baselines, where copious error modeling and the col-
lection of long data arcs allowed for simply rounding of
double-differenced float ambiguities to fixed ones, to the
much more difficult cases of rapid fixing over short-
to-medium length baselines, with the rover receiver in
motion. The concept of spatiotemporal correlation
described earlier for orbit, tropospheric‚ and ionospheric
errors across baselines plays a central role in the float esti-
mation, with residuals from unmodeled errors adversely
affecting the accurate estimation of position and ambiguity
states.
The resulting state vector estimate x and associated state
cofactor matrix estimate Qx (or scaled variance-covariance
– VCV) from real-valued double-differenced, relative posi-
tioning are referred to as the float state and float cofactor
estimates and can be partitioned into
a Qa Qab
x= ; Qx = 19 14
b QTab Qb
where a represents the vector of float position coordinates and
other necessary baseline states such as tropospheric delay, and
b represents the vector of n float double-difference carrier-
T
phase ambiguities N 1 … N n . AR or ambiguity fixing
– the identification of a set of integer double-differenced
ambiguities – is the process of selecting a set of integer
ambiguities which is statistically compatible with the float
ambiguities. Specifically, it is the process of minimizing the
weighted norm
̬ ̬
b − b Qb− 1 b − b 19 15
̬
where b is the vector of integer ambiguities, such that a sta-
tistic test of variances can be passed with the above null
hypothesis.
There are three generic AR steps (see, e.g. [1]):
1) Generation of potential integer ambiguity candidates
2) Identification of the optimum integer ambiguity
candidates
3) Validation (or verification) of the selected integer
ambiguities
490 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)
1) Generation of potential integer ambiguity candidates.
A candidate is an educated guess as to the integer ambiguity
for each double-difference phase ambiguity for a given
epoch. Each candidate is within an ambiguity search space
– a multidimensional volume containing ambiguity combi-
nations. The larger this search space, the more likely it con-
tains the correct ambiguity; and the smaller the search
space, the faster each candidate can be tested. So, a balance
is typically sought. Float double-differenced ambiguity esti-
mates will be close to integers for short, static baselines
(kilometers) over long periods of time (hours). As baselines
become longer and observation periods become shorter,
float solutions will deviate further from integers, due to
additional unmodeled errors and weakness brought on
by loss of information, respectively. The individual ambigu-
ity search space is essentially centered on float ambiguity
and volume defined by the uncertainty of float ambiguity
(scaled ambiguity covariance from estimation). The num-
ber of ambiguity candidates is dependent on the number
of satellites tracked and the search range. For example, 8
satellites with a range of 3 cycles results in 38−1 = 2,187 can-
didates, versus, for example, 8 satellites with a range of 5
cycles results in 58−1 = 78,125 candidates, which represents
~3,500% more candidates to search.
2) Identification of the optimum integer ambiguity
candidates.
The criterion is typically the integer candidate that mini-
mizes the sum of the squares of the residuals (i.e. the least-
squares criterion) of the solution making use of the selected
fixed ambiguity and the original float ambiguity estimate.
The understanding here is that the original float real-valued
double-differenced phase ambiguities estimated are the
“best” estimates in the least-squares sense; and that while
fixed integer values will produce larger residuals in the esti-
mation process (as they do not fit to the functional and sto-
chastic model as well), they should not be statistically
different.
3) Validation (or verification or acceptance) of the selected
integer ambiguities.
Validation is the assessment of the correctness of the inte-
gers obtained, and is based on the functional model, sto-
chastic model, and AR method used. Such validation is
typically in the form of a norm ratio test between the smal-
lest and second-smallest weighted sum of the square of the
residuals. If the ratio is larger than some set value, then the
former candidate is used; otherwise there is no integer
ambiguity solution that can be selected, as there is no sta-
tistically significant difference between these solutions.
However, such ratio tests with a fixed critical value do
not test the correctness of the integer least-squares solution.
A fixed failure rate approach allows for the failure rate to
not exceed a user-defined value [16]. However, no valida-
tion approach can guarantee the correctness of the selected
integer ambiguities.
Numerous AR methods have been developed; some of
the more popular ones are listed here. More detailed over-
views can be found in the references, as well as in [1]
and [4].
• The ambiguity function method developed by [17]:
Search of a gridded cube of points about the float position
estimate using the so-called ambiguity function for all
between-receiver, single-differenced ambiguities.
• The least-squares ambiguity search technique (LSAST)
developed by [18]: Isolate integer ambiguities through
a primary and secondary set of satellites, using sequential
least-squares.
• The fast AR approach (FARA) developed by [19]: Use sta-
tistical information from the initial float estimation to
select the search range. Then use the float variance-
covariance matrix to reject unacceptable ambiguity sets.
Finally, apply hypothesis testing to select correct integer
ambiguities.
• The least-squares ambiguity decorrelation adjustment
method (LAMBDA) developed by [20]: Double-differenced
float ambiguities are “decorrelated.” A conditional least-
squares search for integer ambiguities is conducted.
• The fast ambiguity search filter (FASF) developed by
[21]: A Kalman filter predicts the state vector. An ambi-
guity search for each epoch is conducted until they are all
fixed. And there is a recursive computation of ambiguity
search ranges.
The LAMBDA method has proved to be very popular,
given its optimal nature and speed. Therefore, it will be dis-
cussed in more detail in the next section. Aside from direct
estimation of carrier-phase observable ambiguities, these
methods also make use of linear combinations of carrier-
phase observables, such as various wide lanes to increase
phase wavelengths, thereby increasing integer ambiguity
success rates, and partial ambiguity fixing, which avoids fix-
ing high-noise float ambiguities, such as measurements
from newly rising satellites or ones with high multipath
or atmospheric refraction error.
19.3.2 LAMBDA AR Method
The least-squares ambiguity decorrelation adjustment [20]
is arguably the most popular AR method in use today. Its
main attractions are actual integer least-squares estima-
tion, the estimator with highest probability of correct inte-
ger estimation among all possible admissible integer
 19.3 Ambiguity Resolution and RTK 491

estimators, and high speed in finding a set of integer ambi- approach the shape of a circle or sphere, respectively, while
guities. Hence, we present the selection of LAMBDA as a preserving the area/volume.
brief case study of an AR method. [23] provides the following 3-D Z-transformation exam-
In Eq. (19.15), if the float cofactor matrix Qb was diagonal, ple. Given a float cofactor matrix
that is, the ambiguities are not correlated
6 290 5 978 0 554
qN 1 N 1 0
Qb = 5 978 6 292 2 340 19 19
Qb = 19 16 0 544 2 340 6 288
0 qN n N n
the float ambiguities have large uncertainties, and the
then the “best” integer set in a least-squares sense would first-second and second-third are highly correlated as signi-
simply be the rounded float ambiguities fied by their correlation coefficients:
̬ 2 ̬ 2
σ b1 = 2 508 ρb1 b2 = 0 950
N1 − N N2 − N
1 2
+…+ 19 17 σ b2 = 2 508 ρb1 b3 = 0 086 19 20
qN 1 N 1 qN 2 N 2
σ b3 = 2 508 ρb2 b3 = 0 950
A two-term version of Eq. (19.17) can be represented geo-
metrically by an ellipse with origin at the float ambiguity Through the process outline above, the composite Z-
pair and axes scaled by the denominators; the three-term transformation was determined to be
version by a similar ellipsoid; and the n-term version by
a similar hyper-ellipsoid. The area or volume within the 1 −1 0
ellipse/ellipsoid/hyper-ellipsoid is referred to as the integer
T
Z = −2 3 −1 19 21
search space. However, in reality, the float ambiguity cofac- 3 −3 1
tor matrix is fully populated and, especially for short data-
The Z-transformed cofactor matrix is then
sets and long baselines, the float ambiguities are highly
correlated, resulting in elongated ellipses/ellipsoids/ 0 626 0 230 0 082
hyper-ellipsoids rotated away from the principal axes. Qz = 0 230 4 476 0 334 19 22
The effect is typically very large integer search spaces.
0 082 0 334 1 146
LAMBDA sets out to greatly reduce the integer search space
through a process known as Z-transform decorrelation. and the transformed ambiguities are now largely
It is mathematically straightforward to diagonalize a decorrelated:
symmetric square matrix, such as Qb , through eigenvalue
σ z1 = 0 791 ρz1 z2 = 0 137
decomposition. However, eigenvalue decomposition pro-
duces a transformed diagonal cofactor matrix but does σ z2 = 2 116 ρz1 z3 = 0 097 19 23
not preserve the integer nature of transformed integer σ z3 = 1 071 ρz2 z3 = 0 147
ambiguities. LAMBDA applies the so-called Z-transform
(see, e.g. [22]) where While the result is not a diagonal cofactor matrix, the
̬
integer search space is dramatically reduced by orders of
̬
z = ZT b magnitude, resulting in many fewer integer candidates to
search, allowing LAMBDA to be very computationally
z = ZT b 19 18
efficient.
T
Qz̬ = Z Qb Z Once transformed, the integer sequential conditional
adjustment is carried out in order to identify the actual inte-
Z must only contain integers. Also, the determinant of
ger ambiguities. The process searches all potential ambigu-
Z must equal ±1, restricting Z−1 to contain only integer ele-
ity candidates in a tree-like search fashion, with each
ments if Z contains integer elements. The result is integer
ambiguity estimated based on the previously fixed ambigu-
nature preservation for both the direct and inverse transfor-
mations in Eq. (19.18). The process of determining a suita- ities. That is, bi I, i = 1, …, m, which is the least-squares esti-
ble Z for a given cofactor matrix relies on applying a series mate of the i-th ambiguity, conditioned on fixing the
of simply Gauss transformations incorporating rounded previous i−1 ambiguities.
divisions of the float cofactor diagonal elements [22]. Geo- i−1
metrically, the result can be interpreted as a series of com- b i I = bi − σ bi b j J σ b− 2 b jJ 19 24
jI
pressions of the elongated ellipse (2D)/ellipsoid (3D) that j=1
492 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)

This process is straightforward as the sequential condi- 19.3.3 Estimation Process

tional least-squares adjustment ambiguities are not corre-
Relative positioning/ RTK software implementations can
lated. Statistical hypothesis testing is carried out on the
vary widely. One popular open-source implementation is
estimated ambiguity candidates to select the optimal set
RTKLIB by [25]. The fundamental modules characterizing
in a least-squares sense. Once the transformed integer min-
the relative positioning/RTK processing methodology of a
imization is complete, the back-transformed integer esti-
̬ generic programming package are presented in Figure 19.8,
mates z can be computed (but not explicitly required), in
be it for real-time or post-processing, for a single processing
order to obtain the integer least-squares estimate of the
̬ epoch. These modules are measurement input, navigation
required fixed baseline state terms a.
solution, measurement quality control, relative positioning
The original LAMBDA method itself had no specified val-
float solution and solution quality control, AR and ambiguity
idation procedure; however, validation procedures have
validation, and relative positioning fixed solution and solu-
since been developed (see, e.g. [16]). Validation of the qual-
tion quality control. Positioning performance of individual
ity of the obtained integer ambiguities occurs through the
processing engines is a function of not only the algorithm
uncertainty of estimates. Standard deviations alone can
completeness of the modules in the left column, but also of
be used to gauge if estimates are “good”; however, it is
the level of detail provided in the optional, but typical, quality
not possible to use this statistic alone to determine if esti-
control modules in the right column.
mates are “correct.” Validation metrics include the ambigu-
The complexity of measurement input functionality for
ity success rate, which quantifies the probability that
base and rover receivers depends on the format of the mea-
integer ambiguities are correctly estimated; and the success
surements, which is discussed in more detail at the end of
rate function, which includes the functional model, sto-
this subsection. Measurement pre-processing can involve
chastic model, and the chosen method of integer estima-
the detection and removal of gross pseudorange and
tion, allowing for calculation with actual measurements.
carrier-phase measurement errors, the removal of partial
The ratio validation test compares the squared norm of
measurement records, and so on. Typically, this module
the second-best and best determined ambiguity residual
also includes an algorithm to detect and potentially repair
vector against a threshold, which indicates if the two solu-
carrier-phase cycle slips.
tions are statistically different at some confidence level.
The base and rover navigation solutions are computed via
Subsequent to LAMBDA, MLAMBDA (Modified
the point positioning concept. Basic error modeling is
LAMBDA) was developed by [24]. The algorithm finds com-
applied in, usually, an epoch-by-epoch least-squares estima-
putational efficiencies in both the LAMBDA decorrelation
tor. Initial measurements can then be assessed based on, for
and integer sequential least-squares components to provide
example, post-fit residual statistical analysis. RAIM (receiver
significant reductions in computation time. These modifica-
tions, made to the educational version of LAMBDA, were
included in the professional version of LAMBDA [23].
In summary, the main steps in the LAMBDA AR process Measurement input Measurement
(base and rover) pre-processing
are as follows:

1) Pre-LAMBDA stage: Float relative positioning, double-

differenced ambiguities‚ and associated float VCV Navigation solution
Measurement QC
matrix computed from a conventional relative position- (base and rover)
ing least-squares or Kalman filter estimation process.
2) LAMBDA decorrelation: The so-called “Z-transforma-
tion” decorrelates highly correlated ambiguities, by trans- Relative positioning
Solution QC
forming the usually highly elongated ambiguity search float solution

hyper-ellipsoid to a near-spherical shape, allowing for a

much more efficient search for integer ambiguities.
3) LAMBDA search: Integer minimization is used as dis- Ambiguity resolution Ambiguity validation

crete search over the decorrelated search volume to

determine the “best” transformed integer ambiguities
Relative positioning
which are then transformed back using the inverse Solution QC
fixed solution
Z-transformation.
4) Post-LAMBDA stage: The fixed ambiguities are used to
Figure 19.8 Flowchart of fundamental modules of relative
re-estimate baseline parameters to produce a “fixed” positioning/RTK processing methodology (dashed lines indicate
baseline solution. optional functionality).

autonomous integrity monitoring) is one such approach,
providing specific measurement rejection criteria.
The selected base and rover measurements are then used to
form the double-difference equations and potentially linear
combinations of these for various float ambiguity solutions,
for example, L1, L2, wide lane, narrow lane. Advanced error
modeling is applied, especially over longer baselines, in a
sequential least-squares or Kalman filter estimator. Post-fit
residuals can be analyzed for remaining outliers.
An AR approach is applied, making use of the float solu-
tion real-valued ambiguity estimates and associated real-
valued covariances. If ambiguity-resolved estimates are
determined, they can be validated with standard methods
to add confidence in the estimates.
Finally, the fixed ambiguities and covariances are
inserted back into the float solution to produce fixed base-
line component estimates and associated covariances. The
float or fixed position estimates and covariances can be
used as a priori input for the next epoch’s processing.
19.3.4 RTK Performance
Since the late 1990s, RTK has been the standard for precise
localized positioning in the surveying, engineering con-
struction and machine control industries. Not only does
the on-the-fly resolution of double-differenced carrier-phase
ambiguities result in more accurate relative positioning,
solutions are also very consistent and can be obtained in tens
of seconds, allowing for flexible working environments.
The effects of correctly resolving double-differenced inte-
ger ambiguities can clearly be seen in zero baseline proces-
sing. A zero baseline is one where two receivers share the
same antenna via a signal splitter. The resulting baseline
length should be zero. All error effects outside of the signal
processing in each receiver are eliminated, as the observed
1 5
0.5
Up [m]
0 0
–0.5
–1
1 5
0.5
0 0.5
0 0
–0.5 0.5
–1
–1
Northing [m] Easting [m]
Figure 19.9 Typical zero baseline position processing results: (left) real-time processing in kinematic mode with float ambiguities, (right)
RTK processing of the same data.
19.3 Ambiguity Resolution and RTK 493
errors are identical and cancel in the double differencing. In
Figure 19.9 (left), the individual float solution errors for one
hour of one Hertz data from such a zero baseline is pro-
duced from float baseline processing in kinematic mode.
Figure 19.9 (right) shows the 3600 fixed solutions using
the same data. Note that the plot scale has been reduced
from (left) to (right) by a factor of ~100. While the individ-
ual relative float position solutions are accurate to the few-
decimeter level, the individual RTK results are accurate to
the few-millimeter level. One way to interpret the correct
fixing of the integer ambiguities in the carrier-phase mea-
surements is that they then act like millimeter-level preci-
sion pseudoranges.
In practice‚ receiver antenna phase biases, pseudorange
and carrier-phase multipath‚ and especially atmospheric
refraction increase relative positioning error from the mil-
limeter level to the centimeter level. As atmospheric refrac-
tion is the most significant error contributor, and due to the
spatial and temporal decorrelation of its effects on GNSS
signals, relative positioning error grows roughly as a func-
tion of baseline length. Figure 19.10 provides typical posi-
tion error in the horizontal (top) and vertical (bottom)
components for float and fixed baselines ranging from 3
to 28 km. The base station remains constant‚ and one
day of measurements is processed in kinematic mode using
the RTKLIB software with integer fixing [25]. Therefore,
the rms values presented represent the typical user posi-
tioning error for the particular baseline length.
It can be seen that as baseline length increases, the posi-
tioning error grows. Also, clearly the fixing of double-
differenced ambiguities to their correct integer values
reduces the error by a few to many centimeters. This base-
line limitation results in RTK typically being used over
10–15 km radii from the base station, where the horizontal
positioning can be capped at the ~2–3 cm level (and the
2.5
Up [mm]
–2.5
–5
1 2.5 5
0 2.5
–2.5
–2.5
–5 –5
Northing [mm] Easting [mm]
494 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)
Horizontal Accuracy (cm)
10
Float horizontal Fixed horizontal
8
0
0 5 10
Baseline length (km)
Vertical Accuracy (cm)
25
Float vertical Fixed vertical
20
15
10
5
0
0 5 10
Baseline length (km)
Figure 19.10 Relationship between float and fixed baseline positioning accuracy and baseline length: (top) horizontal positioning
accuracy and (bottom) vertical positioning accuracy.
vertical capped at the ~5 cm level). The lower vertical accu-
racy is, as with point positioning, due to the inherent GNSS
satellite/receiver geometry – there are no satellite signals
observed below the receiving antennas.
As RTK involves epoch-by-epoch AR, kinematic results
are comparable to static results, and commercial imple-
mentations tend not to differentiate. Additional accuracy
can be obtained by averaging a set of RTK positioning esti-
mates at a static location over a few tens of seconds. The
augmentation of one GNSS constellation with another or
multiple constellations provides additional redundancy in
the estimation process; however, over operational RTK
baselines, there is little additional positioning accuracy
improvement that can be gained under ideal open-sky con-
ditions. Multi-constellation processing is beneficial when
the receiver sky view is obstructed‚ and additional measure-
ments at differing geometries improve the estimation.
19.3.5 Communications and Protocols
RTK requires real-time (wireless) transfer of measurements
made at one receiver to another. From the RTK baseline
performance analysis in the previous subsection, these
wireless communications links need to be functional over
10–15 km ranges. The typical baseline RTK installation
requires a base station geodetic receiver/antenna at a
known or surveyed-in location, a rover geodetic receiver/
antenna, and communications hardware at both receivers.
Usually, the communications equipment comes in the form
15 20 25 30
15 20 25 30
of 1–5 W UHF or VHF radios with whip antennas either
attached to or integrated with the GNSS receiver. Such
infrastructure allows for clear communications over survey
distances, as long as reasonably clear lines of sight are
maintained between the two radio antennas.
Some installations make use of cellular modems for data
transmission over cellular networks. (This configuration is
standard for network RTK and is described in the next sub-
section.) A few very long-range multi-baseline RTK solu-
tions make use of communications satellite L-band
transmission. Finally, some new services make use of Inter-
net Protocol (IP) communications.
In order for the receiver data to be communicated, com-
munications protocols must be developed. Receiver origi-
nal equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have invariably
developed their own proprietary binary data formats. These
formats are designed to maximize measurement precision,
while minimizing the number of data bits required for
DGNSS, RTK, and so on.
In order for different OEM receivers to communicate
with each other for real-time DGNSS and RTK processing,
the industry has developed universal message formats
under the auspices of the Radio Technical Commission
for Maritime Services (RTCM) Study Committee 104 (SC-
104). There have been a number of versions of this GNSS
data format‚ and each has built on and expanded upon
the previous versions: Version 2 in 1990, Version 2.3 in
2010, Version 3 in 2004, and Version 3.3 in 2016 [2]. Version
2.3 contains a wide array of message types for DGPS, GPS

constellation information including ephemerides, and
pseudorange and carrier-phase measurements for RTK
[26]. Version 3.3 contains format redesigns to improve
RTK processing, expand from GPS to GNSS data transmis-
sion, and supports state space representation (SSR) mes-
sages for, e.g., precise satellite orbit and clock corrections
in PPP processing – the focus of Chapter 20 [27]. RTCM
message formats are typically transmitted via radio or
cellular modem link.
Finally, the Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet
Protocol (NTRIP) format has been developed to allow for
Internet-based communications of RTCM message formats
[28]. NTRIP allows for the generation of data streams of
RCTM GNSS data and data products, and for the transfer
of data via these streams over the Internet.
19.4 Network RTK
Once baseline RTK was established as a viable and then
operational form of centimeter-level, real-time positioning
and navigation, research then focused on addressing the
RTK baseline limitation. Algorithms were enhanced for
longer baselines and making use of multiple reference sta-
tions. It became apparent that multiple reference stations
could provide regional error corrections that could be used
to increase the spacing between reference stations‚ resulting
in what is known as network RTK. This section describes the
theory of network RTK, including its concepts, reference sta-
tion processing, correction generation, methods for correc-
tion interpolation, and resulting network RTK performance.
~100 km
~100 km
Figure 19.11 Generic baseline RTK station spacing as compared to much sparser network RTK station spacing. RTK (left): ~25–30
reference stations per 10,000 km2. Network RTK (right): ~5–10 reference stations per 10,000 km2.
19.4 Network RTK 495
19.4.1 Concepts and Theory
Baseline RTK allows for few-centimeter level positioning
up to 10–15 km, where reference station data are transmit-
ted wirelessly to the rover for relative positioning, including
AR. Beyond such ranges, spatial decorrelation of error
terms (satellite orbits, ionospheric refraction, and tropo-
spheric refraction) cause sufficient parameter mis-
modeling to preclude correct AR [29–31]. These errors
can be accurately modeled by a network of stationary refer-
ence GNSS receivers, and applied to longer-range relative
positioning for successful AR.
The primary benefits and limitations of network RTK
include great reduction of reference station hardware
(receivers, antennas, communications) as compared to sin-
gle baseline RTK; robustness gained from the use of multi-
ple reference stations; much more complex data processing
and communication than RTK; feasibility only in econom-
ically viable regions, for example, wealthy cities, regions
and countries, relatively small regions; and, as with all
GNSS applications, limited to operation in areas of
open sky.
Figure 19.11 illustrates the significant variation in contin-
uously operating reference stations (CORS) required for
baseline RTK (left) and network RTK (right) over a given
area. If reference stations are operated in isolation from each
other, the individual 10–15 km RTK baseline limitation
applies due to measurement error space decorrelation.
However, if the measurements from multiple CORS are
combined to generation error corrections over the encom-
passed region, then it was found that the CORS can be
spaced much further apart with successful double-
differenced carrier-phase integer AR of rover measurements.
496 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)
The main components of network RTK data proces-
sing are
1) AR at the reference stations
2) Estimation of correction coefficients
3) Computation and application of observations/correc-
tions at remote station
1) Reference station AR
Fixed ambiguity carrier-phase observations at reference
stations are required to estimate unknown biases. Refer-
ence station ambiguities must be estimated correctly in
real time. As it is challenging to continuously resolve all
phase ambiguities, the processing makes use of all a priori
information, including precise predetermined station
coordinates; predicted satellite ephemerides; recent net-
work RTK-based ionospheric and tropospheric refraction
estimates; carrier-phase multipath estimates determined
from network station analysis; and satellite and receiver
antenna phase center corrections based on antenna
calibrations.
2) Correction coefficients
Numerous techniques have been developed to model
(interpolate) distance-dependent biases between reference
stations and user receivers, for example, linear combina-
tions, linear interpolation, distance-based linear interpola-
tion, low-order surface fitting, and least-squares
collocation. As the rates of change of the magnitudes of
errors differ, the frequency of transmitted error corrections
differs. Ionospheric biases are estimated for each satellite,
and corrections transmitted every ~10 s. Orbit biases are
estimated for each satellite and corrections transmitted
every ~60 s. Tropospheric biases are estimated for each sat-
ellite or each reference station and corrections transmitted
every ~60 s. Ionospheric errors have the largest temporal
variations and hence require a higher correction transmis-
sion rate and a small modeling region.
3) User solution
Typically, computed reference observations are from ref-
erence station(s) closest to the remote receiver and precise
correction models. Observations are computed for the
remote receiver from reference station observations, correc-
tion models, and, horizontal coordinate differences
between the reference station and approximate rover posi-
tions. The computed remote observations are used by the
rover to estimate centimeter-level position based on very
short baseline RTK processing. Figure 19.12 illustrates
the concepts of measurement correction interpolation
between reference stations to generate simulated (or vir-
tual) reference station measurements – one method used
Interpolated
Carrier-phase correction
correction
“True”
correction
Simulated error
Reference Simulated Rover Reference
station 1 Reference Station 2
Station
Baseline distance
Figure 19.12 Two-dimensional diagram depicting concept of
between reference station measurement correction interpolation,
simulated (or virtual) reference station measurement generation,
and simulated measurement error.
for network RTK. As the simulated measurements are for
an apparent station near the rover, subsequent double dif-
ferencing will lead to accurate, low-noise float solutions
and successful RTK. Any errors in the measurement correc-
tion estimation and interpolation process will be projected
into user positioning error.
Popular user solution techniques in commercial use are
1) Virtual Reference Station (VRS) [32]
2) Master Auxiliary Concept (MAC) [30]
3) Area Correction Parameters – (Flächen korrekturpara-
meter or FKP, in German [33])
These methods have some similar design aspects, but
with substantially different measurement and correction
communications procedures.
1) VRS
The user receiver transmits its approximate position to
the central processing facility for correction interpolation
and “virtual” observation generation. These virtual obser-
vations are then transmitted to the user receiver, and its
baseline RTK position is estimated relative to the VRS.
2) MAC
All of the corrections are generated at the central proces-
sing facility and transmitted to the user receiver for interpo-
lation and baseline RTK position estimation. Two-way
communication is not required.
3) FKP
Each reference station uses observations from surround-
ing reference stations to generate correction coefficients.
 19.4 Network RTK 497

The corrections, reference station coordinates, and mea- for validation. For larger networks, processing can be parti-
surements are transmitted to the user receiver for interpo- tioned for sub-networks and overlapping areas to mitigate
lation and baseline RTK position estimation. the substantial computation burden.

19.4.3 Correction Generation

19.4.2 Reference Station Processing
Once the network double-differenced solutions are esti-
The major error sources, in terms of the magnitude effect
mated, the network processing software must generate net-
on GNSS signal ranging, that constrain few-centimeter
work station corrections. The double-difference model can
level baseline RTK performance are satellite orbit error,
be reformulated:
ionospheric refraction, and tropospheric refraction, which
can be successfully estimated (and interpolated from) jk jk jk jk jk
λ NAB,f + ϕAB,f t = ρAB t − I AB,f ,Φ t + T AB t
within a properly spaced CORS network [30]. These GNSS
error sources and their characteristics have been described 19 27
earlier in this chapter. The ambiguity term has already been determined. The
The onus is placed on the network RTK service provider phase term is known through the carrier-phase measure-
to precisely estimate these error terms in continuous daily ment, and the geometric range term is determined from
relative positioning solutions for the RTK network. There- the known coordinates of the reference stations and satel-
fore, integer ambiguities must be successfully resolved con- lites. Therefore, the tropospheric and ionospheric errors
tinuously and in real time. For such networks, all available can then be estimated.
a priori information, as described, is utilized, allowing for
reduced state vector parameterization in the estimation
19.4.3.1 VRS Correction Generation Algorithm
process, or the use of heavily constrained stochastic models.
For VRS, the errors in Eq. (19.27) are separated into disper-
Preserving a so-called common ambiguity level or datum
sive (ionosphere) and non-dispersive (everything else) com-
in the CORS network solution is required to generate con-
ponents [32]. Given the tens of kilometers of separation of
sistent corrections. Common ambiguity level or datum
network RTK stations, the ionospheric delay will cause the
refers to all double-differenced ambiguities for all stations
largest magnitude error in the solution. These components
in the network to be fixed relative to the same reference sat-
are isolated, for the dual-frequency GNSS case, by utilizing
ellite. For larger networks especially, it can be challenging
the ionosphere linear combination:
to maintain a consistent set of common satellites in view.
Not only can satellites leave a station antenna’s field of V t = V disp t + V non − disp t 19 28
view, but a station receiver can occasionally lose lock on
V t = T jk jk jk jk
AB t − I AB,f ,Φ t = λ NAB,f + ϕAB,f t − ρjk
AB t
a satellite. When the reference satellite needs to be chan-
ged, the network processor must seamlessly switch to the 19 29
satellite that will be visible for the longest period of time.
f 22
No network ambiguities are re-initialized by the use of lin- I jk
AB,Φ t = λL1 ϕjk jk
AB,L1 t − λL2 ϕAB,L2 t
f 21 − f 22
ear transformations. For example, for a switch from refer-
jk jk
ence satellite i to k with respect to satellite j in this case, the + λL1 NAB,L1 − λL2 NAB,L2 19 30
following double-differenced transformation would be
V non − disp t = V t − V disp t = V t + I AB,Φ t
jk
needed:
19 31
N ijAB,f N kj
AB,f 19 25

and this transformation can be simply expressed as 19.4.3.2 MAC Correction Generation Algorithm
ij
N AB,f − N ik =
kj
N AB,f 19 26 MAC also decomposes the corrections into their dispersive
AB,f
and non-dispersive components. However, single differ-
Equation (19.26) states that for a change from reference ences from the master station to the so-called auxiliary ref-
satellite i to k, linear combinations of the double- erence stations (secondary reference stations that are
differenced integer ambiguities with respect to reference farther from the user than the master station) are used to
satellite i can be used to derive the integer ambiguities with generate corrections for the rover [30]. Single-differenced
respect to a new reference satellite k [30]. Maintaining a observations are sufficient for the interpolation and correc-
common ambiguity level or datum can also be used for tion generation process, as interpolation is performed
reduction of the ambiguity candidate search space and entirely by the receiver with no VRS generation.
498 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)

A relevant aside: single differences allow for estimation of Distance-dependent linear interpolation. This method uses
receiver clock terms, which is one step closer to the SSR the inverse square of the distances from the reference sta-
approach for network RTK. SSR allows for the modeling tions to the user station to set interpolation weights. It
of each error source individually, as opposed to observation has limited accuracy and slightly worse performance
space representation (OSR) [33] and will be discussed fur- than other methods due to the estimation of errors in
ther at the end of this chapter and in Chapter 20. only one dimension [35].
The master and auxiliary reference station single- Linear interpolation. At least three reference stations are
differences corrections are computed as [30] needed in order to estimate a unique pair of two-
dimensional coefficients [36]. Beyond three reference
V iAB t = ρiAB t − λϕiAB t + cdt iAB t − I iAB t + T iAB t + λN iAB
stations, least squares is used. From the rover to the mas-
19 32 ter station:
The geometric range term is estimated as before. The a
receiver clock term is estimated with pseudorange observa- u m = ΔX u,m ΔY u,m
V 1i 19 37
b
tions. The ambiguity term is estimated as follows [30]
where V 1i
u m is the double-differenced residual between the
AB = N AB − N AB
N i1 i 1
N iAB = N i1 1
AB + N AB 19 33 rover and reference station, ΔXu, m and ΔYu, m are the coor-
where N 1AB is an arbitrarily selected datum, which is later dinate differences between the two stations, and a and b are
eliminated or estimated in processing. The correction com- the plane fitting coefficients.
ponents are then estimated [30]:
Linear combination model. This method is based on the
2
f2 2
f2 computation of a set of n+1 coefficients for n reference
V i,disp
AB,L1 t = Vi t − Vi t stations [35]:
f 2 2 − f 1 2 AB,L1 f 2 2 − f 1 2 AB,L2
19 34
2 2 α1
f1 f2 1 1 1 1 1
V i,nondisp
AB t = Vi t − Vi t α12
f 1 2 − f 2 2 AB,L1 f 1 2 − f 2 2 AB,L2 ΔX 1,m ΔX 2,m ΔX n,m 0 = ΔX u,m
19 35 ΔY 1,m ΔY 2,m ΔY n,m 0 ΔY u,m
αn + 1
19 38
19.4.3.3 FKP Correction Generation Algorithm
FKP correction generation is similar to that of VRS and The corrections are interpolated to the user position via
MAC. It utilizes double differences to generate dispersive V u m = α1 V 1 m + α1 V 2 m + … + αn V n m 19 39
and non-dispersive corrections. Each reference station
Low-order surface fitting. This method is based on a sec-
transmits a set of correction parameters. The grouping of
ond-order Taylor series expansion of the observation
terms in the correction model is [34]
error model, similar to first-order surface fitting [36]:
1j 1j 1j 1j 1j
AB t = ρAB t − λϕAB,f t − I AB,f ,Φ t + T AB t + λNAB,f
V 1i
19 36 Fittingerror = a + b ΔX + c ΔY + d ΔZ
Satellite 1 is the reference satellite with respect to which 19 40
all the in-between reference stations ambiguities are where a through d are the first-order coefficients.
resolved. The dispersive and non-dispersive corrections
are determined as in Eqs. (19.34) and (19.35). Least-squares collocation. This is the only method
described which makes use of not only the correction
19.4.4 Correction Interpolation values, but also the associated covariance matrices to
estimate user position corrections. The computed refer-
Orbit, tropospheric‚ and ionospheric corrections estimated ence station geometric range is subtracted from the car-
at each reference station need to be interpolated to the rier-phase measurement:
user’s position to correct observations and estimation user
position. There are various interpolation methods used by
ϕ = ϕ−ρ 19 41
network RTK approaches: distance-dependent linear inter-
polation, linear interpolation, linear combination model, The residuals can be interpolated to the user position
low-order surface fitting, and least-squares collocation. via [35]:
 19.5 Recent Developments in Relative and RTK Positioning 499

−1 Static and kinematic network RTK positioning perfor-

V u m = CV u V m DT DC V m DT Dϕ − λN jk
um
19 42
where C V m and CV u V m are the variance-covariance matri-
ces of the residuals, and D is the single- or double-difference
operator matrix, depending on the network RTK approach.
19.4.5 Performance
Network RTK is the industry standard for regional
few-centimeter-level real-time positioning for a host of
applications, including surveying, precision engineering and
construction, and precision farming. The three approaches
described above involve different correction generation
procedures, measurement/correction communications, and
interpolation algorithms but produce ostensibly similar posi-
tioning performance. As long as reference station coordinates
are aligned with the local datum and regular station mainte-
nance is addressed properly, for example, by changing station
hardware, network RTK produces few-centimeter-level hori-
zontal positioning (1 σ). Figure 19.13 provides a 7.5 h sample of
network RTK position error at a static site in southern Ontario,
Canada. There is little in the way of bias, noise‚ and drift in the
solution components.
mance are comparable, given that the technique provides
epoch-by-epoch ambiguity-resolved relative positioning
solutions. Therefore, as long as there is open sky and the
user receiver is in a region of good coverage, positioning
solutions should have consistent accuracy, and the user
appears to require just one receiver for this regional relative
positioning technique. Note that positioning performance
as the rover station moves outside of a network becomes
steadily worse, as the error corrections cannot be accurately
extrapolated. Finally, multi-constellation processing does
not provide significant increased positioning accuracy,
unless there is signal blockage, at which time additional sig-
nals can provide substantial improvement.
19.5 Recent Developments in Relative
and RTK Positioning
The development of relative positioning and RTK algo-
rithms and technologies have, for the most part, reached
a steady state. The algorithms and methodologies are con-
sidered mature. However, the introduction of new signals
and new constellations brings new challenges and the

10
North
5

–5

–10
10
East
5
Error (cm)

–5

–10
10
Up
5

–5

–10
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Hours of day

Figure 19.13 Approximately 7.5 hours of network RTK position error at a static site in southern Ontario, Canada, in December 2010.
500 19 Relative Positioning and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK)

potential of improved aspects of performance. This
section introduces the issues involved in multi-
constellation processing, as well as triple-frequency proces-
sing. Recent developments involving the integration of net-
work RTK with other processing concepts are described,
along with considerations for the near future.
19.5.1 Multi-Constellation Processing
With the re-introduction of a fully operational GLONASS
(see Chapter 4) and the introduction of Galileo (see
Chapter 5) and BeiDou (see Chapter 6), satellite-based nav-
igation has quickly moved from a ~25 satellite, GPS world to
a ~100 satellite, four-GNSS scenario. Additionally, regional
constellations NAVIC (see Chapter 7) and QZSS (see
Chapter 8) are further enhancing Asia-Pacific coverage.
These constellations and their signals are also described
in, for example, [1], [4], and [2]. The temptation is to jump
to the conclusion that more signals automatically improve
relative positioning and RTK. While more measurements
tend to imply increased parameter estimation redundancy,
as well as the reduction of noise by some n guideline, com-
plexities in processing measurements from different con-
stellations and, indeed, from within a constellation eat
away at some of these theoretical advantages.
So-called biases, datum differences, hardware delays, and
so on, are described here as equipment biases, as their ori-
gins are varied. Figure 19.14 provides one potential classi-
fication, dividing these apparent GNSS errors by their
source: between constellation differences; from signal gen-
eration and reception; and between observable types. These
biases exist because of the design of constellations, hard-
ware‚ and software. They range in magnitude from milli-
meters to meters, can be noise-like, slowly varying, or
structured, and depending on the bias, they can be esti-
mated, modeled, eliminated, or ignored in measurement
processing [37].
Therefore, some of the additional measurement strength
gained from additional satellite data may be lost when inte-
grating measurements from multi-constellations, for exam-
ple, estimation of inter-system time system offset. Other
biases are imperfectly estimated and leave residual errors
in multi-constellation processing, for example, GLONASS
inter-channel biases. Fortunately, the double-differencing
operator removes or reduces many of these biases.
Modernized GPS, Galileo and BeiDou also have the advan-
tage of three signal transmission. While additional observa-
ble equipment biases exist, the three-carrier AR (TCAR)
technique [38] and other linear combinations of observables
allow for a wider array of positioning algorithms.
Given the high quality of GPS-only relative positioning
and RTK, the addition of measurements from other constel-
lations does not provide significant position accuracy and
precision improvement. However, processing multi-
constellation measurements does reduce risks from sin-
gle-constellation reliance, and provides significant posi-
tioning availability and performance improvement in
restricted open-sky environments.

Inter-frequency biases
Differential code biases
Differential phase biases

PSEUDORANGE
AND CARRIER-
PHASE
Hardware biases MEASUREMENTS
Firmware biases
Inter-system coordinate system
Code Measurement biases
offset
Phase Measurement biases
Inter-system time system offset
GNSS
EQUIPMENT
BIASES

SIGNAL
GENERATION AND GNSS MULTI-
SIGNAL CONSTELLATIONS
RECEPTION

Figure 19.14 Classification of GNSS equipment biases.


19.5.2 Network RTK Combined with Other
Processing and Future Considerations
Some of the most exciting recent developments in precise
positioning have come in the advancement of PPP methods
(the subject of Chapter 20) and the combination of network
RTK and PPP. [33] proposed a combination of network
RTK with the PPP concept to provide SSR of corrections
rather than in the traditional observation space, allowing
for a melding of the two approaches. Such integrated
approaches have been introduced commercially (e.g. [39])
and will be further discussed in Chapter 20.
As hardware costs continue to drop, RTK is being applied
to low-cost, single-, and dual-frequency GNSS chips (e.g.
[40]) and ultra-low-cost cell phone chips (e.g. [41]) over
short distances. Physical limitations in the design and man-
ufacture of quality low-cost antennas and multi-frequency
chips currently represent remaining constraints to this
progress. However, with the deployment of mass consumer
applications such as machine control and driverless vehi-
cles, low-cost (network) RTK is on the rise.
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20
GNSS Precise Point Positioning
Peter J.G. Teunissen
Curtin University, Australia; Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
20.1 Introduction
GNSS PPP is a modeling and processing method with
which one can compute positions with high accuracy
anywhere on the globe using a single GNSS receiver
[1–4]. It is a logical extension of GNSS pseudorange naviga-
tion, whereby the broadcast satellite orbits and clocks are
replaced with precise estimates‚ and the pseudorange data
is complemented with the very precise carrier-phase
observations, usually on two or more frequencies so as to
be able to either eliminate or estimate the ionospheric
delays. The precise orbits and clocks are downloaded or
obtained in real time from a number of service providers,
using either the Internet or satellite links. PPP provides
in addition to accurate positioning solutions, tropospheric
and ionospheric delays, as well as accurate receiver clocks.
To facilitate the high PPP accuracy, careful modeling of
local station and environmental effects is required. As
PPP does not rely, as with relative baseline positioning,
on combining observations with simultaneous measure-
ments from reference stations, it offers greater operational
flexibility and is suited for areas that lack dense GNSS
network infrastructure.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of
the PPP concept (see Figure 20.1) and to give a systematic
treatment of its many different mechanizations. In
Section 20.2‚ the PPP concept is introduced. It describes
the principle and the use of the ionosphere-free clock
and presents the general structure of the linearized
pseudorange (code) and carrier-phase PPP user observation
equations. Although PPP was originally developed as a
dual-frequency technique, it can also be used with multiple
frequencies or even with only a single frequency. In
Section 20.3, we describe the various forms of single- and
dual-frequency PPP. For single-frequency PPP, we discuss
the ionosphere-free as well as the ionosphere-corrected
approach. In the latter approach, use is made of external
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
503
ionospheric information such as, for instance, global iono-
sphere maps (GIMs) computed by the International GNSS
Service (IGS) analysis centers [5]. For dual-frequency PPP,
we start with the traditional ionosphere-free formulation
and then follow on with the more flexible ionosphere-float
approach. We compare the two approaches and discuss
some of the potential pitfalls. Although PPP has been
devised for precise positioning applications, the concept
is also successfully used for non-positioning applications,
such as water vapor estimation, ionospheric estimation,
and time transfer. These applications are briefly described
in Section 20.4.
As PPP relies on highly accurate satellite position and
clock data, we discuss the availability of these products
in Section 20.5 and describe the different orbit and clock
products available from the IGS for post-processed and
real-time PPP [6–8]. In addition to orbits and clocks, PPP
also requires a number of unconventional corrections to
mitigate systematic effects that could otherwise bias the
pseudorange and carrier-phase observations or the position
solutions. They are discussed in Section 20.6 and grouped as
satellite-receiver corrections (e.g. antenna phase center
variations and phase wind-up), atmospheric delay correc-
tions (troposphere and ionosphere), and site displacement
corrections (e.g. Earth tides and ocean loading).
Although PPP is capable of providing very accurate
positioning results, it often requires relatively long observa-
tion time spans for such accurate results to be achieved.
Therefore, the challenge for PPP is not so much to improve
on the obtained accuracy but rather to shorten its conver-
gence time. As the duration of convergence is to a large part
driven by the presence of the carrier-phase ambiguities, one
can expect significantly shorter convergence times if one
can do away with these unknown ambiguities. This is
possible if one would be able to integer-estimate the
ambiguities with a sufficiently large success rate or proba-
bility of correct integer estimation [9]. The principle and the
504 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning
xyz,t xyz,t
xyz,t
CORS 1 USER CORS 2 CORS 3 CORS n
xyz,t
Figure 20.1 Precise Point Positioning (PPP): Single-receiver
pseudorange and carrier-phase-based positioning with the
aid of externally provided orbit and clock corrections. The
precise orbits and clocks are determined by a global network
of GNSS-receiver-equipped continuously operating reference
stations (CORS).
underlying models for integer-ambiguity-resolved PPP are
discussed in Section 20.7. Here we also present an overview
of the different mechanizations that have been proposed in
the literature.
With the ongoing proliferation of navigation satellite sys-
tems, the availability of more satellites and signals brings a
range of improvements for PPP. The higher accuracy of, in
particular, the pseudoranges will improve the convergence
time and the increase in the number of visible satellites will
improve PPP availability. Also‚ the capability of successful
integer ambiguity resolution will improve, by both the
availability of more frequencies and satellites. The
intricacies of multi-frequency PPP and of multi-GNSS
PPP are discussed in Sections 20.8 and 20.9, respectively.
With multi-frequency PPP, satellite code hardware delays
become estimable on the third and following frequency,
as a consequence of which they may be treated – next to
the orbits and clocks – as part of the standard PPP
corrections. With multi-GNSS PPP, new challenges are
also introduced. We describe the need for modeling the
so-called ISBs and show how they can be corrected so
as to realize the tightest possible multiple systems
integration [10].
20.2 PPP Concept
20.2.1 The PPP Principle
For the pseudorange (or code) psu,j and
carrier phaseϕsu,j of a
user receiver u tracking satellite s on frequency j, the obser-
vation equations are given as [11–14]
psu,j = ρsu + μ j ιsu + dt u,j − dt s,j + esu,j
20 1
ϕsu,j = ρsu − μ j ιsu + δt u,j − δt s,j + λ j zsu,j + ϵsu,j
with ρsu = lsu + τsu being the sum of the receiver-satellite
range lsu and the tropospheric delay τsu , and μ j ιsu the
(first-order) ionospheric delay (an advance for phase
and delay for code), with ιsu denoting the ionospheric
delay on the first frequency and μj = (λj/λ1)2 being the ion-
ospheric coefficient, with λj the j-frequency wavelength.
The receiver-satellite range, lsu = r s − r u , depends on the
unknown, to-be-determined, user-receiver position ru at
signal reception time t R ≈ t E + lsu c (c = vacuum speed of
light) and on the satellite position rs at the signal emission
time tE.The frequency-dependent user-receiver and satellite
clock errors for code and phase are given as
dt u,j = dt u + du,j , dt s,j = dt s + ds,j
20 2
δt u,j = dt u + δu,j , δt s,j = dt s + δs,j
with dtu and dts the common user-receiver and satellite
clock offsets and du,j , ds,j , δu,j , δs,j the frequency-dependent
code and phase hardware delays, respectively. The
additional unknown parameter zsu,j in the carrier-phase
equation of Eq. (20.1) is the integer carrier-phase ambigu-
ity. The remaining code and phase errors are denoted by esu,j
and ϵsu,j, respectively. They capture the measurement noise
and any other remaining unmodeled effects, such as, for
example, multipath. From now on we will omit showing
them unless they are really needed. As a further simplifica-
tion, we will be working with the between-satellite versions
of the above observation equations.
Denoting the variate-difference between satellites t and
s as (.)st = (.)t − (.)s, the corresponding between-satellite
observation equations follow from Eq. (20.1) as
pstu,j = ρstu + μ j ιstu − dt st,j
20 3
ϕstu,j = ρstu − μ j ιstu − δt st,j + λ j zstu,j
from which now the receiver code and phase clock errors,
dtu,j and δtu,j, have been eliminated. Inspection of this set of
observation equations shows that information on the satel-
lite positions and satellite clocks is needed for a single-
receiver user to be able to solve for its unknown parameters.
Provision of satellite orbits and clocks dt st,j allows the user
data to be corrected, thus resulting in the adapted user
equations
pstu,j + dt st,j = ρstu + μ j ιstu
20 4
ϕstu,j + dt st,j = ρstu − μ j ιstu + λ j astu,j
in which astu,j = zstu,j + dst,j − δst,j λj With the satellite
positions known and the absence of the unknown
dt st,j , δt st,j , this adapted system (Eq. (20.4)) has now become
solvable in case five or more satellites are tracked on two

or more frequencies. This is in essence the basic idea of PPP,
that is, using precise orbits and clocks to enable precise sin-
gle-receiver positioning. Such external information is avail-
able from various sources, such as, for example, the IGS [2,
8, 15].
20.2.2 The Ionosphere-Free Clock
In the above formulation‚ it was tacitly assumed that track-
ing networks are capable of providing the clock offsets
dt st,j = dt st + dst,j . This requires‚ however‚ that the underly-
ing models used in processing the network data include
models for the ionosphere as well. To understand this,
consider the re-parameterization of the L1 and L2 code
hardware delays dst,1 and dst,2 into the so-called ionosphere-
free (IF) and geometry-free (GF) code hardware delays
dstIF and dstGF :
dst,1
1 μ1 dstIF
= 20 5
dst,2 1 μ2 dstGF
As the first-column entries of this transformation matrix
are the same as that of the satellite clock dtst in Eq. (20.3)
and the second-column entries the same as the coefficients
of the ionospheric delay ιstu in Eq. (20.3), it follows that a
GNSS tracking network that makes use of the same obser-
vation equations as Eq. (20.3), will never be able to provide
a solution for the “absolute” parameters dtst, dst,j , and ιrs
u , but
only of the lumped versions,
dt stIF = dt st + dstIF and ιstu,GF = ιstu − dstGF
Thus‚ instead of working with dt st,j (as assumed in Eq. 20.4),
one then has to work with the so-called ionosphere-free
clock dt stIF when developing the PPP user equations. When
correcting the user data with dt stIF , one obtains instead of
Eq. (20.4), the result
pstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu + μ j ιstu,GF
ϕstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu − μ j ιstu,GF + λ j astu,j
in which astu,j = zstu,j + dstIF − δst,j − μ j dstGF λ j . Comparing
Eq. (20.7) with Eq. (20.4) shows that both sets of user
equations have the same structure, but that they differ in
the interpretation of their parameters. As we will see in
the following, both sets of user equations, Eq. (20.4) and
Eq. (20.7), have their role to play in the different versions
that exist of PPP. Their two types of clock corrections are
related as
dt st,j = dt stIF + μ j dstGF
thus showing that their difference is driven by the geometry-
1 displacements that are not accounted for in the ITRF. These
free code bias dstGF = DCBst12 , in which DCBs12 = ds,12 is
μ12
the differential code bias (DCB) of satellite s. DCBs are
20.2 PPP Concept 505
routinely estimated by IGS analysis centers and reported
as part of GIMs or as independent DCB products [16–19].
Note: The above usage of the terminology “ionosphere-
free” and “geometry-free” follows from the interpretation
that can be given to the inverse of Eq. (20.5),
dstIF 1 μ2 − μ1 dst,1
= 20 9
dstGF μ12 −1 1 dst,2
The first row of the matrix, when considered as a linear
combination of L1 and L2 data, eliminates the ionosphere,
while the second row eliminates the range and tropo-
spheric delay.
20.2.3 The Linearized Observation Equations
Before the above observation equations can be used for an
actual PPP computation, a number of steps need to be
followed through first. As the observation equations,
Eq. (20.4) or Eq. (20.7), are nonlinear in the receiver and
satellite positions, a linearization is needed. Since the
satellite position rs is assumed known, the linearization
of the receiver-satellite range lsu = r s − r u only needs to
be carried out for the user position. With an approximate
value (ro)u for the receiver position and the provided known
satellite position rs, the receiver-satellite range can be
linearized as
s
lsu = lo u u Δr u
+ usT 20 10
in which lo su = r s − r o u is the approximate range, usu
20 6
the receiver-satellite unit direction vector‚ and Δru = ru
− (ro)u the increment of the user-receiver position.
The satellite position rs is computed from the externally
provided satellite orbits. This requires knowledge of the
signal emission time t E = t R − T su and therefore of the signal
travel time T su , which is defined as the receiver-satellite
range divided by the speed of light c,
20 7 1 s
T su = r t R − T su − r u t R 20 11
c
As the travel time appears on both sides of this equation, the
equation is solved in an iterative manner by means of a Tay-
lor expansion [20]. Although, strictly speaking, one needs
to add the atmospheric and instrumental delays to the
right-hand side of the above equation as well, these terms
can be neglected in the case of GNSS.
As lsu = r s − r u , the PPP-determined user-position
vector ru is expressed in the same reference frame as that
of the satellite orbits, which generally is the International
20 8
Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF). This implies that even
for static receivers one still needs to correct for site
displacements, driven by the deformations of Earth’s crust
(due to Earth/polar tides, ocean/atmospheric loading), are
506 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning
further discussed in Section 20.6. There we also discuss
other a priori corrections that need to be applied to the
PPP user observations, such as those for antenna phase
center offsets and phase wind-up.
The observations are usually also a priori corrected for
the dry part of the tropospheric delay. The tropospheric
delay τsu is commonly expressed as the sum of the dry
(hydrostatic) and wet delay,
s tion of horizontal ionospheric gradients, as a common
τsu = τd u + msu τu
in which the slant dry delay τd su is computed from, for
example, Saastamoinen and Hopfield models [21, 22] with
an elevation-angle-dependent mapping function‚ and the
wet delay is modeled as the product of a known elevation-
angle-dependent mapping function msu (e.g. the Niell map-
ping function) with the unknown tropospheric wet zenith
delay (ZTD) τu. Sometimes the wet tropospheric delay is
further expanded in horizontal gradients in north and east
to account, for instance, for atmospheric bulge and weather
systems.
s s
If we now define ρo = lo + τd su , gsu = usT
u , mu ,
u u
and Δx u =
T
Δr Tu , τu ,
the two equations Eq. (20.10) and
Eq. (20.12) can be written in the compact form
ρsu = ρo su + u Δx u
gsT
and when substituted into Eq. (20.7), it results in the
linearized observation equations
Δpstu,j = Δρstu + μ j ιstu,GF
Δϕstu,j = Δρstu − μ j ιstu,GF + λ j astu,j
st
with Δpstu,j = pstu,j − ρo u + dt stIF , Δϕstu,j = ϕstu,j − ρo
and Δρstu
= u Δx u .
gstT
The unknown parameters in this line-
arized system are the increment to the user-position vector
Δru, the wet tropospheric zenith delay τu, the biased slant
ionospheric delay ιsu,GF , and the non-integer ambiguities
asu,j . Although it is the linearized equations that form the
basis for the PPP estimation process, we will omit the
Δ-symbol from now on as it suffices for the remainder of
the chapter to work with the original nonlinear equations.
20.3 Single- and Dual-Frequency PPP
20.3.1 Single-Frequency PPP
There are different single-frequency (SF-) PPP formulations
possible. Here we discuss ionosphere-corrected SF-PPP
[23–26] and ionosphere-free SF-PPP [27, 28]. Both make
use of externally provided precise orbit and clock informa-
tion, but in the case of ionosphere-corrected SF-PPP, the
single-frequency data are corrected for the frequency-
dependent clock dt s,j and the ionospheric delay ιsu , while
in the case of ionosphere-free PPP only the ionosphere-free
clock dt s,IF is needed. In between the ionosphere-corrected
and ionosphere-free approach, one also has the ionosphere-
estimated approach. In this approach the ionospheric
delays are further parametrized into unknown to-be-
estimated parameters, for instance‚ the vertical total
electron content (VTEC) using common mapping
functions. This approach typically also requires the estima-
20 12
VTEC for all observations is not appropriate due to the
different pierce points [29]. We first discuss the
ionosphere-free SF-PPP approach.
Ionosphere-free SF-PPP: This approach takes advan-
tage of the opposite signs in the ionospheric delays of the
code and phase observables; a delay for code (lengthened
range) and an advance for phase (shortened range). By
taking the code-phase combination
1 st
p + ϕstu,j , the
2 u,j
(first-order) ionospheric delay gets eliminated‚ and the
resulting observation equation follows from Eq. (20.7) as
T
s
1 st 1
p + ϕstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu + λ j astu,j 20 15
2 u,j 2
Note that this approach does not need the combination
dst,j = dt IF + μ j dstGF , but can make a direct use of the iono-
20 13
sphere-free clock dt stIF itself. Ionosphere-free SF-PPP usually
provides a better positioning result than its ionosphere-
corrected counterpart (cf. Eq. 20.16). This is due to the
elimination of the ionosphere and the significantly lower
20 14 1 st
noise level of the combination p + ϕstu,j as compared
2 u,j
st to the code observable itself. However, the convergence is
u + dt stIF ,
slow, since Eq. (20.15), as opposed to ionosphere-corrected
SF-PPP (cf. Eq. 20.16), has no separate code observation
equation to help speed up the convergence.
When tracking m satellites, the system Eq. (20.15) provides
(m − 1) equations for every observed epoch i = 1, …, k. The
unknown parameters are the coordinates of the user-receiver
position ru, the ZTD τu, and the non-integer ambiguity astu,j .
The time behavior of the tropospheric delay is usually mod-
eled as a random walk process, while the ambiguities are
assumed time constant. With these assumptions, a static
user of the system Eq. (20.15), tracking m satellites over k
epochs, will have m + 3 unknowns (3 coordinates, initial
ZTD, and (m − 1) ambiguities) and a redundancy of (m
− 1)(k − 1) − 4, thus showing that an initialization with a
single epoch (k = 1) is not possible. At least 2 epochs and
5 satellites are needed to have the 8 between-satellite obser-
vables solve for the 3 coordinates, 1 ZTD, and 4 ambiguities.
This initial solution will then be rather poor due to the
small change in the receiver-satellite geometry between
the first two epochs. Hence, quite some time is needed to
have the change in receiver-satellite geometry really

contribute to an improvement in the solution. In [30], it is
shown that sub-decimeter accuracy can be achieved using
batches of 6 h data. As the performance of Eq. (20.15) is in
large part driven by the precision of the code observable,
improved ranging signals such as the Galileo E5 AltBOC
signal will significantly help, as shown in, for example, [31].
Ionosphere-corrected SF-PPP: By correcting the
single-frequency code and phase data for the clock and
ionosphere, we obtain directly from Eq. (20.4),
pstu,j + dt st,j − μ j ιstu = ρstu
20 16
ϕstu,j + dt st,j + μ j ιstu = ρstu + λ j astu,j
with the non-integer ambiguity astu,j = zstu,j + dstj − δstj λ j.
Comparison with Eq. (20.15) shows that ionosphere-
corrected SF-PPP works with twice the number of observa-
tion equations of ionosphere-free SF-PPP. With the same
assumptions as before, a static user of the system
Eq. (20.16), tracking m satellites over k epochs, will have
m + 3 unknowns (3 coordinates, initial ZTD, and (m − 1)
ambiguities) and a redundancy of m − 5 + 2(m − 1)
(k − 1). Hence, at initialization (k = 1), at least 5 satellites
are needed to have the 4 between-satellite pseudoranges
solve for the 3 coordinates and ZTD. The 4 between-satellite
carrier-phases at initialization are then completely reserved
for solving the ambiguities. Thus‚ only after the first epoch
will the carrier-phase data start to contribute to the position
solution. Its convergence, however, is much faster than that
of ionosphere-free SF-PPP. This is due to the presence of the
code observable in Eq. (20.16). This code observable, with
its ambiguity-free link to the positioning unknowns, drives
the speed of initial PPP convergence and can realize a
convergence to decimeter level in a few minutes [24].
Ultimately, after convergence however, ionosphere-free
SF-PPP is the more accurate of the two approaches, as
the quality of ionosphere-corrected SF-PPP is limited by
the quality of the ionospheric corrections.
The ionospheric correction needed in Eq. (20.16) may be
obtained from GIMs [32] as provided by the IGS, for
instance. These final and rapid GIMs are provided as total
electron content (TEC) grids (5 × 2.5 lon/lat), have an
accuracy ranging between 2 to 9 TECU (1 TECU ≈ 16 cm
at the L1/E1 frequency), and are available with a latency
of 11 days and less than 24 h, respectively (IGS products
website http://igs.org/products). These ionosphere pro-
ducts are provided in the IONEX (Ionosphere Exchange)
format [16].
Next to the ionospheric correction, the clock correction
dt st,j is also needed in Eq. (20.16). As it is the ionosphere-free
clock dt sIF that is usually provided and not directly the
j-frequency clock dt s,j, information about the satellite DCBs,
20.3 Single- and Dual-Frequency PPP 507
DCBs12 = ds,2 − ds,1, needs to be provided as well so as to con-
μj
struct dt s,j from dt sIF as dt s,j = dt s,IF + μ12 DCBs12 . It should
hereby be noted, since these DCBs are usually of the GPS
P(Y)-code pseudoranges on L1 and L2, that for single-
frequency receivers, which more commonly track the civil
C/A-code (j = 1) rather than the encrypted P(Y)-code, an
additional P1-C/A DCB correction is needed.
20.3.2 Dual-Frequency PPP
Ionosphere-free DF-PPP: The traditional approach to
DF-PPP is to work with the ionosphere-free code and phase
observables pstu,IF and ϕstu,IF , corrected for by externally
provided ionosphere-free satellite clocks dt stIF [1]. As the
ionosphere-free code observable is defined as pstu,IF =
1
μ pst − μ1 pstu,2 , with a similar definition for the iono-
μ12 2 u,1
sphere-free phase observable, the observation equations
follow from Eq. (20.7) as
pstu,IF + dt stIF = ρstu
20 17
ϕsu,IF + dt stIF = ρstu + λIF astu,IF
λW st
in which astu,IF = zstu,1 + z + dstIF − δstIF λIF is the non-
λ2 u,21
integer ionosphere-free ambiguity, with λIF = λ1λ2/(λ2 + λ1)
the IF-wavelength (also known as the narrow-lane wave-
length), λW = λ1λ2/(λ2 − λ1) the wide-lane wavelength,
and zstu,21 = zstu,1 − zstu,2 the wide-lane ambiguity.
The system Eq. (20.17) forms the basis of ionosphere-free
DF-PPP. Note that its structure is the same as that of the
above ionosphere-corrected SF-PPP equations Eq. (20.16).
The two sets of equations have the same type of unknowns
and same redundancy. Their performance is different‚ how-
ever. Ionosphere-corrected SF-PPP can have a convergence
to decimeter level in a few minutes [24], whereas iono-
sphere-free DF-PPP converges much more slowly due to
the poorer precision of its ionosphere-free code observable
(see Table 20.1 for ionosphere-free coefficients). As the
initial convergence of PPP relies predominantly on the
precision of the code observable, it is this poorer code
precision that makes ionosphere-free DF-PPP often initially
converge more slowly than ionosphere-corrected SF-PPP.
However, after some time, when the carrier-phase data kick
in, the performance of ionosphere-free DF-PPP, of course,
surpasses that of SF-PPP as its quality is not limited, like
that of SF-PPP, by the accuracy of the ionospheric correc-
tions. The positioning accuracy of dual-frequency PPP
can then reach the centimeter level, but only after a long
convergence time [33]. For a static DF-PPP user of GPS,
1 to 1.5 h convergence time is reported in [34, 35] to reach
10 cm accuracy, while 2 to 3 h time is reported in [2, 36] to
508 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning

Table 20.1 Numerical values of ionosphere-free coefficients that Eq. (20.18) includes more unknown parameters than
μj/μ12 (j = 1, 2) and their ionosphere-free noise-amplification Eq. (20.17), its redundancy is still larger. For a static user,
μ22 + μ21 μ12 , for several dual-frequency combinations of GPS the redundancy of Eq. (20.17) equals (m − 5) + 2(m − 1)
(L#), GLONASS (G#), Galileo (E#), and BeiDou (B#) observables (k − 1), while that of Eq. (20.18) equals (m − 5) + 3
(m − 1)(k − 1). This difference is due to the fact that in
μ2 μ1 μ22 + μ21 the ionosphere-free approach of Eq. (20.17), the ionosphere
Signals
μ12 μ12 μ12 is eliminated twice, that is, one time too many. One starts
with four observables (two code and two phase) and ends
L1+L2 2.5457 1.5457 2.9782
up with two observables (one ionosphere-free code and
L1+L5 2.2606 1.2606 2.5883 one ionosphere-free phase), while only one independent
G1+G2 2.5312 1.5312 2.9583 parameter, the ionospheric delay, gets eliminated in this
E1+E5a 2.2606 1.2606 2.5883 process.
E1+E5b 2.4220 1.4220 2.8086 As the redundancies of the two systems, Eq. (20.17) and
E1+E5 2.3380 1.3380 2.6938 Eq. (20.18), are different, one has to be aware of the fact that
B1+B2 2.4872 1.4872 2.8979 their numerical outcomes are not guaranteed to be identi-
cal. Would one want to guarantee this and still work with
B1+B3 2.9437 1.9437 3.5275
an ionosphere-free DF-PPP system, one would need to
work, instead of with Eq. (20.17), with the system

reach 5 cm or better; see also [37]. These results are consist-
ent with the PPP convergence curves (cf. Figure 20.4) that
will be discussed in Section 20.7.3.
Although dual-frequency PPP has traditionally been
based on GPS L1-L2 data, the above same approach can,
of course, also be followed for the new GNSSs, for instance,
in the case of Galileo or modernized GPS, by replacing L2
with E5 or L5. Table 20.1 shows the numerical values of the
ionosphere-free coefficients for selected dual-frequency
combinations of GPS (and QZSS), GLONASS, Galileo,
and BeiDou observables.
Ionosphere-float DF-PPP: The system Eq. (20.17) has
traditionally formed the basis for DF-PPP. One may won-
der‚ however, whether it is really needed to form the iono-
sphere-free observables explicitly. The following system (cf.
Eq. 20.7) shows that this is not the case:
pstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu + μ j ιstu,GF
j = 1, 2
ϕsu,j + dt stIF = ρstu − μ j ιstu,GF + λ j astu,j
20 18
Thus one can work with the original code and phase data
and still use the ionosphere-free clock as correction. The
consequence of using the “ionosphere-float DF-PPP”
system Eq. (20.18) is then, of course, that it will include
the ionospheric delays as unknown parameters as well.
Hence, if one is only interested in positioning (or tropo-
spheric sensing), one may consider it an advantage to work
with Eq. (20.17) as it has much fewer unknown parameters
than Eq. (20.18). This difference, when tracking m satellites
over k epochs, is (m − 1)(k + 1), as Eq. (20.18) includes
(m − 1)k additional ionospheric delays and (m − 1) addi-
tional time-constant ambiguities. However, despite the fact
pstu,IF + dt stIF = ρstu
ϕstu,IF + dt stIF = ρstu + λIF astu,IF 20 19
ϕstu,WN = λW astu,W
in which the third observable, ϕstu,WN = ϕstu,WL − pstu,NL , is
the difference between the wide-lane phase ϕstu,WL =
λ2 ϕstu,1 − λ1 ϕstu,2 λ2 − λ1 and the narrow-lane pseudorange
pstu,NL = λ2 pstu,1 + λ1 pstu,2 λ1 + λ2 , and astu,W = zstu,21 + dstNL
− δstWL λW is the additional non-integer ambiguity. It is the
third equation in Eq. (20.19), with its time-constant ambi-
guity, that restores the redundancy of Eq. (20.17) to that of
Eq. (20.18). As ϕstu,WN is geometry free, its contribution to
the determination of the positioning parameters will be
driven by its correlation with pstu,IF and ϕstu,IF . If we assume
the undifferenced phase and code data to be mutually
uncorrelated and their precision given as σ p = 30 cm and
σ ϕ = 3 mm, respectively, then the correlations between
ϕsu,WN and the pair psu,IF , ϕsu,IF is ρϕWN pIF ≈ − 0 35 and
ρϕWN ϕIF ≈ 0 08, respectively, thus showing that the correla-
tion with the ionosphere-free code observable is not quite
negligible.
We already remarked that in the case of positioning (or
tropospheric sensing), one may consider it an advantage
to work with the ionosphere-free formulation as it has
much fewer unknown parameters than the ionosphere-
float formulation (Eq. (20.18)). However, this is an apparent
benefit as the same can also be achieved with the iono-
sphere-float approach by eliminating the ionospheric
delays at the level of its normal equations. This has the
added advantage that one can then still work with the orig-
inal, usually uncorrelated, observations, instead of with the
correlated ionosphere-free observations [10].
 20.4 Non-Positioning PPP Applications 509

GPS
East
1
130° E 140° E 150° E BULA
120° E 160° E
110° E SYM1

10° S 7 11
0

Position wrt ground truth [m]

8
6
–1
18 0 0.5 1 1.5
20° S 5 9 12
4 10
17 14 13 North
1
3 19 BULA
30° S 20 15 SYM1
2 1
16 0

40° S
–1
0 0.5 1 1.5

Figure 20.2 GPS DF-PPP: Distribution of the Australian GPS CORS stations used for the network by processing (Left); 1.5 h GPS-based
ionosphere-float PPP coordinate time series (east and north) for two user stations in Australia (BULA in Western Australia and SYM1
in Queensland).

Figure 20.2 shows an example of DF-PPP. It shows the 1.5 h PPP has become an important alternative for (near) real-
GPS-based ionosphere-float PPP coordinate time series (East time data analysis. Comparisons with water vapor radiom-
and North) for two user stations in Australia (BULA in eter measurements show, for instance, that real-time GPS
Western Australia and SYM1 in Queensland) with its typical water vapor estimates can have an accuracy of about
DF-PPP convergence. The distribution of the network sta- 1.0–2.0 mm [41–43].
tions used for generating the satellite clocks is shown on Another attractive feature of PPP is that the receiver does
the left. not need to be static and that ZTD-derived atmospheric
water vapor estimates can thus also be collected on moving
platforms. Such platforms include ships, aircraft‚ and
trains, or dedicated devices tasked with the collection of
20.4 Non-Positioning PPP
atmospheric data, such as buoys or unmanned aerial
Applications vehicles [44].

Although PPP has been devised for precise positioning

applications, the concept is also used for non-positioning
20.4.2 Ionosphere Estimation
applications, such as water vapor estimation, ionospheric
estimation‚ and time transfer. With the ionosphere-float formulation (Eq. (20.18)), PPP is
also capable of providing estimates of the ionospheric
delays. It is therefore an interesting alternative to both
20.4.1 Troposphere Estimation
the geometry-free phase-to-code leveling (PCL) method
For some time already, GNSS has been very successful in [45, 46] and the network-based ionospheric estimation
supporting meteorological applications [38–40]. With method [47]. When compared to the network approach,
GNSS networks, accurate and all-weather ZTD-derived one can benefit with PPP from its shorter processing times,
atmospheric water vapor estimates can be obtained under and in contrast to the PCL method, also take advantage of
low operational costs and with a high temporal resolution. the known receiver position and the available satellite clock
However, as network computations can be time consum- and orbit products [48, 49]. As the GNSS-estimated slant
ing, PPP is considered an important alternative for large ionospheric delay is biased with the geometry-free code
networks (many stations or large interstation distances). hardware delay (cf. Eq. (20.6)), an ionospheric model is
With the PPP approach of station-wise parallel processing needed to separate the two. Such separation is important
of network stations‚ much lower latencies can be realized. if the aim is to estimate TEC values. One of the more pop-
Hence, with its significantly shorter processing time and ular ionospheric models to achieve this is the single shell
the improved orbit and clock products of recent years, model, which assumes that the ionosphere is compacted
510 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning
s (NRCan), and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), as well as
z′
z
ip
r
sip
hion
single-layer ionosphere
Re
Figure 20.3 Single shell ionospheric model relating vertical to
slant ionospheric delay, i sr = 1 cos z i r [117], with receiver r,
satellite s, Earth radius Re, single-layer ionosphere height hion,
ionosphere piercing point ip and its zenith angle z .
into a thin shell at a specific height surrounding Earth (see
Figure 20.3).
Such ionospheric models, with associated estimation of
only a few ionospheric parameters (such as vertical TEC
and its gradients), are also used for improving SF-PPP
positioning performance [29, 50], shortening PPP conver-
gence times [51, 52] and realizing single-receiver derived
local ionospheric maps [53].
20.4.3 Time Transfer
PPP can also be used for time and frequency transfer
between two or more remote stations [54–57]. For each
such station, considered static with known coordinates,
the PPP algorithm solves for the receiver clock offset dtu = tu
− tref for each epoch. As this offset is the difference between
the receiver time tu at station u and the reference time scale
tref of the satellite clock products used in the PPP proces-
sing, the sought-after time transfer solution dtuv = tv – tu
is given by dtuv = dtv – dtu, that is, the difference between
two such PPP clock solutions at locations u and v. As the
reference tref needs to cancel in this difference, it is crucial
that both PPP clock solutions have been computed using
the same satellite orbit and clock products. With advanced
instrumental calibration techniques, the accuracy of PPP
time transfer can approach 1 ns, while the frequency trans-
fer allows comparing atomic clocks approaching 10−16 for
one day averaging [58, 59]. Due to their much higher pre-
cision when compared to that of the pseudoranges, it is in
particular the carrier-phase measurements that contribute
to the accurate comparison of remote clock frequencies.
20.5 Orbits, Clocks, and Services
Precise orbit and clock products with centimeter-level accu-
racy are now widely available from a number of public
organizations, such as the IGS, National Resources Canada
commercial sources, such as Trimble, Fugro, and MGV.
The availability of these products has provided the oppor-
tunity to develop and implement PPP-based services,
post-processed as well as in real time.
20.5.1 Post-Processed and Real-Time PPP
Post-processed PPP solutions are used for applications
requiring accuracy, in particular‚ in remote areas where
geodetic control monuments are sparsely distributed or
non-existent. They are‚ for instance, used as an efficient
way to densify and/or provide access to the ITRF [60], or,
in the context of geodynamics and earthquake studies, to
determine long-term station velocity estimates‚ and seismic
motions [61]. For such applications‚ Internet-based post-
processed PPP services have proved particularly useful.
Users typically submit their single-station GNSS data to
the service via the Internet and receive an estimated
position along with ancillary information [62, 63].
A number of such Internet processing services are avail-
able (e.g. Table 20.2), including the CSRS-PPP from NRCan
[4], Automatic Precise Positioning Service from JPL [64],
GPS Analysis and Positioning Software from the University
of New Brunswick [65], and Trimble RTX-PP [66] and
magicGNSS from GMV [67]. They provide static and/or
kinematic processing, use the RINEX observation format
[68] and output ITRF-estimated coordinates.
Operating in real time is far more challenging than in the
post-processed mode. In contrast to the post-processed PPP
services, which rely on users sending observation data to a
central server, most real-time applications require that
orbit and clock corrections be sent in near real time to
the point of data collection, the receiver‚ or a co-located
computer. For precise real-time results, sub-decimeter
accuracy orbit corrections and sub-nanosecond accuracy
clock corrections are needed at the user receiver in real
time. This is a significant challenge, both in terms of the
provision of satellite data and the communication means
Table 20.2 Some PPP services
Web service Provider
CSRS-PPP (webapp.geod. Natural Resources Canada
nrcan.gc.ca) (NRCan)
APPS (apps.gdgps.net) JPL (NASA)
GAPS (gaps.gge.unb.ca) University of New Brunswick
Trimble RTX (www. Trimble
trimblertx.com)
MAGIC GNSS (magicgnss. GMV
gmv.com)
 20.5 Orbits, Clocks, and Services 511

to access such data. Transmission of real-time corrections
for PPP is usually done over the Internet using transport
protocols developed for that purpose, such as NTRIP
(Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol;
https://igs.bkg.bund.de/ntrip/about). To ensure that real-
time PPP services are available even in regions without
access to high-speed Internet, some commercial providers
also distribute corrections using geostationary communica-
tion satellites. Many such real-time PPP services have
emerged in recent years and tend to be offered commer-
cially to specialized market segments such as agriculture
or land and marine natural resources exploration and
exploitation.
20.5.2 Precise Satellite and Clock Products
from the IGS
Since 1994 the IGS has provided several types of products in
support of scientific and engineering applications. For the
GPS orbits and clocks‚ these are the ultra-rapid, the rapid,
and the final products. These products differ in latency and
accuracy as shown in Table 20.3. The table also shows how
they compare to the standard broadcast orbits and clocks.
For post-processing applications, where latency is not an
issue, the final or even rapid products can be used. They
have a centimeter-level accuracy for both satellite positions
and clocks, and, with proper PPP algorithms, will result
after convergence in sub-centimeter-level position accuracy
for static receivers. However, for (near) real-time applica-
tions, only the real-time available ultra-rapid (predicted)
products qualify. They have a high orbital accuracy of about
5 cm, but unfortunately only a root mean square (rms) of
about 3 ns (90 cm) for their predicted satellite clocks, which
is too poor for most real-time applications. The reason for
this difference in quality between the predicted clocks
and predicted orbits is that the stability of the satellite
oscillators is not comparable to the steady movement of
the satellites in their orbits. Hence, for real-time PPP, this
relatively poor clock accuracy remains therefore a weak
point of the Table 20.3 products.
One solution to this problem has been to replace the
IGS-predicted clocks with satellite clocks computed
separately from one or more reference stations. This clock
solution then needs to be provided to the PPP user together
with the predicted IGS satellite orbits. This approach is the
underlying principle of the RETICLE system [26, 69].
A more general solution is‚ however‚ to use corrections that
are computed with sufficiently small latencies from a global
network. Such corrections have been available for
some time already from several commercial providers
(e.g. Fugro, StarFire, and Veripos), but more recently have
also become available through the IGS Real-time Service
(IGS-RTS) (http://www.igs.org/rts).
The IGS-RTS products consist of satellite orbit and
clock corrections to the broadcast ephemerides. The
RTS products are distributed as RTCM state-space repre-
sentation (SSR) correction streams, broadcast over the
Internet using NTRIP. These corrections are expressed
in the International Terrestrial Reference Frame 2008
(ITRF08).
With the availability of the IGS-RTS, it has become
possible to obtain precise satellite orbit and satellite
clock corrections in real time with an accuracy better
than those of the ultra-rapid products [70]. With a

Table 20.3 GPS orbit and clock product table: Broadcast and IGS [5]

GPS Accuracy (rms) Latency Updates Sample

Orbits and Clocks Interval

Broadcast Orbits ~100 cm Real time — daily
Clocks ~5 ns (150 cm)
Ultra-rapid Orbits ~5 cm Real time Four times 15 min
(predicted) Clocks ~3 ns (90 cm) daily
Ultra-rapid Orbits ~3 cm 3–9 h Four times 15 min
(observed) Clocks ~150 ps (4.5 cm) daily
Rapid Orbits ~2.5 cm 17–41 h Daily 15 min
Clocks ~75 ps (2.3 cm) 5 min
Final Orbits ~2.5 cm 12–18 days Weekly 15 min
Clocks ~75 ps (2.3 cm) 30 s
Source: IGS (2015), IGS products, http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/components/prods.html. URL http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/components/prods.html.
512 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning

tenfold improvement in clock accuracy compared to orbital position and Sun direction [71]. Next to the off-
ultra-rapid (predicted), the IGS-RTS product accuracies set, one also has to account for its variations, as the
are now about 5 cm for the orbit and 0.3 ns for the antenna phase center varies with the direction in which
satellite clocks. the signal travels from satellite to receiver. The IGS has
developed the ANTenna EXchange (ANTEX) format
(ftp://igs.org/pub/station/general/antex14txt) to facilitate
20.6 PPP Correction Models the documentation and distribution of PCOs and PCVs
for GNSS receiver and satellite antennas [72, 73].
Next to orbits and clocks, PPP also requires a number of cor- Relativity: As clocks are affected by special and general
rections to mitigate systematic effects that could otherwise relativity (satellite clock speed and Earth’s gravitational
bias the pseudorange and carrier-phase observations or the field), relativistic corrections need to be applied [74]. For
position solutions; see Table 20.4. We discuss these correc- static users on Earth or users (slowly) traveling over the sur-
tions under the headings of satellite-receiver corrections, face of Earth, these relativistic effects can be corrected in
atmospheric delays, and site displacements; see also [6]. two steps. The first step is already taken care of onboard
the GNSS satellites by a small intentional offset of the fre-
20.6.1 Satellite-Receiver Corrections quency standard of the satellite clocks (the “factory offset”).
This frequency offset correction is valid for circular orbits,
Antenna phase center offsets (PCOs) and variations but since GNSS orbits are actually slightly elliptical‚ a sec-
(PCVs): GNSS measurements are effectively made ond correction for eccentricity is needed. This second cor-
between the phase centers of the satellite and receiver rection, which depends on the actual satellite position and
antennas. As the satellite’s center-of-mass (CoM) is usu- velocity, must be applied by the user [20]. The Sagnac effect
ally the reference point for the orbital PPP products, one is another correction that needs accounting for and which
has to account for the satellite’s antenna CoM offset [8]. is caused by Earth’s rotation during the signal transmission
These offsets are given in the satellite’s body frame and time [75].
must therefore be transformed to the terrestrial refer- Differential code biases (DCBs): Unbiased estimation
ence frame by use of the satellite’s attitude, which can of the clock parameters is generally impossible due to the
be computed from nominal attitude laws for a given presence of frequency- and signal-dependent hardware
delays in the observation equations (cf. Eq. (20.2)). The
clock parameters are therefore often estimated in combina-
Table 20.4 PPP a priori corrections (adapted from [143])
tion with some of these instrumental parameters, the ion-
osphere-free clock (cf. Eq. (20.6)) being a prime example
Correction Size (approx.)
of such combination. Hence, one has to be aware, when sat-
Satellite Phase center offset 0.5–3 m ellite clocks obtained from PPP providers are‚ for instance‚
used to correct the user observables, that the corrected
Phase center variation 5–15 mm
pseudorange and phase observables of the user may
Clock offset <1 ms
become biased. Such biases can be removed by applying
Relativistic clock effect 10–20 m the proper DCBs, which are usually provided with the clock
Differential code biases Up to 5 m products. For the broadcast clock offsets, the DCBs are pro-
Atmosphere Troposphere (dry, vertical) 2.3 m vided in the navigation message. The IGS also provides
Ionosphere (vertical) Up to 30 m these satellite DCBs on a regular basis together with their
Receiver Phase center offset 5–15 cm other products [8, 18]. Unlike the clock offsets‚ which
Phase center variation Up to 3 cm change rapidly over time, the DCBs generally only change
slowly.
Phase wind-up 10 cm
Phase wind-up: GNSS satellites employ right-hand
Site movement Plate motion Up to 0.1 m/y
circularly polarized electromagnetic waves for signal
Solid Earth tide Up to 0.4 m
transmission. As a result‚ the measured carrier-phase does
Ocean loading 1–10 cm not only change with the receiver-satellite range, but also
Pole tide 25 mm with the relative receiver-satellite orientation. This “phase
Atmospheric loading — wind-up” amounts to one cycle for a full rotation of the
Source: From Steigenberger, P. (2015) Accuracy of Current and
receiver or satellite antenna about the boresight direction
Future Satellite Navigation Systems, Habilitation Thesis, Technische [76]. Note that the pseudoranges are not affected by the
Universität München. phase wind-up.

For the receiver antenna, the change in orientation
depends on the movement of the platform. Since GNSS
antennas are generally pointed upward, the phase wind-
up is closely related to the platform heading. If this informa-
tion is available‚ this effect can be determined and corrected
for [77]. Note that if the antenna boresight remains pointed
to the zenith, as the antenna is rotated, the wind-up is the
same for all simultaneously observed satellites and is indis-
tinguishable from a receiver clock offset and is absorbed
into the clock parameter estimate.
For the satellites, with their antennas pointing toward
Earth and their solar panels toward the Sun, the rotations
can generally be predicted quite accurately from the rela-
tive positions of the receiver, the satellite, and the Sun.
However, when the satellite solar sensors’ view of the
Sun is obstructed by the Earth or Moon, the satellite’s atti-
tude control is degraded‚ and the rotation becomes much
less predictable [8]. Unless dedicated models as in, for
example, [78–80] are employed, the respective satellites
and time-intervals are then best discarded in the PPP
processing.
20.6.2 Atmospheric Delays
Tropospheric delay modeling: The tropospheric delay is
commonly expressed as the sum τsu = τd su + τw su of the
hydrostatic (dry) delay τd su = md su τd u (caused by
refractivity of primarily dry gases) and wet delay
τw su = msu τu (caused by water vapor refractivity), in which
(τd)u and τu denote the dry and wet zenith tropospheric
delays (ZTDs), respectively, and md su and msu their eleva-
tion-angle-dependent mapping functions. There are many
such mapping functions in use, most of which use contin-
ued fractions for expressing the elevation angle dependence
[81–84]. The now often-used Vienna Mapping Function 1 is
based on data from the European Centre for Medium-
Range Weather Forecasts [85].
The hydrostatic zenith delay (τd)u can be accurately com-
puted a priori from the surface pressure and station latitude
and height, using the Saastamoinen and Hopfield models
[21, 22]. If meteorological data are not available, values
derived from the standard atmosphere are used instead.
The hydrostatic delay component accounts for about 90%
of the total delay. For the smaller wet zenith delay τu, there
is no accurate model to obtain an a priori value. Hence, this
component is usually included as an unknown parameter
in the observation equations and estimated as such in the
PPP processing. This parameterization can be further
refined by also including horizontal gradients [84, 86–88],
which primarily improves the latitude component at the
millimeter level [89].
20.6 PPP Correction Models 513
Ionospheric delay modeling: It is common to model
the ionospheric delay as being inversely proportional to
the squared frequency of the observed signal. As this is a
first-order approximation, the neglect of the higher-order
terms may subject the receiver-satellite range to centime-
ter-level errors [90]. This is usually negligible with respect
to the pseudorange noise, but not with respect to the
carrier-phase noise [91]. Still, as the global networks that
produce the PPP products so far only consider the first-
order term, it is from a consistency standpoint that it is
common practice to use the same approximation in the
PPP user algorithms as well.
Several global models exist to correct for the ionosphere
delays. For single-frequency applications that do not
require the highest accuracy, the Klobuchar model [92]
or NeQuick model [93] can be used. The Klobuchar model
can correct for about 50% of the ionosphere delay, while the
NeQuick model, intended for Galileo users, is reported to
correct for 60–70% of the ionosphere delay [94]. More accu-
rate corrections can be obtained from the GIMs as provided
by the IGS. GIMs, containing maps with gridded TEC
values, are routinely produced from data of the IGS refer-
ence network [5]. For real-time applications the predicted
GIMs from the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe
(CODE) can be used [95]. GIMs can be used to correct
for about 80% of the ionosphere delay [94].
20.6.3 Site Displacements
The various forces acting on Earth’s crust result in site dis-
placements that need to be taken into account in order to
obtain positioning results consistent with the ITRF. For very
accurate (static) positioning in the ITRF‚ all of the effects
discussed below are relevant and should be modeled.
However, if an accuracy of, for example, 10 cm is
acceptable‚ only the solid Earth tides have to be taken into
account. Also, for airborne applications or positioning that
is not strictly in the ITRF, the displacement effects are not
applicable.
Solid Earth tides: Similar to ocean tides, the gravita-
tional attraction of the Sun and Moon causes a deformation
of Earth. This deformation results in a permanent displace-
ment (up to 12 cm in mid-latitudes) and a periodic displace-
ment (≈30 cm vertically, ≈5 cm horizontally) with
predominantly semi-diurnal and diurnal periods [8]. These
displacements can be modeled by spherical harmonics [96],
of which only the second-degree tides and a height correc-
tion term are necessary for 5 mm accuracy [8, 97]. For a
higher accuracy, further harmonics need to be considered
[6, 98].
Polar tides: Aside from solid Earth tides, small periodic
changes in the deformation of Earth are also caused by
514 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning
changes in the location of Earth’s rotational axis relative to
its crust. The resulting site displacements are predomi-
nantly seasonal or have Chandler (~430 day) periods and
as such do not even out over a 24 hour period. They can
be determined from the pole coordinate variations from
the mean poles [6, 8, 96] and may amount to about
5 mm horizontally and 25 mm vertically.
Ocean loading: Ocean tides result in a varying load of
seawater on Earth’s crust, thereby creating site displace-
ments (mostly in height), with diurnal and semi-diurnal
periods. This effect depends on the local geography of the
ocean and land masses and is strongest in coastal regions
(up to 10 cm level). Ocean loading averages out for static
positioning over daily periods and may generally be
neglected for stations far from the coast (e.g. >1000 km).
For precise positioning close to the ocean‚ it does need to
be taken into account [8, 96].
Atmospheric loading: As the atmosphere also exerts a
load on the solid Earth, changes in its temperature-driven
pressure distribution results in deformations of Earth’s
crust. The horizontal displacement component is about a
factor 10 smaller than the vertical, which itself stays gener-
ally below 1 cm, although magnitudes of up to 3 cm have
been reported [99, 100]. Models for the systematic effects
caused by the diurnal heating of the atmosphere by the
Sun are given in [6].
20.7 Ambiguity-Resolved PPP
Although PPP is capable of providing very accurate posi-
tioning results, it often requires relatively long observation
time spans for such accurate results to be achieved. As the
duration of convergence is to a large part driven by the
presence of the carrier-phase ambiguities, one can expect
significantly shorter convergence times if one can do away
with these unknown ambiguities. This is possible if one
would be able to integer-estimate the ambiguities with a
sufficiently large ambiguity success rate [9, 101]. Although
relatively new to PPP, this process of integer ambiguity res-
olution has already been used very successfully in a broad
range of relative positioning applications [102, 103]. The
methods of ambiguity-resolved PPP, known as PPP-RTK
or PPP-AR, extend the PPP concept by providing single-
receiver users, next to information on orbits and clocks, also
information on the satellite phase biases [3, 34, 104–106].
This information, when properly provided, enables recov-
ery of the integerness of the user ambiguities, thus enabling
single-receiver ambiguity resolution and thereby reducing
the convergence times as compared to that of PPP. In
this section‚ we discuss methods of ionosphere-free,
ionosphere-float, and ionosphere-corrected PPP-RTK.
20.7.1 Ionosphere-Free PPP-RTK
In recent years, several ionosphere-free PPP-RTK approaches
have been proposed and formulated [34, 107–111]. Although
they are presented under different names, such as the “Inte-
ger Recovery Clock (IRC),” “Decoupled Satellite Clock
(DSC),” or “Fractional Phase Bias (FPB)” approach, they
are essentially the same [112].
Consider the system of ionosphere-free DF-PPP
equations (Eq. (20.19)) and recall that its non-integer user
ambiguities are defined as
λW st
astu,IF = zstu,1 + z + dstIF − δstIF λIF
λ2 u,21 20 20
astu,W = zstu,21 + dstNL − δstWL λW
As a reference network is capable of estimating the same
type of ambiguities for any of its stations, the difference
between the above user ambiguities and the corresponding
network ambiguities of a reference station, say, r, can be
written as a parameterization in integers only:
λW st
astru,IF = astu,IF − astr,IF = zstru,1 + z
λ2 ru,21 20 21
astru,W = astu,W − astr,W = zstru,21
Hence, by providing the user, next to the orbits and clock
dt stIF , also with the ambiguities astr,IF and astr,W of a network
reference station r, the ionosphere-free DF-PPP user
equations (Eq. (20.19)) can be transformed into the
integer-ambiguity-parameterized user equations
pstu,IF + dt stIF = ρstu
λ2 st
ϕstu,IF + dt stIF − λIF astr,IF = ρstu + λIF zstru,1 + z
μ12 ru,21
ϕstu,WN − λW astr,W = λW zstru,21
20 22
Note that the integer ambiguities in these user equations
are double-differenced (DD) ambiguities. Such will always
be the case with PPP-RTK, since GNSS carrier-phase
ambiguities can only be resolved as integers when they
are of DD form. Hence, one should not think that single-
receiver PPP-RTK is capable of integer-resolving the
“undifferenced ambiguities” or “zero-differenced ambigu-
ities” of the single user receiver. The ambiguities that are
integer estimable can always be shown to be integer
combinations of the user and network ambiguities [112].
There are different integer estimation principles available
that one can use for resolving the integer ambiguities.
Using the integer least-squares principle, mechanized in
the LAMBDA (Least-squares AMBiguity Decorrelation
Adjustment) method, guarantees the largest possible
success rate [9, 113, 114]. However, integer bootstrapping
is a close to optimal alternative, provided it is applied to
 20.7 Ambiguity-Resolved PPP 515

the LAMBDA decorrelated ambiguities [12]. Integer round- Hence, by providing the user, next to orbits and clock dt stIF ,
ing, although the simplest of all integer estimation meth- the real-valued ambiguities astr,1 and astr,2 , the ionosphere-
ods, has the poorest performance. Still, when the float PPP user equations (Eq. (20.18)) can be transformed
underlying model is strong enough and the rounding is into integer-ambiguity-parameterized user equations.
applied to the decorrelated ambiguities instead of the orig-
Instead of the correction triplet dt stIF , astr,1 , astr,2 , one may
inal DD ambiguities, the rounding success rates could still
also work with the estimable between-satellite phase bias
be close to that of integer bootstrapping and integer least st st st
squares [115]. Mixed forms of integer rounding or integer δ,j = − λ j astr,j and provide dt stIF , δ,1 , δ,2 [116]. The corre-
bootstrapping with integer least squares are also possible. sponding PPP-RTK user equations then take the form
For instance, the procedure that one often follows in resol-
pstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu + μ j ιstu,GF
ving the ambiguities of Eq. (20.22) is an example of such a
st 20 25
mixed form. One then first resolves the precisely estimated ϕstu,j + dt stIF + δ,j = ρstu − μ j ιstu,GF + λ j zstru,j
wide-lane ambiguities zstru,21 using rounding or bootstrap-
ping and then the less precisely estimated L1 ambiguities Alternatively, one can work with the “phase clocks”
st
zstru,1 using integer least squares. δt st,j = dt stIF + δ,j [106] and provide dt stIF , δt st,1 , δt st,2 .
In the above formulation‚ the user is provided, next to the As the different PPP-RTK corrections contain the
orbits, with the correction triplet dt stIF , astr,IF , astr,W . Instead same information, they are related through one-to-one
λW st transformations. For example, if one would like to trans-
of providing astr,IF , one may also use astr,IF = astr,1 + a
λ2 r,W form from the corrections used in the IRC/DSC approach,
to construct the correction and thus work with the triplet dt stIF , δt ps
IF , δW ,
st
to those used in the common-clock
dt stIF , astr,1 , astr,W This is the approach followed by [105]. st st
ps
approach, dt stIF , δ,1 , δ,2 [116, 117], then the following
Alternatively, by defining δt IF = dt stIF − λIF astr,IF and δstW =
one-to-one transformation applies:
− λW astr,W , one can also work with the triplet dt stIF , δt psIF ,
δW . These are the corrections used in the IRC/DSC
st 1 0 0
dt stIF λ1 λ1 λ1 dt stIF
approach. The correction δt stIF is called the “integer recovery st − −
δ,1 = λIF λIF λ2 δt stIF 20 26
phase clock” by [107] and the “decoupled phase clock” by
st λ2 λ2 λ2 δstW
[108]. The correction δstW is referred to as the wide-lane, δ,2 − −
λIF λIF λ1
between-satellite differenced estimable phase bias.
Finally‚ note that one may also work with only the frac- We have summarized the transformations between the var-
tional parts of astr,IF and astr,W in Eq. (20.22), as their integer ious correction-triplets in Table 20.5. These transforma-
part will be absorbed by the unknown integer ambiguities. tions can be used to operationally link the different
Fractional corrections are used in the “Fractional Phase PPP-RTK methods and to mix them between network
Bias” (FPB) and “Fractional-Cycle Bias” (FCB) approach and users. It allows a user to transform the network-
[109]. The usage of the fractional operator deserves some received corrections to the format that suits his/her user
care, however, as an application of this nonlinear operator software, or alternatively, as a service to the users, it allows
changes the statistics of the user-corrected observables‚ as a network server to transform the network corrections to
explained in [112]. any one of the other formats and thus make any of the
different PPP-RTK parameterizations available to the users.

20.7.2 Ionosphere-Float PPP-RTK 20.7.3 On the PPP Impact of Integer

To transform the ionosphere-float PPP user equations
(Eq. (20.18)) into integer-ambiguity-parameterized equa-
tions, we can use the same approach as was used to obtain
Eq. (20.22). As the real-valued ambiguities of Eq. (20.18) are
given as
astu,j = zstu,j + dstIF − δst,j − μ j dstGF
it follows that their difference with respect to the corre-
sponding network ambiguities of a station r is simply the
DD ambiguity,
astru,j = astu,j − astr,j = zstru,j
Ambiguity Resolution
It was already mentioned earlier that significant improve-
ment in PPP convergence times can be expected when
the user has the capability of integer-resolving the
ambiguities. This will now be substantiated by means of
λj 20 23 an example based on results from 300 user receivers. The
st st
user corrections dt stIF , δ,1 , δ,2 were computed from dual-
frequency GPS data (collected on 8 February 2015 with a
30 s sampling interval) of 24 continuously operating refer-
ence stations (CORS) receivers sparsely distributed over
20 24 Australia; see Figure 20.2 (left). The satellite positions were
516 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning

Table 20.5 One-to-one transformations of dual-frequency PPP-RTK user corrections [λIF = λ1λ2/(λ1 + λ2), λW = λ1λ2/
(λ2 − λ1)]

dt stIF 1 0 0 dt stIF 1 0 0 dt stIF 1 0 0

λ1 dt stIF
st
δ,1 0 − λ1 0 astr,1 0 − λ1 0 astr,1 0 − λ1 λW
= = = λ2 astr,IF
st 0 0 − λ2 astr,2 0 − λ2 λ2 astr,W
δ,2 λ2 astr,W
0 − λ2 λW
λ1
1 0 0 1 0 0 dt stIF
λ1 λ1 λ1 dt stIF st
− − −1 1 0 δt,1
= λIF λIF λ2 δtstIF =
λ2 λ2 λ2 −1 0 1 st
δt,2
− − δstW
λIF λIF λ1

computed using precise IGS orbits, whereas precise positions phase and code data of about 300 single-receiver dual-
of all stations were extracted from IGS SINEX (Solution Inde- frequency GPS users, distributed over the entire country
pendent Exchange format) files. In addition, so as to align the (Australia). The associated user settings were identical to
estimable satellite clocks to P1 and P2 observables, P1-C1 sat- that of the network, except that the data of each receiver
ellite DCBs using the monthly products of CODE were was processed twice, once for a static user and once for a
applied to stations tracking C1 code data. The cutoff angle kinematic user. From the data of the 300 receivers, 300 hor-
of the observations was set to 10 . All phase and code obser- izontal radial position errors (with respect to ground truth)
vations were weighted according to the sine of their elevation are computed per epoch, from which the convergence
angle, with an undifferenced standard deviation in zenith of curves are determined. Figure 20.4 (left) shows the result-
3 mm for the phase data and 30 cm for the code data. Con- ing convergence curves for static PPP positioning. The
cerning the dynamic models of the parameters, the receiver 50%, 75%, and 90% percentiles of these values are plotted
and satellite phase biases, as well as ambiguities, were as functions of time. The results show that the horizontal
assumed to be time constant, whereas the receiver and satel- radial position error of 50% of the stations becomes smaller
lite clocks, as well as the ionospheric delays, were assumed to than 10 cm after 25 min, whereas that of 90% of the stations
be unlinked in time. For the ZTDs‚ a random walk stochastic attains 10 cm after 60 min. These results are consistent with
process was assumed with a process noise of 1 mm per 30 those reported in [2, 34–36].
seconds. For the integer ambiguity resolution, the method Figure 20.4 (right) shows the corresponding convergence
of partial ambiguity resolution [101] was used with a min- curves for kinematic PPP-RTK positioning. As the positions
imum success rate of 99.9%. are now unlinked in time, the ambiguity-float model is
The network-derived satellite clock and satellite phase weaker than that of the static user. Despite this weakening,
bias products were in a next step applied to correct the however, the integer ambiguity resolution process is still

Convergence of horizontal radial error (Float) Convergence of horizontal radial error (Fixed)
350 350
50% of stations 50% of stations
75% of stations 75% of stations
300 90% of stations 300 90% of stations

250 250
Absolute error [mm]

Absolute error [mm]

200 200

150 150

100 100

50 50
20 20
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Minutes (interval 30s) Minutes (interval 30s)

Figure 20.4 Horizontal radial position error convergence curves (based on a sample of 300 user receivers) for dual-frequency GPS static
PPP user (left) and kinematic PPP-RTK user (right).
 20.7 Ambiguity-Resolved PPP 517

capable of significantly reducing the convergence times. As
Figure 20.4 (right) shows, the 90% percentile steeply drops
from 20 cm to almost 2 cm after 50 min.
20.7.4 Ionosphere-Corrected PPP-RTK
Although the ionosphere-free and ionosphere-float formu-
lations, Eq. (20.22) and Eq. (20.25), have the capability of
giving identical results, the ionosphere-free formulation
has the drawback of lacking flexibility for further model
strengthening. The inclusion of a dynamic state transition
model to capture the temporal smoothness of the iono-
sphere, for instance, will be problematic with the iono-
sphere-free model. A similar difficulty exists when one
wants to incorporate an ionospheric model to capture both
the temporal and spatial characteristics of the ionosphere.
Furthermore, the ionosphere-free and ionosphere-float
models are known to be relatively weak in regard to their
ambiguity resolution capabilities. The lack of any iono-
spheric information is, in fact, the bottleneck for fast ambi-
guity resolution. Relatively long observation time spans are
then needed to achieve successful integer ambiguity resolu-
tion [90, 118, 119]. Successful ambiguity resolution is
achieved much faster when such ionospheric information
can be provided to the model. But if such information were
available, it would be cumbersome to include in the iono-
sphere-free model and, in fact, would defy the whole pur-
pose of an ionosphere-free formulation. The inclusion of
ionospheric information is straightforward, however, with
the ionosphere-float formulation. Once the ionospheric
delay ιstu,GF is provided from an external source, the iono-
sphere-corrected formulation follows from Eq. (20.25) as
pstu,j + dt stIF − μ j ιstu,GF = ρstu
st 20 27
ϕstu,j + dt stIF + δ,j + μ j ιstu,GF = ρstu + λ j zstru,j
The ionospheric delay at the user site, ιstu,GF , is usually pre-
dicted on the basis of the ionospheric delays estimated from
a reference network. The ionospheric delays estimated at
(nearby) network stations are then interpolated by means
of best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) or Kriging
[120, 121] to the user location.
Figure 20.5 shows an example of how the provision of
ionospheric corrections, next to orbits, satellite clocks,
and satellite phase biases, improve the convergence times
of PPP-RTK. In this example‚ use was made of dual-
frequency GPS data from a regional network of eight

0.3
150 RBVL
0.2
0.1
100
UNDE 0
SWNH
50 –0.1 Float (lonosphere-Unknown)
Fixed (lonosphere-Unknown)
North (km)

–0.2 Fixed (lonosphere-Corrected)

0 BIRC –0.3
TELO 0.2
–50 WEDD 0
0.2
GORO –0.4
–100 –0.6
–0.8 Float (lonosphere-Unknown)
BALM ARRT
–1 Fixed (lonosphere-Unknown)
–150 –1.2 Fixed (lonosphere-Corrected)
–1.4
–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
East (km) Time (minute)

Convergence (min.) East North

Float (ion-unknown) 42.0 32.0

Fixed (ion-unknown) 13.5 17.5
Fixed (ion-known) 2.5 4.5

Figure 20.5 PPP-RTK with ionosphere-correction. Top Left: regional Victorian (Australia) network from which ionosphere is interpolated
to user. Top Right: Kinematic east-north coordinate time series (with respect to ground truth) in minutes for ambiguity-float, ionosphere-
unknown case (red), ambiguity-fixed, ionosphere-unknown case (blue), and ambiguity-fixed, ionosphere-known case (green). Bottom:
Table of 1 dm convergence times in minutes.
518 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning

stations in Victoria, Australia (Figure 20.5 left). The results
of both the ionosphere-unknown and ionosphere-corrected
scenarios are shown (Figure 20.5 middle). To obtain the ion-
ospheric corrections, the slant ionospheric delays at the
eight network stations were interpolated to the location of
the user. To resolve the user ambiguities, the method of par-
tial ambiguity resolution was applied with a success rate of
99.9%. As the kinematic east-north time series of Figure 20.5
(middle) show, the provision of the ionospheric corrections
significantly improves convergence. In this example, the
convergence time improves from about 40 min for the
ambiguity-float, ionosphere-unknown case to less than
5 min for the ambiguity-fixed, ionosphere-corrected case.
Other examples can be found in, for example, [106, 122,
123]. Note that although the example of Figure 20.5 was
for a dual-frequency user, the above formulation can also
be used for a single-frequency PPP-RTK user [124].
20.8 Multi-Frequency PPP
So far we have been predominantly concerned with single-
and dual-frequency PPP. However, with the new and
modernized GNSSs we also have the possibility to track
the satellites on more than two frequencies (for an overview
of GNSS frequencies, see Table 20.6). More frequencies
enable a stronger model, better estimation of the
ionospheric delays and, in the case of PPP-RTK, improved
integer ambiguity resolution [117, 125–128]. More frequen-
cies also enable, in contrast with the dual-frequency case,
estimation of functions of the satellite code biases without
the explicit need for an ionospheric model.
For the dual-frequency case, the ionosphere-float formu-
lation of the user equations (cf. Eq. (20.18)) was given as
pstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu + μ j ιstu,GF
j = 1, 2
ϕstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu − μ j ιstu,GF + λ j astu,j
20 28
No satellite code biases dst,1 and dst,2 are present in these
equations, as their ionosphere-free and geometry-free
components have been lumped with the clock dt stIF and
ionospheric delay ιstu,GF , respectively (see the discussion in
Section 20.2.2). This situation changes‚ however, when
more than two frequencies are used. In that case‚ the above
user equations need to be modified to
st
pstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu + μ j ιstu,GF − d,j
j = 1, 2, …
ϕstu,j + dt stIF = ρstu − μ j ιstu,GF + λ j astu,j
20 29
in which the estimable between-satellite code bias is
given as
st
d,j = dstj − dstIF − μ j dstGF 20 30
Note that this bias is indeed identically zero for the first two
st
frequencies, that is, d,j 0 if j = 1, 2. The multi-frequency
(MF) PPP equations (Eq. (20.29)) can now be used in two
different ways. One can either correct for the code biases
st
d,j (j > 2), when provided for by an external provider, or
one can treat them as unknown, but time-stable para-
meters. In the latter case, the redundancy of Eq. (20.29)
for a static user, tracking m satellites, with f frequencies,
over k epochs, is (m − 5) + (2f − 1)(m − 1)(k − 1), while it
will be (f − 2)(m − 1) larger if one corrects for the code
biases. Correcting for the multi-frequency estimable code
biases also has the advantage that the per satellite-pair extra
(f − 2) code user equations will contribute to the speeding
up of the convergence. This will not happen to that extent
st
in case the code biases d,j are treated as unknown constants.
In that case‚ the per satellite-pair extra (f − 2) code user
equations play a somewhat similar role as the carrier-phase
equations and will primarily contribute once a sufficient
change in relative receiver-satellite geometry has occurred.
The generalization to the multi-frequency case for PPP-
RTK follows quite naturally that of PPP itself. With the code

Table 20.6 Overview of GNSS frequencies (CDMA signals)

System Frequency band

GPS (G) L1 L2 L5
GLONASS (R) L3
Galileo (E) E1 E6 E5b E5 E5a
BeiDou (C) B1 B3 B2
QZSS (J) L1 LEX L2 L5
IRNSS (I) L5

Freq. (MHz) 1575.42 1561.098 1278.75 1268.52 1227.60 1207.14 1202.025 1191.795 1176.45
 20.9 Multi-GNSS PPP 519

bias corrections applied, the multi-frequency, ionosphere- The extra two terms in these equations are the inter-system
u,j and the phase-ISB δu,j . They are
biases, the code ISB d12
float PPP-RTK user equations follow from Eq. (20.25) as 12

st
pstu,j + dt stIF + d,j = ρstu + μ j ιstu,GF absent from the equations when the between-satellite dif-
st
j = 1, 2, … ferencing is done with satellites of the same system, that
ϕstu,j + dt stIF + δ,j = ρstu − μ j ιstu,GF + λ j zstru,j is, when t2 is replaced by t1.
20 31 In the following, we first consider the dual-frequency
Hence, next to the orbits, there are in total 2f − 1 corrections case (f = 2) for multi-GNSS PPP and multi-GNSS PPP-
st st RTK and then we generalize to the multi-frequency case
dt stIF , d,j , δ,j , namely, 1 clock, (f − 2) code biases, and f
(f > 2).
phase biases.

20.9.1 Dual-Frequency Multi-GNSS PPP

20.9 Multi-GNSS PPP
With the ongoing proliferation of navigation satellite sys-
tems, the availability of more satellites and signals brings
a range of improvements. Precision and reliability in
Just like the IF- and GF-components of the satellite hard-
ware delays, dst,1 and dst,2, lack estimability and are therefore
lumped with the satellite clock and ionospheric delay, the
single-station code ISBs, d12 12
r,1 and dr,2, also lack estimability

parameter estimation will improve, as will convergence and will therefore be lumped in a similar way. Using the
decomposition d12 r,j = dr,IF + μ j dr,GF (j = 1, 2), we get instead
12 12
times, position availability‚ and robustness of ambiguity
resolution [129–132]. However, with multi-GNSS PPP, of Eq. (20.6),
new challenges are also introduced. When using pseudor- s1 t 2
ange and carrier-phase data from different GNSSs‚ one dt IF = dt s1 t2 + dsIF1 t2 − d12
r,IF and ιsr,GF
1 t2
= ιsr1 t2 − dsGF
1 t2
− d12
r,GF

has to account for ISBs, which are due to differences in 20 34

receiver hardware delays between the signals of different
Thus‚ when the ionosphere-free satellite clocks are esti-
constellations [133–135]. Thus‚ instead of our earlier
mated from a reference network tracking multiple GNSSs,
receiver clock offsets (cf. Eq. 20.2), we now have
the between-system ionosphere-free satellite clocks will
dt u,j = dt u + du,j , δt u,j = δt u + δu,j 20 32 have the ionosphere-free code ISB of one of the reference
with = 1, 2, … being the system indicator. With the track- stations, say, r, included. As a result, with the network-
s1 t 2
ing of satellites from different systems, our earlier satellite provided satellite clock dt IF , the dual-frequency PPP user
index “s” will be replaced by the satellite index s (s = 1 , …, equations take the form
m ) for the system . Although each system can broadcast s1 t 2
psu,j1 t2 + dt IF = ρsu1 t2 + μ j ιsu,GF
1 t2
+ d12
ru,IF
signals in different frequency bands, we restrict ourselves j = 1, 2
s1 t 2
here to the frequency bands that combined systems have ϕsu,j1 t2 + dt IF = ρsu1 t2 − μ j ιsu,GF
1 t2
+ λ j asu,j1 t2
in common. Hence, the frequency index “j” (j = 1, …, f) will 20 35
now stand for the j-th overlapping frequency of the systems.
This restriction does not, however, affect the generality of with the non-integer ambiguities given as
our discussion; see [10]. Table 20.6 gives an overview of
asu,j
1 t2
= zsu,j1 t2 − u,j − dIF − dr,IF + μ j dGF − du,GF
δs,j1 t2 − δ12 s1 t 2 12 s1 t 2 12
λj
the current frequencies shared by the navigation satellite
systems. The two systems GPS and QZSS, for instance, have 20 36
the three frequencies L1, L2, and L5 in common, while with Compare the structure of the above user equations
the Galileo system, they share the two overlapping frequen- (Eq. (20.35)) with that of the single-system equations
cies L1 and L5 (E5a). (Eq. (20.18)). The phase equations have the same structure,
As the receiver hardware delays, du,j and δu,j , are system but the code equations do not. The dual-system code user
dependent, they will not get eliminated when between- equations have, in the case of between-system differencing,
satellite differences are taken with satellites from different one extra term, namely‚ the ionosphere-free code differen-
systems. Hence, for satellite s1 from system = 1 and sat- tial ISB (DISB), d12
ru,IF . This term is absent, and Eq. (20.35)
ellite t2 from system = 2, the between-satellite observation
reduces to Eq. (20.18), when t2 is replaced by t1, that is,
equations will, instead of Eq. (20.3), now read
when the between-satellite differencing is done within
psu,j1 t2 = ρsu1 t2 + μ j ιsu1 t2 − dt s,j1 t2 − d12
u,j the same system.
Next to the extra DISB-term, the interpretation of some of
ϕsu,j1 t2 = ρsu1 t2 − μ j ιsu1 t2 − δt s,j1 t2 − δ12
u,j + λ j z u,j
s1 t 2
the parameters in Eq. (20.35) is also different from their
20 33 counterparts in Eq. (20.18). The user ionospheric delay
520 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning

has now also the geometry-free component of its receiver-
ISB lumped with it, and a similar change applies to the
ambiguities; compare Eq. (20.36) with Eq. (20.23).
As the DISB d12 ru,IF is estimable (in contrast to the single-
station ISBs), the user can treat it as an additional unknown
parameter that needs to be solved for. There are, however,
also situations when the user may assume that the DISB is
known a priori. In that case there is no essential difference
between the dual-system structure (20.35) and its single-
system counterpart (20.18). The two combined systems
can then be treated as if they constitute a single system.
The case of a priori known DISBs is further discussed in
Section 20.9.3
If the DISB d12
ru,IF is treated as an unknown but time-stable
parameter, then for a dual-system user, tracking m1 system-
1 satellites and m2 system-2 satellites, with satellite s1 as the
chosen pivot-satellite, the dual-frequency equations
(Eq. (20.35)) represent a system consisting of 4(m1 − 1 +
m2) equations per epoch. For a static user, tracking the
satellites over k epochs, assuming a random walk ZTD
and time-constant or time-stable ambiguities, the redun-
dancy of the system equals (m1 + m2 − 6) + 3(m1 + m2 − 1)
(k − 1). This shows that the inclusion of a second system
changes the solvability at initialization (k = 1) from m1 ≥
5, for the single-system case, to m1 + m2 ≥ 6, for the dual-
system case. Thus instead of a minimum of five satellites,
as needed for the single-system case, now only three
satellites of each system are needed for the initialization
of the dual-system case. This illustrates the increase in posi-
tioning availability that the integration of GNSSs brings.
The extra redundancy that the inclusion of the second
system brings is (m2 − 1) + 3m2(k − 1). Thus, already with
two satellites of the second system the redundancy
increases at initialization. With one satellite‚ the extra
redundancy is absent as the four extra user equations are
then just enough to solve for the extra ionospheric delay,
the two ambiguities, and the ionosphere-free DISB d12 ru,IF .
20.9.2 Dual-Frequency Multi-GNSS PPP-RTK
As the ambiguities in Eq. (20.35) are real-valued, these user
equations are not yet in a form that enables integer ambi-
guity resolution. To make this happen, we follow the same
approach as before and have the reference network provide
next to the orbits and satellite clocks, the needed extra cor-
rections, such as the ambiguities of a reference station, asr,j1 t2,
s1 t 2
or equivalently, the satellite phase bias δ,j = − λ j asr,j1 t2
(cf. Eq. (20.36)),
s1 t 2
δ,j = r,j − dIF − dr,IF + μ j dGF − dr,GF
δs,j1 t2 − δ12 s1 t 2 12 s1 t 2 12
− λ j zsr,j1 t2
20 37
Application of the phase bias correction transforms the
DF-PPP user equations (Eq. (20.35)) into

s1 t 2
psu,j1 t2 + dt IF = ρsu1 t2 + μ j ιsu,GF
1 t2
+ d12
ru,IF
s1 t 2 s1 t 2 j = 1, 2 (20.38)
ϕsu,j1 t2 + dt IF + δ,j = ρsu1 t2 − μ j ιsu,GF
1 t2
+ λ j zsru,j
1 t2
+ δ12
ru,j + μ j dru,GF
12

In the pair of phase equations we now recognize the pair of values known, there would be 2(m1 + m2 − 1) ambiguities
integer DD ambiguities. However, due to the between- that could be estimated as integers, versus 2(m1 + m2 − 2)
system differencing, the phase equations also contain an in the case where the DISBs are unknown.
Figure 20.6 shows an example of multi-GNSS PPP. It
ru,j + μ j dru,GF
extra pair of real-valued terms, δ12 12
for j =
shows the DF-PPP ambiguity-float (red) and ambiguity-
1, 2. Were the values of this pair a priori known, then fixed (green) 1 h coordinate time series (East and North)
the DD ambiguities zsru,j
1 t2
(j = 1, 2) would become estimable for GPS (left) and GPS+BDS (right) for a user at the BULA
as integers and user integer ambiguity resolution can be station in Australia. Upon comparing the time series, the
applied to all DD ambiguities present in the user equations. impact of both ambiguity resolution as well as the inclusion
This is not possible, however, in the absence of such a priori of a second system (BDS) is clearly visible.
values. In that case, the extra terms cannot be separated
from the between-system DD ambiguities and it is their
20.9.3 Calibration of ISBs
combination that then would be estimated as the real-
valued ambiguity: The above has shown that a dual-frequency, dual-system
user may have to incorporate three additional terms in
asu,j1 t2 = zsru,j
1 t2
+ δ12
ru,j + μ j dru,GF
12
λj j = 1, 2 the user equations, namely, d12
ru,IF in the between-system
20 39 code equations in the case of PPP (cf. Eq. (20.35)) and an

Hence, in that case‚ there are two fewer DD ambiguities additional two, ru,j + μ j dru,GF
δ12 12
for j = 1, 2, that
that the user can estimate as integers. Thus, with the DISB get lumped in with the DD ambiguities in the two
 20.9 Multi-GNSS PPP 521

BULA(GPS) BULA(GPS+BDS)
East East
0.5 0.5
Float Float
Fixed Fixed
0 0
Position wrt ground truth [m]

Position wrt ground truth [m]

–0.5 –0.5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

North North
0.5 0.5
Float Float
Fixed Fixed
0 0

–0.5 –0.5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

Figure 20.6 DF-PPP ambiguity-float (red) and ambiguity-fixed (green) 1 h coordinate time series (east and north) for GPS (left) and GPS
+BDS (right) for a user at BULA station in Australia (DOY 2016, UTC, 10 cutoff elevation angle).

between-system phase equations in the case of PPP-RTK can be used to estimate these types of DISBs between
(cf. Eq. (20.38)). The strength of the user equations any pair of its mixed receivers. Hence, by estimating them
improves, of course, if one may assume these terms to with sufficient precision‚ one can provide calibrated
be either absent or known. Several studies have demon- values in a look-up table (Figure 20.7) that users in their
strated that DISBs are quite time stable and that they even turn can use to correct for the DISB of their particular
may be assumed to be zero when taken between similar receiver. In this way‚ users effectively realize their own
receivers (same make, type‚ and firmware); see, for exam- ISB-corrected user model, thereby strengthening their
ple, [136–140]. This implies that when receivers of differ- model and maximizing the number of integer-estimable
ent make and type are involved (e.g. within the reference user ambiguities.
network and/or between network and user), one has the The above approach of estimating or calibrating the three
potential of calibrating the DISBs as proposed in [10]. Just DISBs has the advantage that there is no need to include an
as the user can use Eq. (20.38) to estimate the three DISB ionospheric model. The accommodation of ISBs when inte-
terms for the user receiver, the reference network itself grating different systems can therefore be taken care of

System: ✶
System: G

Correction-
component
cϕ , cp

r=1 ~G✶ ~ G✶ ~ G✶
δ 1,j , d 1,j , d 1,IF

Network- ~ G✶ ~ G✶ ~ G✶
δ q,j , d q,j , d q,IF
component r=n u
r=2
~ G✶ ~ G✶ ~ G✶
δ n,j , d n,j , d n,IF User-component

r=3 r=q

Figure 20.7 ISB look-up table: It allows users to search the table for a network receiver of their own type and select the corresponding
ISBs, thus effectively realizing their own ISB-corrected user model [10].
522 20 GNSS Precise Point Positioning

(both on the network and user side) without having to Note that since the phase-DISBs can only be estimated in
make any additional assumptions about the ionosphere. combination with the DD ambiguities (cf. Eq. (20.39)), they
The consequence of not having an ionospheric model are shown here modulo λjz,j. This is, however, of no
included is, however, that with the above approach only consequence for the estimation process as such shifts
three DISB terms can be estimated and not all four. The fol- will automatically be absorbed by the estimated integer
lowing transformation shows how the three DISB terms ambiguities.
stand in relation to the original four DISBs: The one-to-one relation Eq. (20.40) shows that it is the
geometry-free code DISB d12
ru,GF that is additionally needed
d12
ru,1 1 μ1
ru,1 and δru,1 , j = 1, 2. Deter-
to determine all four DISBs, d12 12
d12
ru,2 1 μ2
= mination of this geometry-free DISB requires, however,
δ12
ru,1 + λ1 z,1
− μ1 1
additional ionospheric assumptions, such as, for instance,
δ12
ru,2 + λ2 z,2 − μ2 1 in the case of zero or short baselines, the absence of
d12
ru,IF
between-receiver ionospheric delays [135, 138], or alterna-
d12 tively, the inclusion of an explicit ionospheric model. If
ru,GF
20 40 with such approaches all four DISBs would be determined
δ12
ru,1 + μ1 d12
ru,GF + λ1 z,1
and provided to the user, the user equations (Eq. (20.38))
δ12
ru,2 + μ2 d12
ru,GF + λ2 z,2 can be rewritten as

s1 t 2
psu,j1 t2 + dt IF ur,j = ρu + μ j ιu,GF − dru,GF
s1 t 2
+ d12 s1 t 2 12
j = 1, 2 (20.41)
s1 t 2 s1 t 2
ϕsu,j1 t2 + dt IF + δ,j ur,j = ρu − μ j ιu,GF − dru,GF + λ j zru,j
+ δ12 s1 t 2 s1 t 2 12 s1 t 2

Hence, when all four DISBs are used as a priori corrections, The integration of multi-frequency GNSSs increases the
these between-system user equations take the same form as redundancy and strengthens the positioning model. This
the single-system PPP-RTK user equations (Eq. (20.25)). will improve ambiguity resolution and shorten the conver-
Also‚ note that now the ionospheric delay of the user, gence times. With the increase in the number of satellites,
ιsu,GF
1 t2
ru,GF = ιu − dGF − dr,GF , will have the same
− d12 s1 t 2 s1 t 2 12
one can even use larger-than-customary cutoff elevation
bias as the ionospheric delays of the network; this is in angles and thus increase the GNSS applicability in con-
contrast to the ionospheric delays of Eq. (20.38). strained environments, such as, for example, in urban can-
yons or when low-elevation-angle multipath is present
[141, 142].
20.9.4 Multi-Frequency, Multi-GNSS PPP-RTK
For a static user, with the same dynamic parameter
For multi-frequency, multi-GNSS PPP-RTK, the previous assumptions as before, Table 20.7 shows the two-system,
result (Eq. 20.38) can be generalized as multi-frequency user-redundancy of Eq. (20.42), for the
s t s1 t 2 case when the (2f − 1) DISBs are known and unknown,
psu,j1 t2 + dtIF1 2 + d,j = ρsu1 t2 + μ j ιsu,GF
1 t2
ru,j − μ j dru,GF
+ d12 12
respectively. Note that although with the ISB-unknown
s t s1 t 2
ϕsu,j1 t2 + dt IF1 2 + δ,j = ρsu1 t2 − μ j ιsu,GF
1 t2
+ λ j zsru,j
1 t2
+ δ12
ru,j + μ j dru,GF
12 case we have (2f − 1) extra unknown parameters
20 42 Table 20.7 Two-system, multi-frequency, single-epoch user-
(j = 1, 2, …), with the between-system, multi-frequency sat- redundancy for ISB-unknown and ISB-known cases (cf. Eq. (20.42)).
ellite code and phase bias corrections given as
s1 t 2 Redundancy ISB known ISB unknown
d,j = dsj1 t2 − d12
r,j − r,IF + μ j dGF − dr,GF
dsIF1 t2 − d12 s1 t 2 12

s1 t 2 Amb-float (f − 1)(m1 + m2 − 5) (f − 1)(m1 + m2 − 6)

δ,j = r,j − dIF − dr,IF + μ j dGF − dr,GF
δs,j1 t2 − δ12 s1 t 2 12 s1 t 2 12
− λ j zsr,j1 t2
Amb-fixed (2f − 1)(m1 + m2 − 5) (2f − 1)(m1 + m2 − 6)
20 43 + 4f + 4f
s1 t 2
Compare with Eq. (20.31). Note that d,j = 0 and Note: For multiple epochs (k >1) the redundancy increases by (2f − 1)
(m1 + m2 − 1)(k − 1). m denotes the number of tracked satellites of
ru,j − μ j dru,GF = dru,IF for j = 1, 2.
d12 12 12 system .

(f phase-DISBs and f – 1 code-DISBs), the redundancy in the
ambiguities-float case only reduces by f – 1 when going
from the ISB-known to the ISB-unknown case. This is
due to the fact that in the ambiguity-float case, the f
phase-DISBs will get lumped with the ambiguities. In the
ambiguity-fixed case, however, this difference in redun-
dancy is equal to the number of DISBs. Also note that with
k epochs, the redundancy increases by (2f − 1)(m1 + m2 − 1)
(k − 1), which is the difference between the number of extra
equations and the number of extra ionospheric delays in the
multiple epoch case.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks all his colleagues from Curtin Univer-
sity’s GNSS Research Centre. The first version of Curtin’s
PPP-RTK network and user software platforms used in
the computations of the examples were developed under
Projects 1.01 and 1.19 of the Cooperative Research Centre
for Spatial Information. The CORS data was made available
by Geoscience Australia.
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21
Direct Position Estimation
Pau Closas1 and Grace Gao2
1
Northeastern University, United States
2
Stanford University, United States
21.1 Introduction
This chapter presents an innovative concept that helps
overcome some of the critical challenges and limitations
in standard global navigation satellite system (GNSS) posi-
tion, navigation, and timing (PNT). The concept is known
as Direct Position Estimation (DPE) and was introduced in
[1]. At a glance, a receiver implementing DPE computes the
position directly from the sampled signal, unlike a conven-
tional receiver in which range estimates (i.e. pseudoranges)
are required before solving for the user’s position [2].
Therefore, conventional receivers are generally referred
to as two-step receivers and DPE as one-step receivers.
The direct search and joint optimization across multiple
satellites makes DPE a robust GNSS position and time esti-
mation technique [3]. In contrast, conventional techniques,
such as scalar tracking, first estimate intermediate pseudor-
ange and pseudorange rate measurements to each satellite in
view [4, 5], then they solve for the navigation solution, typ-
ically via an iterative least-squares approach [6, 7]. Vector
tracking, a more robust approach than scalar tracking,
jointly processes intermediate measurements across multi-
ple satellites in view by mapping intermediate measurement
residuals into shared navigation residuals [8, 9]. However, it
is an indirect navigation estimation process based on inter-
mediate measurement residuals which are separately esti-
mated across multiple satellites [10, 11]. When the signals
are degraded, both scalar and vector tracking discard inter-
mediate measurements which are likely experiencing a fault.
[12, 13]. In contrast, DPE is able to preserve such informa-
tion [14] and provide improved performance under challeng-
ing situations [2, 15]. A comparison of scalar tracking, vector
tracking‚ and DPE is given in Table 21.1.
The chapter is organized as follows. With the intention of
facilitating the introduction of new material, Section 21.2
describes the signal model used through this chapter, as
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
529
well as the basics of the signal processing that apply to
standard GNSS receivers. DPE is introduced in Section
21.3, where extensive details are provided regarding the sig-
nal model and the direct-positioning concept. Additionally,
the section provides theoretical results demonstrating the
performance enhancement of DPE with respect to two-
steps approaches. Implementation details are discussed in
Section 21.4, where we move from the purely theoretical
results in the previous section to the more practical aspects.
Section 21.5 discusses some variants and alternative appli-
cations of DPE. Finally, conclusions are provided in
Section 21.6.
21.2 Conventional GNSS Signal
Processing and Positioning
This section provides a common framework to mathemat-
ically describe the basic signal processing pipeline of a con-
ventional two-step GNSS receiver. Then, in Section 21.3, we
will leverage these definitions to better understand DPE
processing. First, we discuss the transmitted signal and
channel models to characterize the signal received at the
antenna. Then, we describe the signal processing and nav-
igation solution equations, which ultimately yield a posi-
tion, velocity, and time (PVT) estimate.
21.2.1 GNSS Signal Model
A general signal model for satellite navigation systems con-
sists of a direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DS-SS) signal,
synchronously transmitted by all the satellites in the con-
stellation. This type of signal enables code division multiple
access (CDMA) transmissions; that is, satellite signals are
distinguished by orthogonal (or quasi-orthogonal) codes.
At a glance, these signals consist of two main components:
530 21 Direct Position Estimation

Table 21.1 Comparison between scalar tracking, vector tracking, and Direct Position Estimation (DPE)

Approach Remarks

Scalar tracking
• Estimates intermediate range measurements of each satellite
• Susceptible to intermediate range
estimation errors

• Does not account for inter-link

correlations

Vector tracking
•• Estimates intermediate measurement residuals
Couples signal tracking and PVT estimation, so that all
channels aid each other by sharing information
• Susceptible to intermediate residual
estimation errors

• Maps intermediate measurement residuals to navigation residuals

Direct Position
Estimation
• Maximizes cross-correlation of expected GPS signal reception with
received GPS signal at multiple navigation candidates •• Direct search
Joint optimization across satellites

a ranging code using a pseudorandom noise (PRN) spread-

ing sequence; and a low-rate data link to broadcast neces-
• PI,i is the transmitted power, considered equal for all
satellites, and is elevation-dependent due to the antenna
sary information for positioning such as satellite orbital pattern at the satellite [16].
parameters and corrections. The complex baseband model
of the signal transmitted by the i-th satellite is
• bI,i(t) {−1, 1} is the sequence of low-rate data bits, with
T bI being the bit period.

sT,i t = sI,i t + jsQ,i t , 21 1

• cI,i(t) {−1, 1} is the PRN spreading sequence, not to be
confused with c, the constant representing the speed of
light. The chip length of the sequence and the chip period
where its in-phase and quadrature components are are denoted by LcI and T cI , respectively. Therefore,
defined as T PRNI = LcI T cI is the codeword period. N cI denotes the
number of code epochs per data bit. Figure 21.1 aims to
clarify the relation between these bits/chips parameters.

•
sI,i t = 2PI,i qI,i t
∞ N cI LcI The energy-normalized chip shaping pulse is denoted
= 2PI,i bI,i mI cI,i kI gI t − mI T bI − uI T PRNI − kI T cI by gI(t).
mI = − ∞ uI = 1 k I = 1

21 2 Note that several carrier frequencies can be used at a time,

with the presented baseband structure being thus repli-
sQ,i t = 2PQ,i qQ,i t
N cQ LcQ
cated. Actually, GNSS systems typically transmit comple-
∞
= 2PQ,i bQ,i mQ cQ,i k Q gQ t − mQ T bQ − uQ T PRNQ − k Q T cQ , mentary signals over several frequency bands. One of the
mQ = − ∞ uQ = 1 k Q = 1
main reasons for this is to combat the frequency-dependent
21 3 perturbations suffered by the signal when traveling through
the ionosphere and troposphere.
where the following definitions for the in-phase component
Satellite signals travel through a propagation channel
– analogous to the quadrature signal, defined in (21.3) with
which modifies its amplitude, phase‚ and delay. In fact,
subindex Q – hold:
multiple replicas of the same transmitted signal can reach

TbI

··· NcI 1 2 ··· NcI 1 ···

t
TPRNI = LcITcI

Figure 21.1 Relation among the parameters defining bits and spreading sequences in a generic navigation signal (in-phase component)
[17]. Source: Reproduced with permission of P. Closas.

a receiver’s antenna due to multipath propagation. In
general, these replicas are caused by reflections of the
line-of-sight (LOS) signal from surrounding obstacles (e.g.
buildings, trees, ground). For the i-th satellite link, such a
propagation channel is generically modeled by a linear
time-varying impulse response with Ni propagation paths
[18, 19]:
Ni − 1
hi t = αi,n t exp jϕi,n t δ t − τi,n t ,
n=0
21 4
where αi,n(t), ϕi,n(t), and τi,n(t) are the amplitude, phase‚
and delay of the n-th propagation path for the i-th satellite.
δ(t) is Dirac’s delta function [20]. Notice that subindex n = 0
denotes the LOS parameters. Typically, the amplitudes
are assumed to obey the Rayleigh or Rice distributions,
depending on whether the LOS is blocked or not [21]. Time
delays are assumed to be piecewise constant during the
observation interval. In a first-order Taylor expansion,
the time-varying phase ϕi,n(t) has a uniformly distributed
independent term [22] and a linear term representing the
effect of the Doppler spread (that is, a frequency shift
caused by the relative motion between the satellite and
the receiver). In general, we consider that paths are inde-
pendent, which is referred to as the Wide Sense Stationary
with Uncorrelated Scattering (WSSUS) [23] channel model.
Extensive measurement campaigns have been performed to
characterize the GNSS propagation channel model, and
they support the WSSUS characterization; see, for instance,
the results reported in [24, 25].
As a consequence, a GNSS receiver measures signals that
are considered to be a superposition of plane waves cor-
rupted by noise and, possibly, interferences and multipath.
An antenna receives M scaled, time-delayed, and Doppler-
shifted signals with known signal structure. Each signal
corresponds to the LOS of one of the M visible satellites
after propagating through the WSSUS channel mode. The
received complex baseband signal can be modeled as the
convolutions of the channel (Eq. (21.4)) with the corre-
sponding signal, resulting in:
M meters. More compactly, in vector form, we can rewrite
x t = ai si t − τi exp j2π f di t + n t , 21 5
i=1
where si(t) is the transmitted complex baseband low-rate
navigation signal spread by the pseudorandom code of
the i-th satellite, which is considered to be known. ai is
its complex amplitude, τi is the time delay, f di is the Doppler
shift, and n(t) represents zero-mean additive noise with var-
iance N0/2 and other unmodeled terms besides LOS. N0 is
the one-sided power spectral density in dBW/Hz. Note that
subindex n is omitted since only LOS signals are explicitly
modeled, in contrast to Eq. (21.4).
21.2 Conventional GNSS Signal Processing and Positioning 531
21.2.2 Basics of GNSS Signal Processing
The primary goal of a GNSS receiver is to accurately esti-
mate its PVT, which is typically accomplished by first esti-
mating the parameters in the signal model (Eq. (21.5)).
These estimates are used to construct a set of observables
per satellite. Observables are a set of ranges computed from
time-delay or phase-difference estimates, referred to as
pseudoranges and carrier-phase measurements, respec-
tively. Once a set of valid observables is computed, a geo-
metrical problem is solved to compute the PVT solution
for the receiver.
The received signal (Eq. (21.5)) is sampled at a suitable
sampling rate fs = 1/Ts, resulting in a discrete-time signal
x[n] = x(nTs) from which we aim to extract the observa-
bles. The propagation time of a signal, the time between
its transmission from the i-th satellite to the user, is con-
tinuously estimated by tracking algorithms. This time-
delay estimate (denoted by τi ) provides an estimation of
the distance between the i-th satellite and the user. Under
the maximum likelihood (ML) principle, the unknown
parameters in Eq. (21.5) are obtained by maximizing the
cross-ambiguity function (CAF) of the received signal
and the PRN sequence of the i-th satellite. In general, the
CAF is computed over a coherent integration time, in
which Nc PRN sequences are used to correlate with the
incoming signal. Additionally, Nnc CAFs can be averaged
over a non-coherent integration time to avoid bit transi-
tions. Here, we do not consider non-coherent integration
for the sake of simplicity, but some details can be found
in [2]. More formally,1 the i-th channel estimates [26] are
defined as
2
Lc N c
τi , f di = arg max x n ci nT s − τi exp − j2π f di nT s ,
τi , f di
n=0
21 6
where we recall that Lc is the length of the PRN
sequence ci( ). For convenience, the CAF is typically
parameterized as Λi τi , f di , showing the corresponding
satellite indicator and the relevant synchronization para-
Eq. (21.6) as
2 2
τi , f di = arg max Λi τ i , f d i ≜ x H ci
τi , f di
21 7
1 We use the convention to denote the Euclidean norm of
n-dimensional vector spaces in n and to denote the absolute value,
the latter coinciding with the norm on the one-dimensional
vector space.
532 21 Direct Position Estimation
where
x0
x= and
x Lc N c
ci − τ i
ci =
ci Lc N c T s − τi exp − j2π f di Lc N c T s
correspond to the LcNc snapshots and the local replica,
respectively.
The time-delay estimate, τi , is used to construct the
so-called pseudorange ρi = cτi Pseudoranges provide a
nonlinear relation between the user’s position (p = [x, y,
z] ) and the time delay of each satellite according to
the model
ρi = ϱi p + c δt − δt i + cΔTi + cΔIi + ϵi ,
where c is the speed of light, satellites are indexed by
i {1, …, M}, and the following definitions apply:
• τi is the time-delay estimate at the receiver for the LOS
emitted by the i-th satellite.
• ϱi(p) = pi − p is the geometric distance between the
receiver and the i-th satellite. pi = (xi, yi, zi) are the
coordinates of the i-th satellite in the Earth-Centered
Earth-Fixed (ECEF) coordinate system, which can be
computed from the ephemeris.
• δt is the bias of the receiver clock with respect to GNSS
time, which is unknown.
• δti is the clock bias of the i-th satellite with respect to
GNSS time, known from the ephemeris.
• ΔTi and ΔIi are the non-dispersive tropospheric delay
and the frequency-dependent ionospheric delay terms.
• The term ϵi includes errors from various sources such as
multipath biases, ephemeris errors‚ and relativistic
effects‚ among others.
The other important effect experienced by the signal is a
frequency shift. The observed carrier frequency at the
receiver differs from its nominal frequency due to Doppler
effect, which is caused by user-satellite relative motion.
Additionally, frequency shifts due to clock drifts (δt ) and
background errors are typically experienced on top of the Dop-
pler shifts. Accurate Doppler estimates yield precise velocity
calculations that are useful in positioning and navigation
applications with high user dynamics. The Doppler shift
due to the relative motion of the user and the i-th satellite is
fc
f di = − v i − v ui , 21 10
c
where v = (vx, vy, vz) and v i = vxi , vyi , vzi are the velocity
vectors of the user and the i-th satellite, respectively. ui
represents the unitary direction vector of the i-th satellite
relative to the user, defined as
pi − p
ui = 21 11
pi − p
and fc represents the corresponding carrier frequency used
by the GNSS. Doppler (and phase) estimates are used to
21 8 compute carrier-phase observables much more accurately
than the code observable described in Eq. (21.9).
Summing up, the baseband operation of current GNSS
receivers is briefly described. First, the receiver detects which
satellites are visible and obtains rough estimates of the time
delays and Doppler shifts of those satellites, expressed as
τ1 f d1
τ= and fd = 21 12
21 9 τM f dM
respectively. This initial operation is referred to as acquisi-
tion, and it can also be seen as an open-loop processing of
the data. Once the rough estimates are obtained, the receiver
can start operating in tracking mode. The tracking mode is
typically implemented in a closed-loop (CL) architecture –
that is, with phase lock loops (PLLs) and delay lock loops
(DLLs) – or an open-loop (OL) architecture in a challenging
environment, to obtain the accurate time delay, Doppler
shift, and carrier-phase estimations and thus ultimately
acquire accurate user position solutions. Ultimately, acqui-
sition and tracking operations aim at solving Eq. (21.7).
Regardless of the receiver operating architecture (OL or
CL), conventional GNSS receivers estimate user position, p,
from the computed observables. In this second step, the posi-
tion of the receiver is computed upon taking into account the
geometrical relation between the set of observables and the
user PVT. The resulting multilateration problem is typically
solved by a least-squares (LS) algorithm. Note that in this
process the receiver also needs to estimate the receiver clock
bias δt that represents the offset between the receiver time
and the GNSS time.
In its most simple form, that is, the single point solution
with code pseudoranges, the LS solution appears from a lin-
earized geometrical problem [6, 26, 27]. Such linearization
makes perfect sense, given that the nonlinearity is, in
essence, a sphere whose radius is on the order of tenths
of thousands of kilometers. Given that GNSS satellites orbit
between 15 000 and 30 000 km, and given that a GNSS
receiver tracking PRN code chip transitions must resolve
 21.3 DPE 533

uncertainties on the order of 100s of meters, the geometric the de facto technique for GNSS receivers. This is due to its
localization problem may be treated as linear for all but the modularity, reuse of well-known receiver blocks, and,
most precise applications. The problem is to compute the importantly, notable performance over the years. The two-
user’s position and clock offset from a set of M estimated step technique will be referred to as the conventional
pseudoranges. Thus, from Eq. (21.9), we form the following approach throughout the remainder of the chapter.
system of equations:
ρi + cδt i − ϵi = pi − p + cδt
21 13 21.3 DPE
i 1, …, M M≥4 ,
which results in a nonlinear and possibly overdetermined
Proposals for new techniques are blooming due to the
system. The condition M ≥ 4 is due to the dimensionality
advances in digital signal processing devices, which allow
of the problem. The system is usually solved iteratively
increased computational complexity at faster rates [29]. Over
by linearizing each ϱi(p) with respect to an initial position
the last years, advanced receiver techniques have been pre-
estimate (po = (xo, yo, zo) ) and iterating until convergence:
sented which substitute well-established components of
xi − xo yi − yo zi − zo two-step receivers by more sophisticated algorithms. These
ϱi p ϱoi + δ x + δ y + δz ,
ϱoi ϱoi ϱoi methods do not modify the architecture of the receiver, as
21 14 depicted in Figure 21.2(a), where acquisition and tracking
operations are as discussed in Section 21.2. For instance, sub-
where δx = x − x, δy = y − y, δz = z − z and
o o o
stitution of tracking loops by more versatile filtering solu-
ϱoi ≜ ϱi po = pi − po The Bancroft algorithm [28]
tions can be consulted in [30]. In this chapter, we are
provides an initial guess as to the position and the clock off-
interested in those approaches that not only substitute cer-
set of the user receiver without any prior knowledge.
tain parts of the receiver by more advanced algorithms,
Considering Eq. (21.14), the system in Eq. (21.13) can be
but those which entail an essential modification of the
formulated as the following LS problem:
receiver’s operation. Figure 21.2(b) shows an advanced
δ = arg min y − Tδ 2
, 21 15 architecture for a receiver which performs code/carrier
δ
estimation and position computation in a single step. This
where δ = δx , δy , δz , δt , is the basis of the so-called DPE concept in the context of
GNSS receivers [1]. It is worth noting the following here:
ρ1 + cδt 1 − ϵ1 − ϱo1
y=
ρM + cδt M − ϵM − ϱoM
,
• In DPE, an absolute initial position (or PVT, to be more
general) estimate has to be provided so that the method
can start exploring the space. This initialization can be
x1 − xo y1 − yo z1 − zo
1 either provided by an initial two-step process, as depicted
ϱo1 ϱo1 ϱo1 in Figure 21.2(b), where a coarse estimation of synchro-
T= , nization parameters is used to compute a rough naviga-
xM − xo yM − yo zM − zo tion solution that is used as the initial estimate in DPE’s
1
ϱoM ϱoM ϱoM algorithm, or provided by external means such as cellular
positioning or assistance GNSS data [31].
and the solution

† −1
δ=T y≜ T T H H
T y
is straightforwardly given by the Moore–Penrose pseudoin-
verse (T†). Therefore, we have that p = po + δ is the classi-
cal position estimation provided by GNSS receivers. Notice
that, once a new position is obtained, it can be used as ini-
tialization point for linearization iteratively until conver-
gence. This is the simplest way of formulating the PVT
solution as a LS optimization problem, which can be
enhanced by incorporating side information, measurements
weighting, and dynamics, for instance, using solutions based
on weighted least-squares (WLS) or Kalman filtering techni-
ques [17]. This positioning approach has established itself as
• Whereas tracking mode is typically implemented in CL
(through banks of parallel PLLs/DLLs) for two-step
21 16 approaches, OL schemes are also explored in the context
of snapshot receivers. Conversely, DPE’s tracking mode
is in general implemented in OL, which involves the opti-
mization of a cost function. This is the approach mainly
discussed in this chapter. However, CL schemes can also
be considered within DPE. This is mentioned in
Section 21.4.3, where references are provided and a
PVT filtering described.
DPE is a completely different approach to the receiver
design, where the PVT solution is estimated in one step.
Rather than estimating a set of observables (through time
delay and Doppler shifts) to infer the associated PVT, a
534 21 Direct Position Estimation
(a) Two-step approach
Acquisition υˆc
(OL)
x[n]
(b) DPE approach(self-initialized)
Position
initialization
x[n]
Figure 21.2 Acquisition and Tracking schemes for (a) two-step and (b) DPE positioning approaches. Coarse estimates of synchronization
parameters are referred to as υc, which are typically the outcome of the acquisition stage, whereas fine estimates are provided by tracking
loops, υ f . Similarly, γ c represents coarse PVT estimates and γ fine PVT estimates.
DPE-enabled receiver directly estimates PVT from the
received signal x[n] (hence the name). The method was first
introduced in the context of localization of narrowband
radio frequency transmitters [32] and for multiple radio sig-
nals [33]. In the context of self-localization, [1] presented
the approach for GNSS receivers, and related works exist
in the collective detection literature [34–37].
The key idea is to realize that time delays and Doppler
shifts of all satellites are intimately related to one another
through the receiver PVT parameters (which we gather
in a vector γ Rnγ ). Indeed, the fact that all those signals
are received at the same location and at the same time
instant is crucial. Inspecting Eqs. (21.9) and (21.10), we
can readily identify that, actually, τ ≜ τ γ and f d ≜ f d γ ,
respectively. Therefore, a value for γ implies a value for
all satellites’ time delays and Doppler shifts. One of the sim-
plest configurations for γ could be
γ = p , δt, v , δt , 21 17
encompassing PVT parameters. In contrast, the classical
solutions in Figure 21.2(a) aim to independently estimate
the CAF parameters for each channel. That is, Eq. (21.6)
is optimized over τi , f di . We can define the joint vector
of synchronization parameters as
υ ≜ υ1 , …, υM with υi = τi , f di
Intuitively, one can see DPE as a direct approach for esti-
mating γ without individual channel estimates. On the one
hand, the conventional approach estimates the different
time delays by maximizing the correlation between the sig-
nal and the conditioned PRN sequence of each satellite in
Tracking υ̂f Navigation
γ̂
(OL/CL) Solution
γ̂c DPE (OL/CL):
arg max { Λ (γ) } γˆ
γ
view, υi, individually. On the other hand, DPE defines a set
of candidate positions, determines the time delays associ-
ated with the positions, and computes the energy found
at the different correlation outputs jointly. In a way, the
local replica is generated by jointly combining all signals.
Then the tentative position that jointly maximizes correla-
tion with all considered satellites is selected through opti-
mization of a cost function. The cost function appears as
a result of deriving the ML estimator of the PVT parameters
directly from the received signal (Eq. (21.5)), which maxi-
mizes the addition of autocorrelation functions over the
M visible satellites [17, 38].
21.3.1 Qualitative Motivations for Direct-
Positioning
Although it is agreed that conventional two-step position-
ing has multiple benefits, some of its limitations have been
pointed out [6], which are precisely exploited by position-
domain techniques [39]. As mentioned earlier, thanks to
the advances in computation and software-defined radio
[29], some of the technological limitations that prevented
technology from going beyond two-step positioning have
been overcome. Some of these qualitative drawbacks or
limiting factors are as follows:
•
21 18
Estimates of the synchronization in Eq. (21.18), υ, are
obtained independently per satellite, omitting any potential
correlation among channels and propagation effects. The
errors are propagated to the LS solution, where a statistical
characterization is deemed challenging due to nonlineari-
ties. Therefore, the two-step approach does not take into

consideration possible dependencies among channels,
which could improve the estimation performance.
• Related to the previous point, a conventional GNSS
receiver may require 10-20 parallel channels in order to
process LOS signals and actively search for new signals
previously obscured by structures or the horizon. In case
of multi-constellation receivers, the number of channels
is even larger. Since the ultimate parameter of interest is
the PVT solution (i.e. position, velocity‚ and time defined
in a three-dimensional space, γ), it seems that there exists
a possible redundancy because the receiver performs esti-
mation in a higher-dimensional parameter space (delay
and Doppler for each channel, totaling 2M unknowns).
Thus, the conventional approach increases the dimen-
sionality of the problem with respect to the amount
strictly (and theoretically) required.
•
The use of prior information is not straightforward when
dealing with synchronization parameters. In the two-step
method, as mentioned in Section 21.2.2, side information
is typically introduced in the navigation solution once
observables have been computed. Using prior information
in the tracking loops is, in general, an involved task [40]
and would require extensive test-field campaigns to pro-
duce the relevant data [25], and the algorithm would need
to distinguish among a number of synchronization evolu-
tion models depending on the dynamics of the receiver.
This is much more difficult than considering prior infor-
mation when the parameter of interest is the user’s
position itself, γ, where the physical meaning of the param-
eter aids the inclusion of side information.
• Although the cross-correlation properties of spreading
sequences used in GNSS signals provide a rather high
processing gain, there is indeed a remaining multiple
access interference (MAI) that is not combated in con-
ventional receivers. This issue becomes critical when
the received power levels for the satellites are highly
unbalanced. To overcome this limitation, one could
incorporate multiple access techniques to GNSS recei-
vers, jointly processing signals from different satellites
[41], which is inherently achieved by DPE [2].
Direct positioning aims at addressing these shortcomings
by jointly processing signals from all satellites at the sample
level. The remainder of this section discusses quantitative
reasons for the superiority of DPE when compared to the
two-step approach. Then, we will derive the optimal posi-
tion estimator, under the ML principle, which shares a sim-
ilar structure as the two-step synchronization solution
discussed in Eq. (21.6).
21.3.2 Quantitative Motivations for Direct-
Positioning
In previous section‚ we discussed some qualitative reasons
for adopting DPE, as opposed to the two-step approach.
21.3 DPE 535
This section provides additional motivations, quantitative
in this case, to support DPE’s potential. First, we discuss
a result showing that DPE outperforms two-step positioning
in the mean square error (MSE) sense. Second, we discuss
some results on the theoretical lower bounds of positioning
accuracy, comparing both two-step and DPE approaches.
21.3.2.1 DPE Outperforms Two-Step Positioning
The following result provides a mathematical justification
for the fact that DPE provides asymptotically lower, or
equal, MSE than two-step positioning. In other words,
the result proves that the covariance of the two-step
approach cannot be smaller than the covariance of the
one-step estimator [42, 43]. Thus, the estimation perfor-
mance of the conventional approach can only be, at most,
equal to the one provided by the DPE approach. This result
is heavily based on [42].
Let υ υ Rnυ and γ γ Rnγ be two unknown
parameters such that there exists an injective function
g γ ↦ υ,
υ=g γ , γ γ 21 19
that relates them. In our case, function g( ) is given by the
PVT-observables relationship in Eqs. (21.9)–(21.10). Func-
tion g( ) has a unique inverse mapping
γ = g−1 υ , υ υ 21 20
under the subset υ = υ υ = g γ , γ γ υ.
The K-sample estimators of γ based on the single-step and
two-step approaches are denote by γ DPE and γ 2S , respec-
tively. Similarly, Σ γ DPE and Σ γ 2S represent the covari-
ance matrix of each estimator.
Then,
C ≜ lim Σ γ 2S − Σ γ DPE 21 21
K ∞
is a positive semi-definite matrix, which proves the main
result. The complete proof can be consulted in [17, Appen-
dix 4.A], where the details are provided.
21.3.2.2 A Note on Position Estimation Bounds
In the context of positioning (i.e. self-localization), results
exist where the Cramér–Rao lower bound (CRB) for PVT
estimation is derived for both positioning approaches, high-
lighting the potential benefits of adopting DPE [44, 45].
More recently, [46] provided additional results regarding
MSE performance bounds that yield a better understanding
of DPE and its potential. These bounds are based on the Ziv-
Zakai methodology. The so-called Ziv-Zakai bound (ZZB)
provides a bound on the MSE over the a priori probability
density function. The generic derivation of the bound can
be found in [47–49]. The ZZB allows us to determine, for
instance, the signal-to-noise ratio at which both DPE and
two-step approaches are able to operate before breaking
536 21 Direct Position Estimation

down (that is, before entering the large-error region). It turns we have that
out from this analysis that, under certain scenarios, there is
an increase in sensitivity for DPE on the order of 10log10(M) M M
SNRi SNRi
dB, M being the total number of used satellites [46]. 2Q 0 and Γ3 2
i=1
2 i=1
4
Although this effect was already observed in earlier works,
derivation of the new bound allows analytic interpretation 1
of the enhanced performance of DPE. Particularly, the lower
MSE bound when estimating γ is 21 28

that causes the bound to reach, in the asymptotic region,

M M
SNRi −1 SNRi the FIM of γ
ZZB γ = Rγ 2Q + γ Γ3 2
2 4
i=1 i=1 −1
ZZB γ γ , 21 29
SNR ∞
21 22
which corresponds to the CRB expression. More precisely,
where Rγ is the a priori covariance matrix of γ, which models
γ = PT τ P with P = 1c u1 , …, uM being the deriva-
the degree of a priori uncertainty about the parameter; γ
is the Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) of γ; Q x = tive of τ with respect to γ. The FIM of τ can be written as
∞
1 2π x exp − t 2 2 dt is the Q-function, expressed τ = β2s Γ, where Γ = diag(SNR1, …, SNRM) is a diagonal
M × M matrix with its diagonal elements given by the M × 1
in terms of the complementary error function as ∞
s t 2 dt
Q x = 1 2 erfc x 2 ; and Γa(x) is the incomplete SNR vector‚ and β2s = −∞∞ is the mean quadratic
2
gamma function given by − ∞ s t dt
bandwidth of s(t).
x
1
Γa x = e − v va − 1 dv 21 23 For the sake of completeness, we provide here some
Γa 0 insights on the ZZB of position estimates when two-steps
and Γ 3 2 = π 2 . The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per is considered. The ZZB for the time-delay estimation prob-
a2i lem was first given in [50], and then generalized for any
satellite is defined as SNRi =
N0 2
, assuming unitary a priori distribution of τi in [48]. The ZZB for estimating
energy for si(t). This result allows us to analyze the bound each individual time delay, τi, can be readily obtained fol-
in the high- and low-SNR regimes. At low SNRs, lowing that methodology and expressed in compact form
split in the low- and high-SNR terms:
M
SNRi 0, 21 24 2 SNRi −1 SNRi
E τi − τ i ≥ σ 2τi 2Q + τ i Γ3 2
i=1 2 4

we have that ≜ ZZB τi

21 30
M
SNRi Then, the position MSE bound conditioned to using a
2Q 1 and
2 −1
i=1
21 25 two-step scheme turns out to be PT ZZB − 1 τ P , where
M
SNRi ZZB τ = diag ZZB τ1 , …, ZZB τ M is a diagonal M × M
Γ3 2 0 matrix constructed with the individual bound expressions
4
i=1
for each satellite. The a priori variance of τi is represented
by σ 2τi and (τi) is the FIM of τi [45]. In specific situations,
such that, asymptotically, the bound is dominated by the a
priori covariance matrix for instance‚ when the satellites are received with the same
power, one can show analytically the log10(M) dB improve-
ZZB γ Rγ 21 26 ment of DPE with respect to the two-step approach. A more
SNR 0
general result can be obtained [46, 51] showing that
−1
Conversely, in the high-SNR regime, ZZB γ − PT ZZB − 1 τ P is a positive semi-definite
M
matrix, although the improvement cannot be computed
SNRi ∞, 21 27 in closed form in the general case and can only be shown
i=1 through Monte Carlo simulations.
 21.3 DPE 537

21.3.3 ML Estimation of Position: Direct concatenation of the M local codes, defined in Eq. (21.8),
Positioning resulting in
Parameter estimation methods have been thoroughly cov- C γ = c1 , …, cM CK × M 21 34
ered in the literature [52]. The ML principle presents an
We first take into account that the MLE is equivalent to
optimal paradigm to obtain a parameter estimator that
the solution obtained by an LS criterion under the assump-
asymptotically attains its lower variance bound (i.e. the
tion of zero-mean AWGN. Neglecting additive and multi-
bounds discussed earlier), as the number of samples goes
plicative constants, maximizing the likelihood function
to infinity. ML is based on maximization of the likelihood
defined by Eq. (21.33) is equivalent to minimizing the fol-
function, constructed from the conditional probability of
lowing cost function:
measurements given a parameter value. In general, for a
set of K recorded samples gathered in x, the maximum like- 2
Λ a, γ = x − C γ a 21 35
lihood estimator (MLE) of a parameter γ is the solution to
with respect to a, γ. Expanding Eq. (21.35),
γ ML = arg max
γ
px γ 21 31
Λ a, γ = xH x − xH C γ a − aH CH γ x + aH CH γ C γ a
Under mild regularity conditions, the asymptotical distri- 21 36
bution (for large data sets) of the estimator satisfies
and taking the derivative with respect to aH, we obtain
−1
γ ML γ, γ , 21 32 ∂Λ a, γ
= − CH γ x + CH γ C γ a 21 37
∂aH
where γ is the FIM evaluated at the true value of the
parameter. which equated to zero gives us the desired estimation of
Thus, the claim is that the MLE is asymptotically effi- complex amplitudes:
cient; that is, it attains the lowest variance predicted by −1
a = CH γ C γ Cγ x 21 38
the CRB as K increases or the SNR is sufficiently high. γ=γ

The regularity conditions include the existence of the deri- The first term, the one in the inverse, can be simplified
vatives of the log-likelihood function and the FIM being taking into account the cross-correlation and autocorrela-
nonzero. For further details, refer to [52, Appendix 7.B]. tion properties of the PRN codes used in GNSS, although
For the purposes of this chapter, we are interested in deriv- that simplification might not be accurate in binary offset
ing the ML of position, γ , in a GNSS receiver due to the carrier (BOC) modulations, which feature (multiple) sec-
aforementioned asymptotic (and desirable) properties. ondary lobes. That is, we consider that the normalized
Interestingly, the MLE of position [53], which is derived CAF is such that
from the likelihood of x in Eq. (21.5), does not necessarily
coincide with the position estimation computed in a two- i c j ≈ 0 if i
cH j 21 39
step position. cH
i ci =1 21 40
To derive the MLE of position from Eq. (21.5), we first
express the observations in vector form. Assuming that K to simplify
samples are processed and that the integration time is such
cH
1
that no bit transitions exist (or they can be removed by
other means), we can write x = C υ a + n, or equivalently CH γ C γ = c1 , , cM

x = C γ a + n, 21 33 cH
M
cH
1 c1 cH
1 c2 cH
1 cM
where x ℂK × 1 is the observed signal vector; a ℂM × 1 is a
cH
2 c1 cH
2 c2 cH
2 cM
vector whose elements are the complex amplitudes of the M
= ≈I RM × M
received signals a = (a1, …, aM) ; υ R2M × 1 gathers τ and
fd, that is, time delays and Doppler shifts of each visible sat-
ellite. However, in DPE we make use of the re- cH
M c1 cH
M c2 cH
M cM

parameterization υ ≜ υ γ ; n ℂK × 1 represents K snap- 21 41

shots of zero-mean additive white Gaussian noise and rewrite Eq. (21.38) as
(AWGN) with piecewise constant variance σ 2n = N 0 2 dur-
ing the observation interval; and C γ is composed of the a = C γ x γ=γ 21 42
538 21 Direct Position Estimation

Substitution of a in Eq. (21.36) yields a cost function that 21.3.4 Some Intuitions
depends on γ
We conclude this section providing some additional quali-
Λ a, γ = x x − x C γ C
H H H
γ x 21 43 tative intuition as to why DPE outperforms the two-step
approach. We saw that, theoretically it does, and that the
and the MLE of position is given by cost function is constructed such that the effective SNR is
augmented. In this subsection‚ we carry out a small exper-
γ = arg min Λ a, γ 21 44
γ iment comparing the cost functions of both two-step and
DPE approaches to observe how they are affected by a mul-
= arg min xH x − xH C γ CH γ x 21 45
γ tipath disturbance. For DPE, the cost function is plotted
2 with only x and y coordinates as variable terms and fixing
= arg max xH C γ CH γ x = arg max xH C γ ,
γ γ the rest of elements in γ to their true values. In particular, a
21 46 constellation of M = 6 GPS satellites minimizing the geo-
metrical dilution of precision is simulated, all received with
which can be further manipulated to obtain a more com- a carrier-to-noise density ratio (C/N0) of 45 dB-Hz and
pact expression that depends on the individual CAFs asso- transmitting the C/A code signal. At the receiver, the signal
ciated to each satellite is bandpass-filtered at 2 MHz, and an integration time of
M 1 ms is configured. Note that, for the sake of a better visu-
2
γ = arg max x H ci γ 21 47 alization, the cost function is inverted and normalized in
γ
i=1 the plots, turning the optimization into the minimization
in Eq. (21.45). The plots in Figure 21.4 represent the cost
To obtain that expression, we used
functions for both positioning approaches as a function
xH C γ = xH c1 , …, cM = xH c1 , …, xH cM of the error on the corresponding parameters. In benign
situations, both functions have a clear global optimum.
21 48
In contrast, when a multipath replica is present for one
Note that the resulting cost function in the DPE approach of the satellites the behavior of the cost function differs.
is the non-coherent addition of the CAFs from the M In particular, Figure 21.5 is generated by adding an echo
satellites, M ≜ M
2 2 for one satellite (3 dB lower than the LOS). Whereas DPE’s
i = 1 x ci γ i = 1 Λi γ = Λ γ , virtually
H

augmenting the effective SNR proportionally. Additional
coherent/non-coherent integrations can be considered to
extend Eq. (21.48), as described in [2]. An example of the
shape of Λ γ is shown in Figure 21.3. Since the MLE esti-
mator is consistent, the cost function is optimized at the
true PVT solution. It was shown that DPE provides addi-
tional robustness [54, 55] in challenging cases.
cost function remains virtually unaltered by this effect, two-
step’s cost function exhibits a strong secondary optimum
due to the presence of a correlated signal. Furthermore,
the two-step solution can be trapped in such a local opti-
mum, yielding to potentially large biases in range and
velocity estimation. Considering that position is jointly esti-
mated with the information of all visible satellites, a sort of
diversity is introduced in this estimation as the propagation
path for each satellite link is independent.

highest vector correlation vector correlation

MLE solution amplitude
21.4 Implementation Aspects

We have seen in Section 21.3 that the DPE’s solution

expected signal reception at
involves an optimization problem that cannot be solved
a navigation candidate in closed form. In particular, each candidate solution γ
actual signal reception
at GPS antenna requires evaluation of a certain number of correlator out-
)
rth puts, which is known to be computationally intensive. This
(No
on
position
(E siti section discusses some approaches when it comes to imple-
ast) po
menting DPE on a software-defined radio (SDR) receiver.
Figure 21.3 The manifold of the vector correlation amplitudes Figure 21.6 depicts this situation. DPE performs a direct
Λ γ , shown in the east-north position domain [54]. Source: search, with inherent joint optimization across multiple
Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation. satellites, for the navigation solution on the signal
(a) The two-step approach (b) DPE

1 1

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

Λ (γ)
Λ (υ)

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
2 1000
1 4000 500 1000
0 2000 0 500
0 –500 0
–1 –2000 –500
τi – τˆi [Tc] –2 –4000 fdi – fˆdi [Hz] y – yˆ [m] –1000 –1000 x – xˆ [m]

Figure 21.4 Comparison of cost functions for two-step and DPE optimization problems [2]. In the two-step approach, it is a function of
the synchronization parameters of the locally generated code of the i-th satellite, υ. In DPE, the cost function is parametrized by the PVT
parameters gathered in γ. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

(a) The two-step approach (b) DPE

1 1

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6
Λ (γ)
Λ (υ)

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
2 1000
1 4000 500 1000
0 2000 0 500
0 0
–1 –500
–2000 –500
τi – τˆi [Tc] –2 –4000 fdi – fˆdi [Hz] y – yˆ [m] –1000 –1000 x – xˆ [m]

Figure 21.5 Comparison of cost functions for two-steps and DPE optimization problems in the presence of a replica for one of the
satellites [2]. The echo has 3 dB less power than the corresponding LOS. In two-steps, a strong secondary optimum appears, whereas the
DPE cost function is virtually unaltered. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

DPE
solution

initialize multiple correlate expected signal

candidates in the receptions at candidate perform MLE
navigation domain states with received signal on correlations

Figure 21.6 Overview of the evaluation of candidate points of DPE. The grid points represent PVT candidates initialized in the navigation
domain; the color saturation of the grid points represents cost function magnitude [58].
540 21 Direct Position Estimation
correlations [56–58]. The basic steps, found in Figures 21.2
(b) and 21.6, to implement DPE on a receiver would be
1) To provide some sort of initialization, which can be pro-
vided either by using two-step schemes or by exter-
nal means.
2) The second step is optimization of the cost function in
Eq. (21.48). This process involves the selection of candi-
date points for γ, which results in some τi , f di candi-
date pairs for each visible satellite. The τi , f di
candidate pairs are then used to generate the expected
signal reception at candidate states. Next, correlations
are computed between the local replicas at candidate
states and the received signal, and Λ( ) is evaluated.
3) The third step is to perform MLE through optimizing the
cost function. These steps are performed each time new
measurements are available.
The main challenge of implementing DPE is the compu-
tational load. Related work on improving DPE’s computa-
tional efficiency includes use of sparsely located navigation
candidates [59], reducing the number of required naviga-
tion candidates [3, 53, 60], efficient techniques for calculat-
ing multiple correlations [61], and efficient techniques for
estimating the navigation solution given the vector correla-
tion distribution [59]. To improve the efficiency of initiali-
zation, coarse-grid search [59] and initialization using
Assisted-GNSS (A-GNSS) [62] were proposed.
To improve the efficiency after initialization near the
main vector correlation peak, optimization over navigation
subsets was proposed. One such implementation used
parameter grouping by position/clock bias and velocity/
clock drift [3, 59]. It has been shown that, according to this
decoupling, parameters within subsets are strongly corre-
lated‚ while parameters across subsets are weakly corre-
lated. The subsets can then be separately optimized.
Other subset optimization implementations used parame-
ter grouping where each parameter formed its own subset
[63, 64], which can be solved algorithmically through
space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization
(SAGE) [53]. These subset optimization methods reduce
the number of required navigation candidates and thus
the overall computational load. However, they are sensitive
to initialization [53], which can be addressed using
stochastic optimization methods such as accelerated ran-
dom search (ARS) [60]. To increase the chances of initial-
ization near the main navigation correlation peak for
subsequent DPE measurement updates, motion model fil-
tering can be performed between DPE measurement
updates [3, 65].
In this section, we present some DPE implementation
techniques in detail. The remainder of this section discusses
(i) subset optimization strategies, (ii) faster local replica gen-
eration and correlation through fast Fourier transforms
(FFTs), (iii) CL tracking schemes, and (iv) how to implement
low duty-cycling, performing DPE updates only a fraction of
the time instead of calculating it continuously.
21.4.1 Grid Optimization by Divide and Conquer
Divide and conquer [66] is an algorithmic approach
adopted in many signal processing applications, which
breaks down a complex problem into two or more subpro-
blems that are easier to solve. In addition, this methodology
allows the exploitation of parallel structures in hardware
architectures, and makes use of concurrency and multi-
threading scheduling when designing under the SDR para-
digm. This is one of the reasons for adopting two-step
architectures in GNSS receivers: independent per-satellite
channel track delay-Doppler maps, which are then fused
in an LS solution as detailed in Section 21.2.
In the context of DPE positioning, a similar approach can be
adopted in selecting the candidate points. It might be desira-
ble to split γ into sets of correlated parameters. One
way to reduce the number of candidates is to group the
navigation parameters into two subsets: position/clock bias
γ 1 = p ,δt and velocity/clock drift γ 2 = v ,δt [3, 67].
Co-estimation of γ 1 and γ 2 reduces the number of
navigation candidates from N 8c to 2N 4c, in the case of Nc can-
didate points for each of the eight navigation search
dimensions.
Estimation of γ 1 is relatively insensitive to departure from
the γ 2 search center and vice versa [3]. This is because the
correlation amplitude with respect to γ 1 is maintained over
a relatively broad range; the same is true for the correlation
amplitude with respect to γ 2. Thus, the estimation of γ 1 and
γ 2 parameters can be safely decoupled
γ 1 = arg max Λ γ 1 , γ 2 21 49
γ1
γ 2 = arg max Λ γ 1 , γ 2 21 50
γ2
When decoupled, the CAF’s amplitude Λi p, δt, v, δt
for varying γ 1 candidates with respect to a γ 2 fixed near the
γ 2 search center is given in Eq. (21.51). The normalized
correlation amplitude Λi p, δt, v, δt for varying γ 2 can-
didates with respect to a γ 1 fixed near the γ 1 search center is
given in Eq. (21.52).
1− Δτi , 0 ≤ Δτi ≤ 1
Λi p, δt, v, δt ≈
0, otherwise
21 51
Λi p, δt, v, δt ≈ sinc π Δ f di ΔT , 21 52
where Δτi is the delay error between the candidate delay
τi γ 1 and the search center. Similarly, Δ f di represents
the frequency error between candidate f di γ 2 and the
search center for γ 2 . Note that these ideas resemble those
of DLLs and PLLs in standard receiver architectures.
 21.4 Implementation Aspects 541

ˆ
ˆ δt ˆ δt
correlations across candidates p, ˆ
correlations across candidates p,

normalized amplitude

normalized amplitude
width = 1 code chip width = 1/ΔT

Δτi = 0 Δfd = 0
i

Figure 21.7 Shape and width of (left) correlation amplitude Λi p, δt, v, δt for varying position/clock-bias candidates with respect to a

fixed velocity/clock-drift; (right) correlation amplitude Λi p, δt, v, δt for varying velocity/clock-drift candidates with respect to a fixed
position/clock-bias [58].

The expression for the CAF in Eq. (21.51) assumes suc- Λi p, cδt, v, cδt = −1 ∗
x ci p, cδt, v, cδt
cessful navigation bit and carrier wipe-off of the received
signal near the γ 2 search center. Likewise, the expression 21 53
in Eq. (21.52) assumes successful navigation bit and code
wipe-off near the γ 1 search center. The shape and width Batch pre-processing using FFTs more efficiently calcu-
of the two CAFs, where one of the sets of parameters is lates multiple correlations. The batch pre-process is a result
fixed, is illustrated in Figure 21.7. of Eq. (21.53). To form the vector correlation, we first calcu-
late the τ γ associated with each candidate p, cδt. We then
assign the FFT results to the navigation candidates, using
21.4.2 Batch Pre-Processing of Correlations linear interpolation for τ γ values between FFT points.
Using Fast Fourier Transforms In addition, these operations can be performed in parallel
As in two-step positioning, one can exploit the circular cor- for all navigation candidates. Similarly, the correlation
relation properties of the PRN codes to speed up correlation Λi p, δt, v, δt for varying velocity/clock-drift candidates
through the FFT [27]. The correlation Λi p, cδt, v, c δt for
with respect to a fixed position/clock bias is approximated
varying position/clock-bias candidates with respect to a ∗
as the Fourier transform x ci p, cδt, v, c δt .
fixed velocity/clock drift in Eq. (21.51) can be implemented
in the frequency domain. Let us use ( ) to represent the The above computations are carried out in two parallel
Fourier transform operator and −1( ) the inverse Fourier threads as in Figure 21.8, one for correlations and the other
transform. Then, for the Fourier transforms.
Normalized correlation amplitude

Normalized spectrum magnitude

1.0 1.0

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0.0
–300 –200 –100 0 100 200 300 –300 –200 –100 0 100 200 300
code phase residual Δϕ (m) carrier frequency residual Δf (m/sec)

Across N satellites for the kth receiver

Figure 21.8 Correlation amplitude with respect to code residuals (left) and magnitude of the spectral density with respect to carrier
residuals across satellites (right) [68]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation.
542 21 Direct Position Estimation

21.4.3 Filtering of DPE’s PVT Solution matrix, which incorporates possible knowledge regarding
the motion dynamics of the receiver. For instance, given
The implementations considered so far operate in OL. To
that ΔT is the time in seconds between two consecutive
improve the accuracy of DPE, CL tracking of the navigation
instants k and k + 1, we can use
solution can be implemented, as suggested in [3, 17, 64,
69–72]. We mentioned earlier that DPE is a suitable frame- I4 ΔTI4
Fk + 1 = 21 60
work to introduce a priori information about γ that 04 I4
one might have [73]. In the context of CL schemes, this
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
is particularly relevant since dynamics can be exploited.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
A methodology for how this can be actually implemented
using nonlinear filtering is described in [69]. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
A simpler, yet effective, alternative is to smooth DPE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Qk = F k + 1 FTk + 1
results using a low-pass filter. For instance, implementa- 0 0 0 0 σ 2v 0 0 0
tion with an optimal Kalman filter (KF) allows for easy 0 0 0 0 0 σ 2v 0 0
incorporation of motion models and integration of informa- 0 0 0 0 0 0 σ 2v 0
tion from prior measurements into the estimation process 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 σ2
[73]. The KF has two main steps: a measurement update δt

step and a time update step [74, 75]. 21 61

Recall that, at the discrete time instant k, the observations
of this KF are the estimated PVT parameters from DPE’s
optimization process, which we denote by yk in the follow-
ing discussion. These are noisy measurements of the true
PVT, whose likelihood is assumed normally distributed as
yk γk γ k , Rk , 21 54
where, according to Eq. (21.54), we know that Rk asymptot-
ically reaches the FIM of the parameters of interest, − 1 γ .
Therefore, the measurement update at time k is given by
γ k k = I − Kk γ k k − 1 + Ky k 21 55
Σ k k = I − Kk Σ k k − 1 21 56
−1
Kk = Σ k k − 1 Σ k k − 1 + R k , 21 57
where the state γ k k is estimated along with its covariance
Σk k taking into account the new observations yk, and
the predicted stated and covariance, γ k k and Σk k, respec-
tively. In these equations‚ I represents the identity matrix.
Those predictions incorporate historical information regard-
ing previous observations. This scheme integrates prior nav-
igation solutions into the estimation process [70].
In the time update step, the next receiver state γ k + 1 k is
predicted using, for instance, a constant acceleration
motion model [3, 65, 76]. This approach incorporates vehi-
cle accelerations using a dynamic process noise model on
the velocities [77–79]. Then,
γ k + 1 k = Fk + 1 γ k k 21 58
Σk + 1 k = Fk + 1 Σk k FTk + 1 + Qk , 21 59
where Σk + 1 k is the predicted state error at time k + 1, and
Qk is the dynamic process noise. Fk + 1 is the propagation
where I4 and 04 represent the identity and all-zero square
matrices of dimension 4, respectively.
The dynamic process noise model captures the intuition
that it is more difficult for a vehicle’s velocity to change
when its speed is large as compared to when its speed is
small. Thus, vehicle acceleration, modeled as noise, is lower
when the vehicle’s speed is large and higher when the vehi-
cle’s speed is small.
21.4.4 Low Duty-Cycling
Low duty-cycling performs DPE for a fraction of the time
instead of calculating constantly. Duty-cycling DPE is par-
ticularly promising to mitigate the high computation cost of
DPE. Instead of computing DPE-based solutions for all
integration times, some are skipped for the sake of saving
computations. In other words, a DPE-based receiver can
operate intermittently, which may not work so well for
tracking loop-dependent conventional receivers. Research
has demonstrated viable DPE operation even at quite low
duty cycle rates [80]. The duty-cycled DPE receiver archi-
tecture is shown in Figure 21.9. The measurement update
uses optimization over navigation parameter subsets,
combines and computes batch signal replica generation
and correlation using FFTs, and estimates the navigation
solution. The exact computation time depends on signal
sampling parameters and the number of satellites in view.
During the time required to compute the DPE measure-
ment update, we iteratively predict satellite movements,
using the satellite broadcast ephemerides, and update
the signal code phase and carrier Doppler frequency
parameters. This DPE time update reduces the accumula-
tion of signal tracking errors during the time in which
the DPE receiver is not performing any DPE measurement
update.
 21.5 DPE Variants 543

Measurement update process Time update process

Initialize over yes no

navigation subsets Switch on?

Batch replica generation Correct signal state

20 ms and correlation using
snippet FFT and linear
interpolation Get satellite PVT

MLE Get satellite

PVT
using weighted ave. transmit time

Correct receiver state Increment receiver state

Correct signal state Increment signal state

Figure 21.9 Block diagram of duty-cycled DPE receiver architecture [79]. Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation.

20 ms 1s
... on DPE time update on DPE time update on ...

DPE measurement update DPE measurement update DPE ...

PVT PVT PVT PVT

Figure 21.10 Overview of duty-cycled DPE receiver architecture with DPE measurement update and DPE time update [80].
Source: Reproduced with permission of Institute of Navigation.

An implementation with a duty-cycling factor of 2% has 21.5.1 Direct Timing Estimation

succeeded in providing positioning updates at 1 Hz [80].
The implementation has the following parameters, as
shown in Figure 21.10:
1) Perform 1 DPE measurement update every second on a
20 ms GNSS raw signal snippet during which the GNSS
receiver is “on.”
2) Perform 49 DPE time updates during the 980 ms in
which the GNSS receiver is “off.”
21.5 DPE Variants
So far, we have analyzed DPE in the context of PVT estima-
tion. This section discusses alternative uses of the DPE con-
cept, which sometimes require additional tuning but are
conceptually similar to what we have seen in previous sec-
tions. We intentionally wanted to keep this material at a
basic level just to give the flavor, avoiding deep theoretical
derivations and providing the main concept and references
instead.
Many GNSS-based applications do not need a full PVT
solution. For example, GNSS provides timing and syn-
chronization to critical infrastructures [81–84] such as
cellular communication network, financial transactions‚
and the power grid. Such applications only require the
time (i.e. clock and clock-drift) element‚ and the position
information of the GNSS receivers are often known. By
using the prior information available to the timing-
focused receiver, the DPE search domain can be reduced
to the two clock parameters in a Direct Time Estimation
(DTE) problem. DTE naturally reduces the computation
load challenge, while maintaining DPE’s advantage in
terms of robustness [85].
The architecture of DTE is comprised of two main stages.
First, a two-dimensional search space is generated with
clock bias and clock-drift parameters δt and δt, respectively.
A combined satellite signal replica is generated for each
grid point by utilizing the known receiver and satellite
three-dimensional position and velocity vectors. Then,
non-coherent vector correlation is performed to obtain
weights that are derived proportional to the likelihood of
the point in the grid, as described in Eq. (21.47). After
544 21 Direct Position Estimation

Clock Bias
Receiver 3D All satellites
position and 3D position
Across the
velocity and velocity
candidates in
search space
Clock Drift

Combined satellite Maximum

signal replica likelihood

Correlation valve
clock state

Vector
Correlation
Incoming raw

t
cδ
GPS signal

)
cδt

(m
t
cδ
cδt

as
cδt

bi
Cloc

cδ
k dr

k
oc
ift (m cδt

t
cδ
/s

Cl
)

Figure 21.11 Diagram of the first stage of DTE, where the MLE cost function is the computed CAFs across satellites [85].
Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

optimizing the ML cost function, an MLE of the clock para- Yaw

meters is computed tML = δt, δt at that instant.

Figure 21.11 shows the first stage of DTE. Based on the pre-
dicted clock estimate, the error measurement values are
computed and sent to the second stage, where a KF is in
charge of computing the corrected clock bias and clock-
drift parameters. This KF acts similarly as the low-pass fil-
tering solution presented in Section 21.4.3.

21.5.2 Multi-Receiver DPE and DTE Four manifolds are projected to

Multi-receiver-DPE (MR-DPE) extends the DPE concept to
the situation where a network of DPE-enabled receivers is
available. Such multi-receiver architecture can provide per-
formance benefits, as additional information redundancy is
exploited. The receiver elements form a network to generate
a unified, network-wise PVT solution. MR-DPE improves
receiver robustness of the following aspects: (i) on the
receiver level, MR-DPE inherits robustness from individual
DPE receivers; (ii) on the network level, since the baselines
among the antennas are fixed and assumed known, one can
relate receivers’ measurements among them through linear
transformations, providing measurement redundancy; and
(iii) while each of these antennas associated with the GNSS
receiver elements may have a different, incomplete sky view,
they together create a more complete observation by aggre-
gating the information these antennas respectively capture,
providing geometric redundancy.
As an example, Figure 21.12 depicts a potential use in the
context of aircraft positioning. The measurement aggrega-
tion process takes place by fusing the different MLE cost
functions of the form in Eq. (21.35) by projecting toward
the centroid. In the figure, a rigid platform represented
by a fixed-wing aircraft is shown with four DPE-enabled
and overlap at centroid
Figure 21.12 Example of aggregation of MLE cost functions.
They are projected to the centroid of the network, with knowledge
of antenna baselines and aircraft yaw, pitch, and roll (the latter two
are not shown) [86]. Source: Reproduced with permission of
Institute of Navigation.
receivers at its vertices. MR-DPE operates iteratively to esti-
mate the network’s PVT coordinate [86]. Similarly, the
multi-receiver concept has been applied to DTE as multi-
receiver DTE [68, 87].
21.5.3 Joint GNSS-Vision DPE
Here we briefly comment on the fusion of GNSS and cam-
era measurements through DPE’s principle. The direct-
positioning concept can be applied similarly to both GNSS
and vision-based positioning. It is possible to formulate the
MLE for both cases. In other words, one searches for the
underlying position parameters that maximize the correla-
tion with the GNSS raw signals and camera images. In
vision-based positioning, the image replicas are selected
from a database of geotagged reference images. An example
of a suitable database is Google Street View [89, 90], where
 21.5 DPE Variants 545

Deep Coupling

LOS Projections Initialization

Feature Matching
Vector Correlation x, y, z, cdt, Filter
GPS DP x, y, z, cdt,
x, y, z, cdt
x, y, z, cdt
Time
Coor. Transform
Update

Feature Matching
Measurement
Feature-based Update PVT
x, y, z
Homography
Vision DP

Tracking

Figure 21.13 Block diagram describing joint GNSS-vision DPE [88]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

the images are indexed by latitude, longitude, heading‚ and
tilt. Image features, such as those obtained from the
Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF feature extractor, can
be used to match consecutive frames. By estimating the
camera's translation through traditional computer vision
approaches, navigation-domain measurements can be gen-
erated. These navigation-domain vision measurements are
easily fused with the navigation-domain likelihood mani-
fold of DPE, providing deep integration of the sensors
[91]. The direct measurements from both GNSS and vision
are then combined in a navigation filter.
An example block diagram is shown in Figure 21.13. Each
iteration of the joint GNSS-vision DPE begins from a prediction,
provided by the navigation filter, of the current navigation
parameters. Navigation candidates may be initialized around
the current navigation prediction. Constraints are used to elim-
inate candidates and reduce the computation load, for instance,
by requiring that a road user has to be on the road.
Initialization of the navigation guesses is followed by fea-
ture matching, as shown in Figure 21.14. GNSS DPE uses
vector correlation to get the likelihood distribution across
the navigation guesses, estimating the mean and variance.
Vision DPE is unable to get a similar continuous likelihood
distribution. The replica sampling in Vision DPE is discrete
and depends on the reference database. In addition, vision
feature matching is susceptible to spurious results. A robust
Vision DPE algorithm is inspired by a combination of prior
work by other researchers [92, 93]. Two rounds are involved.

Guessed candidates
Perform feature matching

Vector Correlation Feature Matching

Homography

Figure 21.14 GNSS feature matching using the vector correlator (left). Vision feature matching using vision features and homography
analysis (right) [88]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
546 21 Direct Position Estimation
In the first round, 2D features are extracted from the reference
images [94], after which feature matching is performed
between the reference images and the observed image. The
reference images are then ranked according to their overall
feature distance to the observed image. The lower the overall
feature distance, the better the match. A threshold on the
overall feature distance is used to select potential reference
images. In the second round, homography analysis is used
to verify that the reference image and observed image are gen-
erated from a similar camera view [95–97].
21.6 Conclusions
DPE is an emerging concept in the design of advanced
GNSS receivers. At a glance, DPE estimates a receiver’s
PVT using signals from all satellites jointly at the sample
level, thus avoiding the intermediate step of computing
observables. DPE-enabled receivers are known to improve
metrics such as accuracy (reducing the positioning error,
particularly in scenarios where conventional solutions fail,
such as in urban canyons), reliability (allowing for nearly
optimal operation in cases where the received signal is
severely degraded), and availability (increasing the receiver
sensitivity). The main drawback of DPE with respect to
two-step positioning is its increased computational burden.
However, researchers have begun to explore approxima-
tions, assumptions, and computing methods that reduce
the limitations of this load.
This chapter introduced standard GNSS signal processing
and describes how DPE modifies existing architectures.
Both qualitative and quantitative arguments were given
in support of DPE, even providing theoretical estimation
bounds. We derived the MLE of position, resulting in a cost
function that shares many similarities with the popular
CAF. The chapter also provided a deep discussion of prac-
tical implementation aspects as well as variants and appli-
cations in several fields. Future work includes designing
more efficient methodologies for implementing DPE with
less computational cost as well as principled methods to
fuse heterogeneous information from several sources.
21.7 Acknowledgments
Pau Closas would like to highlight that the part of this work
related to the estimation bounds is the fruit of joint works
with his colleague Adrià Gusi-Amigó. Grace X. Gao would
like to acknowledge that this chapter is based on a number
of students’ theses, papers‚ and presentations in her research
group, including by Yuting Ng, Arthur Chu, and Sriramya
Bhamidipati. She is thankful to Matthew Peretic and
Sriramya Bhamidipati for reviewing the chapter. Pau Closas
has been partially supported by the National Science Foun-
dation under Awards CNS-1815349 and ECCS-1845833.
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98 Z. Wang, A.C. Bovik, H.R. Sheikh, and E.P. Simoncelli,
“Image quality assessment: From error visibility to
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Processing, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 600–612, 2004.

22
Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
Gary A. McGraw1, Paul D. Groves2, and Benjamin W. Ashman3
1
Collins Aerospace, United States
2
University College London, United Kingdom
3
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, United States
22.1 Introduction
GNSS signals can be blocked and reflected by nearby
objects, such as buildings, walls, and vehicles. They can also
be reflected by the ground and by water. These effects are
the dominant source of GNSS positioning errors in dense
urban environments, though they can have an impact
almost anywhere. Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) reception
occurs when the direct path from the transmitter to the
receiver is blocked and signals are received only via a
reflected path. Multipath interference occurs, as the name
suggests, when a signal is received via multiple paths. This
can be via the direct path and one or more reflected paths,
or it can be via multiple reflected paths. Figure 22.1 illus-
trates this. Within the GNSS community, it is commonplace
to classify NLOS reception as multipath. However, the two
effects are not the same; their error characteristics are quite
different. As a reflected path is always longer than the direct
path, NLOS reception always results in a positive ranging
error that is independent of the signal and receiver design.
By contrast, the coherent nature of multipath interference
can produce both positive and negative ranging errors‚ and
these vary with the signal and receiver designs [1].
As their error characteristics are different, NLOS and
multipath interference typically require different mitiga-
tion techniques, though some techniques are applicable
to both. Antenna design and advanced receiver signal pro-
cessing techniques can substantially reduce multipath
errors. Unless an antenna array is used, NLOS reception
has to be detected using the receiver’s ranging and
carrier-power-to-noise-density ratio (C/N0) measurements
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
c22.3d 551
551
and mitigated within the positioning algorithm. Some NLOS
mitigation techniques can also be used to combat severe
multipath interference. Multipath interference, but not
NLOS reception, can also be mitigated by comparing or com-
bining code and carrier measurements, comparing ranging
and C/N0 measurements from signals on different frequen-
cies, and analyzing the time evolution of the ranging and
C/N0 measurements.
Section 22.2 describes the characteristics of reflected and
diffracted signals and how they produce NLOS and multipath
errors. Section 22.3 describes how multipath errors can be
reduced using advanced receiver design and signal processing
techniques, including antenna design considerations,
correlation signal processing‚ and adaptive antenna array
processing. Section 22.4 covers carrier smoothing of code
measurements, which is a technique for mitigating both
noise and multipath. Section 22.5 describes real-time naviga-
tion-processor-based NLOS and multipath mitigation techni-
ques, including C/N0-based detection and weighting, outlier
detection, and aiding from other sensors. Section 22.6 then
describes multipath mitigation techniques for post-processed
high-precision positioning that work by analyzing time series
of GNSS measurement data. Finally, Section 22.7 describes
three-dimensional-mapping-aided (3DMA) GNSS. This
improves real-time positioning in dense urban environments
by using 3D mapping to predict which signals are NLOS at
which locations. This can be used to enhance conventional
ranging-based positioning and to implement shadow match-
ing, a complementary GNSS positioning technique that
determines position by comparing predicted and measured
C/N0 from several satellites.
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 552 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
Multipath Interference
Signal reflected Direct signal from
by a building satellite
User
Signal reflected
off the ground
Figure 22.1 Multipath interference and NLOS reception.
22.2 Characteristics of Reflected
Signals, NLOS Reception, and Multipath
Errors
22.2.1 Multipath/NLOS Signal Characteristics
For land applications, most GNSS signal reflections occur
within the surrounding environment, such as the ground,
buildings, vehicles, or trees. For air, sea, and space applica-
tions, reflections off the host-vehicle body are more com-
mon. Low-elevation-angle signals are more likely than
high-elevation-angle signals to be received via reflections
by vertical surfaces. Where the reflecting surface is rough
compared to the signal wavelength (~0.2 m for GNSS), scat-
tering occurs, resulting in weak signals being reflected in
many different directions. Within a GNSS receiver, scat-
tered signals typically manifest as additional noise. Where
the reflecting surface is smooth and of sufficient size, spec-
ular reflection occurs whereby a strong signal is reflected at
an angle equal and opposite to the angle of incidence of the
direct signal at the reflecting surface.
GNSS signals are right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP).
Specular reflection from a surface at normal incidence
results in a left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) reflected
signal. At other angles of incidence, the polarization is
mixed. As the angle of incidence increases, the LHCP com-
ponent of the reflected signal decreases, and the RHCP
component increases. At Brewster’s angle, the two compo-
nents are equal, while at larger angles, the RHCP compo-
nent dominates. The value of Brewster’s angle depends
on the frequency of the signal and the properties of the
reflecting surface. For L-Band GNSS signal (~1.5 GHz), it
is around 89 for metallic surfaces, 85 for sea water‚ and
around 70 for soil [2, 3].
Reflected signals are always delayed with respect to direct
signals and have a lower amplitude (unless the direct
c22.3d 552
Non-line-of-sight Reception
Signal reflected Direct signal is
by a building blocked
User
signals are blocked or attenuated). In cases of NLOS recep-
tion, the ranging errors are potentially unbounded and
always positive. Thus, errors of several kilometers occasion-
ally occur when a signal is reflected by a distant tall build-
ing. The range-rate errors can result in the user’s apparent
direction of motion being reflected in the object reflecting
the signal. Consequently, reflectors perpendicular to the
direction of travel can produce much larger velocity errors
than those parallel to the trajectory. Also, for a reflector
close to a moving user antenna, the pseudorange error
may be small, but the range-rate error large.
The signal path between satellite and user is not a sim-
ple ray, but is instead determined by Fresnel zones. The
first Fresnel zone is defined as the region about a signal’s
propagation path where the phase difference in path
length is less than half a cycle and is the radius of the
effective signal footprint where the signal interacts with
an object in its path. For reflection geometries where
the transmitter is quite distant from both the
receive antenna and the reflecting surface, as is the case
with GNSS signals, the first Fresnel zone can be
approximated as rλL, where r is the distance of the object
from the user antenna and λL is the carrier wavelength [4].
Irregularities in the object on this scale will therefore affect
the properties of the reflected or diffracted signal. Where a
signal is partially blocked by an obstacle, diffraction can
occur. The part of the signal interacting with the object
interferes with the part passing the object by re-radiating
energy in different directions and with different phase
shifts, bending the path of the signal and producing alter-
nating bands of constructive and destructive interference.
The difference between the maximum and minimum levels
of this diffraction pattern reduces as the angle through
which the signal bends to pass around the obstacle
increases, with usable GNSS signals receivable at deflec-
tions of up to 5 [5]. Diffracted signals are also delayed,
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 22.2 Characteristics of Reflected Signals, NLOS Reception, and Multipath Errors 553

but typically only by decimeters, as the strongest scattering
occurs along paths that only deviate slightly from the
direct path.
At the receiver, each reflected signal may be described by
a relative amplitude, αi, range lag, Δi, and carrier phase off-
set, ϕi, with respect to the direct signal (or the strongest sig-
nal if no direct signal is received). There is also a carrier
frequency offset, δfi, which is larger when the user is mov-
ing with respect to the reflecting surface [4]. The relative
amplitude of the i-th reflected signal is given by
Gi Ri k i
αi = 22 1
G0 R0 k 0
where Gi and G0 are the antenna gains in the directions of
the i-th and strongest signals, respectively, Ri and R0 are the
reflection coefficients, and ki and k0 are the path attenua-
tion coefficients. The path attenuation coefficients are
approximately 1 unless one of the signals has been attenu-
ated by passing through partially absorbing materials, such
as foliage. When the strongest signal is the direct signal,
R0 = 1. For reflected signals, the reflection coefficient
depends on the properties of the reflecting surface. Calm
water, metal, and metallized glass can produce particularly
strong specular reflections with reflection coefficients of
0.5–0.7. Brick, stone‚ and concrete typically have lower
reflection coefficients. Note that rainwater enhances the
reflectivity of other surfaces, including the ground, walls‚
and foliage.
The antenna gain is a function of the signal’s angle of inci-
dence at the antenna and of its polarization. In practice,
there can also be variation in the gain with azimuth.
A typical GNSS antenna has a gain of 1.6–2.5 (2–4 dB) for
signals at normal incidence (i.e. at the antenna zenith). This
drops as the angle of incidence increases and is generally less
than 1 for angles of incidence greater than 75 . For a hori-
zontally mounted antenna, a 75 incidence angle corre-
sponds to a satellite signal at a 15 elevation angle.
Placing the antenna on a ground plane significantly attenu-
ates signals from below the plane of the antenna, reducing
the impact of ground reflections. Fixed-site applications
often use special designs, such as choke ring antennas that
attenuate low-elevation (i.e. high-incidence) signals.
GNSS antennas are often designed to have higher gain for
RHCP signals. At normal incidence to an RHCP planar
antenna, the gain for LHCP signals is about a factor of
10 (10 dB) less than the RHCP gain. The polarization discrim-
ination drops as the angle of incidence increases such that
the LHCP and RHCP gains are the same for signals incident
parallel to the plane of the antenna. An RHCP GNSS antenna
is effectively linearly polarized for signals from the side.
Cell phone antennas, conversely, are usually linearly
polarized to minimize size. These antennas offer no polar-
ization discrimination at all, so smartphone receivers are
more susceptible to both multipath interference and NLOS
reception. Furthermore, signals with lines of sight along the
axis of a dipole antenna are significantly attenuated, which
can sometimes result in a reflected signal being stronger
than the direct counterpart.
The path delay is the additional distance traveled by a
reflected signal compared to the direct path from the satellite
to the receiver. Figure 22.2 shows the signal paths of direct,

Signal reflected
by a building
Direct signal from satellite

b g

e Signal reflected
h off the ground
User θ

Figure 22.2 Direct, building-reflected, and ground-reflected signal paths in a multipath interference scenario.

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 554 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

building-reflected, and ground-reflected signals. For the vehicles at highway speeds, multipath from stationary
building-reflected signal, the range lag is Δi = a + b, while objects is usually insignificant, but in stop-and-go traffic,
for the ground-reflected signal it is Δi = e − g. It is also useful such multipath may be a problem. Multipath is much more
to define the path delay in code chips, δi = Δi/λC, where λC is of a concern when the reflector is stationary with respect to
the code chip length. The phase offset is given by [6] the antenna, as in the case of fixed terrestrial installations
2πΔi or on spacecraft or aircraft when structures on the vehicle
ϕi = + ϕRi MOD2π 22 2 are present near the antenna.
λL
where λL is the carrier wavelength, the MOD operator gives
the remainder from division by 2π, and ϕRi is the phase shift
22.2.2 Receiver Signal Modeling
on reflection, which is π radians for a totally flat specular
reflector at an angle of incidence less than Brewster’s angle. The total received GNSS signal after the antenna can be
The frequency offset from the direct signal carrier fre- written as [6, 8, 9]
quency is [6] n
r t = 2P αi C t − t0 −Δi c D t −t0 −Δi c
1 ∂ϕi ∂ Δi ϕ
δfi = = + Ri 22 3 i=0
2π ∂t ∂t λL 2π × exp j 2π fL + fD + δfi t − t0 −Δi c + ϕi +w t
In the case of a building-reflected signal, the range lag is 22 6
Δi = 2d cos θ for satellite elevation θ and distance from the where P is the signal power, n is the number of reflected
reflecting wall d. The resulting multipath fading fre- signals, C( ) is the pseudorandom noise (PRN) spreading
quency is code, D( ) is the downlink data, t0 is the propagation delay
for the direct signal, c is the speed of light, fL is the carrier
2 ∂d 2d ∂θ
δfi = cos θ − sin θ 22 4 frequency, fD is the Doppler shift, ϕ0 is the carrier phase of
λL ∂t λL dt
the direct signal component, and w(t) is bandlimited white
In the case of a ground-reflected signal, the range lag is Gaussian noise (WGN). In a typical receiver, there is usu-
Δi = 2h sin θ for antenna height h, and the resulting multi- ally a mixing operation to an intermediate frequency
path fading frequency is (IF), but we will assume a direct conversion to baseband
for modeling purposes. In addition, from this point on,
2 ∂h 2h ∂θ
δfi = sin θ + cos θ 22 5 the navigation data in Eq. (22.6) is omitted since it generally
λL ∂t λL ∂t
has little impact on multipath error.
Thus, the multipath fading frequency is a function of the In an idealized basic GNSS receiver, illustrated in
distance from the reflecting surface (i.e. d or h), along with Figure 22.3, incoming signals are converted to baseband
the rate of change of the distance. In a case experiencing with the in-phase and quadra-phase numerically controlled
both types of multipath, as in Figure 22.2, the relative influ- oscillator (NCO) signals, sNCO(t), and then correlated with
ence of d and h on the composite fading frequency is early, prompt‚ and late replica codes, sE, sP, and sL,
inversely proportional to their relative magnitudes – for a respectively:
more extensive treatment, see [7].
Although this is a simplified scenario, some useful con- sNCO t = exp − j 2π fL + fD t + φ
clusions can be drawn. For a stationary antenna with sP t = C t − t 0 , sE t = C t + dT C − t0 , sL t = C t − dT C − t0
ground reflections, for example, if h is 1 meter and ∂θ/∂t 22 7
is approximately 180 /6 hours (~0.15 mrad/s), then the
multipath fading frequency at low elevation angles is about where d is the early-prompt and prompt-late correlator spa-
1.5 mHz. However, if the antenna is moving perpendicular cing in units of chips, and t 0, f D, and φ are estimated quan-
to a reflecting wall at 1 m/s, such as a car backing out of a tities. The correlation process is assumed to include an
parking space, 2(∂d/∂t)/λL is on the order of 10 Hz. At a rate automatic gain control (AGC) normalization by noise
of perpendicular motion of only 10 m/s, δfi measures tens of power and the coherent pre-detection integration interval,
hertz. Fading frequencies much greater than 10 Hz would TPDI.
typically exceed the carrier tracking loop bandwidth, In the presence of multipath interference where the com-
appearing more as noise than an error source correlated posite signal is given by Eq. (22.6), the accumulated corre-
with the geometry of the antenna environment. For lator outputs become [6, 8–10]

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 22.2 Characteristics of Reflected Signals, NLOS Reception, and Multipath Errors 555

Carrier NCO
SNCO
Prompt Carrier Phase
TPDI IP + jQP Carrier εφ Measurement
1 Phase Carrier
X dt Tracking φ
n0TPDI Error
0
Detector Loop

SP

Reference SP
Early Signal SE
r(t) TPDI Generation
1 IE + jQE SL
X X dt
n0TPDI 0
Code ερ
Received SE Delay
Signal Delay
Locked ρ
Late Error
Loop Pseudorange
Detector
TPDI Measurement
1
X dt
n0TPDI 0
IL + jQL

SL

Figure 22.3 Receiver signal processing block diagram.

n
IE = 2 c n0 T PDI αi R τ − δi T C + dT C sinc π δf + δ f i T PDI cos δφ + ϕi + wIE
i=0
n
IP = 2 c n0 T PDI αi R τ − δi T C sinc π δf + δ f i T PDI cos δφ + ϕi + wIE
i=0
n
IL = 2 c n0 T PDI αi R τ − δi T C − dT C sinc π δf + δ f i T PDI cos δφ + ϕi + wIL
i=0
n
(22.8)
QE = 2 c n0 T PDI αi R τ − δi T C + dT C sinc π δf + δ f i T PDI sin δφ + ϕi + wQE
i=0
n
QP = 2 c n0 T PDI αi R τ − δi T C sinc π δf + δ f i T PDI sin δφ + ϕi + wQP
i=0
n
QL = 2 c n0 T PDI αi R τ − δi T C − dT C sinc π δf + δ f i T c sin δφ + ϕi + wQL
i=0

where I and Q denote in-phase and quadra-phase; E, P, and L 1 − τ TC , τ < TC

denote early, prompt‚ and late; c/n0 is the carrier-power-to- R τ = E C t C t−τ =
0, τ ≥ TC
noise-density ratio (non-decibel form); R( ) is the autocorre-
22 10
lation function of the PRN sequence; τ = t 0 − t 0 is the code
tracking error in units of seconds; δf is the carrier frequency
tracking error; δφ is the carrier phase tracking error; and In subsequent sections, we will also make use of the
without loss of generality‚ it is assumed that the AGC nor- early-minus-late (EML) delay lock detector (DLD)
malizes the I/Q noise terms wIE, wIP, wIL, wQE, wQP, and wQL function:
to have zero mean and unit variance. Note that
1
sin θ θ, θ 0 DEML τ = R τ + dT C − R τ − dT C 22 11
sinc θ = 22 9 2
1, θ=0
See Chapters 14 and 15 of this volume, and [6, 8–11] or The factor of half yields unity slope near the origin for the
[12] for further details of GNSS receiver signal processing. infinite bandwidth case, giving an accurate measurement
For an ideal PRN code, the autocorrelation function is of the tracking error.

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 556 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

22.2.3 Code Multipath Error
The effect of multipath on the code pseudorange measure-
ments is principally a function of how multipath manifests
itself in the code delay error detector in Figure 22.3. Two
common delay error detectors, that are power- and
phase-insensitive approximations of Eq. (22.11), include
the early-power minus late-power discriminator:
IE 2 + QE2 − IL2 + QL2
εELP =
2 IP2 + QP2
and the dot product detector:
IDEML IP − QDEML QP
εD = ,
IP2 + QP2
IDEML = IE − IL 2, QDEML = QE − QL 2
Figure 22.4(a) shows the direct-signal, reflected-signal,
and combined code autocorrelation functions for an ideal
biphase shift key (BPSK) GNSS signal subject to a single
interfering signal with a relative amplitude αm = 0.4, a path
delay in code chips δm = 0.125 code chips, and phase offsets,
ϕm, of 0 and 180 . The correlator spacing is d = 0.25 chips.
The plots are constructed using a normalized time offset
τ = τ T C to make the results independent of the PRN chip-
ping rate. The effect of pre-correlation bandlimiting on
the shape of the correlation function is also neglected in this
diagram. It can be seen that the multipath interference dis-
torts the shape of the correlation function. A conventional
code tracking loop works by adjusting the phase of the
receiver-generated code so that the signal powers in the early
and late correlation channels are equal. Therefore, if the
code autocorrelation function is asymmetric due to multi-
path interference, there will be a code-tracking error and,
consequently, an error in the resulting pseudorange meas-
urement. Figure 22.4(b) shows the EML detector functions
as in Eq. (22.11) corresponding to the case in Figure 22.4
(a). It can be seen that the zero crossings for the direct-
plus-multipath cases are biased from the nominal case.
22 12 Assuming that the multipath fading frequency is within
the delay-locked loop (DLL) code tracking bandwidth,
determining the code multipath error involves computing
where the delay error detector ερ = 0, In general this is best
done with numerical methods, that is, computing
Eq. (22.12) or (22.13) with the direct and multipath signal
components. However, an analytical solution can be readily
22 13 obtained for the case of infinite bandwidth and a single
interfering signal. For the dot product detector
Eq. (22.13), this can be done by solving
DEML τ − α1 DEML τ − δ1 cos ϕ1 = 0 22 14
The pseudorange error due to multipath is obtained from
the solution of Eq. (22.14) as δρM = τT C. For example, for a
short multipath delay such that τ − δ1 < d, Eq. (22.14)
yields
− α1 cos ϕ1 − α1 cos ϕ1
δρM = δ1 T C = Δ1
1 − α1 cos ϕ1 1 − α1 cos ϕ1
22 15
In this case, the pseudorange error can be seen to be pro-
portional to the multipath delay and amplitude. Upper and

(a) Correlation function with Multipath (b) EML Detector function with Multipath
1.4 0.4
Nominal d = 0.25 chip Nominal
Multipath
1.2 α = 0.4 0.3 MP In-Phase
MP In-Phase
Delay Detector Output (Chips)

MP Out-of-Phase δ = 0.125 chip MP Out-of-Phase

1 0.2
Correlation Function

0.8 0.1

0.6 0

0.4 –0.1
d = 0.25 chip
α = 0.4
0.2 –0.2
Prompt δ = 0.125 chip
0 Early Late –0.3

–0.2 –0.4
–1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1
Code Offest (chips) Code Offest (chips)

Figure 22.4 (a) Correlation function and (b) delay-detector function of a BPSK GNSS signal subject to constructive and destructive
multipath interference (d = 0.25 chips; α1 = 0.4; δ1 = 0.125 chips; pre-correlation bandlimiting is neglected).

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 22.2 Characteristics of Reflected Signals, NLOS Reception, and Multipath Errors 557

MP Error Envelopes, a1 = 0.4, d = ¼ chip correlator receiver designs [9]. For an ideal PRN code, the
0.1 a1d multipath error is zero if δ1 > 1 + d; however‚ for codes with
Error Bnd
MP Bias non-negligible autocorrelation side peaks‚ a small residual
error is possible [4, 13]. The code multipath error at any
0.05 given instance will lie between the bounds shown in
(1 + a1)d 1+d
PR Error (Chips)

1– (1 – a1)d Figure 22.5 and will oscillate at a frequency determined

0 geometry as discussed above. As the multipath fading fre-
(1 – a1)d
1– (1 + am)d
–0.05
–0.1
0 0.5
Multipath Delay (Chips)
Figure 22.5 Multipath error envelopes and multipath bias for a
BPSK signal and EML tracking for a single multipath signal. Pre-
correlation bandlimiting is neglected.
lower error bounds for the dot product detector can be
obtained by solving Eq. (22.14) for ϕ1 = 0 or π. The com-
puted bounds for BPSK code modulation are indicated in
Figure 22.5. The plot also shows the errors for the specific
correlator spacing in Figure 22.4(b). Also shown in
Figure 22.5 is a plot of the multipath bias, which was com-
puted numerically by averaging the result of Eq. (22.14)
over −π < ϕ1 ≤ π for each value of δ1.
As seen in Figure 22.5, the maximum absolute multipath
error is α1d, so a narrower correlator spacing often leads to a
smaller tracking error. This is one of the benefits of narrow
by the rate of change in the direct and reflected signal
quency increases beyond the carrier tracking loop capabil-
ity, the code multipath error will converge to the bias level
shown in Figure 22.5.
Higher-chipping-rate signals are less susceptible to multi-
–a1d path interference than low-chipping-rate signals as the
1 1.5
range lag, Δ, must be smaller for the reflected signal to
affect the correlation peak. Figure 22.6(a) compares the
code multipath error envelopes for three different modula-
tion types: BPSK(1), BPSK(10), and binary offset carrier
BOC(1,1), assuming infinite bandwidth. It can be seen that
the BPSK(10) signal has much better resistance to longer
delay multipath. However in many high-accuracy applica-
tions, it is the short-delay multipath – with path delay less
than 0.1 BPSK(1) chip (29.3 m for C/A code) – that is the
dominant error source, and all the code types have similar
errors.
Real GNSS receivers are affected by pre-correlation filter-
ing, which is necessary to eliminate out-of-band interfer-
ence and bandlimit the signal spectrum prior to
sampling. For high-chipping-rate signals, the bandlimiting
at the transmitter is also significant. Figure 22.6(b) shows
the corresponding simulated error envelopes for the signals
in Figure 22.6(a) with the code signals filtered by a five-pole

(a) (b)
MP Error Envelopes, a = 0.2, d = 1/20 BPSK(1) chip MP Error Envelopes, a = 0.2, d = 1/20 BPSK(1) chip
3 3
BPSK(1) BPSK(1)
BPSK(10) BPSK(10)
2 BOC(1,1) 2 BOC(1,1)

1 1
PR Error (m)
PR Error (m)

0 0

–1 –1

–2 –2

–3 –3
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Multipath Delay, BPSK(1)-Chips Multipath Delay, BPSK(1)-Chips

Figure 22.6 Code multipath error envelopes for different code types: (a) infinite bandwidth, (b) filtered with 10 MHz low-pass filter.

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 558 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
10 MHz low-pass filter (corresponding to a 20 MHz band-
pass filter in the receiver front-end) and the dot product
detector Eq. (22.13). The peak multipath errors are actually
slightly reduced from the infinite bandwidth case, but the
broadening of the correlation function extends the error
bounds, which can be observed in Figure 22.6 for BPSK
(10). Bandlimiting rounds the correlation function, which
reduces the benefit of narrowing the correlator spacing,
as this causes the slope of the delay error detector to
decrease. Bandlimiting also reduces the effectiveness of
the receiver signal-processing-based multipath mitigation
techniques described in Section 22.3.2.
22.2.4 Carrier Multipath Error
In most GNSS receivers, carrier tracking relies on a phase
tracking error measurement from the prompt correlator
signal. The carrier tracking loop attempts to drive this
tracking error to zero. For a single reflected signal, the car-
rier phase error can be determined using a simple signal
phasor model as depicted in Figure 22.7, yielding
α1 R τ − δ1 sin ϕ1
δφM = arctan
R τ + α1 R τ − δ1 cos ϕ1
22 16
The peak carrier phase error can be derived
from Eq. (22.16), which occurs when cos ϕ1 = − α1
R τ − δ1 R τ :
α 1 R τ − δ1
δφMax = arctan 22 17
R τ 2 − α21 R τ − δ1 2
Unlike the code error, the worst-case carrier phase error
occurs when δ1 = 0 and for α1 < 1 the carrier phase error
does not exceed 90 , corresponding to 4.8 cm at the L1 car-
rier frequency. Similar to what was done for code multi-
path, error bounds can be computed from Eq. (22.16).
The results for α1 = 0.2 are shown in Figure 22.8(a) for
Composite
Signal Phasor Multipath Signal
Phasor
ϕ1
δφ1
− iting array (IMLA) for the Ground Based Augmentation
Direct Signal R(τ)
− System (GBAS) [14], which is a special-purpose fixed-site
Phasor α1R(τ – δ1)
Figure 22.7 Depiction of a carrier phase multipath error for a
single reflected path. The relative phase of the multipath signal
with the direct path dictates the measured carrier phase error.
c22.3d 558
the infinite bandwidth case and Figure 22.8(b) for a filtered
case. As in the case of code multipath, the actual errors will
oscillate between these extremes.
22.3 Receiver-Based Multipath
Mitigation
Mitigation of multipath in GNSS signals can be accom-
plished throughout the receiver signal processing chain,
including the antenna. This section covers receiver multi-
path mitigation techniques that are hosted in the receiver
up to the point of code and carrier measurement genera-
tion. Note that none of these techniques directly mitigate
NLOS reception errors. Measurement-domain mitigation
techniques are discussed in Sections 22.4 and 22.5.
22.3.1 Antenna Design Techniques
Attenuating multipath interference through antenna
design techniques can be highly effective in many applica-
tions. Two general approaches are discussed here:
(i) Enhancement of desired-to-undesired signal levels in
fixed antenna response characteristics and (ii) Taking
advantage of polarization diversity in the antenna to gener-
ate measurements of multipath parameters.
22.3.1.1 Desired/Undesired Signal Component Optimization
Attenuating multipath interference prior to entering
receiver signal processing is highly desirable when this is
possible. Primary examples where multipath mitigation
drives antenna design are fixed-site, survey, aircraft‚ and
other vehicular applications where the multipath generally
arrives below the receiver mask angle. Figure 22.9 illus-
trates an idealized antenna response wherein gain in the
direction of the satellite is enhanced and gain in the direc-
tion of multipath is attenuated. As discussed in detail in
Chapter 26, enhancement of the desired/undesired signal
ratio can be accomplished by a variety of design elements,
including ground planes, choke ring assemblies‚ and spiral
antenna elements.
These multipath-mitigating antenna design features tend
to increase the size of the antenna, limiting their applica-
tion. An extreme example is the integrated multipath lim-
design that approximates the ideal fixed antenna pattern
by combining two separate antenna structures: (i) The mul-
tipath limiting antenna, which consists of a vertical array of
dipole elements in a manner that creates a sharp cutoff in
the gain pattern below 5 and provides high gain up to a 35
elevation angle; and (ii) a high zenith antenna, which
15/12/2020 6:30:11 PM
 22.3 Receiver-Based Multipath Mitigation 559

(a) MP Phase Error Envelope, a = 0.2 (b) MP Phase Error Envelope, a = 0.2
0.04 0.04
BPSK(1) BPSK(1)
0.03 BPSK(10) 0.03 BPSK(10)
BOC(1,1) BOC(1,1)
0.02 0.02
Phase Error (Cycles)

Phase Error (Cycles)

0.01 0.01

0 0

–0.01 –0.01

–0.02 –0.02

–0.03 –0.03

–0.04 –0.04
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Multipath Delay, BPSK(1)-Chips Multipath Delay, BPSK(1)-Chips

Figure 22.8 Carrier multipath error envelopes for different code types: (a) infinite bandwidth, (b) filtered with 10 MHz low-pass filter.

Direct Signal
Antenna
Ground Direct
Signal
Bounce Signal
Gain
Multipath
Signal Gain
Figure 22.9 Illustration of an idealized antenna pattern where
the direct signal gain is enhanced and the multipath interference
is attenuated.
provides for satellite tracking above 35 and more than
30 dB of attenuation of ground multipath reflections. The
IMLA is more than a meter high and is typically installed
an additional meter or more above the ground.
For many applications, such as handheld devices, the
antenna must be small and the device orientation can be
almost arbitrary, so it is essentially impossible to include
multipath limiting features; hence‚ other multipath mitiga-
tion techniques must be pursued.
22.3.1.2 Polarization Diversity Reception
As discussed in Section 22.1, transmitted GNSS signals are
RHCP. In general, this circular polarization is lost upon
reflection, but the resulting elliptically polarized signal is
mostly LHCP if the grazing angle is greater than Brewster’s
angle (i.e. the angle of incidence is sufficiently small).
Higher-performance GNSS antennas are typically tuned to
receive RHCP signals, thereby already providing some
resistance to multipath, although RHCP selectivity falls
off at low elevation angles. Further improvement can be
achieved, however, by employing an LHCP antenna to pref-
erentially receive reflected signals and incorporate this addi-
tional information. Multipath mitigation techniques in this
Elev
Cutoff class can be categorized as measurement weighting, range
domain correction, tracking domain correction, and adapt-
Ground
Plane ive antenna array processing. Measurement weighting and
antenna array techniques are covered in Sections 22.5.1 and
22.3.4, respectively. Tracking domain correction has been
shown in simulations [15, 16], but relies on a prohibitively
detailed knowledge of the antenna gain patterns and the
direction of the reflected signal arrival relative to the anten-
nas [17]. Range domain correction is discussed briefly here.
Pseudorange, carrier phase, and C/N0 measurements can
be made from both polarizations. Estimation of multipath
using dual-polarization techniques relies on differences in
the behavior of direct and reflected signals under the two
antenna polarizations. Under certain conditions, the multi-
path parameters αi, Δi, and ϕi can be estimated from the
RHCP and LHCP measurements and then used to estimate
the code and carrier errors, δρM and δφM. These error esti-
mates can in turn be used to correct range measurements
supplied to the navigation processor.
Pseudorange and carrier phase errors are the result of the
relative delay and amplitude of reflected signals, as indi-
cated in Eqs. (22.14) and (22.16), respectively. However,
these errors also depend on the direct/reflected signal
mix produced by the polarization of the reflected signal
and the cross-polarization discrimination of the antenna.
Assuming good polarization reversal at reflection (i.e.
reflected signals are LHCP), the pseudorange error due to

c22.3d 559 15/12/2020 6:30:12 PM

 560 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
a single short-delay reflected signal in Eq. (22.15) can be
expanded as
GL
− α1 cos ϕ1
GR
δρM = Δ1 22 18
GL
1− α1 cos ϕ1
GR
where the cross-polarization discrimination of the antenna
– the ratio of the LHCP and RHCP gains, GL and GR, respec-
tively [18] – has been separated from the relative amplitude
defined in Eq. (22.1), such that αi = GR GL αi. For a very
good LHCP antenna, GL/GR is large and in the limit δρM
approaches Δ1, the multipath relative delay. In this case
of good isolation, the difference between the measured
LHCP and RHCP pseudoranges is approximately the geo-
metric additional path length of the reflected signal relative
to the direct signal:
α1 cos ϕ1
ρLHCP − ρRHCP = ρ0 + Δ1 − ρ0 + δρM = Δ1 +
1 − α1 cos ϕ1
≈Δ1 , for α1 << 1
22 19
For the carrier phase, Eq. (22.16) can be expanded in a
manner similar to what was done in Eq. (22.18), yielding
α1 sin ϕ1
φLHCP −φRHCP = ϕ0 + ϕ1 − ϕ0 + δφM = ϕ1− arctan
1 + α1 cos ϕ1
≈ ϕ1 , α1 << 1
22 20
For signal-to-noise ratio (SN for R) measurements with a
single multipath signal component, as illustrated in
Figure 22.7, the ratio of the LHCP and RHCP SNR is [19]
SNRLHCP α21
=
SNRRHCP 1 + α1 + 2α1 cos ϕ1
2
22 21
≈ α21 , for α1 << 1
The GNSS observables in Eqs. (22.19), (22.20), and
(22.21), have been used as bistatic radar measurements in
aircraft altimetry [20–22] and relative navigation applica-
tions [18, 23–25].
Isolation of these multipath parameters requires that the
cross-polarization discrimination of the antennas renders
the reception of oppositely polarized signals negligible. In
the case of interest here, in which we seek to correct multi-
path-induced errors in line-of-sight (LOS) signal ranging,
this assumption is only approximately true, so the multi-
path correction is also only approximate. To truly correct
the multipath errors not only requires knowledge of the
path delay from Eq. (22.19), but also that the multipath
c22.3d 560
phase, ϕi, be determined to within about one-tenth of a car-
rier cycle (~2 cm). Therefore the effects of antenna separa-
tion must be considered, or a single dual-polarized antenna
must be used [17]. See Sections 22.3.3 and 22.6.2 for further
discussion of the estimation of multipath parameters on
which range domain corrections rely.
22.3.2 Correlation Signal Processing Techniques
It was recognized early in the development of GPS that
authorized (military) users would obtain superior multi-
path mitigation with the BPSK(10) P(Y)-code compared
to the BPSK(1) C/A-code available to all users, as illustrated
in Figures 22.6 and 22.8. The widespread adoption of the
GPS C/A-code for numerous commercial and civil applica-
tions in the 1990s and early 2000s spurred innovations in
multipath mitigation using a variety of signal processing
methods. In this section, correlator signal processing tech-
Δ1 niques will be considered; parameter estimation and array
processing techniques are discussed in subsequent sections.
The literature abounds with a variety of different techni-
ques; see [26–34] for a sampling of the techniques. The nar-
row correlator [9] technique was among the earliest
improved correlator signal processing methods. This tech-
nique was described in Section 22.2.3, where it was shown
that, for sufficient signal bandwidth, reducing the correla-
tor spacing, d, to a small fraction of a code chip results in
reduction of peak multipath errors. We concentrate on a
generic class of techniques that we call signal gating,
although manufacturers have different names for their spe-
cific implementations. The focus is on code multipath mit-
igation, although carrier phase multipath mitigation has
been pursued with these methods as well.
22.3.2.1 Signal Gating
The concept of signal gating is illustrated in Figure 22.10.
The top signal represented in Figure 22.10 is the incoming
BPSK PRN code which is to be tracked using a DLD func-
tion that provides a measurement of code tracking error.
Instead of differencing early and late correlation functions,
as illustrated in Figure 22.3, the EML DLD function in
Eq. (22.11) can also be generated from rectangular signal
gates around transitions of the PRN code, as illustrated
by the “Conventional DLD Signal” in Figure 22.10. In
essence, the Early and Late reference signals sE and sL in
Eq. (22.7) are replaced by a DLD signal, sD, that is then cor-
related with the incoming satellite signal. In signal gating,
this DLD signal is manipulated to minimize multipath. To
aid in the derivation of DLD functions for the different
types of signal gates, we will first re-derive the EML DLD
15/12/2020 6:30:14 PM

Incoming PRN Signal
−1
+1 +1
Conventional Delay Lock Detector Signal 2d1TC
Transition-Gated Delay Lock Detector Signal 2d2TC
2d1TC
Epoch-Gated Delay Lock Detector Signal 2d2TC
2d1TC
Figure 22.10 Illustration of delay lock detector gating functions, with pre-correlation bandlimiting neglected.
function based on the signal gating concept. This process is
illustrated in Figure 22.11.
In Figure 22.11, two PRN codes epochs, tk and tk+1, are
considered. We assume that after epoch tk−1 that the
PRN code value is +1. Then there are four possible PRN
code state transitions that can occur at tk and tk+1 as shown.
When these signals are correlated with the EML DLD sig-
nal of width 2d1TC around the tk epoch, then the illustrated
DLD functions result. Assuming a balanced PRN code, each
of these events occurs with equal probability. By symmetry
we can include the corresponding events where the PRN
code value following the tk−1 epoch is -1; thus, the probabil-
ity of each of these events is ¼. Summing the individual
DLD functions results in the EML DLD function for the cor-
relation period as a whole that was shown in Section 22.2.3.
The signal gate approach also lends itself to computation of
DLD functions with filtered and other complex signals, and
for determination of noise effects.
Examining the derivation of the EML DLD function illus-
trated in Figure 22.11, it can be seen that the nonzero multi-
path response between d1 and 1 − d1 is due to the
rectangular EML gate signal integrating the PRN code sig-
nal removed from the chip transition. This response is out-
side the linear range of the detector and is of marginal value
for code tracking.
c22.3d 561
22.3 Receiver-Based Multipath Mitigation 561
TC
−1 −1
+1
To eliminate the effect of signals delayed beyond the
linear range of the detector, the gating function must
have net zero area, as illustrated in Figure 22.12. In this
figure, ideal gating functions for carrier (prompt correla-
tor) and code tracking are shown – these gates are sym-
metric and assume infinite bandwidth. Consideration of
asymmetric and nonrectangular signal gates can be
found in [30–32].
There are two general ways that these multipath-
mitigating DLD gating functions can be applied, as illus-
trated in Figure 22.10: transition-gated and epoch-gated.
Similar to the EML gating case, the transition-gated signals
occur whenever the PRN code exhibits a transition, whereas
for the epoch-gated case, there is a gate at every chip epoch,
even when there is no-code transition. In the literature, the
transition-gated case is known variously as Double Delta,
Strobe Correlator [26], Multipath Mitigation Technology-
A [27], High Resolution Correlator [28, 29], and Pulse Aper-
ture Correlator [34]. The derivation of the DLD function for
the transition and gated cases is illustrated in Figure 22.13.
It can be seen that the transition-gated DLD function has a
correlation “echo” around one chip delay, whereas the
epoch-gated case does not, as shown in Figure 22.14(a).
These DLD functions result in multipath error bound
curves as shown in Figure 22.14(b). The gated and EML
15/12/2020 6:30:14 PM
 562 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

(1) Transition Followed by No-Transition

DEML(τ)
TC
2d1

t τ / TC
d1 1
−2d1
tk tk+1
DEML(τ) +
(2) Transition Followed by Transition
2d1

t τ / TC
d1 1
−2d1
tk tk+1
DEML(τ) +
(3) No-Transition Followed by Transition
2d1

t τ / TC
d1 1
−2d1
tk tk+1 +
(4) No-Transition Followed by No-Transition DEML(τ)
2d1

t τ / TC
d1 1
−2d1
tk+1
1/4
Incoming PRN
Signal
EML Delay Detector Net Delay-Lock Detector Function
Gating Signal DEML(τ)

d1 1
τ/TC
−1 −d1

Figure 22.11 Derivation of the DLD function for the conventional (EML) gate. The left graphs show the incoming and reference signals;
the right graphs show corresponding correlation functions, DEML(τ), computed over a chip period, as a function of the code tracking error, τ.

2d1TC 2d1TC

1 1

−d1
d2−d1
−1
2d2TC

Prompt Gating Function Delay Lock Detector Gating Function

Figure 22.12 Ideal symmetric gating functions for enhanced multipath mitigation.

c22.3d 562 15/12/2020 6:30:14 PM

 22.3 Receiver-Based Multipath Mitigation 563

(1) Transition Followed by No-Transition

DTG(τ), DEG(τ)
TC
2d1
1 d1 d2 1
t τ / TC
−1 –2d1
tk tk + 1 +
DTG(τ), DEG(τ)
(2) Transition Followed by Transition
2d1
d1 d2 1
t τ / TC

–2d1
tk tk + 1
+
(3) No-Transition Followed by Transition DTG(τ), DEG(τ)

2d1
d1 d2 1
t τ / TC

–2d1
tk tk + 1 +
(4) No-Transition Followed by No-Transition DTG(τ), DEG(τ)

2d1
d1 d2
t τ / TC
1
–2d1
tk tk + 1 1/4

Incoming PRN Net Delay-Lock Detector Functions

Signal DTG(τ), DEG(τ)
Chip Transition Delay d1
Lock Gating Signal
d1 d2
Chip Epoch Delay Lock τ / TC
Gating Signal −1 −d2 −d1 1
−d1

Figure 22.13 Derivation of the DLD function for transition- and epoch-gated delay lock functions. The left graphs show the incoming and
reference signals; the right graphs show their correlation functions, DTG(τ) and DEG(τ), computed over a chip period, as a function of
the code tracking error, τ.

cases all have the same response to short-delay multipath,
but the gated correlators eliminate medium-delay multi-
path. The epoch-gated processing also eliminates multipath
around one chip delay.
The superior multipath mitigation performance of transi-
tion- and epoch-gating comes at the cost of slightly
increased noise, compared to a basic EML gate, as will be
discussed in the next section. It should also be noted that
the use of epoch- or transition-gating has mostly been used
for BPSK(1) signals for high-accuracy applications, such as
survey. As shown in Section 22.2.3, BPSK(10) and BOC(1,1)
signals have superior multipath characteristics using
conventional signal tracking, so the incentive to employ
signal gating techniques is not as great.
The use of a prompt signal gate as illustrated in
Figure 22.12 for mitigation of multipath errors in carrier
phase tracking has not been widely used because there is
a severe SNR penalty: only the fraction of the incoming sig-
nal not zeroed out by the prompt gate is included in the
prompt signal coherent integration. For a gate that is
one-tenth of a code chip, a 10 dB penalty in SNR is incurred
[29]. For code tracking, information about the tracking
error is only observable at chip transitions, so there is no
loss in signal by narrowing the DLD gate function, as long

c22.3d 563 15/12/2020 6:30:15 PM

 564 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

(a) MP Error Envelopes, a = 0.2, d = 1/20 chip (b) Delay-Lock Detectors, d = 1/20 chip
3
0.06
EML EML
Transition Gating
Transition Gating
Epoch Gating
Epoch Gating
2 0.04

Detector Output (Chips)

1 0.02
PR Error (m)

0 0

–1 –0.02

–2 –0.04

–3 –0.06
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1
Multhipath Delay (chips) Code Offset (chips)

Figure 22.14 Comparison of EML dot product, transition-gated, and epoch-gated responses: (a) delay lock detector functions for a BPSK
(1) signal with a correlator spacing of 1/20 chip; (b) corresponding pseudorange multipath error envelopes for a multipath/direct
signal ratio α = 0.2.

as the gate width is longer than the duration of the chip When the gating function is zero, both the signal and
transition. noise components of the coherent integration process illus-
trated in Figure 22.11 or Figure 22.13 will be blanked.
Because the epoch- and transition-gated functions are
22.3.2.2 Code Measurement Noise Characteristics wider than the equivalent EML gate, the noise will be lar-
While a reduced width with an EML DLD signal gate offers ger. Equation (22.23) can be evaluated for the different gate
both improved noise and multipath mitigation, there are types by considering the nonzero portions of the integra-
noise performance trade-offs with transition- or epoch-gat- tion. Over the coherent integration interval there are
ing. This will be demonstrated by considering the noise por- NE = TPDI/TC code epochs and, assuming a balanced
tion of Eq. (22.6) in the coherent integration processing PRN code, NT = TPDI/2TC chip transitions (and recalling
illustrated in Figure 22.3 with the signal DLD gating func- that the noise variance has been normalized to 1):
tion replacing those in Eq. (22.7). Ignoring Doppler fre-
quency tracking errors and pre-correlation bandlimiting, EML gate:
the DLD noise is 1 1 T PDI
E w2D = NT 1 2 dt = 2d1 T C = d1
T PDI T PDI T PDI 2T C
1 2d1 T C
wD = w t sD t − τ dt 22 22
n0 T PDI 22 24
0
Transition DLD gate:
Because w(t) is mean-zero WGN, E{wD} = 0, the variance
can be computed as 1 d1 2
E w2D = NT 1 2 dt + 2 dt
T PDI T PDI T PDI d2 − d1
1 2d1 T C d2 − d1 T C
E w2D = E w t w u sD t − τ sD u − τ dudt 1 T PDI 2d21 T C d21
n0 T PDI = 2d1 T C + = d1 +
0 0 T PDI 2T C d2 − d1 d2 − d1
T PDI T PDI
1 22 25
= n0 δ t − u sD t − τ sD u − τ dudt
n0 T PDI Epoch DLD gate:
0 0
T PDI
2
1 1 d1
= sD t − τ 2 dt E w2D = NE 1 2 dt + 2 dt
T PDI T PDI d2 − d1
0 2d1 T C d 2 − d1 T C

22 23 1 T PDI 2d21 T C 2d21

= 2d1 T C + = 2d1 +
T PDI 2T C d2 − d1 d2 − d1
where the sifting property of the Dirac delta function
22 26
is used.

c22.3d 564 15/12/2020 6:30:16 PM


For a typical case of d2 = 2d1 the transition gate suffers a 3
dB loss compared to the EML, whereas the epoch gate has a
6 dB loss.
22.3.2.3 Generation of Transition Gates with Conventional
Correlators
The transition-gated DLD can be generated with conven-
tional correlator taps [28, 29], unlike epoch-gating, which
requires explicit generation of the gating function. As a spe-
cific example, consider four correlators with an adjacent
separation of d chips, which are denoted as Early 1 and
2, and Late 1 and 2:
E2 τ = R τ + 3dT C 2
E1 τ = R τ + dT C 2
22 27
L1 τ = R τ − dT C 2
L2 τ = R τ − 3dT C 2
The High Resolution Correlator 4 (HRC4) prompt and
DLD functions are synthesized as follows [30]:
PHRC = E1 + L1 − E2 + L2 2 22 28
DHRC = 3 E1 − L1 − E2 − L2 4 22 29
In the context of Figure 22.12, Eq. (22.29) corresponds to
d1 = d/2 and d2 = 3d/2. For code tracking, the dot product
discriminator uses the HRC4 DLD and a synthesized
prompt function:
IDHRC IP0 + QDHRC QP0
εDLL = , P0 τ = E1 + L1 2
IP20 + QP20
22 30
Computer simulation and laboratory test results compar-
ing the HRC4, Eq. (22.30), with d = 0.1 and EML with
d = 0.05 chip for C/A code are shown in Figure 22.15.
The EML case assumes the presence of a prompt correlator,
so the width of the inner portion of the HRC4 gate is the
same as the EML gate. The effects of bandlimiting are
clearly evident.
22.3.3 Parameter Estimation Techniques
The correlator signal processing approaches discussed in the
previous section make no claims about optimality. The first
attempt to obtain optimal multipath mitigation was the mul-
tipath estimating delay-locked loop (MEDLL) of van Nee
et al. [35]. MEDLL uses a correlator signal model similar
to Eq. (22.8) as the basis of a maximum likelihood estimation
(MLE) approach to estimate signal model parameters
{αi, δi, ϕi}, i = 0, …, n to provide both code and carrier multi-
path mitigation. MEDLL uses a bank of narrowly spaced
conventional correlators that sample the autocorrelation
function for both in-phase and quadra-phase. This can
c22.3d 565
22.3 Receiver-Based Multipath Mitigation 565
C/A Code EML/HRC4 Code Multipath error, a = 0.5
10
EML d = 0.05 chip
HRC4
5 d1 = 0.05 chip
d2 = 0.15 chip
PR Error (m)
0
–5
–10
0 0.5 1 1.5
Multipath Delay (C/A chips)
Figure 22.15 Simulated (solid lines) and measured (symbols)
multipath error envelopes for EML and HRC4 cases with α1 = 0.5
[29]. The measured receiver data was obtained using a GPS
simulator with a single multipath signal modeled. The simulation
assumed an RF band-pass bandwidth of 16 MHz.
require tens of correlators per tracking channel – a signifi-
cant hardware cost. MEDLL has been demonstrated to be
effective when there are only one or two dominant multipath
signals with sufficiently long delays to enable observability.
Building on MEDLL and correlation signal processing
techniques, Weill proposed the use of “super-resolution
techniques” [36–38], wherein the local code reference sig-
nals are matched to the time-domain characteristics of
the pre-correlation signals. This permits discrimination
of short-delay multipath, subject only to information-
theoretic bounds due to signal bandwidth. This approach
has been coupled with MLE signal parameter estimation
in the so-called Vision Correlator [39] to achieve near-
theoretical error bounds when the signal conditions
match model assumptions. A review of multi-correlator-
based parameter estimation techniques may be found
in [40].
There are a number of significant drawbacks to parame-
ter estimation techniques. First, they are computationally
burdensome, particularly as the number of multipath repli-
cas modeled increases. Super-resolution processing
requires specialized hardware, which much be matched
to the receiver characteristics. Lastly, there is the problem
of model fidelity. If the number of multipath signals is
under- or overestimated, then MLE techniques can perform
poorly. MLE also can have convergence problems in poor-
SNR conditions. For these reasons, parameter estimation
techniques have typically been applied to fixed-site applica-
tions that may have a single dominant reflection source to
be eliminated.
15/12/2020 6:30:16 PM
 566 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
22.3.4 Array-Based Signal Processing
The ultimate method of multipath mitigation is to use mul-
tiple antenna elements and adaptive array processing. Ray
et al. [41] demonstrated code and carrier phase multipath
mitigation by using an array of half-wavelength-spaced
antenna elements. They assumed that, over a given obser-
vation interval, the multipath returns could be represented
by a single multipath reflector. The signals from the multi-
ple antennas were used to separate out the direct signal
from the reflected signal and the code and carrier measure-
ments extracted from the direct signal estimate.
Many adaptive array anti-jam systems use pre-
correlation digital beam forming (DBF) to synthesize a
beam in the direction of arrival of the satellite signal (using
known platform attitude from an inertial measurement
unit) while also nulling jammers. Such systems have
demonstrated multipath mitigation capabilities [42, 43].
The digital beam steering theoretically enhances the direct
signal power proportional to the number of antenna ele-
ments. So, for seven elements, this is an about 8 dB reduc-
tion in αi, which in many circumstances could be
significant.
Pre-correlation DBF does nothing to explicitly mitigate
multipath signals (i.e. the multipath mitigation benefits
are incidental). DBF processing can also be done post cor-
relation [43]. In this case‚ the multipath signals integrate
above thermal noise, permitting the DBF algorithm to
detect and actually generate a null in the spatial direction
of the multipath. This type of processing has not been
widely deployed due to the size and cost of antenna arrays,
separate RF front-end and analog-to-digital converters
(ADC) for each antenna, and tracking channels for each
antenna/satellite combination. Also, an increased number
of ADC bits may be required in order to maintain dynamic
range. However, the increasing density and clock speeds of
integrated circuits is driving down the cost of the required
signal processing components needed for post-correlation
DBF, so it is expected that this technology will become com-
mercially available in the 2020s.
22.3.5 Doppler Domain and Synthetic Aperture
Techniques
When the receiver is moving, different components of a
multipath-contaminated signal can have different Doppler
shifts. Integrating the correlator outputs coherently over
100 ms or more provides sufficient resolution at road vehi-
cle speeds to separate the different signal components in
the Doppler domain, preventing reflected signals from
interfering with the direct LOS signal [44, 45]. Note that this
does not work for signals reflected off surfaces parallel to
c22.3d 566
the direction of travel as these have the same Doppler shift
as the direct LOS signal.
This technique is equivalent to beamforming with a syn-
thetic aperture, a common radar processing technique,
maximizing the gain in the direction of the direct LOS sig-
nal and, in general, reducing it in the direction of the
reflected signals [46, 47]. If the receiver is traveling in a
straight line, the gain pattern will be symmetric about
the direction of travel. Changes of direction during the
coherent integration period enable an asymmetric gain pat-
tern. The longer the coherent integration period, the
sharper the beam formed, but the more accurate the fre-
quency control of the carrier NCO must be to maintain
coherence. This typically requires either correlating at mul-
tiple Doppler shifts in parallel or providing Doppler aiding,
either from other GNSS signals or from external aiding
sources, such as inertial sensors.
22.4 Carrier-Smoothed Code
Code pseudorange noise and multipath errors are on the
order of 100 times larger than corresponding carrier phase
errors. This is the motivation for the use of carrier phase in
precision positioning applications discussed in Chapters 19
and 20. However, carrier phase positioning typically
requires external augmentation or reference receiver data
sources, so most stand-alone GNSS positioning ultimately
relies on pseudorange measurements. The smoothing of
GNSS code pseudorange measurements with carrier phase
measurements was introduced by Hatch [48] and is now a
well-established GNSS signal processing technique. Note
that carrier smoothing does nothing to mitigate errors
due to NLOS reception.
22.4.1 Carrier Smoothing Formulations
For the purposes of the carrier smoothing filter derivation
and performance modeling, we use the following simplified
models for the GNSS code and carrier phase measurements
at frequency fL from a single transmitter:
ρL = r + δT + δR + I L + T + δρML + ερL
φL = r + δT + δR − I L + T + δφML + εφL + N L λL
22 31
where
ρL = Code pseudorange measurement (in meters)
φL = Carrier phase measurement (in meters)
r = Geometric LOS range
δT = Satellite clock and ephemeris errors projected
along LOS
15/12/2020 6:30:17 PM
 22.4 Carrier-Smoothed Code 567

δR = Receiver clock bias 1 n, n = 1, …, N max − 1

IL = Ionospheric refraction at fL Kn = 22 32
1 N max , n ≥ N max
T = Tropospheric refraction
δρML, δφML = Code and carrier multipath at fL This time-varying gain sequence will be shown to possess
ερL, εφL = Code and carrier receiver noise and other errors certain optimal properties. The determination of Nmax in
NLλL = Carrier phase ambiguity for the carrier with wave- terms of filter bandwidth or smoothing time constant will
length λL, where NL is an integer. be discussed below. With this choice, the Hatch filter from
Figure 22.16(a) can be written compactly as
When the development does not require denoting multi-
n−1 1
ple carrier frequencies, then the subscript L may be ρ t n − 1 + Δφ tn + ρ tn , n = 1, …, N max − 1
n n
ρ tn =
omitted. N max − 1 1
ρ tn − 1 + Δφ tn + ρ t n , n ≥ N max
The carrier phase ambiguity complicates using the carrier N max N max
for positioning. However, carrier phase differences can pro- 22 33
vide a very accurate measurement of the change in pseu-
dorange for non-dispersive effects (LOS range, clocks‚ There are pros and cons for either implementation. The
and troposphere). The idea behind carrier smoothing is Hatch filter uses carrier phase delta-range instead of carrier
to combine carrier phase and code measurements to obtain phase, avoiding estimation of a CMC bias, which may facil-
a pseudorange that has the low-frequency characteristics of itate filter restart after cycle slips. On the other hand, the
the code measurements, but with the high-frequency errors complementary filter can be readily coasted during meas-
of the phase measurements. urement outages, since χ(tn) evolves slowly, even on mov-
There are two common approaches for carrier smoothing: ing platforms.
the Hatch filter [48] and the complementary filter [49], illus- The qualitative behavior of carrier smoothing will
trated in Figures 22.16(a) and (b), respectively. The block dia- be demonstrated using the complementary filter. The filter-
grams in Figure 22.16 are discrete-time signal processing/ ing operation in the shaded box in Figure 22.16(b) can be
estimation representations, where z−1 is the unit delay oper- denoted as an operator, F. The overall input-output
ator, that is, z−1x(tn) = x(tn−1), and x t n− represents an relation is
extrapolated value valid at time step tn based on the past ρ = F ρ − φ + φ = Fρ + 1 − F φ 22 34
data {t1, …, tn−1}. It is a straightforward algebraic exercise
For the case of a fixed- or steady-state gain, Kn ≡ K, and
to show that these formulations are equivalent. The Hatch
the complementary filter iterative equations for F in
filter directly produces a smoothed pseudorange, whereas
Figure 22.16(b) can be written as
the complementary filter first smooths the code-minus-
carrier (CMC) signal, χ(tn), then adds the carrier phase back χ t n = 1 − K χ t n − 1 + Kχ t n 22 35
on to obtain the smoothed pseudorange. A common choice
This discrete-time equation can be written in terms of a
for the gain at time tn, n = 0, 1, …, is
Z-transform [50] as

Initialize: ρ(t0−) = 0
ρ(tn)
+
Kn +
ρ ( tn ) For: tn, n =1,2,. . .
_
+
Input: ρ(tn)
−
ρ(tn) Update/Output:
ρ(tn) = ρ(tn) + Kn ( ρ(tn) − ρ((tn)
_ + − − −
φ(tn) z–1 z–1
+
+ ∆φ(tn) Extrapolate: ∆φ(tn) = φ(tn) – φ(tn–1)
ρ(tn−) = ρ(tn–1
−
) + ∆φ(tn)
(a)

χ ( tn ) + + χ ( tn ) −
Initialize: χ(t0) = 0
ρ(tn) Kn ρ ( tn )
+
_ _ + + For: tn, n =1,2,. . .
+
−1 Input: χ(tn) = ρ(tn) – φ(tn)
F χ (t ) z
−
n Update : χ(tn) = χ (tn) + Kn ( χ(tn) − χ (tn))
− −

φ(tn)
Output : ρ(tn) = χ(tn) + φ(tn)
−
(b) Extrapolate: χ(tn+1 ) = χ(tn)

Figure 22.16 Carrier smoothing block diagrams and filter processing equations: (a) Hatch filter, (b) complementary filter.

c22.3d 567 15/12/2020 6:30:17 PM

 568 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

K Kz Measurement Update
F z = = 22 36
1 − 1 − K z−1 z− 1−K P t n−
Kn =
This will be a low-pass filter for 0 < K < 1, which is sat- P t n− + Rε
isfied by the gain sequence Eq. (22.32), and implies 1 − F χ t n = 1 − K n χ t n− + K n χ t n ,
will be high-pass. Using the measurement model Rε P t n−
Eq. (22.31) in Eq. (22.34) yields P t n = 1 − K n P t n− = 22 41
P t n− + Rε
ρL = r + δT + δR + T + 2F − 1 I L + F δρML + ερL
Extrapolate
+ 1 − F δφML + εφL + N L λL
χ t n−+ 1 = βχ t n , P t n−+ 1 = β2 P t n + Q 22 42
22 37
The steady-state bandwidth of the smoothing filter can be
Note that the LOS range, clock, and tropospheric terms
set by varying the Gauss–Markov model parameters. Note
are unfiltered, so the desired pseudorange measurement
that as P t 1− ∞ , K1 1 and P(t1) Rε, which states
components are unaffected by smoothing. The pseudor-
ange noise and multipath will be low-pass filtered, whereas that the initial smoothed pseudorange error will be
the carrier ambiguity, noise, and multipath are high-pass bounded by the unsmoothed noise.
filtered. Since at zero frequency (z = 1), F(1) = 1, the The filter gain sequence in Eq. (22.32) is a special case of
smoothed pseudorange will have the same long-term error Eq. (22.41), with β = 1 and Q = 0, which will now be
trends due to low-frequency multipath and other errors as demonstrated. With these choices for β and Q, and combin-
the unsmoothed measurement. The filtered ionospheric ing the update and extrapolation steps, an iterative expres-
term will cause a bias in the measurement that is propor- sion for the smoothed covariance is
tional to the rate of change of the ionospheric delay [51]. P tn − 1 2 P t n − 1 Rε
P tn = P tn − 1 − =
P t n − 1 + Rε P t n − 1 + Rε
22.4.2 Smoothing Filter Gain 22 43
22.4.2.1 Kalman Filter Derivation A solution to Eq. (22.43) is
The smoothing filter gain, Kn, can be determined from a
Rε
Kalman filter formulation [49, 52]. From Eq. (22.31), the P tn = , n = 1, 2, … 22 44
n
CMC measurement, χ(tn), is
This is proved by noting that
χ = 2I + M ρ + ερ − M φ + εφ + N λ 22 38
P t n Rε R2ε n Rε
The carrier ambiguity will be a constant bias as long as P tn + 1 = = =
P t n + Rε Rε n + Rε n+1
there are no cycle slips. As a limiting case, consider a sim-
22 45
plified model of Eq. (22.38) consisting of a slowly varying
bias plus WGN: which is consistent with Eq. (22.44), thus demonstrating
this assertion by induction.
χ tn = χ 0 tn + ε tn 22 39
With the expression Eq. (22.44) for the smoothed covar-
The WGN ε(tn) measurement noise is mostly due to iance, the filter gain can be written using Eq. (22.41) as
code pseudorange noise, whose covariance we will denote
P tn − 1 Rε n − 1 1
as Rε. The bias term will be modeled as a Gauss–Markov Kn = = =
P t n − 1 + Rε R ε n − 1 + Rε n
process:
22 46
χ 0 t n + 1 = βχ 0 t n + wχ t n 22 40
This shows that the gain sequence in Eq. (22.32) is opti-
Here wχ is WGN, with cov wχ = Q. With the process mal for smoothing a constant bias in WGN. In practice, the
model Eq. (22.40) and measurement model Eq. (22.39) assumption that the CMC bias is constant may only be valid
we can develop a Kalman filter for the CMC bias. Denote over limited intervals; therefore‚ the floor on the gain in
χ t n = E χ 0 t n χ t k , k = 1, …, n with covariance P(tn) Eq. (22.32) for time steps beyond Nmax is used to set the
and χ t n− = E χ 0 t n χ t k , k = 1, …, n − 1 with covari- steady-state smoothing time constant.
ance P t n− . Typically, P t 1− is chosen so P t 1− Rε to
represent ignorance of the CMC value prior to the first mea- 22.4.2.2 Steady-State Gain Derivation
surements being processed. The Kalman filter equations for The value for Nmax can be determined by relating the CMC
n = 1, 2, … are filter F to a first-order, continuous-time, low-pass filter:

c22.3d 568 15/12/2020 6:30:17 PM

 22.4 Carrier-Smoothed Code 569

1 To achieve significant multipath attenuation, we must

F s = 22 47
T0s + 1 have T0 1/2πδfi. For example, consider the slow fading
experienced at a fixed site, as described in Section 22.2.1,
In Eq. (22.47), T0 is the time constant of the filter. For a
with δfi ≈ 1.5 mHz. Achieving a factor-of-five reduction
sampling interval ΔT, a matched pole-zero Z-transform of F
in multipath amplitude requires T0 > 520 s, illustrating
(s) is given by [50]
the challenge of mitigating strong multipath at fixed sites.
1 − e − ΔT T 0 z
F z = 22 48
z − e − ΔT T 0
22.4.3 Ionospheric Errors and Dual-Frequency
Equating the terms in Eq. (22.48) with the transfer func- Smoothing
tion in Eq. (22.36) and the gain expression in Eq. (22.46)
22.4.3.1 Ionospheric Divergence Errors in Single-Frequency
yields
Carrier Smoothing
1 The ultimate usefulness of carrier smoothing for GNSS nav-
K= = 1 − e − ΔT T0
≈ ΔT T 0 , ΔT T0
N max igation processing, particularly in single-frequency local
N max ≈ T 0 ΔT differential GNSS processing, is dependent on the charac-
22 49 teristics of the filtered ionospheric term in Eq. (22.37). Over
the time scale of the carrier smoothing, the change in the
where T0 is the time constant of the filter, and ΔT is the
ionospheric refraction can be approximated as bias plus
sampling interval.
a ramp:
Selecting Nmax using Eq. (22.49) yields a fixed gain filter for
n > Nmax whose covariance equation can be written as [52] IL t = I0 + Idt 22 54
This can be written in the Laplace transform “s”
P n + 1 = 1 − K 2 P n + K 2 Rε 22 50 domain as
I0 Id
In the steady state, Pn Ps, n ∞. Then Eq. (22.50) IL s = + 2
s s
becomes
As can be seen in Eqs. (22.31) and (22.37), the change in
1 − 1 − K 2 P s = K 2 Rε the ionospheric error causes a divergence between GNSS
KRε Rε ΔT code and carrier measurements. The error in the iono-
Ps = ≈ ≈ Rε , T 0 ΔT spheric residual induced by the smoothing filter can be
2 − K 2N max 2T 0
22 51 determined using Eq. (22.47) by

Note that this is only valid if the pseudorange measure- ΔI L = I L − 2F s − 1 I L = 2 1 − F s I L

ment noise is statistically independent from sample to sam- 2T 0 s 22 55
= IL
ple. This can be guaranteed by selecting the measurement T0s + 1
output rate to be slower than the noise equivalent bandwidth The steady-state behavior of ΔIL may be determined by
of the code tracking loop. Also, Eq. (22.51) ignores the con- applying the final value theorem of Laplace transforms
tribution of the carrier phase errors on the output of the low-
pass filter in Figure 22.16(b), so a more accurate expression 2T 0 s I0 Id
ΔI ss = lim s + 2 = 2T 0 I d
for the steady-state smoothed pseudorange error is s 0 T0s + 1 s s
22 56
KRε
Ps = + σ 2φ 22 52
2−K Equation (22.56) confirms that the carrier smoothing fil-
where σ 2φ is the carrier phase noise variance. ter introduces an error as it tracks a time-varying iono-
spheric delay (Id 0), the size of which is proportional to
For specular multipath, with a fading frequency δfi, the
the smoothing time constant T0. For a typical value of ion-
attenuation of the pseudorange multipath error can be
ospheric divergence of 10 cm/min and 100 s smoothing, the
approximated using Eq. (22.47):
offset is about 33 cm, which would be a non-negligible error
1 1 for local-area DGNSS applications, such as aircraft preci-
F j2πδ f i = =
1 + sT 0 s = j2πδ f i 1 + j2πδ f i T 0 sion approach and landing (Chapter 12). During a severe
1 ionospheric storm, the divergence can be 5–7 times as large;
= thus‚ it is critical in single-frequency DGNSS applications
2
1 + 2πδ f i T 0
for the smoothing filters in the reference and rover recei-
22 53 vers to use the same time constant, so that the ionospheric

c22.3d 569 15/12/2020 6:30:17 PM

 570 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

divergence error cancels when the measurements between We now have three equations, Eqs. (22.61), (22.62), and
the rover and reference are differenced. (22.64), for the four unknowns, a1, a2, b1, and b2. There-
fore‚ one of the parameters can be arbitrarily chosen. We
will use a1 as this independent variable. With this choice,
22.4.3.2 Divergence-Free Filter Derivation we have the following expressions:
The ionospheric divergence effect in carrier smoothing can
be addressed by using dual-frequency measurements. Fol- a2 = 1 − a1
lowing the approach in [53], we simplify the measurement 2f2
b 1 = 2 1 2 − a1
model Eq. (22.31) by lumping terms that are affected by car- f1 − f2 22 65
rier smoothing in similar ways: f 2 + f 22
b2 = a1 − 12
ρL = R + I L + wρL f 1 − f 22
22 57
φL = R − I L + wφL + N L λL Note that this derivation can be extended to three fre-
quencies and mixed code-carrier combinations [54],
where
which enables additional, simultaneous constraints
R = r + δT + δR + T to be imposed, for example, maintaining integer
wρL = δρML + ερL 22 58 ambiguities, while minimizing noise and/or ionospheric
wφL = δφML + εφL errors.

The ionospheric refraction will be modeled as 22.4.3.3 Divergence-Free Measurement Combinations

KI We now examine some specific special divergence-free
IL = 2 22 59
fL cases based on particular choices for α1 in Eq. (22.65).

Define generalized code and carrier phase measurements

22.4.3.3.1 Single-Frequency Pseudorange Divergence-Free
by combining the code and carrier measurements from fre- Smoothing
quencies f1 and f2 as Choosing a1 = 1 or a1 = 0 yields the divergence-free
ρ = a 1 ρ 1 + a2 ρ 2 smoothed f1 or f2 pseudorange, respectively, as
22 60 discussed in [51, 53]. The smoothing filter inputs in
φ = b1 φ 1 + b2 φ 2
these cases are
where a1, a2, b1, and b2 are coefficients to be determined. To
preserve the LOS and clock information in the generalized f 21 + f 22 2 f 22
f1 ρ = ρ1 , φ= 2 φ1 − φ2
measurements, we must have f1 − f2
2
f 1 − f 22
2

2 f 21 f 21 + f 22
a 1 + a2 = 1 22 61 f2 ρ = ρ2 , φ= 2 φ1 − φ2
− f2
f 21 f 21 − f 22
b1 + b2 = 1 22 62
22 66
Combining Eqs. (22.57) and (22.60), and applying
Eqs. (22.61) and (22.62), the CMC can be written as These combinations will have the pseudorange multi-
path and noise errors associated with the respective car-
χ = ρ − φ = a1 ρ1 + a2 ρ2 − b1 ϕ1 + b2 ϕ2 rier frequency, whereas the carrier phase errors are
= a1 + a2 R − b1 + b2 R + a1 wρ1 + a2 wρ2 slightly elevated by combining multiple frequency
− b1 wφ1 + b2 wφ2 − b1 λ1 N 1 + b2 λ2 N 2 signals.
+ a1 + b1 I 1 + a2 + b2 I 2
= a1 wρ1 + a2 wρ2 − b1 wφ1 + b2 wφ2 22.4.3.3.2 Ionosphere-Free Smoothing
− b1 λ1 N 1 + b2 λ2 N 2 + a1 + b1 I 1 + a2 + b2 I 2 A special case of divergence-free processing is obtained by
22 63 eliminating the ionosphere in both ρ and φ individually,
rather than just in the CMC as accomplished in
To eliminate the effect of ionospheric divergence on the Eq. (22.64). From Eqs. (22.59) and (22.60), this is achieved
smoothing processing, the last term in Eq. (22.63) must be in the generalized code measurement, ρ, by having
zero. Using Eq. (22.59), we obtain the following condition:
a1 a2
2 + 2 =0 22 67
a1 + b1 f 22 + a2 + b2 f 21 =0 22 64 f1 f2

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 22.4 Carrier-Smoothed Code 571

With Eqs. (22.61) and (22.65), we get Conventional Smoothing Filter Input and Outputs
20
f 21 f 22 Raw CMC
Iono-Free ρIF = ρ1 − ρ2 , Filltered CMC (τ =100)
f 21 − f 22 f 21 − f 22 Filltered CMC (τ =600)
15
f 21 f 22
φIF = 2 φ 1 − φ2
f 1 − f 22 f 21 − f 22

Code-Carrier (m)
10
22 68
Note that this measurement combination suffers from a
5
significant amplification of noise and multipath errors,
since the coefficients on the code and carrier measurements
are greater than one. 0

22.4.3.3.3 Wide-Lane/Narrow-Lane Combinations –5

As discussed in [53], the well-known wide-lane and nar- 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
row-lane carrier phase combinations have the following Time (sec)
divergence-free combinations: Figure 22.17 Single-frequency smoothing live data results [51].
The bias induced by ionospheric divergence on the smoothed code
Wide-Lane Carrier Phase Narrow-Lane Code
measurements can be seen by the offsets in the red and blue
f1 f2 curves from raw CMC. Source: Reproduced with permission of John
ρNL = ρ + ρ,
f1 + f2 1 f1 + f2 2 Wiley & Sons.

f1 f2
φWL = φ − φ Divergence-Free Smoothing Filter Input and Outputs
f1 − f2 1 f1 − f2 2
3
Narrow-Lane Carrier Phase Wide-Lane Code Raw CMC
Filltered CMC (τ =100)
Filltered CMC (τ =600)
f1 f2 2
ρWL = ρ − ρ,
f1 − f2 1 f1 − f2 2
Code-Carrier (m)

f1 f2 1
φNL = φ + φ 22 69
f1 + f2 1 f1 + f2 2
0
As shown in [53], the narrow-lane code combination pro-
vides attenuation of pseudorange multipath and noise,
–1
since the coefficients on the code measurements are less
than one.
–2

22.4.4 Performance Analysis and Examples –3

In this section‚ we provide examples of carrier smoothing
performance with simulated and live data.
Figure 22.17 shows single-frequency carrier smoothing
results with GPS L1 P(Y) code in a high-multipath rooftop
environment. Raw and smoothed CMC signals are plotted,
which illustrates the effect of ionospheric divergence. The
unsmoothed data clearly exhibits oscillatory effects of mul-
tipath due to satellite motion. A modest smoothing time
constant of 100 s provides significant attenuation of the
multipath, but residual errors are still evident. A longer
time constant of 600 s provides additional attenuation of
multipath oscillations, but suffers from the bias associated
with the filtered ionospheric divergence as in Eq. (22.56).
Figure 22.18 shows the corresponding L1 P(Y)-code
divergence-free CMC using the L1/L2 P(Y) carrier
phase as in Eq. (22.66). The effects of ionospheric diver-
gence are eliminated, which enables longer smoothing time
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Time (sec)
Figure 22.18 Divergence-free smoothing live data results [51].
Ionospheric divergence effects on the smoothed code
measurement have been eliminated, enabling longer smoothing
time constants to be used. Source: Reproduced with permission of
John Wiley & Sons.
constants to be used in GNSS/DGNSS applications.
Figure 22.19 shows the corresponding ionosphere-free
smoothing results, as in Eq. (22.68), using L1/L2 P(Y)
code. The amplification of the multipath and noise
compared to the single-frequency pseudorange errors in
Figure 22.18 is evident by the 3X larger peak-to-peak level
of the raw CMC.
Figures 22.20 and 22.21 show simulated smoothing filter
results that illustrate the benefit of the time-varying gain

c22.3d 571 15/12/2020 6:30:17 PM

 572 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

Iono-Free Smoothing Filter Input and Outputs Filter Transient Responses, 1 cm/s Iono Divergence
10 8
Raw CMC SF/Fixed Gain
Filltered CMC (τ =100) 7.5 SF/KF
Filltered CMC (τ =600)
DF/KF
7
5
6.5

Smoothed PR (m)
Code-Carrier (m)

0 5.5
5

4.5
–5
4

3.5

–10 3
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Time (sec) Time (sec)

Figure 22.19 Ionosphere-free smoothed live data results [51]. Figure 22.21 Simulation of smoothing filter transient
The effects of ionospheric divergence are eliminated but with a responses with ionospheric divergence for steady-state filter
magnification of errors. Source: Reproduced with permission of time constant of 100 s. The dotted lines show the theoretical
John Wiley & Sons. steady-state response. The single-frequency (SF) cases exhibit
steady-state bias and slow convergence. The divergence-free
method with the Kalman filter (KF) converges rapidly and has zero
steady state bias.
Smoothing Filter Error Statistics
0.7
SF/Fixed Gain
SF/KF whereas the time-varying Kalman filter (KF) gain con-
0.6 DF/KF verges quickly for both the single-frequency or diver-
Smoothed PR Std. Dev. (m)

gence-free cases. In the steady state, the divergence-free

0.5
filter has a slightly elevated error due to the amplification
0.4 of the carrier phase errors in Eq. (22.66), consistent with
the analytical result in Eq. (22.52). However, this additional
0.3 error would likely be swamped by residual multipath and
single frequency ionospheric divergence errors in practice.
0.2 Figure 22.21 illustrates the improved convergence of diver-
gence-free smoothing with a time-varying gain in ionospheric
0.1
divergence relative to single-frequency smoothing. The simu-
0 lated initial ionospheric bias at L1 is 4 m with a divergence of
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 1 cm/s. For single-frequency smoothing, both the fixed-gain
Time (sec) and Kalmangain cases exhibit a slow convergence to the
Figure 22.20 Covariance analysis simulation of smoothing filter
biased steady-state trend. In contrast, the divergence-free fil-
convergence for steady-state time constant of 100 s for smoothing ter convergences very quickly to the unbiased trend.
WGN. Single-frequency (SF) and divergence-free (DF) fixed-gain
and Kalman filter (KF) cases. The Kalman filter exhibits much faster
convergence.

22.5 Real-Time Navigation Processor-

sequence Eq. (22.32) versus using the steady-state gain
value in terms of filter convergence. Figure 22.20 shows
the result of a covariance analysis with WGN-only as in
Eq. (22.43) with Rε = (0.5 m)2, carrier phase noise standard
deviation of 0.018 cycles, and steady-state time constant
τ = 100 s. Single-frequency and L1 divergence-free smooth-
ing results are depicted. The fixed gain filter has a long con-
vergence time, on the order of two filter time constants,
Based NLOS and Multipath Mitigation
A GNSS navigation processor computes position from mea-
surements of the pseudoranges and sometimes the carrier
phase [6, 7]. The degree to which these measurements
are multipath-contaminated depends on the receiver and
antenna design as well as the signal propagation environ-
ment. NLOS errors are largely independent of the user
equipment design. Where the number of satellites tracked

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 22.5 Real-Time Navigation Processor-Based NLOS and Multipath Mitigation 573

exceeds the minimum required for a navigation solution, The predicted pseudoranges are given by
the measurements from the receiver can be selected and
T −
j−
ΔCIE rEj t st − rEa − ta ΔCIE rEj t st − rEa − ta
j j
weighted to minimize the impact of multipath and NLOS ρC = + δR
errors on the position solution. The C/N0 and pseudorange
22 71
rate (Doppler) measurements can assist in this process, as
can measurements from signals on different frequencies, where rEj t stj is the Cartesian ECEF position of satellite j at
where available. Section 22.5.1 describes methods for the measured time of signal transmission, t stj , and rEa − t a is
weighting each satellite within the position solution using the user ECEF antenna predicted position at the receiver
measurements from that satellite alone. Section 22.5.2 then measurement time (common for all satellites). The Sagnac
describes consistency checking, which can identify NLOS effect is compensated by the rotation matrix, ΔCIE, given by
reception and large multipath errors by comparing mea-
surements from different satellites. cos Δθaj sin Δθaj 0
A navigation filter uses previous as well as current GNSS ΔCIE = CIE
j
t a − t st = − sin Δθaj cos Δθaj 0
measurements to compute the position solution, making
0 0 1
more information available for detecting and mitigating
22 72
multipath and NLOS errors. This is particularly useful for
mobile applications where the signal propagation environ- j
where Δθaj = ωIE t a − t st and ωIE is the Earth rota-
ment experienced by the receiver constantly changes.
Section 22.5.3 describes techniques that may be deployed. tion rate.
Aiding information from other navigation and positioning The measurement matrix is given by
sensors further extends the information available for multi- − ea1,x − ea1,y − ea1,z 1
path and NLOS mitigation as discussed in Section 22.5.4. − ea2,x − ea2,y − ea2,z 1
Note that aiding techniques using 3D mapping are H= 22 73
described in Section 22.7. 1
− eam,x − eam,y − eam,z 1
22.5.1 Independent Signal Weighting
where eaj = r j − ra r j − ra is the LOS unit vector from
All GNSS positioning algorithms that use more than a min- the user antenna to satellite j.
imum number of GNSS measurements incorporate a means Finally, the weighting matrix is given by
of weighting those measurements. For example, a single- −2
σ ρ1 0 0
epoch position solution using m pseudorange measure-
−2
ments is given by [6] 0 σ ρ2 0
Wρ = 22 74
ρ1C − ρ1C−
−2
ra+ ra− ρ2C − ρ2C− 0 0 σ ρm
T −1 T
+ = − + H Wρ H H Wρ
δR δR where σ ρj is proportional to the error standard deviation of
− the j-th pseudorange measurement. Thus, measurements
ρm
C − ρm
C
with smaller error standard deviations are given higher
22 70
weighting within the position solution. It is here that mea-
where ra is the Cartesian position of the user antenna with surements may be weighted to mitigate the effects of multi-
respect to the center of Earth at time ta; δR is the receiver path interference and NLOS reception. A similar approach
clock offset, expressed as a range; H is the measurement may be used with carrier phase and carrier-smoothed code
j
matrix; Wρ is the weighting matrix; ρC is the pseudorange measurements. For a weighting matrix, only the relative
from satellite j to the user, corrected for the estimated sat- values of the components matter; that is, if all terms are
ellite clock offset, ionosphere propagation delay, and trop- multiplied by a constant, it does not affect the position solu-
osphere propagation delay; ^ denotes an estimated value tion. However, if this weighting matrix is used to estimate
with the superscript “−” denoting a predicted value from solution covariance/uncertainty, as is common in high-
previous measurements and the superscript “+” denoting integrity positioning applications, then properly character-
a value obtained from the current set of measurements. ized LOS standard deviations will be important.
The user position vector and measurement matrix must A weighting scheme based on the satellite elevation, θj, is
be expressed in the same coordinate system, for example, sometimes used because lower elevation signals are more
Earth-Centered-Earth-Fixed (ECEF) or local level. susceptible to multipath interference and NLOS reception

c22.3d 573 15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM

 574 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
and also exhibit larger errors in the ionosphere and tropo-
sphere propagation models. The Radio Technical Commis-
sion for Aeronautics (RTCA) model is [55]
σ ρj = a + b exp − θ j θ0 22 75
For commercial transport aviation applications, the coef-
ficients were empirically determined to be a = 0.13 m, b =
0.56 m, and θ0 = 10 = 0.1745 rad. This model and para-
meters may not be appropriate for other applications. Such
a priori weighting usually gives a more accurate position
solution than no weighting, but makes no attempt to
directly detect multipath interference or NLOS reception.
Another option for weighting is to use the C/N0 measure-
ments [56]:
a
σ ρj = j
22 76
c n0
where c n0 = 10 C N 0 10, and a is an empirical application-
dependent constant. When a good antenna is used that
attenuates LHCP signals, this ensures that multipath and
NLOS measurements are generally attenuated, minimizing
their impact on the position solution. However, multipath
interference has to be very strong to impact the C/N0 meas-
urement and increases it as often as it reduces it. SNR mea-
surements may be used instead of C/N0 (according to what
the receiver measures), but will need to be rescaled.
A dual-polarization antenna has both a conventional
RHCP output, which is generally more sensitive to direct
signals, and an LHCP output, which is generally more sen-
sitive to reflected signals. Processing these outputs in sepa-
rate channels within the receiver and differencing the two
C/N0 measurements provides an indication of both NLOS
reception and strong multipath interference [17]. In order
to exploit signal polarization through measurement weight-
ing, tracking is performed independently on the RHCP and
LHCP channels, after which the relative strength of the
LHCP signal is used as an indication of multipath interfer-
ence or NLOS reception. RHCP measurements made in the
presence of a strong LHCP signal are likely corrupted, so
measurements are de-weighted accordingly in the position
solution (see the weighting matrix Eq. (22.74)). Weighting
is proportional to the difference between the RHCP and
LHCP C/N0, but must accommodate the variability in sig-
nal strength that may arise from the two antenna patterns
and signal angle of arrival [57].
Another way of detecting strong multipath interference
(but not NLOS reception) is by observing the time variation
of the C/N0 measurements. As described in Section 22.2, the
phase offset of a reflected signal with respect to the direct
c22.3d 574
signal changes, so multipath interference will be varying
between constructive and destructive, causing C/N0 to
change. For a moving receiver, these changes will occur rel-
atively quickly. For a static receiver, however, it takes sev-
eral minutes for the phase offset to complete a cycle [58].
The detection process may be accelerated by using mul-
tiple frequencies. As the phase offset is frequency depend-
ent, there will often be constructive interference on one
frequency when there is destructive interference on the
other, enabling multipath to be detected by comparing
the inter-frequency C/N0 difference with its normal value.
With two frequencies, this will only work about half the
time. A three-frequency detector will therefore be more
robust. A potential triple-frequency detection statistic
is [59]
j j
2
j j
2
Sj = C N0 L1 − C N0 L2 − ΔC12 θ j + C N0 L1 − C N0 L5 − ΔC 15 θ j
22 77
j
where C N 0 Ln is the measured carrier-power-to-noise-
density ratio (in dB-Hz) of the signal from satellite j on fre-
quency Ln, and ΔC12 and ΔC15 are, respectively, the aver-
age L1-L2 and L1-L5 inter-frequency C/N0 differences at
elevation θ j. These averages are determined by calibration
in a low-multipath environment. Multipath interference is
assumed when S j exceeds a predetermined threshold,
which is modeled as a function of elevation based on the
statistical distribution of the detection statistic in a low-
multipath environment.
Multipath interference (but not NLOS reception) also
leads to inconsistencies between the different ranging mea-
surements output by the receiver. As the phase offset
changes, the pseudorange multipath errors vary more than
the corresponding carrier phase multipath errors. Multi-
path interference can therefore be detected by looking at
the time variation of the difference between the pseudor-
ange and the carrier-phase-derived range, essentially the
CMC observable Eq. (22.38) discussed in Section 22.4.
Alternatively, as the phase offset is frequency dependent,
the difference between pseudorange measurements made
on different frequencies can be examined. For a moving
receiver, both of these parameters will vary quickly as the
phase offset of a reflected signal changes as the receiver
moves. For a static receiver, it takes several minutes for
the phase offset to cycle, so multipath interference takes
much longer to detect. It can also be masked by changes
in the ionosphere propagation delay. Therefore, in multi-
frequency receivers, the following MP observables for satel-
lite j derived from the divergence-free code/carrier combi-
nations Eq. (22.66) can be used:
15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM
 22.5 Real-Time Navigation Processor-Based NLOS and Multipath Mitigation 575

f 21 + f 22 2 f 22 22.5.2 Consistency Checking

j
MP12 = ρ1j − φ1j + φ2j
f 21 − f 22 f 21 − f 22 Consistency checks compare quantities calculated from dif-
2 f 21 f 21 + f 22 ferent combinations of measurements to determine if they
j j j j
MP21 = ρ2 − φ1 + φ2 are consistent; if they are not, a fault is assumed to be pres-
f 21 − f 22 f 21 − f 22
ent [6]. NLOS reception and severe multipath interference
j j 2 f 21 j f 21 + f 25 j can thus be detected by comparing measurements of signals
MP51 = ρ5 − φ1 + φ5
− f 25
f 21 f 21 − f 25 from different satellites. If multiple position solutions are
22 78 computed using combinations of signals from different
satellites, those obtained using only combinations of the
In these MP observables, the ionosphere propagation “clean” direct LOS measurements should be in greater
delays cancel each other out, so fluctuations in these para- agreement with each other than those that include multi-
meters over time can be attributed to multipath interfer- path-contaminated and NLOS measurements. Consist-
ence alone [60]. ency-checking algorithms therefore identify the set of
For a large vehicle or monitor station with multiple GNSS measurements least affected by multipath interference
antennas at different locations, both multipath interference and NLOS propagation. By excluding or down-weighting
and NLOS reception can be detected by comparing mea- the contaminated measurements, a more accurate position
surements from these antennas. Inconsistencies in C/N0 solution can usually be obtained. The same consistency
(or SNR) measurements on individual signals between checking principle is also used for fault detection in receiver
receivers can be an indicator of multipath or of NLOS autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM), as described in
reception affecting one antenna only (inconsistencies on Chapter 23.
all signals are likely to be due to interference). Similarly, The simplest GNSS consistency checking approach is
if the pseudorange difference between antennas is not sequential testing. The first stage of the sequential testing
equal to the distance between them projected onto the consistency-checking method is to compute a position solu-
receiver-satellite LOS, then NLOS reception or multipath tion from all of the pseudorange measurements using
interference is likely to be present. Differencing across Eq. (22.70). A vector of residuals is then calculated using
satellites may be needed to eliminate the receiver clock
offsets. ρ1C − ρ1C +
Once multipath interference or NLOS reception has ρ2C − ρ2C +
been detected, by whatever means, its effects on the posi- δz + = 22 79
tion solution must be mitigated. The simplest approach is
to exclude the affected measurements from the position ρm
C − ρC
m+

solution. However, this does not always improve the accu- where the pseudoranges computed from the position solu-
racy, particularly if the ranging error is relatively small, as tion are given by
excluding a measurement can adversely affect the meas-
T
urement geometry of the positioning solution. Reducing ρCj + = ΔCIE rEj tstj − rEa + t a ΔCIE rEj t stj − rEa + ta + δR
+

the weighting of an affected measurement within the posi-

tion solution is a much more flexible approach. That way, 22 80
the measurement is used where it is needed to improve the A test statistic based on the sum of the squares of the resi-
signal geometry, but has little impact on the position solu- duals, δz+Tδz+, is then compared with the threshold
tion when the measurement geometry is good without that
σ ρ T ch , where σ ρ is the assumed standard deviation of
measurement. For multipath, the weighting can also be
the pseudorange measurements‚ and Tch is the argument
adjusted according to the strength of the multipath inter-
of the chi-square distribution corresponding to the required
ference that is detected. The main problem is that C/N0-
upper confidence limit [61]. The number of degrees of free-
based detection techniques do not provide any indication
dom is equal to the number of satellites from which pseu-
of the path delay, which is the sole determinant of the
dorange measurements are used, minus the number of
NLOS ranging error and a major factor in the ranging
parameters in the navigation solution (four in the case of
error due to multipath interference. By contrast, consist-
Eq. (22.70)). Where the test statistic falls within the thresh-
ency checking, described in the next subsection, is driven
old, the position solution is accepted. Otherwise, it is
by the ranging errors and thus more relevant to position-
assumed that at least one measurement is NLOS, severely
ing performance.

c22.3d 575 15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM

 576 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
multipath-contaminated‚ or subject to another source of
error. The measurement with the largest residual is then
eliminated as it is least consistent with the others‚ and
the process repeats.
This “top-down” approach is effective for relatively
benign environments where only one or two measurements
are contaminated. However, it does not work for dense
urban environments where the majority of signals may
be NLOS or affected by severe multipath interference. In
such cases, the residuals produced from a weighted least-
squares solution can be poor indicators of the quality of
the individual signals. Measurements from clean signals
are as likely to have large residuals as those from contami-
nated signals, so the wrong measurements may be elimi-
nated in a sequential testing algorithm [62].
An alternative “bottom-up” approach to consistency
checking is the subset comparison method [62].
A minimal sample set (MSS) is a subset consisting only
of the minimum number of GNSS measurements required
to produce an exact solution, that is, four plus any
unknown inter-constellation timing biases. The subset
comparison method works by generating a series of MSSs
and scoring each one according to its consistency with
the other measurements. A solution is then computed using
the best-scoring MSS plus those other measurements found
to be consistent with it. Unlike the sequential testing
method, many different measurement combinations are
assessed, so the chances of selecting the most consistent
set are much higher.
For each MSS, a position solution is computed using
those measurements only. If the i-th MSS contains the mea-
surements zi z, where z = ρ1C ρ2C ρm
T and (22.71), respectively.
C , the posi-
tion and receiver clock offset is then
ra+ i ra− −1
+i = − + Hi zi − zi − 22 81
δR δR
where Hi comprises the rows of the measurement matrix,
H, given by Eq. (22.73), corresponding to MSS i, and the
vector of predicted pseudoranges, zi − , is determined using
Eq. (22.71). Because the selection of each MSS is defined to
have the minimum number of rows required to estimate
the states, Hi is square, and will be invertible provided sat-
ellite geometry is good enough that it is not numerically
singular.
Each MSS is scored according to its consistency with the
remaining GNSS measurements. The first step is to calcu-
late a set of residuals for the full set of measurements,
δz+i. This is calculated using Eqs. (22.79) and (22.80) with
+i +
ra+ i and δbc substituted for ra+ and δbc . Note that the
residuals for those measurements within the MSS will then
be zero. Those measurements outside the MSS which have
c22.3d 576
residuals with magnitudes less than the empirically deter-
mined threshold δzmax are considered part of that MSS’s
consensus set (CS). The MSS and its associated CS are then
scored using the cost function
m
C i ei = k δz j+ i , δzmax 22 82
j=1
where k is the individual measurement cost function. Better
performance is obtained if this is weighted in the same way
as a weighted least-squares solution. Thus,
δz j+ i σ ρj δz j+ i ≤ δzmax
k δz j+ i , δzmax =
δzmax σ ρj δz j+ i > δzmax
22 83
where σ ρj is proportional to the error standard deviation of
the j-th pseudorange measurement; the weighting schemes
described in Section 22.5.1 may be used.
The MSS with the lowest cost function, Ci, and its associ-
ated CS then form the set of measurements, zf, used to com-
pute the final position and timings solution using
ra+ ra− T −1 T f−
+ = − + Hf Wρf H f Hf Wρf z f − z
δR δR
22 84
where Hf are the rows of the measurement matrix, Wρf the
rows and columns of the weighting matrix, and z f − the set
of predicted pseudoranges corresponding to the final meas-
urement set. They are computed using Eqs. (22.73), (22.74),
It is not necessary to test all possible MSSs as there will
typically be more than one combination of MSS and CS that
form the final measurement selection. Instead, the random
sample consensus (RANSAC) technique may be used [63].
This randomly generates MSSs until a sufficient number
have been generated for the probability that none of the
MSSs are outlier free to have dropped below a predeter-
mined significance level [62]. Another approach based on
applying chi-square tests to different measurement combi-
nations is described in [64].
22.5.3 Using a Filtered Navigation Solution
As discussed in Section 22.4, carrier smoothing of code
pseudoranges can provide substantial attenuation of code
multipath. Carrier smoothing is performed separately for
measurements from each satellite, producing a set of
smoothed pseudorange measurements which are then pro-
cessed in the same way as raw pseudoranges. Thus, signal
weighting and consistency checking can be applied as
15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM
 22.5 Real-Time Navigation Processor-Based NLOS and Multipath Mitigation
described in Sections 22.5.1 and 22.5.2, respectively. There-
fore, while carrier smoothing does not directly mitigate
NLOS reception errors – which affect the code and carrier
measurements in the same way – the reduction in pseudor-
ange noise does aid in detecting NLOS reception.
Instead of filtering measurements in the range domain,
separately for each satellite, filtering can also be accom-
plished in the position domain, as part of the navigation
solution. This is done by replacing the weighted least-
squares navigation solution in Eq. (22.70) with an extended
Kalman filter (EKF) that maintains a continuous position,
velocity‚ and time (PVT) solution with an associated error
covariance. This is predicted forward in time, using the
velocity solution to predict the change in position, and
the receiver clock drift to predict the change in clock offset.
New GNSS pseudorange and pseudorange rate (Doppler)
measurements are then used to correct the predicted PVT
solution, weighted according to the relative error covari-
ance of the measurements and the predicted solution. Fur-
ther details are presented in [6] and in Chapter 46.
Independent signal weighting to reduce the impact of
multipath interference and NLOS reception can be imple-
mented in an EKF using a similar approach as that
described in Section 22.5.1. However, there are some differ-
ences. A measurement noise covariance matrix is used
instead of a weighting matrix (noting that one is the inverse
of the other). This represents only errors that vary rapidly
with time, including multipath and NLOS reception where
the receiver is moving. Unlike a weighting matrix, a meas-
urement noise covariance matrix must also be correctly
scaled to ensure optimal weighting of old and new informa-
tion within the filter [6]. The other main difference is that
there are carrier-derived pseudorange rate measurements
to weight as well as the pseudoranges; carrier-phase-
derived measurements may also be used, where available.
Weighting should be performed under the assumption that
all measurements from a given satellite are affected when
multipath interference and/or NLOS reception is present.
Consistency checking can also be performed as described
in Section 22.5.2, with those measurements that pass the
consistency-checking process then input to the EKF. All
measurements from the same satellite should be accepted
or rejected together as propagation paths for different fre-
quency components are highly correlated and are likely
also corrupted, even if the errors have not yet been detected.
However, an EKF also enables measurements to be com-
pared for consistency with the navigation solution pre-
dicted from previous epochs. This is known as innovation
filtering. The measurement innovation vector of an EKF
is [6]
δzk− = zk − h xk− 22 85
c22.3d 577
577
where zk is the set of measurements at epoch k; xk− is the
set of state estimates (typically position, velocity, and time)
at epoch k, predicted forward from the previous epoch;
and h is a nonlinear measurement function that expresses
the measurements as a function of the states. The measure-
ment vector will typically comprise pseudoranges and pseu-
dorange rates (or carrier phase delta ranges).
−
The covariance of the innovations, Cδz,k , is a step in the
computation of the KF gain, and comprises the sum of the
measurement noise covariance and the error covariance of
the state estimates transformed into the measure-
ment space:
−
Cδz,k = Hk Pk− HTk + Rk 22 86
where Pk− is the error covariance matrix of the predicted
state estimates; Hk is the measurement matrix, comprising
the Jacobian matrix of partial derivatives of each measure-
ment with respect to each state; and Rk is the measurement
noise covariance matrix. The normalized innovation for the
i-th scalar measurement is given by
−
−
δzk,i
δzk,i = − 22 87
Cδz,k,i,i
Outlying measurements can then be detected by
−
comparing each δzk,i with a threshold. A higher threshold
minimizes the false alarm rate, while a lower
threshold minimizes the missed detection rate. If two
thresholds are used, measurements above the higher
threshold can be rejected while measurements falling
between the two thresholds are de-weighted. Test statistics
can also be computed from a sequence of normalized meas-
urement innovations, increasing sensitivity at the expense
of response time [6]. Examining a sequence of
innovations also enables NLOS reception and multipath
interference to be distinguished, with the former indicated
by a bias and the latter by a larger variance than
normal [65].
Vector tracking combines PVT estimation and GNSS
signal tracking into a single estimation algorithm. The
navigation filter inputs code and carrier discriminator
measurements instead of ranging measurements, and
its PVT solution is used to generate the NCO commands
within the receiver that control the reference code and
carrier generation. Full details are presented in
Chapter 16. In vector tracking, low-C/N0 discriminator
measurements are automatically de-weighted, so NLOS
measurements have less impact on the position solution
[66]. Innovation filtering can also be performed on
the discriminator measurements to enable rejection or
de-weighting of NLOS and strongly multipath-
contaminated signals [67].
15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM
 578 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
22.5.4 Using Aiding Information
A dead-reckoning navigation system measures motion
using inertial sensors, wheel-speed sensors, Doppler
radar, Doppler sonar, or another technology, and then
integrates that motion to update its position solution.
As the motion measurement errors are also integrated,
the position accuracy degrades with time. Consequently,
dead-reckoning technologies are normally integrated
with position-fixing technologies, such as GNSS,
typically using Kalman-filter-based estimation. Details
are presented in Chapter 46 and in [6, 68, 69]. In such
an integrated navigation system, the motion between
GNSS epochs is measured instead of predicted. Conse-
quently, in innovation filtering (Section 22.5.3), the pre-
dicted navigation solution used to compute the GNSS
measurement innovations is more accurate, making
the innovation filtering more sensitive and thus making
NLOS reception and multipath interference easier to
detect.
As described in [6], GNSS can also be integrated with
other radio positioning technologies, environmental fea-
ture matching systems (e.g. magnetic anomaly matching),
map matching, and/or terrain height aiding (see
Section 22.7). These all increase the amount of information
available to the navigation filter, boosting the sensitivity of
innovation filtering. Chapters 35–43 in this book are dedi-
cated to techniques that use radio signals of opportunity for
navigation, while Chapters 44–52 describe non-radio-based
navigation technologies.
A sky-pointing camera with a panoramic lens or an array
of cameras can produce an image of the entire field of view
above the receiver’s masking angle. Where the orientation
of the camera is known (requiring integration with inertial
sensors or multi-antenna interferometric GNSS), the
blocked lines of sight may be determined from the image.
By comparing these with the satellite azimuths and eleva-
tions, NLOS signals can be identified and excluded from the
PVT solution [70, 71].
22.6 Post-Processing Techniques for
Multipath Mitigation
Some methods for removing multipath effects rely on post-
processing of collected GNSS data. Post-processing
approaches can use batch estimation techniques; exploit
constellation repeat cycles; leverage additional informa-
tion, such as known antenna motion; and employ compu-
tationally intensive methods, such as electromagnetic (EM)
ray tracing.
c22.3d 578
22.6.1 Fixed or Repeatable Geometry
For a stationary receiver, installed in an essentially static
environment, the repeating satellite geometry of each
GNSS constellation produces repeating multipath effects
that can be identified and removed. This repeat time varies
by constellation: the GPS constellation repeats every side-
real day, GLONASS every eight days, Galileo every ten days
[72], and BeiDou every seven days [73]. Techniques exploit-
ing repeating satellite geometry are referred to as sidereal
filtering, in reference to the constellation repeat time of
GPS for which the technique was first conceived [74]. Mul-
tipath corrections may be applied in the position domain or
the observation domain. In position domain sidereal filter-
ing (PDSF), a series of position residuals (e.g. east/north/
height errors) from one day are subtracted from a series
of corresponding position states from a subsequent day
[75]. The position residuals from the first day may be
low-pass filtered to avoid amplifying noise. In the post-
processing case considered here, the input to the position
estimation for each day should be checked to ensure only
satellites visible on both days are used in case the constel-
lation changes (e.g. a satellite outage) [76].
Observation domain sidereal filtering (ODSF) involves
correction of the range measurements themselves: meas-
urement residuals from one day are low-pass filtered and
subtracted, per satellite, from a subsequent day’s series of
corresponding measurements. The low-pass filter band-
width must be sufficiently less than the multipath fading
frequency (see Eqs. (22.4) and (22.5)).
Greater accuracy in multipath removal can be achieved
by using more sophisticated alignment techniques.
Although the GPS constellation nominally repeats every
86 164 s, for example, modified sidereal filtering (MSF) uses
a repeat time of 86 155 s, accounting for the westward drift
of the satellite planes due to the oblateness of Earth [77].
Orbit periods of GPS satellites vary by about 8 s over a year,
however, and spacecraft maneuvers can change orbit peri-
ods by more than 100 s [76]; the repeat of a satellite ground
track is a better indicator of repeating multipath than the
orbit period. The aspect repeat time (ART) method takes
this approach by finding the time shift that maximizes
the dot product between the two user-to-satellite LOS vec-
tors [19, 78]. Note that in each of these methods, accurate
alignment of the previous day’s residuals with the current
observations relies on a sufficiently high rate data (on the
order of 1 Hz or greater). Noise in the multipath correction
may be reduced by averaging residuals from multiple
days [79].
Another approach that exploits repeatable geometry is to
map measurement residuals onto a sky plot by azimuth and
elevation, thus forming a hemispherical template of
15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM

multipath corrections [80, 81]. In most cases, however,
accounting for high-frequency multipath effects would
require a prohibitively fine discretization of the hemi-
sphere‚ and generating a complete template can take
months or years [75]. This technique is still useful for space-
craft applications, where reflectors are very close to the
receive antenna, implying lower-frequency errors (see
Eqs. (22.4) and (22.5)), and the environment may be indef-
initely static.
22.6.2 Estimation of Reflected Ray Properties
Estimation of the multipath parameters (αi, Δi, and ϕi for
each of i = 1, …, n reflected signals in Eq. (22.6)) allows
for reconstruction of the signals themselves, thereby
enabling correction of multipath errors via any of the pre-
viously discussed methods. While methods discussed in
Section 22.3.3, such as MEDLL, perform estimation in real
time, others benefit from a post-processing approach. Due
to the impossibility of perfect isolation of direct and
reflected signals in the cases of interest (i.e. cases with mul-
tipath-induced errors), one approach is to rely on differ-
ences in the evolution of direct and reflected signals in a
time series of data. Another approach is to thoroughly
model the receiver environment and estimate the reflected
signal properties through EM ray tracing.
Multipath error is highly sensitive to antenna motion –
moving an antenna just half a wavelength will significantly
change the relative phases of the direct and reflected sig-
nals. As an antenna is moved, projection of the antenna
motion onto the different signal arrival directions varies.
By generalizing the multipath model used in MEDLL to
include antenna motion, a known antenna motion time
history can be used to estimate the multipath parameters
of each reflected signal from the in-phase and quadrature
accumulations [82]. This has been demonstrated experi-
mentally with some success (e.g. reduction of overall accu-
mulated delta pseudorange RMS from 10 to 6 m) but is still
in development.
Rather than estimating multipath parameters from mea-
surements, these parameters can be calculated from a
known receiver environment and the laws that govern
the propagation of EM radiation. Representing a propagat-
ing EM field as a ray is a simplification known as geomet-
rical optics (GO) [83]. As long as object dimensions are
much larger than a wavelength, the interaction of this
ray with surfaces and different mediums is described by
the GO laws of reflection and refraction – though these
do not apply to edges. The uniform geometrical theory of
diffraction (UTD) expands the GO laws to handle complex
bodies by introducing diffraction to describe the scattering
of rays at edges [84–86]. When the electrical properties of an
c22.3d 579
22.6 Post-Processing Techniques for Multipath Mitigation 579
environment are fully defined, EM ray tracing can be used
to describe the path taken by an EM ray, including cases of
multipath.
In a typical approach to calculating multipath through
EM radiation modeling, structures in the receiver environ-
ment are first decomposed into simple geometric shapes.
These shapes are assigned diffraction and reflection coeffi-
cients according to their material properties and the canon-
ical shapes characterized in the UTD. All field components
contributing to the field at the antenna phase center are
traced through the environment‚ and finally the individual
field components are summed together. For example, [87]
describes an individual electric field component at point r’:
Er,d r' = Ei r Dr,d Ar,d s e − jks 22 88
where the superscript r, d indicates that the field may arise
from either interaction (reflection or diffraction), Ei(r) is
the incident field arriving at r from the source or the previ-
ous interaction point, Dr, d is a complex reflection or diffrac-
tion coefficient, Ar, d(s) a spreading factor due to distance s,
and e−jks a phase term with wavenumber k. The total field at
the receive antenna is the sum of the LOS field, reflected
fields, and diffracted fields.
Ray tracing software is used to perform the computation-
ally intensive task of tracing all significant field compo-
nents through the receiver environment and applying
interaction coefficients. Software must be selected accord-
ing to a number of factors, such as ease of use, visualization
capabilities, speed, and accuracy. Most software tools use
UTD methods [88–90], but accuracy is highly dependent
on the accuracy of structure models [87]. Ray tracing faces
significant challenges in terrestrial applications, but has
found use in simple or well-understood environments, such
as spacecraft [91]. Correcting code multipath errors
requires knowledge of reflected signal path delay to within
one-tenth of a wavelength (~2 cm), and therefore centime-
ter-level knowledge of antenna position, phase center, and
environment features is needed. This is further complicated
by imperfect phase reversal upon reflection (most buildings
or other structures are not flat over the Fresnel zone at
GNSS wavelengths). As discussed in Section 22.7, however,
it is practical to use ray tracing for NLOS correction, as
much greater modeling errors can be tolerated. Similarly,
ray tracing can be used to provide rough estimates of multi-
path relative amplitude, αi, which in turn can be used to
determine pseudorange error weighting for the position
solution as in Eq. (22.74).
22.6.3 Multipath Characterization
Characterization of the multipath environment is impor-
tant for antenna placement and measurement weighting.
15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM
 580 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals

But it can be difficult to identify multipath-induced errors and correct phase errors [94]. The expression for carrier
from among the many error sources. As described in phase error for a single reflected signal stated in
Section 22.4.1, pseudorange multipath errors can be iso- Eq. (22.16) can be expanded to an arbitrary number of sig-
lated by processing CMC data. These techniques exploit nals and, for small range lag (|x - δ| < d/2) and small αi,
the fact that pseudorange and carrier phase share most sig- approximated as
nal-in-space error sources but have different multipath n
i = 0 αi sin ϕi
errors. Consider code and carrier measurements in δφM ≈ n 22 90
Eq. (22.31). The single-frequency CMC multipath observa-
1+ i = 0 αi cos ϕi

ble Eq. (22.38) is the difference between these two range The amplitude of the combined signal, for direct signal
measurements, amplitude Ad and small αi, can be approximated as
χ L = ρL − φL = 2I L + δρML − δφML + ερL − εφL − N L λL n
Ac ≈ Ad αi cos ϕi 22 91
≈ 2I L + δρML + ερL − N L λL i=0
22 89
This multipath-induced variation in the amplitude of the
in which the geometric range, tropospheric delay, and clock combined signal is evident in the adjusted SNR and can be
terms cancel [13, 92]. Carrier multipath error and carrier used to estimate the relative amplitude and phase of each
noise terms are negligible relative to the code terms and multipath component. The sum of these components forms
can be ignored. The integer carrier ambiguity can be a profile for removing carrier phase multipath errors [95].
removed by subtracting the mean of χ L, but note that this Assuming the multipath frequency is constant over the
removes any bias associated with the multipath errors. time interval considered,
Finally, the ionosphere terms must be removed. This can
ϕi = ωi t + ϕ0,i , 22 92
be achieved by estimating and removing slow trending in
the measurement (on the order of hours) [13], or by produ- where ωi is the angular frequency of the i-th multipath
cing an ionosphere-free combination of the code and car- component and ϕ0,i is the initial phase offset, and the
rier range measurements with multiple frequencies – see number of multipath components and their frequencies
Section 22.4.3.3 and Eq. (22.78). The resulting measure can be identified through spectral analysis (e.g. fast Fourier
of pseudorange multipath errors can be employed to transform methods). An example is shown in Figure 22.22,
de-weight or ignore corrupted measurements [93]. in which the signal power exhibits a multipath-induced
Carrier phase multipath errors can be isolated with dif- oscillation, and a single multipath component with
ferential phase techniques (i.e. the difference in phase frequency 0.25 Hz can be identified in the frequency
measured by two antennas) by considering the relationship domain, despite the constant frequency assumption in
between the measured SNR and the carrier phase error. If Eq. (22.92) only holding approximately.
known factors affecting gain are removed (e.g. first-order The amplitudes and initial phases of each multipath com-
transmitter and receiver motion), variation in the adjusted ponent are estimated through a least-squares fit to
SNR can be attributed to multipath and used to estimate the model:

× 105 PRN01 Prompt Correlator Power PRN01 Prompt Correlator PSD

10 130
LCP power
LHCP correlation PSD [dB]

20 ms noncoherent avg
120
8
110
LHCP corr.power

6 100

4 90

80
2
70
0 60
16:26 16:27 16:28 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Time [UTC] Frequency [Hz]

Figure 22.22 (Left) Prompt correlator power and (right) power spectral density of PRN 1 measured during Hubble Servicing Mission 4
[18]. Source: Reproduced with the author’s permission.

c22.3d 580 15/12/2020 6:30:20 PM


cos ω1 t k − sin ω1 t k cos ωn t k − sin ωn t k
α1 Ad cos ϕ0,1
α1 Ad sin ϕ0,1
SNRM t k
× =
αn Ad cos ϕ0,n
αn Ad sin ϕ0,n
22 93
where the multipath SNR time series, SNRM, is computed
by subtracting the estimated direct SNR (calculated accord-
ing to a link budget and known geometry) from the meas-
ured and adjusted SNR [95]. Note that the real-time SNR
estimate must not be too heavily filtered in order to observe
changes in the total SNR. The resulting ωi, ϕ0, i, and αi esti-
mates are used to calculate the multipath frequency via
Eq. (22.92), and in turn the carrier phase error in
Eq. (22.90). The spectral analysis used to determine ωi does
not determine sign, however, so measurements from two
antennas are required. An additional least-squares fit must
be performed according to the model
δφM,1,1 t k δφM,n,1 δφM,1,2 δφM,n,2
s1,1
sn,1 DPHSresid t k
× =
s1,2
sn,2
22 94
where δφM, i, j is the estimated carrier phase error for multi-
path component i and antenna j, DPHSresid the motion-
corrected difference between the phase measured at each
of the two antennas, and si,j the carrier phase error sign
[95]. After these signs are computed, a differential phase
correction profile can be constructed and applied to the dif-
ferential phase data to produce carrier multipath free differ-
ential phase measurements.
With the availability of triple-frequency GNSS signals,
geometry/ionosphere-free phase combinations can be
formed [96]. These are useful for characterizing overall car-
rier phase multipath error levels, but not the multipath
error on a single frequency. Using the measurement models
in Eq. (22.31), the triple-frequency phase combination sug-
gested in [96] can be expanded to obtain
c22.3d 581
22.7 3D Mapping-Aided GNSS 581
δφM123 = λ23 φ1 − φ2 + λ22 φ3 − φ1 + λ21 φ2 − φ3
= λ23 − λ22 δφM1 + λ21 − λ23 δφM2 + λ22 − λ21 δφM3
+ Noise + Ambiguities 22 95
where the subscripts 1, 2, and 3 denote the frequencies. This
can be done with a single antenna/receiver and can be used
to estimate overall multipath error statistics, assessing error
budgets and comparing different antenna sites.
22.7 3D Mapping-Aided GNSS
GNSS position accuracy is degraded in dense urban envir-
onments because buildings block and reflect signals. 3D
mapping of buildings (together with knowledge of satellite
positions) enables prediction of which signals are affected
where. By using this information in GNSS positioning algo-
rithms, position error may be reduced from tens of meters
to a few meters. Techniques may be divided into terrain
height aiding, 3D mapping-aided (3DMA) GNSS ranging,
and shadow matching. These are described in turn, fol-
lowed by a discussion of system implementation issues.
22.7.1 Terrain Height Aiding
For most land positioning applications, the GNSS receive
antenna may be assumed to be at a known height above
the terrain. By using a digital terrain model (DTM), also
known as a digital elevation model (DEM), the position
solution may be constrained to a surface. Terrain height
aiding was used in the early days of GPS to enable position-
ing with a limited number of satellites. By effectively
removing a dimension from the position solution, the accu-
racy of the remaining dimensions is improved. In an open
environment, terrain height aiding significantly improves
only the vertical positioning and timing accuracies. How-
ever, where the signal geometry is poor, such as in dense
urban areas, horizontal accuracy can be significantly
improved [62].
Terrain height aiding is incorporated into a conventional
least-squares or EKF positioning algorithm by adding a vir-
tual ranging measurement [6, 62, 97]. This comprises the
distance, rea, from the center of Earth to terrain at the pre-
dicted horizontal position, adjusted for any known vertical
displacement of the user antenna from the terrain. The
DTM will provide the terrain height at a series of grid
points, so interpolation is necessary. Clearly, the more
accurate the predicted horizontal position is, the more
accurate the terrain height will be. Therefore, the position-
ing algorithm should be iterated several times, using the
horizontal position solution from the previous iteration
to compute the terrain height at each iteration.
15/12/2020 6:30:21 PM
 582 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
The positioning algorithm described in Section 22.5.1 can
be augmented with terrain height aiding by adding an addi-
tional measurement, r Ea,T , to Eq. (22.70). The terrain height
aiding measurement innovation, r Ea,T − ra− , is added to the
measurement residual vector of Eq. (22.70). The measure-
ment matrix, Eq. (22.73), is augmented with the additional
row
Hm + 1 = ea,x ea,y ea,z 0 22 96
where eEa ≈ rEa − rEa − in ECEF coordinates or eLa ≈
0 0 1 T in local level coordinates. An additional row
and column is also added to the weighting matrix, Wρ, to
weight the height-aiding measurement within the position
solution.
Terrain height aiding may also be used to improve the
robustness of consistency checking (Section 22.5.2) [62, 98].
22.7.2 3D Mapping-Aided Ranging
Using ray tracing or projection techniques, 3D maps of cities
can be used to predict which signals are blocked by build-
ings, and thus are NLOS when received, and which are
directly visible. Direct LOS signals may or may not be subject
to multipath contamination. This process can be accelerated
by using pre-computed building boundaries. The building
boundary at a given position comprises the elevation thresh-
old below which satellite signals are blocked for each azi-
muth. Satellite visibility can then be predicted very
quickly simply by comparing the satellite elevation with
the building boundary elevation at the appropriate azimuth.
These satellite visibility predictions can be used to aid ran-
ging-based positioning in a number of different ways. Where
the position is already known to within a few meters, it is
possible to predict which signals are NLOS with reasonable
accuracy and simply exclude them from the position solu-
tion (assuming there are sufficient direct LOS signals) [99,
100]. Otherwise, which signals are directly visible depends
on the true position, which is not known. A simple approach
is to determine the proportion of candidate positions at
which each signal is predicted to be directly visible and
use this to weight each measurement within the position
solution and to aid consistency checking.
To make the best use of satellite visibility prediction, a
conventional least-squares (or EKF) positioning algorithm
should be replaced by an algorithm that scores candidate
position hypotheses according to the difference between
the measured and predicted pseudoranges, assuming LOS
propagation. The receiver clock offset and any inter-
constellation timing biases may be eliminated by differen-
cing measurements across satellites. Different assumptions
about the error distribution can then be made at different
c22.3d 582
candidate positions according to which signals are pre-
dicted to be LOS or NLOS at each position. For example,
a symmetric error distribution could be assumed for LOS
signals and an asymmetric distribution for NLOS signals
with the scoring adjusted accordingly. The candidate posi-
tions may be distributed in a regular grid or semi-randomly
(like in a particle filter). The search area containing those
position candidates is centered at either the conventional
GNSS position solution or a position predicted forward
from previous epochs. The size of the search area is then
based on the uncertainty of the initializing position.
Ray tracing enables the path delay of a reflected GNSS
signal to be predicted as discussed in Section 22.6.2. NLOS
reception errors may then be corrected, enabling NLOS sig-
nals to contribute to an accurate position solution. How-
ever, accurate correction of NLOS errors requires an
accurate position solution. If the position is already known
to within a few meters, alternate computation of the posi-
tion solution and NLOS corrections may be iterated until
they converge. For larger uncertainties, multiple starting
positions will be needed to ensure convergence. A more
powerful approach adds NLOS error prediction to position-
ing by scoring candidate position hypotheses. Appropriate
NLOS corrections are then computed for each candidate
position. Both grid-based and particle-based methods have
demonstrated positioning accuracies within 2 m [101–103].
22.7.3 Shadow Matching
Shadow matching is a complementary GNSS positioning
technique that determines position by comparing predicted
and measured C/N0. Unlike conventional GNSS position-
ing, it does not use the ranging measurements, but rather,
is akin to “RF fingerprinting” techniques used for indoor
location systems. Using 3D mapping and the satellite posi-
tions, each GNSS signal is predicted to be directly visible
in some areas and blocked (shadowed) in other areas.
Shadow matching therefore assumes that the user is in
one of the directly visible areas if the received SNR is high
and in one of the shadowed areas if the SNR is low or the
signal is not received at all. Figure 22.23 illustrates the
general principle. Repeating this for each GNSS signal
enables the area within which the user may be found to
be reduced [104].
In practice, there can be overlaps in the SNR distributions
of direct LOS and NLOS signals, particularly when a smart-
phone antenna is used. Furthermore, real urban environ-
ments and signal propagation behavior are more complex
than it is possible to represent using 3D mapping [105].
Therefore, a practical shadow-matching algorithm works
by scoring a grid of candidate positions according to the
degree of correspondence between the satellite visibility
15/12/2020 6:30:21 PM

No direct signal Direct signal
received: user received: user
is here is here
Figure 22.23 Principle of shadow matching. Source: © 2016, Paul
D. Groves.
predictions and the SNR measurements. This enables inac-
curacies in the process to be treated as noise, so a correct
position is still obtained provided there is sufficient
“signal.”
Figure 22.24 shows the stages of a typical shadow-
matching algorithm [106]. Before using shadow matching,
the context must be determined [107]. Shadow matching
requires an outdoor urban environment as it does not work
indoors and is not needed in an open environment where
conventional GNSS positioning works well. The first step
is to establish the search area using an approximate posi-
tion (e.g. from conventional GNSS) and an associated
uncertainty. A search radius of a few tens of meters is typ-
ically needed. Within this search area, a grid of candidate
positions is established; indoor locations may be omitted.
Shadow matching works well with a grid spacing of 1 m,
but can operate with a larger spacing.
Next, 3D mapping is used to predict the satellite visibility
at each position, either directly or via pre-computed build-
ing boundaries. A 3D city model is necessarily an approxi-
mation of the true environment, and a ray is only an
approximation of a GNSS signal, the Fresnel radius of
which can exceed a meter in urban environments.
1. Establish search area
2. Predict satellite visibility
GNSS receiver
at each candidate position
3. Determine direct LOS 4. Score candidate
probabilities from C/N0 position hypotheses
5. Calculate position
solution from the scores
Figure 22.24 Stages of a typical shadow-matching algorithm. Source: © 2016, Paul D. Groves.
c22.3d 583
22.7 3D Mapping-Aided GNSS 583
Thus, although the satellite visibility predictions are Bool-
ean, it is better to treat the probability that a signal is direct
LOS as non-Boolean. For example, experimental tests have
shown that a LOS probability of 0.8 can be assumed if the
signal is predicted from the 3D mapping to be LOS and a
LOS probability of 0.2 can be assumed for signals predicted
to be NLOS [106].
The third step is to determine which of the received
signals are direct LOS from the C/N0 (or SNR) measure-
ments output by the receiver. Clearly, if the C/N0 is close
to nominal, the signal is likely to be direct LOS. Con-
versely, if the C/N0 is just above the code tracking
threshold or no signal is tracked, then the direct signal
path is almost certainly blocked. However, intermediate
values of C/N0 can be more difficult to classify as some
NLOS signals can be very strong while direct signals can
be attenuated by people and foliage. As discussed previ-
ously, cell phone antennas are linearly polarized, and
present a particular problem as they do not distinguish
between RHCP and LHCP signals. Therefore, an empir-
ically determined function that expresses the direct LOS
probability as a function of C/N0 should be used. This
function can be derived from C/N0 data collected at
known locations [106]. Because of their different
antenna characteristics, different models are needed
for professional-grade, consumer-grade‚ and cell phone
GNSS user equipment.
The fourth stage is to score each of the candidate posi-
tions. The probability that the predicted and measured sat-
ellite visibility match is
Pij = p LOS C N 0 j p LOS map ij
+ 1 − p LOS C N 0 j 1 − p LOS map ij
= 1 − p LOS C N 0 j − p LOS map ij
+ 2p LOS C N 0 j p LOS map ij 22 97
3D mapping or building
boundaries
15/12/2020 6:30:21 PM
 584 22 Robust Positioning in the Presence of Multipath and NLOS GNSS Signals
where p(LOS | map) is the predicted direct LOS probability,
p(LOS | C/N0) is the observed direct LOS probability, j is the
satellite‚ and i is the candidate position. A score for each
candidate position can then be determined by multiplying
the match probabilities for each signal. Thus,
Λi = Pij 22 98
j
The output of the scoring process is thus a likelihood sur-
face, giving the likelihood of each candidate position. This
can be converted to a probability density function by nor-
malizing it so that it integrates to unity.
The final step in the shadow-matching process is to com-
pute the position solution. A simple approach is to take a
weighted average of the candidate positions. Thus:
p= Λi p i Λi 22 99
i i
where pi is the position of the i-th candidate, which may be
expressed as Cartesian, curvilinear, or projected coordi-
nates. However, the likelihood surface can sometimes be
multimodal, resulting in a position solution that is the aver-
age of several possibilities. This can be accounted for by
increasing the position uncertainty in these cases. More
sophisticated approaches include extracting multiple posi-
tion hypotheses from the likelihood surface and putting the
full likelihood surface into an integration filter. Several
groups have demonstrated multi-epoch shadow matching
using a particle filter, achieving cross-street positioning
accuracies of better than 3 m [108–111].
22.7.4 System Implementation
Terrain height aiding, 3DMA GNSS ranging, and shadow
matching should not be thought of as competitors. Best per-
formance is obtained using all three techniques together, as
well as many of the techniques described in the preceding
sections. Because of the building geometry, GNSS ranging
(with or without aiding) is typically more accurate in the
along-street direction than in the across-street direction.
Conversely, shadow matching is more accurate in the
across-street direction. 3DMA ranging and shadow match-
ing can be integrated simply by forming a weighted average
of the two position solutions. The weighting should be
directional, which can be achieved either using the covar-
iances of the two position solutions or by using the street
direction extracted from the mapping. However, where
both positioning algorithms score an array of candidate
positions, it is better to combine the ranging and shadow-
matching scores for each candidate and then extract the
integrated position solution. Shadow-matching and
3DMA GNSS ranging likelihood surfaces can also be pro-
cessed with a multi-epoch navigation filter.
c22.3d 584
Terrain height aiding is inherent in both shadow match-
ing and in 3DMA ranging algorithms that consider multiple
candidate positions. By assuming the receive antenna is a
fixed distance above the terrain, the grid of candidate posi-
tions is constrained to two spatial dimensions instead of
three, reducing the processing load by an order of magni-
tude. However, a terrain-height-aiding least-squares posi-
tion solution should also be used to initialize the search
region. As it is more accurate, it enables fewer candidates
to be considered, again reducing the processing load.
For 3DMA GNSS to be practical, the algorithms must be able
to run in real time on a typical consumer device and have real-
time access to suitable 3D mapping data. Computational load
is not a major problem for the positioning algorithms. How-
ever, ray tracing can be computationally intensive. One solu-
tion is to use pre-computed building boundaries, though that
can take up more space than the original 3D mapping.
Another option is to use projection techniques run on a graph-
ics processing unit (GPU). However, both of these approaches
can only predict satellite visibility, not path delays. Real-time
path delay determination using ray tracing is currently limited
to a hundred or so candidate positions per second.
Highly detailed 3D city models are expensive. However,
simple block models, known as level of detail (LOD) 1, are
sufficient for most 3D-mapping-aided GNSS implementa-
tions. Open Street Map provides freely available building
mapping for the world’s major cities and many other places,
much of it in 3D. Data is also available from national map-
ping agencies. Although coverage is far from universal, it
tends to be available in the dense urban areas where it is
most needed. Conventional GNSS positioning usually
works well enough in low-density areas.
3DMA GNSS can be implemented on either a server or a
mobile device. A server-based implementation can use the
existing assisted GNSS protocols to communicate with a
GNSS receiver, so no modifications to the mobile device
would be needed, and the 3D mapping would all be kept
at the server. However, a server can only provide position-
ing for a limited number of users at one time, so is best
suited to applications requiring only a single-epoch position
fix. For continuous navigation and tracking applications,
3D mapping or building boundary data can easily be
streamed to users over modern cell phone connections,
assuming an efficient binary format. Pre-loading of data
is also possible, but not necessarily convenient as a mobile
device could only hold data for a few cities at a time.
22.8 Summary
Multipath reception is a phenomenon that all GNSS recei-
vers must contend with, and for many applications it is the
dominant error source. This chapter has provided a survey
15/12/2020 6:30:21 PM

of the plethora of techniques available to mitigate multi-
path errors: antenna siting to avoid multipath; antenna
types that enhance direct signals and attenuate reflected
signals, particularly for fixed sites; adaptive antenna array
processing; correlation signal processing; measurement
processing techniques like carrier smoothing; navigation
processing to de-weight or exclude measurements impacted
by multipath; and post-processing and modeling techni-
ques that provide estimates to correct multipath errors.
The applicability of these techniques to different GNSS
receiver types varies greatly, with cell phones being espe-
cially constrained.
NLOS reception is an additional challenge faced by many
applications, especially for users in urban environments.
Many receiver multipath mitigation techniques, including
antenna and signal processing approaches, do not address
NLOS reception. However, navigation processing techni-
ques that help to de-weight or exclude multipath can also
be adapted to mitigate NLOS reception. Furthermore,
3DMA techniques, such as shadow matching, are an exam-
ple of how signal propagation modeling can be applied to
actually use NLOS reception and signal blocking as sources
of positioning information.
As computational capabilities available to GNSS receiver
systems continue to improve, and with the increased avail-
ability of information from communication networks and
aiding sensors, the next decades can expect to see continued
improvements in mitigation of multipath and NLOS
reception.
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23
GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)
Sam Pullen1 and Mathieu Joerger2
1
Stanford University, United States
2
Virginia Tech, United States
23.1 Introduction: Integrity in the Context
of Safety
This chapter describes the concept of integrity for GNSS
applications. Previous chapters of this book have shown
how integrity is addressed for specific GNSS system architec-
tures (e.g. see Chapter 12 on Ground-Based Augmentation
Systems (GBAS) and Chapter 13 on Satellite-Based Augmen-
tation Systems (SBAS)) or in response to specific threats (e.g.,
see Chapter 10 on Signal Quality Monitoring). Integrity, in
very simple terms, refers to the level of trust that can be
placed in the outputs of GNSS or any other navigation sys-
tem. For some applications, errors beyond specified limits
would result in great levels of harm to users, possibly includ-
ing the loss of human life (these are often called “safety-crit-
ical” applications). For these applications, it is necessary to
go beyond quantifying accuracy (the extent of typical errors
within confidence intervals of 50% to 95%) to estimating
error bounds that apply at very low probabilities.
Section 23.2 of this chapter defines integrity in the con-
text of other navigation system parameters (accuracy, con-
tinuity, and availability) and explains the trade-off between
integrity on one hand and continuity and availability on the
other. Section 23.3 explains the key variables used to quan-
tify integrity and discusses the context in which integrity
risk probabilities (the probabilities of encountering unsafe
errors without alerting the user) are estimated. Section 23.4
explains how and why integrity is evaluated by users in real
time by computing protection levels (PLs) for the position,
velocity, and time (PVT) outputs that matter to particular
applications. Sections 23.5 and 23.6 examine the building
blocks of protection level calculations: rare-event bounds
under nominal conditions in Section 23.5 and bounds
under faulted conditions in Section 23.6. Section 23.7 shows
how these principles are applied to the design and analysis
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
591
of RAIM, which is a monitoring technique that exploits
redundancy in user measurements and is applied by both
stand-alone and augmented GNSS users. Section 23.8
expands this to what is known as “Advanced RAIM” or
ARAIM, which can handle larger sets of possible failure
hypotheses. Section 23.9 briefly summarizes this chapter.
The principles and methods described in this chapter
were mostly developed for civil aviation applications of
GNSS. In this chapter, civil aviation is often shortened to
“aviation” for simplicity, but it should not be assumed that
military or unmanned aviation applications currently use
the same definitions and techniques. However, these prin-
ciples can be applied to all GNSS applications (air, land,
marine, and space) that require protection of user (and
bystander) integrity.
23.2 Requirements Definitions and
Trade-Offs
The definitions of integrity and other complementary nav-
igation system performance parameters (accuracy, continu-
ity, and availability) are based on those used in civil
aviation and are similar to those provided in Chapter 12
on GBAS. These parameters quantify the usefulness of a
navigation system in terms of technical performance,
safety, operational utility, and economic benefits.
23.2.1 Accuracy
Accuracy is the most commonly used and best-understood
performance parameter, as it is important to all navigation
systems and applications. Accuracy represents a quantitative
measure of navigation error, meaning the difference between
the reported state output (range, position, time, etc.)
592 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)
and the true value of that output. In real-time operations, true
state values are generally unknown, but they can be measured
under controlled conditions, such as when measurements are
taken at a static position whose location was established pre-
viously. Even in these conditions, it is difficult to observe more
than 100 to 1000 statistically independent measurements.
Therefore, accuracy values usually represent errors under
typical measurement conditions out to probabilities no
greater than 99.9%.
Accuracy is commonly expressed in several different
forms. One form is “error probable,” which represents a
50th-percentile confidence interval on error. For example,
circular error probable (CEP) represents the value that
includes 50% of all 2-D horizontal position errors (this is
determined numerically from the error vector ε of differ-
ences between each measured data point and the known
or estimated true state). Because nominal errors are
typically well described by Gaussian (Normal) distributions
out to 99% or 99.9%, it is common to estimate the sample
standard deviation of the error vector ε [1, 2] and use this
to express a “one-sigma” accuracy value, which bounds
about 68.3% of the errors if the mean error is small.
A two-sigma accuracy value based on this estimate bounds
about 95.4% of errors. Extrapolating the Gaussian accuracy
model beyond three sigma is not recommended because, as
will be discussed in Section 23.5, errors under rare condi-
tions have non-Gaussian distributions with “tails” that
are “fatter” than those of a Gaussian distribution.
In many applications, a requirement is placed on accu-
racy in terms of not exceeding a certain accuracy value,
whether specified as error probable, one-sigma, or two-
sigma values. This can be tested in real time by, for exam-
ple, multiplying a single one-sigma range error estimate by
the dilution-of-precision (DOP) values that apply to the
user’s current visible satellite geometry (see Chapter 2).
While most applications assess accuracy performance as
an “ensemble” over time and do not prevent operations
at times when the accuracy requirement is not predicted
to be met, civil aviation is different in that operations are
not allowed in this case. In other words, the accuracy
requirement is assessed in real time, and if it is not met
for the desired operation, that operation cannot be con-
ducted at that time. In practice, availability for civil aviation
(see Section 23.2.4 below) is much more limited by the
integrity requirement that will be described next.
23.2.2 Integrity
Integrity is not one parameter but a collection of parameters
that express the trust that can be placed in a navigation
solution under rare-event conditions (in practice, this usu-
ally refers to conditions with probabilities of 10−5 per
operation or below). As with accuracy, what is often sought
is an error bound that applies at such low probabilities, but
a combination of factors must be considered in order to cre-
ate and validate such an error bound.
In safety-critical applications that rely on navigation, the
concern for safety arises from the possibility of errors large
enough to create collisions or accidents. In aviation, the
boundary that defines unsafe errors for a particular appli-
cation is called the alert limit (AL). The unsafe condition
that we want to avoid is called misleading information
(MI). At a minimum, misleading information occurs when
a navigation error exceeds one or more relevant ALs
(depending on the specific integrity requirement, MI can
also be declared when the protection level is exceeded –
see Section 23.4). If MI occurs, safety can be maintained
if the MI condition is stopped, most likely by detecting
the underlying anomaly and excluding the affected GNSS
measurements, or if an alert is provided to the user (pilot,
driver, automated system, etc.) indicating that the system is
no longer safe to use. Either of these actions must occur
within a specified time to alert (TTA), which again varies
depending on the operation being conducted.
If MI occurs without being alerted or mitigated in time,
loss of integrity occurs. In other words, loss of integrity
occurs when MI exists without annunciation (alerting the
user) or mitigation (excluding measurements such that
MI no longer exists) within the time to alert. Integrity risk
is the probability of loss of integrity over a time interval
(“exposure time”) that is relevant to the operation in ques-
tion (e.g. the duration of an aircraft precision approach).
The integrity requirement for a given operation is thus com-
posed of three specified values: integrity risk, AL, and time
to alert.
Figure 23.1 shows how the integrity requirement is met
or not met in real time. Integrity is threatened when the
(unknown) position error (or other navigation output that
is safety-critical) exceeds either the AL or, more conserva-
tively, the user-computed protection level (which one gov-
erns integrity depends on the specific set of requirements
used). If this occurs, integrity can be protected if an alert
leading to the operation being aborted (loss of continuity
– see Section 23.2.3) or the exclusion of the measurements
causing the unacceptable error occurs. However, for these
preventive measures to be successful in preserving integ-
rity, they must occur within the TTA.
Table 23.1 shows the accuracy and integrity requirements
for two aviation approach applications that are similar in
that they both provide instrument guidance to approach
a runway in obstructed visibility down to a minimum
height above threshold (HAT, or decision height (DH)) of
200 feet. The variation supported by SBAS is known as
LPV 200 and is explained further in Chapter 13, while
 23.2 Requirements Definitions and Trade-Offs 593

PL = protection level
(computed by user) Loss of
AL = alert limit (“safe integrity
zone” defined by No
requirements) No

Is Is an alert Does this

position issued, or Yes action
Yes
error > are affected take place
[PL or measurements within
AL]? excluded? TTA?

No
TTA = time to alert
Yes

No integrity risk (integrity maintained)

Figure 23.1 Flowchart showing events leading to protection or violation of integrity requirement.

Table 23.1 Comparison of accuracy and integrity requirements for SBAS (LPV 200) and GBAS (CAT I, GAST C) versions of aviation precision
approach to 200 ft DH [3, 4]

Parameter SBAS LPV 200 GBAS CAT I (GAST C)

Horizontal accuracy (95%) 16 m 16 m

Vertical accuracy (95%) 4m 4m
Horizontal alert limit (HAL) 40 m 40 m
Vertical alert limit (VAL) 35 m 10 m
Loss of integrity probability 2 × 10−7 / approach (150 s) 2 × 10−7/approach (150 s)
Time to alert (TTA) 6.2 s 6s

the GBAS variant is equivalent to precision approach under
Category I weather minima (“CAT I precision approach”)
as defined by the long-established non-GNSS system
known as the Instrument Landing System, or ILS (see
Chapter 12). As one would expect, both the accuracy and
integrity requirements for these two operations are essen-
tially the same except for the vertical alert limit (VAL),
which is much lower for GBAS than for SBAS. This differ-
ence is to a large extent illusory, as the largest error source
for both systems is anomalous spatial decorrelation of ion-
ospheric delay on GNSS signals, and errors larger than the
10 m VAL for CAT I GBAS are allowed in the case of worst-
case ionospheric anomalies. This will be further discussed
in Section 23.6.
Note that, as expected, there is a large gap between 95%
accuracy and ALs in both horizontal and vertical position
axes. In 2-D horizontal position, the 95th-percentile accu-
racy requirement of 16 m equates to about 8 m one-sigma,
which is one-fifth of the 40 m HAL. Under nominal
conditions, when no faults exist to detect and exclude or
to alert the user of, a typical horizontal protection level
(HPL) is about six times the one-sigma error value (see
Section 23.4). This means that, in practice, the integrity
requirement places a tighter constraint on nominal hori-
zontal accuracy than does the accuracy requirement, and
confirming in real time that the integrity requirement is
met also confirms that the accuracy requirement is met.
The same is true of vertical position error, where a ratio
of 5 to 1 also applies between the GBAS VAL of 10 m
and the required one-sigma vertical position accuracy of
2 m.
23.2.3 Continuity
Continuity risk is a measure of the probability of unex-
pected loss of navigation during an operation that requires
that the operation be aborted to preserve safety. Loss of con-
tinuity occurs when a user is forced to abort an operation
594 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)

during a specified time interval after it has begun, presum-
ing that the operation was deemed to meet all requirements
(and thus be available) at its outset. The continuity risk
requirement is usually expressed as a maximum tolerable
probability of loss of continuity. In the case of the approach
operations shown in Table 23.1 above, this probability is 8 ×
10−6 per 15 s, where each 15 s interval is 10% of the total
approach duration of 150 s.
Figure 23.2 shows a simplified fault tree that identifies
the key contributors to continuity loss for GNSS applica-
tions. The left-hand branch under the first “OR” gate
includes detected failures of GNSS satellite signals when
an actual problem exists. This can occur due to the sudden
loss of access to a satellite signal (e.g. the signal simply dis-
appears or is flagged as unhealthy) or due to the detection of
a faulted satellite by monitoring within the GNSS applica-
tion. The middle branch represents the failure of other
GNSS system components that are needed for operations
to be conducted. One example is the means for broadcast-
ing corrections and integrity information from augmenta-
tion systems to users. In SBAS, this information is
provided by geostationary (GEO) satellites, while in GBAS
it is provided by nearby VHF transmitters. Another exam-
ple is the ground-based reference receivers that generate
this information. The right-hand branch is different in that
it represents fault detection of healthy GNSS measurements
or equipment due to integrity monitor “false alarms,”
meaning fault-free alerts issued by these monitors due to
rare-nominal errors when no actual fault exists.
The nodes labeled “A1,” “A2,” and “A3” under each of
these branches indicate that, for each one, the event break-
down shown below under the “OR” gate labeled “A” deter-
mines whether or not continuity is lost. This “OR” gate is
reached when either an actual fault or a fault-free event
is detected – in real time, the system will not know which
is the case. The lower right-hand branch represents the

Loss of Continuity
(Probability of Unexpected Mission
Abort in specified time interval)

OR

Dectected Detected System

Fault-Free
Satellite Component
Detections(s)
Fault(s) Fault(s)

A1 A2 A3

All three “A” nodes have the

same form.
A OR

AND

Affected Affected Exclusion of affected

measurement(s) measurement(s) are measurements(s) is
are excluded critical not possible

Figure 23.2 Notional fault tree showing the primary causes of loss of continuity.

scenario where the detected event cannot be confidently
isolated to a specific measurement or small subset of mea-
surements. In this case, rather than risk incorrect exclusion
and thus potential loss of integrity, continuity is sacrificed
instead. The lower left-hand branch represents the scenario
where exclusion is possible with an acceptably low proba-
bility of incorrect exclusion, but the exclusion of the appar-
ently faulty measurements results in loss of continuity
because those measurements (assuming they were healthy)
were needed to meet the integrity requirements.
Individual satellites whose loss or exclusion would cause
loss of continuity are called critical satellites. Because most
users see many more satellites than are needed to meet
their navigation requirements, relatively few visible satel-
lites are critical. The concept of critical satellites can be
extended to combinations of satellites that are jointly crit-
ical (all must be excluded for continuity to be lost) and to
other critical system components. As with GNSS satellites,
redundancy is often present such that failure of a single ele-
ment (e.g. a single GEO satellite, or a single SBAS or GBAS
reference receiver) does not by itself cause loss of continu-
ity. Therefore, in practice, most single-measurement exclu-
sions are not critical and thus do not lead to loss of
continuity. This makes the capability for measurement
exclusion crucial to minimizing continuity risk in many
applications.
While the effect of measurement detections and exclu-
sions on continuity is the same regardless of the cause,
actual faults are separated in the fault tree from fault-free
conditions in order to clarify how continuity risk is allo-
cated. Continuity risk due to actual faults is based on the
probabilities of these faults, whereas continuity risk due
to fault-free exclusions is based on the fault-free alert prob-
abilities of each of the monitors used to protect integrity,
and this depends on the impact of nominal (fault-free)
measurement noise on the monitor test statistics.
In practice, since the probabilities of GNSS satellite faults
are outside the control of GNSS application designers, con-
tinuity risk is allocated first by assigning a certain probabil-
ity to satellite faults (the upper left-hand branch in
Figure 23.2), and this probability determines the number
of critical satellites that are allowed in a satellite geometry
that meets the continuity requirement. The remainder of
the allocation is divided among the other two branches,
where the application designer has some flexibility. The
allocation to fault-free detections and exclusions must then
be subdivided among the monitor algorithms used to pro-
tect integrity.
Loss of continuity in Safety-of-Life applications poses a
potential safety concern as well as an operational problem.
When an operation must be aborted unexpectedly, the
backup operation that must be carried out may carry some
23.2 Requirements Definitions and Trade-Offs 595
safety risk as well, although it would be much less than con-
tinuing the original operation. For example, when a preci-
sion approach must be aborted, a missed approach is flown
instead. This is a well-understood operation that pilots are
familiar with, but because the abort may catch pilots
slightly by surprise, and because the missed approach
may begin close to the ground, this operation is considered
to have “minor” (but not zero) severity in terms of the haz-
ard risk index safety concept used in civil aviation [5]. This
concern, combined with the operational hazard of having
several approaching aircraft lose service at the same time,
is what motivates the loss-of-continuity probability require-
ment for precision approach to a 200 ft DH given above.
The need to limit the probability of fault-free alerts and
exclusions within integrity monitoring creates a direct
trade-off between the continuity and integrity require-
ments. Integrity monitor algorithms are used to detect
and remove faulted measurements within the TTA to pre-
vent loss of integrity, which poses a much larger safety
threat than loss of continuity. To achieve this, the detection
thresholds on these monitors need to be set as tightly as pos-
sible. However, doing this increases the fault-free exclusion
probability by making it more likely that random noise
under nominal conditions will lead to unnecessary exclu-
sion. Managing this trade-off so that both integrity and con-
tinuity requirements are met simultaneously is one of the
greatest challenges confronting the designers of GNSS
applications with stringent Safety-of-Life demands.
23.2.4 Availability
Availability is a measure of the operational and economic
utility of the navigation service. It is most commonly
expressed as the probability over time (e.g. over different
user locations and GNSS satellite geometries) that all of
the requirements for a given operation (accuracy, integrity,
and continuity) are simultaneously met so that the opera-
tion can be conducted safely and efficiently. This is often
called service availability. Other definitions also exist, such
as the maximum time interval between service outages
(periods of non-availability), which is sometimes called
operational availability.
Availability is analyzed both in real time by users and off-
line by operators to predict near-term performance and to
evaluate long-term performance (often for cost-benefit
assessment). In real time, at the beginning of each new
operation type of phase, the availability of integrity, accu-
racy (if not already covered by integrity), and continuity
are numerically assessed to determine if it is safe to proceed
with the intended operation. Depending on the duration of
the operation, this might involve forward calculations of
how the predicted satellite geometry and range-domain
596 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)
errors will change over time. Offline, aviation operations
centers assess the availability of all user locations over
the next 12, 24, or 48 hours (using the known GNSS satellite
orbits and current satellite health) in order to determine if
any outages will occur within the aviation service volume.
If any such outages are predicted to occur in the US
National Airspace System (NAS), the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) will issue Notices to Airmen
(NOTAMs) that alert pilots to where and when loss of serv-
ice is expected.
Availability requirements are usually expressed in terms
of minimum service availability (e.g. 0.999, or “three
nines”), but these requirements vary greatly depending
on the operational and economic criticality of the service
being supported. For example, precision approach availa-
bility requirements for smaller airports where nearby alter-
nates exist tend to be around 0.99, and availability as low as
0.9 may sometimes be acceptable in practice. However,
busy airports with few adequate alternatives or severe con-
sequences of disruption if outages occur may have availa-
bility requirements as high as 0.99999.
23.3 Interpretation of Integrity
Requirements
23.3.1 Simplified Integrity Risk Model
Analysis and validation of the integrity requirements
defined in Section 23.2 is based on a simplified model of
how faults, navigation errors, and integrity monitors inter-
act. This model can be summarized by the following
expression:
PLOI,i = PPL,i PMD,i Pprior,i 23 1
where
PLOI,i is the probability of loss of integrity (LOI) due to fault
condition i, where i = 0 denotes nominal conditions;
Pprior,i is the prior probability of fault condition i, meaning
the probability that fault condition i is present without any
measurements to infer its presence (note that, for nominal
conditions, Pprior,0 1);
PMD,i is the probability of integrity monitor missed detec-
tion (MD) of fault condition i, given that this condition is
present (thus, it is a conditional probability). MD here
means that action is not taken to mitigate the fault condi-
tion within the required TTA. While monitor detection of
nominal conditions sufficiently unusual to cause LOI is
possible, this probability is usually conservatively taken
to be 1 for i = 0 since no specific fault is present to be
detected.
PPL,i is the probability that the error fault condition i
exceeds one or more PLs that define MI given that both
the fault condition exists and MD occurs. Note that this
could be changed to the AL instead (PAL,i) if MI is defined
relative to ALs for a particular application.
The following two subsections explain how prior fault
probabilities and missed-detection probabilities are defined
and calculated, while Section 23.4 explains the derivation of
PLs and ALs.
23.3.2 Prior Probability Calculations
Prior probabilities of anomalous conditions are difficult to
determine in general because the anomalies that they rep-
resent are typically rare events. In addition, the prior prob-
abilities used in Eq. (23.1) represent threats that are specific
to a given GNSS application rather than generic GNSS sys-
tem faults that might be assessed and reported by system
operations. However, years of experience and data collec-
tion from GPS satellites has helped reduce this uncertainty
for some failure modes.
An important source for prior probabilities of different
types of GPS satellite failures is the GPS Standard Position-
ing Service (SPS) Performance Standard issued by the US
Department of Defense (DoD) [6], which was last updated
in 2020. This document does not give guarantees of specific
levels of performance, but the “standards” of performance
that it provides are based on many years of observed GPS
measurement quality and generally show that the original
DoD specifications on GPS SPS performance have been sig-
nificantly exceeded.
For L1 C/A code from a particular satellite, the integrity
standard given in Section 3.5.1 of [6] limits the probability
of signal in space (SIS) user range error (URE) exceeding
4.42 times the one-sigma user range accuracy (URA) value
broadcast by that satellite to 1 × 10−5 or less over any hour
(note that this probability is equivalent to that of exceeding
±4.42 from a standard Gaussian distribution with zero mean
and unity variance) without a timely alert. A timely alert is
defined as one that arrives at the user’s GPS antenna within
10 s of the SIS URE exceeding 4.42 times URE. Alerts within
this short time frame are possible, but many unexpected sat-
ellite faults require GPS operator intervention and may take
some TTA. A worst-case TTA of 6 hours is stated as a con-
servative assumption in Section A.5.4.2 of [6], but actual
alerts almost always occur within 1 to 3 hours of a fault vio-
lating the above error tolerance.
In addition, Section 3.6.1 of [6] provides a limiting prob-
ability of unscheduled failure causing loss of the L1 C/A
code broadcast from a particular orbit slot (at least among
the 24 primary GPS orbit slots), covering the above fault

scenarios that require user or operator alerting as well as
faults that are obvious (e.g. the signal is no longer receivable
or trackable). This probability is 0.0002 per hour or lower
per orbit slot, meaning that the probability of no loss of sig-
nal per orbit slot per hour is at least 0.9998. These probabil-
ities are useful in assessing the GPS satellite contribution to
user continuity risk.
Finally, Section 3.7.1 of [6] provides a per-orbit-slot prob-
ability (among the 24 primary GPS orbit slots) of 0.957 or
greater that a given orbit slot has a functioning L1 C/A-code
SIS. This value is useful for availability calculations. In
practice, simulations of changing GPS satellite geometries
over time are used to estimate the availability of particular
user applications, and they depend on assumptions of how
many GPS satellites are functioning. The above probability
can be used to estimate the state probability of all 24 satel-
lites in the traditional 24-satellite GPS constellation being
healthy, all but one being healthy, and so on, and these
results can be convolved with simulation-based availability
results for a particular set of healthy satellites to (approxi-
mately) estimate availability over a larger set of possible
constellation health states.
Note that the probabilities given in [6] are of two forms.
The integrity and continuity probabilities in sections 3.5.1
and 3.6.1 are given in terms of a failure (or success) proba-
bility per hour, making them probability rates. The per-slot
health probability in section 3.7.1 is instead independent of
time and represents a state probability, or a long-term aver-
age probability that a given orbit slot is in one state versus
another. It is important not to confuse these two values.
Most GNSS user applications provide tolerable integrity
and continuity risk requirements as a probability per time
period, where the cited time period (“exposure time”) is
related to the duration of the intended operation. Thus,
the most common use of Eq. (23.1) is with PLOI,i and
Pprior,i being probability rates and PPL,i and PMD,i being state
probabilities. However, this is not always the case, and it is
important to check each probability input to see if it is
implicitly defined per time interval or not.
A prior probability expressed as a failure rate over time is
traditionally defined in the following manner when it is
based on observations over a known time period:
N fail
Pprior_rate = 23 2
T obs
where Nfail represents the total number of (discrete and
independent) observed failure events over a time period
Tobs. This represents a point estimate of the failure rate,
which can have significant statistical uncertainty if the true
failure probability is rare such that Nfail is zero or very
small. Therefore, it is advisable to also consider confidence
intervals on this failure rate estimate, which are given by the
23.3 Interpretation of Integrity Requirements 597
binomial distribution if the period Tobs can be converted into
a number of discrete trials Ntrials. One recommended method
for computing binomial confidence intervals is the Clopper–
Pearson interval described by Wikipedia [7]. General forms
of this interval using both Beta and F distributions are given
in [7] and are complex, but a relatively simple result for the
case where Nfail = 0 is particularly useful:
α 1 N trials
0 ≤ Pprior_actual ≤ 1 – 23 3
2
where Pprior_actual is the actual (unknown) prior point prob-
ability with a mean value given by Pprior_mean = Nfail / Ntrials,
which equals 0 for Nfail = 0, and α represents the probability
of being left outside the confidence interval given in
Eq. (23.3) (in other words, 1 – α represents the size of the
desired confidence interval in terms of probability).
Consider the example where no failures are observed
over 106 hours (approximately 114 years; thus this is likely
to be obtained by observing perhaps 5.7 years on each of
20 independent satellites), with each hour representing
one discrete time period (thus Ntrials = 106 as well). With
Nfail = 0, Pprior_mean = 0/106 = 0, and it is often assumed
that the actual prior probability can be upper-bounded
by assuming that, had one failure been observed, Pprior_-
−6
6
bound = 1/10 = 10 per hour. However, setting α = 0.1
(for a 90th percentile confidence interval with 5th and
95th-percentile lower and upper bounds) in Eq. (23.3),
the 95th-percentile upper bound on this prior probability
is actually 3 × 10−6 per hour. Creating a much smaller
40th-percentile confidence interval with α = 0.6 gives an
70th-percentile upper bound of 1.2 × 10−6 per hour, indi-
cating that there is more than a 30% chance that the true
prior probability exceeds the naïve bound of 1 × 10−6 per
hour mentioned above.
A prior probability equation expressed as a state probabil-
ity uses different inputs, both of which are expressed in
units of time:
MTTR
Pprior_state = 23 4
MTBF + MTTR
where MTBF represents the mean time between (discrete
and independent) failure events, and MTTR represents
the mean time to repair (or at least alert and remove) these
events. The significance of MTTR comes from the fact that,
if a fault is never repaired, its state probability trends
toward one. Since prior probabilities refer to faults and
repairs that occur before monitor intervention, MTTR
may be much longer than the TTA required of the monitors
included within a GNSS augmentation system (such as the
hour or more needed for GPS SPS alerts of satellite service
failures described above).
598 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)
Note that all of these calculations assume a stationary
failure process, meaning that the probability of failure (or
mean time to failure or repair) does not change with time
over the observation period used to estimate these para-
meters. This is rarely the case in practice when the obser-
vation period is long enough to produce useful estimates
for low failure probabilities, but it is typically assumed
due to the lack of alternatives. Keeping this and other sim-
plifying assumptions in mind, it is important to be conserv-
ative when using the results of these calculations. This
often means using upper bounds derived from confidence
intervals and using judgment to apply higher probabilities
than the computed values based on knowledge of the
uncertainty in the underlying assumptions and the num-
bers used to derive these estimates. One example of how
these issues are tackled for the prior probabilities of satellite
failures used in the Advanced RAIM (ARAIM) technique
described in Section 23.8 of this chapter can be found in [8].
Estimating prior probabilities of rare but threatening nat-
ural events, such as anomalous ionospheric or tropospheric
conditions, is particularly challenging because little is
known about the frequency of such conditions except that
they change with time and place. Several models have been
developed to express the prior probability of anomalous
ionospheric conditions. In [9], a prior probability model
for ionospheric anomalies that are hazardous to Category
I precision approaches supported by GBAS is proposed,
but this model is not generally accepted, as it averages over
100
Thresh.
10 –2
10 –4 Nominal
Probability Density
10 –6 PMD
PFFA/2
10 –8
10 –10
–6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6
KFFA
Test Statistic Response (no. of sigmas)
Figure 23.3 Gaussian model of monitor response to faulted conditions.
conditions of the precision approach that are generally
treated as “worst-case” in GBAS integrity analysis (see
Section 23.3.4).
23.3.3 Missed-Detection Probability
Calculations
Figure 23.3 shows a model of the response of a generic
integrity monitor test statistic to a fault that appears as a
bias and changes the mean of the test statistic. Under nom-
inal conditions (the blue curve), the test statistic distribu-
tion is bounded by a zero-mean Gaussian distribution
with a known standard deviation (“sigma”). The test statis-
tic is normalized by (divided by) this sigma so that the plot
in Figure 23.3 is shown in terms of the number of sigmas on
the x-axis, with the probability density of the normalized
Gaussian distribution shown on the y-axis.
Integrity monitors separate nominal from faulted condi-
tions by establishing a detection threshold (the purple ver-
tical line) and alerting the presence of a fault when the test
statistic exceeds the threshold. However, under nominal
conditions, there is a certain probability that fault-free
noise will drive the test statistic over the threshold and
cause a false detection or fault-free alert. The bounding
zero-mean Gaussian model of nominal errors allows this
noise magnitude to be evaluated for any sub-allocated prob-
ability of fault-free alert PFFA (and corresponding continu-
ity loss – see the right-hand branch of Figure 23.2).
Faulted
MDE
8 10 12 14 16
KMD

The calculation of the threshold to meet a given PFFA allo-
cation is easily done in MATLAB or another engineering
toolbox with statistics capability. The MATLAB function
call is
K FFA = norminv 1 – PFFA 2, 0, 1 23 5
where KFFA is the size of the threshold in sigmas. In other
words, the threshold in test statistic space is KFFA times the
bounding sigma value for continuity. Note that the total
PFFA sub-allocated to this monitor is divided by two here
and in Figure 23.3 because fault-free noise can push the test
statistic over the threshold on either side of zero.
When a failure occurs, the monitor test statistic is biased
to one side of zero but (in this simplified model) retains the
same fault-free noise sigma. This is shown by the green
curve in Figure 23.3. If the size of this bias is equal to the
monitor threshold established previously, fault-free noise
is equally likely to push the actual test statistic above or
below the threshold, meaning that the probability of missed
detection of the fault (PMD) is 0.5. Each monitor has a
required PMD for the fault that it is designed to mitigate
based on a sub-allocation of the integrity requirement,
and it is usually much smaller than 0.5. The red vertical line
labeled MDE in Figure 23.3, to the right of the threshold,
represents the size of the bias in the test statistic that will
be detected with the sub-allocated PMD.
As with the threshold above, the MDE can be calculated
from the statistics of the Gaussian distribution as follows,
starting with the size of the missed-detection buffer:
K MD = norminv 1 – PMD , 0, 1 23 6
Here, note that PMD is not divided by two because the
fault biases the test statistic to one side of zero, and the pos-
sibility of MD to the other side of zero is negligible. Finally:
K MDE = K FFA + K MD 23 7
and the MDE in test statistic space is KMDE times the bound-
ing test statistic sigma. Note that it is possible for different
bounding sigmas to exist for continuity and integrity (e.g.
when the constraints for averaging or combining collected
data for integrity are stricter than for continuity – see
Section 23.3.4), and in those cases, it would be necessary
to compute the MDE as follows:
MDE = K FFA σ cont + K MD σ integ 23 8
where σ cont and σ integ are the different bounding sigma
values for continuity and integrity, respectively. Of course,
Eq. (23.8) can also be used when these two sigma values are
the same.
Once the MDE is known for a given monitor and fault
condition, the magnitude of the differential range error cor-
responding to the test statistic at MDE can be determined.
23.3 Interpretation of Integrity Requirements 599
This potential error must be bounded by the PLs computed
by the user, as shown in Eq. (23.1) and explained further in
Section 23.4.
Note that, while this approach to computing threshold
and MDE values is based upon the zero-mean Gaussian
model for nominal test statistic values, the concept extends
to other probability distributions as well. The basic idea is to
determine threshold values that satisfy a sub-allocation of
the continuity risk requirement and, based on that value,
determine the smallest fault impact that will be detected
with the probability derived from a sub-allocation of the
integrity requirement. This impact drives the calculation
of user PLs.
23.3.4 Conservatism Within Integrity Risk Model
The integrity risk model described above is based on prob-
ability evaluations that can be done in several ways. It is
important to understand how this has been done for avia-
tion applications of GNSS and alternatives that have been
used for other applications.
Civil aviation applications are designed to meet integrity
requirements defined in terms of what is known as “specific
risk.” In simple terms, this means that integrity require-
ments must be met for the worst combination of knowable
or potentially foreseeable circumstances under which an
operation may be conducted. For GNSS, some variables
important to integrity, such as the user’s satellite geometry,
are known by definition. On the other extreme are vari-
ables, such as receiver thermal noise, which are random
and unpredictable (even if the received signal strength is
known). But several factors that are critical to GNSS perfor-
mance, such as multipath and ionospheric errors, fall in the
middle and are neither completely random nor completely
known [10].
In evaluating integrity risk, “specific risk” treats all error
sources that are not completely random in a worst-case
manner. One definition of “specific risk” is as follows: “Spe-
cific risk is the probability of unsafe conditions subject to
the assumption that all credible unknown events that could
be known occur with a probability of one (on an individual
basis) [10].” The key elements of this approach are “worst-
case” evaluation (from the point of view of the analysis used
to evaluate integrity risk) and the separation of “unknown
events that could be known” from unknown events that are
truly random and unpredictable.
In contrast, most evaluations of integrity or safety risk
outside of civil aviation use the more natural (and less con-
servative) approach of “average risk,” which does not stress
“worst-case evaluation” and does not treat “unknown
events that could be known” differently from other
unknown events. One definition of average risk is as
600 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)
follows: “Average risk is the probability of unsafe condi-
tions based upon the convolved (‘averaged’) estimated
probabilities of all unknown events [10].”
One example of the contrast between average and specific
risk is the treatment of integrity risk due to anomalous ion-
ospheric spatial gradients in SBAS and GBAS, which are
both based upon specific risk. Gradients large enough to
threaten the integrity of SBAS and GBAS corrections are
rare, but because SBAS can observe the state of the iono-
sphere over very large regions, the prior probability of threat-
ening anomalous ionospheric gradients is usually treated as
1.0. SBAS will detect and exclude all anomalous ionospheric
gradients above a certain level, and its evaluation of the
worst-case undetected error is based on the largest error that
is just below what is guaranteed to be detected with the sub-
allocated PMD (this is based on the MDE concept explained in
the previous subsection). Since the prior probability is 1.0,
this PMD will be very low (a fraction of 10−7 per approach),
as it needs to mitigate almost all of the integrity risk by itself.
GBAS is different from SBAS in that it cannot observe the
ionospheric state directly, as it is a single-frequency system.
Even if GBAS made dual-frequency measurements of ion-
ospheric activity on the satellites that it was tracking, it
would only see snapshots of disparate regions of the sky
and would not necessarily be able to spot a gradient
approaching one or more of its tracked satellites. Therefore,
GBAS can use a prior probability of threatening iono-
spheric gradients lower than 1.0 (see [9]), but the prior
probability of threatening gradients should be computed
assuming anomalous ionospheric conditions rather than
all ionospheric conditions (including the vast majority of
the time when the ionosphere is quiet and gradients are
small). While an individual GBAS installation is not able
to distinguish anomalous conditions by itself, it could do
so if it were making use of broadcast SBAS ionospheric cor-
rections and/or GIVE values (see [11]) or were connected to
other GBAS installations with which it shared data. Thus,
“specific risk” penalizes GBAS for not making use of infor-
mation that it was originally designed not to use but could
have been given access to with additional investment.
GBAS also determines worst-case impacts of threatening
ionospheric gradients, which in its case are often given
by the largest gradients allowed by the ionospheric gradient
threat model (see Section 23.6).
In contrast, an “average risk” approach would not
enforce this level of conservatism in the prior probability
calculations. It would allow the probability of threatening
ionospheric gradients to be assessed relative to all iono-
spheric conditions rather than the uncommon set of anom-
alous conditions that is more likely to produce them. In
addition, worst-case conditions (given the presence of
threatening gradients) need not be assumed. Instead, all
possible threatening conditions could be averaged over to
determine the probability of hazardous errors given an
undetected threatening condition (PPL,i in Eq. (23.1)).
The benefit of the “average risk” approach is that the
probability of LOI (PLOI,i in Eq. (23.1)) for each fault condi-
tion will be much lower than in the “specific risk”
approach, all else being the same. Since the integrity risk
probability must be met whichever approach is used, addi-
tional design effort and conservatism is required to achieve
this in using “specific risk.” This has been achieved for avi-
ation uses of SBAS and GBAS, but at a sacrifice in availabil-
ity and continuity compared to what would result from the
use of “average risk.” This loss appears in the form of
inflated sigmas to bound satellite, ground system, iono-
spheric, and other error sources, which leads to higher PLs.
23.3.5 Integrity Design Overview for GNSS
Applications
The elements of integrity risk evaluation described in this
section are typically evaluated in an iterative fashion.
Figure 23.4 shows a generic example of this procedure.
The starting point is an allocation or breakdown of the over-
all integrity risk requirement (e.g. 10−7 per approach) to
nominal conditions and all foreseen anomalous conditions
(potentially including a miscellaneous category for unfore-
seen and un-analyzed anomalies). The prior probabilities
of the foreseen anomalies are then assessed and validated
if they are not already known. “Validation” here means, if
nothing else, review by an internal and external body of sub-
ject-matter experts who will be responsible for approval of
the final integrity safety case. While unpleasant “surprises”
during the development of safety-critical systems are una-
voidable, they can be minimized by reviewing the key inputs
to the safety case as widely and as early as possible.
Once trustworthy prior probability estimates are available,
it is possible to approximate the missed-detection probabil-
ities needed for the integrity monitor algorithms targeting
each anomaly scenario. The bulk of the design work is devel-
oping, analyzing (often via software simulation), and testing
these monitors to show that they can meet these derived PMD
requirements. This includes time-based evaluations to dem-
onstrate that the integrity TTA is also met, meaning that the
derived PMD requirement is achieved within the TTA, where
the TTA “clock” starts when the position error created by a
threatening condition first exceeds one or more protection
levels. Because this must be achieved for all potentially usa-
ble GNSS satellite geometries, this assessment is done by
conservatively converting position domain error bounds into
range-domain error requirements. One means of doing this
is known as “time-varying MERR” and is described in [12].
 23.4 Integrity Protection Level Concept and Its Implementation 601

Allocate Integrity Risk to Nominal Conditions and

Identified Anomalies

Identify and Validate Prior Probabilities for Each Anomaly

Identify Required Missed-Detection Probabilities (PMD) for Each

Anomaly

Analyze/Simulate/Test to Verify that Monitor(s) can Achieve

Required PMDs within Time to Alert

Iterate and Redesign/Re-analayze/Re-simulate/Re-test as

needed until top-level integrity risk allocations are satisfied.

Figure 23.4 Integrity design and validation procedure for GNSS applications.

Once a preliminary analysis of all threats and associated
monitors has been completed, re-consideration of the ini-
tial integrity risk allocation and the integrity monitor
design usually occurs because the derived monitor PMDs
for one or more anomalies cannot be met. Beyond improv-
ing the initial monitor designs, one option is simply to allo-
cate more of the overall integrity risk allocation to the
anomalies that need it, but there is often little room to do
so (because the initial integrity risk requirement is so
small). This is often the time that conservatism in the orig-
inal assumptions and prior probability calculations and
threat models describing each anomalous condition get
re-assessed. Under the “specific risk” approach, it is usually
best to make worst-case assumptions initially and then con-
sider relaxing the subset of these assumptions that creates
the largest difficulties in meeting the integrity requirement.
Some relaxation of the initial assumptions is almost always
possible within the general constraints of “specific risk,”
but it needs to be considered carefully by the integrity
review team before too much reliance is placed upon an
assumption that cannot be validated in the final safety case.
23.4 Integrity Protection Level
Concept and Its Implementation
In high-integrity GNSS applications, PLs are computed by
users to represent position domain error bounds at the
small probabilities required by the integrity requirements
for a given application. In augmentation systems such as
SBAS and GBAS, most of the integrity mitigation is per-
formed by the augmentation system, but only the user
knows which GNSS satellites it is tracking and the contri-
bution of user measurements to the overall error budget.
Protection level calculations make use of the bounding
error information broadcast by augmentation systems
and local user information to determine position error
bounds (in each position axis of concern) that are relevant
to that user. These bounds are generally re-computed at
each epoch and compared to the ALs (maximum tolerable
position errors to maintain safety) that apply to the opera-
tion being conducted.
Figure 23.5 shows the equation for the vertical protection
level under nominal conditions (the so-called “H0 hypoth-
esis”), when a zero-mean Gaussian fault-free error distribu-
tion is assumed (and has been shown) to bound the actual
error distribution. This equation converts that bounding
range error variance (σ i2, combining all augmentation sys-
tem and user contributions) to vertical position domain
error (using the si,vert2 coefficients from the pseudoinverse
of the weighted satellite geometry observation matrix)
and then extrapolates it to the tail probability required by
the component of the integrity risk requirement allocated
to the vertical segment of H0 integrity risk. This probability
determines the multiplier Kffmd, which must account for the
possibility of errors on either side of zero since no fault-
driven bias is assumed. The si,vert2 coefficients are deter-
mined by the standard weighted geometric approach to sol-
ving for user position (see Section 2.3.9.1 of [13] and
602 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)
N Bouding range
VPLH 0 = Kffmd 𝛴 S2i, vert σ i2
i=1
Extrapolation to H0 integrity risk
probability (for Gaussian dist.)
Figure 23.5 Vertical protection level definition – nominal conditions (H0).
VPLf = Bf,vert + Kmd, f σ vert, f
Error bias caused by faulted
condition (converted to vertical
position error)
Figure 23.6 Vertical protection level definition – faulted conditions (Hf).
Section 2.2 of Chapter 2). Note that other position axes,
such as 1-D lateral and 2-D horizontal, have similar calcu-
lations performed for them, but the 1-D vertical axis is
typically the limiting one for aircraft precision approach
availability.
Figure 23.6 shows the equation for the vertical protection
level under faulted conditions in which the fault adds an
error bias to nominal measurement errors (the “Hf hypoth-
esis”). This does not necessarily describe all possible anom-
aly effects, but it covers all of the anomalies for which fault
mode PLs have been computed to date for civil aviation.
Here, the key change is the addition of the impact of the bias
(already converted to the vertical position domain) in the
first right-hand-side term. The bias magnitude depends on
the fault being modeled and often depends on user-specific
information, such as the distance between the user and the
reference receiver centroid location in GBAS.
The second term is very similar to the main term in
Figure 23.5 in that it extrapolates one-sigma nominal error
(again, converted to vertical position) to a certain low prob-
ability, but this probability, which determines the multi-
plier Kmd,f, is influenced by the prior probability of the
anomaly whose (worst-case) impact is reflected by the first
term. If, for example, the fault represented there has a prior
probability of 10−4 per approach, and the integrity risk allo-
cated to this fault is 10−9 per approach, the remaining prob-
ability to be covered by fault-free error is 10−5 per approach,
and this probability would be used to determine Kmd,f using
one side of the Gaussian distribution (since, as with MDE
above, the fault-induced bias is either positive or negative).
When faulted conditions are represented by PLs, multiple
different faulted conditions are generally represented by
different versions of the equation shown in Figure 23.6,
and the largest protection level at any given user and time
error variance
Geometric conversion: range
to vertical position
Vertical position error
std. dev. under faulted
condition
Extrapolation to faulted integrity risk,
incorporating prior probability (for
Gaussian dist.)
is the one that applies to that user’s integrity determination.
For GBAS, two separate faulted PLs are computed by users
(in addition to the H0 protection level): one for single-
reference receiver faults (H1) and one for ephemeris faults
(Heph). The impact of a single-reference receiver fault is
independent of user location relative to the GBAS site
and is indicated to users by broadcasting “B-values,” which
represent the errors that would be present in the differential
corrections if any single reference receiver were providing
MI. The impact of ephemeris faults increases linearly with
user distance from the GBAS site, and a bound on this error
is provided to users via broadcast of a parameter that gives
the maximum ephemeris range-domain error impact with
distance from the GBAS site (beyond this, GBAS ephemeris
monitoring is guaranteed to detect and exclude the faulted
condition with the required PMD).
Not all possible faulted conditions have PLs defined for
them in GBAS (see Section 12.6 of Chapter 12). Further-
more, SBAS does not define any faulted protection level
equations – it only uses the nominal equation form shown
in Figure 23.5 (see Section 13.4.5 of Chapter 13). This does
not mean that these unrepresented faults are ignored.
Instead, faults not directly represented by protection level
equations must be bounded by the PLs that are computed
or specifically shown as “faults not covered by PLs” in the
system-level integrity allocation. For SBAS, this means that
all fault conditions must be covered by the nominal protec-
tion level equation or be so improbable that they fall under
the small allocation to “negligible” conditions. To satisfy
this, the range-domain error variance in Figure 23.5 is
inflated to bound worst-case anomalies as well as nominal
conditions. For GBAS, a similar requirement applies to the
anomaly conditions that are not included in the H1 and
Heph hypotheses.

Operationally, integrity is maintained as long as the PLs
computed at each epoch are below the ALs. If this condition
is suddenly violated, integrity is no longer protected, and
the operation is aborted – continuity is lost. To minimize
the likelihood of predictable continuity losses due to
changes in satellite geometry (e.g. a useful satellite that is
about to set below the horizon), some applications perform
a predictive protection level calculation to check availabil-
ity at the beginning of an operation to confirm that PLs will
remain below ALs throughout the operation as satellite
geometry changes. Other applications avoid this step and
count on the probability of predictable continuity loss over
a single mission interval being low enough to ignore.
23.5 Bounding Uncertain Error
Distributions
One challenge to bounding user errors in the protection
level calculations derived above is demonstrating that the
standard deviations (“sigmas”) meant to bound nominal
errors in Figures 23.3 and 23.4 actually do so to the very
small probabilities required (this is also an issue for the test
statistic sigmas used in Section 23.3.3). This is difficult
because most distributions of actual errors and test statistics
have tails that are fatter than Gaussian, meaning that as the
probability of occurrence becomes smaller, the probability
of a given magnitude becomes larger than what would be
computed from Gaussian distributions. Probability distri-
butions of actual errors and test statistics are usually
derived or informed by data collection, and it is very diffi-
cult to collect more than 104 to 105 statistically independent
samples in representative conditions. Thus, extrapolating
the bounding Gaussian sigmas to 10−7 or lower, as typically
done in the nominal protection level calculation of
Figure 23.5, requires additional information.
Several approaches have been developed in the academic
literature to support this extrapolation (see [14–16]), but all
of them make several assumptions about the shape and char-
acter of the actual distribution that must be overbounded by
a Gaussian distribution at the required probabilities. As a
result, most overbounding in practice is done empirically
by fitting the cumulative distribution function (cdf ) of a
Gaussian distribution with varying sigma values to actual
data and increasing the assumed bounding sigma value until
sufficient margin exists between the bounding Gaussian dis-
tribution and the actual data at the required probabilities.
The amount of margin necessary for integrity is determined
by engineering judgment and is influenced by the observed
shape and tail probability of the actual distribution relative to
that of the Gaussian as well as any theoretical knowledge
regarding the actual distribution.
23.5 Bounding Uncertain Error Distributions 603
An example of observed vertical position error (VPE) data
from the WAAS network from July to September 2010,
inclusive, is shown in the histogram in Figure 23.7, which
comes from one of a series of quarterly Performance Anal-
ysis Network (PAN) reports compiled by the William J.
Hughes FAA Technical Center for GPS, WAAS, and GBAS
installations in the United States [17]. VPEs based on using
WAAS corrections were estimated by the 37 WAAS refer-
ence stations (WRSs) in operation at that time based on
the known locations of each WRS. Recording error esti-
mates once per second per WRS over three months gener-
ated the total of about 2.8 × 108 samples shown in
Figure 23.7. Errors generated under conditions where the
precision approach PLs exceeded either the vertical or hor-
izontal ALs for WAAS localizer precision vertical (LPV)
operations (for a 250 ft DH: VAL ≤ 50 m; HAL ≤ 40 m) were
excluded from this data. Not all of the collected points rep-
resent statistically independent samples because errors
measured within several seconds of each other have highly
correlated errors in both WAAS corrections and WRS mul-
tipath errors. If the separation between independent sam-
ples is roughly 100 s, only about 2.8 × 106 of the samples
in Figure 23.7 are actually independent.
The blue curve in Figure 23.7 shows a binned histogram
of the absolute value of actual VPEs in meters over
this three-month period. As shown in the figure, the
95th-percentile error bound was about 1.2 m, while the
95th-percentile error bound was about 1.6 m. Given that
the mean error should be and appears to be close to zero,
a Gaussian one-sigma value would be computed from the
95th-percentile error by dividing by 1.96 (treating the actual
error distribution as two-sided: positive and negative), giv-
ing σ95 0.61 m. The Gaussian divisor that applies to the
99th-percentile error is 2.58, which gives σ99 0.62 m.
Thus, at these relatively frequent error bounds, the Gaus-
sian distribution appears to apply well to this data. As an
aside, note that the appropriate Gaussian divisors for
two-sided distributions with zero mean error can be com-
puted in MATLAB using Eq. (23.5), where the desired
two-sided probability bound replaces PFFA in that equation.
Table 23.2 shows the results of looking further to the right
in Figure 23.7 to observe the approximate bounds on less
probable errors (or higher probabilities of bounding the
actual error). As the bounding probability becomes higher,
the bounding VPE increases at a significantly higher rate
than would be projected by the tails of the standard Gaussian
distribution, as shown by the increasing values of the Gaus-
sian sigma value equivalent to each probability and the
increasing ratio of these sigmas to the 95th-percentile sigma
of 0.61 m. Therefore, if one wished to bound the entire range
of probabilities up to 1–107 (or, equivalently, to conserva-
tively represent errors down to a probability of 10−7) using
604 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)

3rd Qtr 2010 WAAS LPV Vertical position Error (VPE) Distribution
109
Vertical Position Error (VPE)
Normalized Vertical Error (NVE)

108

107

106
No. of Samples

105

104

Max. VPE ≈
103 7 m at
Barrow, AK

102

Meas. from 37
101 WAAS stations

100
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
95% Error (m) 99% Error (m) VPE (m) Receiver Days Total Samples (sec)
1.2 1.6 3243 280201434

Figure 23.7 Histogram of WAAS vertical position errors (VPEs) observed from July to September 2010 [17]. Source: Reproduced with
permission of William J. Hughes Technical Center / Federal Aviation Administration.

Table 23.2 Bounding errors and equivalent one-sigma values for high probabilities in Figure 23.7

Bounding probability Bounding VPE (m) Equivalent σ (m) Ratio to 95th-pct σ

1–103 2.2 0.67 1.10

4
1–10 2.9 0.75 1.23
1–105 3.6 0.82 1.34
6
1–10 4.8 0.98 1.61
1–107 6.6 1.24 2.03

a single zero-mean Gaussian distribution, the selected sigma
value would need to be at least 1.24 m from Table 23.2, and
significant margin would need to be added to this calculated
value to protect against events that could affect WAAS (such
as severe ionospheric storms) that did not happen to occur
during the three months of observations in this dataset.
Depending on knowledge of the conditions during these
three months, a bounding one-sigma value of 1.5 to 2.0 m
might be chosen, meaning that the level of sigma inflation
relative to the 95th-percentile sigma value of 0.61 m is at least
a factor of 2.45.
This example of fatter-than-Gaussian tails is typical of
most collections of error and test statistic data, even those
that come from well-behaved and well-controlled pro-
cesses. The reasons that fatter-than-Gaussian tails exist in
the real world, contrary to expectations that might be
derived from the central limit theorem, are varied. For
example, see [18] for a discussion of the effect of “mixing”
of parameters derived from Gaussian distributions with dif-
ferent parameters in the same data set. What is important is
to expect fatter-than-Gaussian behavior in the tails of distri-
butions of real data, to take enough independent samples to
roughly quantify this behavior (rather than making Gaus-
sian extrapolations from 95th- or 99th-percentile bounds),
and to be prepared to allow for its effect by making room
in error budgets for significantly inflated sigma values.

23.6 Faults and Anomalies – The Role
of Threat Models
The evaluation of faults and anomaly impacts, including the
bias component of faulted threat models in Figure 23.6,
requires a model of each fault or anomaly considered. In
the design of GNSS for civil aviation, these models are called
“threat models,” and they have several important character-
istics. Figure 23.8 illustrates these features along with the
process of developing and using threat models to describe
faults and anomalies [19]. Each threat model consists of a
simplified physical model of the fault or anomaly of concern
with bounded parameters, as indicated by the (multidimen-
sional) cube in the center of Figure 23.8. Since faults and
anomalies are rare, these bounds are unknown in general
and must be estimated from the limited available data and
theoretical knowledge. Once these bounds are established,
the probability of faults with parameters outside these
bounds (or faults that do not obey the simplified physical
model) must be negligible relative to the integrity risk allo-
cation to this fault mode.
Once a physical model with bounded parameters has
been developed for a given fault or anomaly, it is evaluated
analytically or (more commonly) via simulation to deter-
mine its worst-case user impact given the presence of integ-
rity monitoring. Under the “specific risk” approach to
integrity assessment, every combination of parameters
within the bounded threat model space must be evaluated,
and the combination that gives the worst results in terms of
maximizing integrity risk after monitoring must be
assumed to be present with the full prior probability
assigned to that fault mode. This is very conservative, as
the parameter combination that creates this worst case
may not be very likely, given that a fault of this type occurs.
Under an “average risk” approach, the probability of each
Specific Threat or Anomaly Description
Theory/Physics System/User
Bounded, multi- Impact Model
dimensional (incl. monitoring)
Collected Data parameter space
Deterministic
simulation
Worst-case user impact
(and relevant points within threat model)
Figure 23.8 Threat model development and utilization.
23.7 Introduction to RAIM 605
combination of parameters within the threat model (as a
fraction of the prior probability of this class of fault or
anomaly) could be taken into account [10, 19].
23.7 Introduction to RAIM
GNSS measurements are vulnerable to rarely occurring
faults including satellite failures, which can potentially lead
to major safety threats for users. To mitigate their impact,
fault detection and exclusion (FDE) algorithms such as
RAIM can be implemented [20, 21]. The main challenge
in RAIM is not only to design fault detectors but also to
evaluate the impact of undetected faults on safety risk.
Two RAIM methods in particular have been widely used
over the past two decades: chi-squared residual-based (χ 2)
[21–23] and solution separation (SS) RAIM [20, 24, 25].
The two methods are presented below, starting from com-
mon definitions of the integrity and continuity risks.
Integrity and continuity set conflicting requirements on
FDE algorithms [26]. The fault detection function reduces
integrity risk by generating alerts when redundant measure-
ments are deemed inconsistent, but also increases continuity
risk due to potential false and true alarms. Conversely, the
fault exclusion function reduces continuity risk by allowing
a mission to be pursued after identifying and removing
faults, but increases integrity risk due to potential incorrect
exclusions.
23.7.1 Redundancy for FDE
The core principle of RAIM is to exploit redundant measure-
ments to achieve self-contained fault detection at the user
receiver. The solution separation approach provides an intu-
itive illustration of this concept. If five or more satellites are
606 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)

available to estimate three position coordinates and a
receiver clock bias, then multiple sets of four or more satel-
lites provide positioning solutions. Large separation between
the solutions that include the faulted space vehicles (SVs)
and the ones that do not is a strong indicator that a fault
is present. This principle is illustrated in Figure 23.9.
When estimating four unknown parameters, five satel-
lites are needed for single-SV fault detection, six SVs are
required for dual-SV detection, and so on. In addition,
exclusion is described in Section 23.7.4 as a second layer
of detection, and can therefore be performed using SV
redundancy. With regard to exclusion, six satellites are
needed for single-SV FDE, eight SVs are required for
dual-SV exclusion, and so on.
With the modernization of GPS, the full deployment
of GLONASS, and the emergence of Galileo and BeiDou,
the number of redundant ranging signals increases dramat-
ically, which opens the possibility of fulfilling stringent nav-
igation integrity requirements using RAIM FDE [27, 28].
Figure 23.10 shows nominal SV constellations for four
GNSSs. In Figure 23.10, signals received at an example location
(at Chicago, Illinois, United States) are represented with thick
black lines. Whereas each individual constellation only pro-
vides about five to ten ranging measurements, the joint constel-
lation can provide continuous, global coverage of 25 to
35 satellites, thereby substantially increasing SV redundancy.
RAIM not only aims at detecting and excluding faults,
but also at evaluating the integrity and continuity risks,
or as an alternative, a protection level, which is a probabil-
ity bound on the position estimate error. Integrity and
continuity risk evaluation is needed when designing a
navigation system to meet predefined requirements, and
it is needed operationally to inform the user whether a
mission should be pursued or aborted. Integrity risk eval-
uation includes both assessing the fault detection capabil-
ity and quantifying the impact of undetected faults on
estimation errors. In order to avoid making assumptions
on unknown fault distributions, a bound on the integrity
risk corresponding to the worst-case undetected fault can
be evaluated. This bound is then compared to a specified
integrity risk requirement to assess availability, which is
the fraction of time where position estimates can safely
be used [29]. It is therefore of primary importance for sys-
tem availability to derive a tight bound on the integ-
rity risk.
The tightness of this bound varies depending on how
RAIM is implemented. χ 2 and SS RAIM can themselves be
implemented in several ways in order to either reduce the
safety risk bound or to decrease the computation load.
Section 23.7.2 establishes common definitions of integrity
and continuity risks, which are then used in Section 23.7.3
to describe the χ 2 and SS RAIM algorithms.

pdf(xˆ0)
1 FULL-SET
SOLUTION using (1,2,3,4,5)
using 5 SVs

x̂0

x
impact of fault on SV1

pdf(xˆ i) using (1,2,3,4)

5 SUBSET
SOLUTIONS using (1,2,3,5)
using 4 SVs using (1,2,4,5)
using (1,2,3,5)

using (2,3,4,5) x̂i

Figure 23.9 Exploiting measurement redundancy using solution separation. With five SVs available, six SV combinations can be used to
estimate four unknowns. We note x i, for i = 0, …, 5, the six vertical position estimates. Subscript 0 designates the full-set solution using all
SVs, and subscripts 1 to 5 correspond to the five subset solutions with a single SV removed. All sets that include SV1 have their mean
shifted with respect to the fault-free subset, which is represented with a dashed curve. The maximum solution separation max x 0 − x i
i = 1, …, 5
is an intuitive and efficient detection test statistic.

Joint Constellation
GPS (U.S.A.)
Galileo (Europe)
Figure 23.10 Nominal satellite constellations for future GNSSs. Signals received at an example location (at Chicago, United States) are
represented by thick black lines.
23.7.2 Integrity and Continuity Risk Definitions
for Fault Detection
In this section, the integrity and continuity risks are defined
for fault detection only, followed by notations for the least-
squares (LS) estimator. The integrity risk criterion for fault
detection is defined in [30] as
h
P ε0 > ℓ q < T H i PHi + PNM ≤ I REQ
i=0
≥ PHMI
23 9
where
PHMI is the integrity risk, or probability of hazardously
MI (HMI), upper-bounded by the left-hand-side
(LHS) term in Eq. 23.9. It captures the risk of
hazardous information (event ε0 > ℓ) but no
detection ( q < T);
ε0 is the error on the estimated parameter of interest
(also called “state” of interest);
ℓ is a specified AL that defines hazardous situations
(e.g. [31]);
q is the detection test statistic (q is used here to repre-
sent both the χ 2 and SS test statistics);
T is the detection threshold;
Hi for i = 0, …, h is a set of mutually exclusive, jointly
exhaustive hypotheses. H0 is the fault-free hypothe-
sis. The remaining h fault hypotheses correspond
to faults on subset measurement i (including sin-
gle-satellite and multi-satellite faults);
23.7 Introduction to RAIM 607
GLONASS (Russia)
Beidou (China)
PHi is the prior probability of Hi occurrence;
IREQ is the integrity risk requirement (also specified in
[31], for example, aviation applications);
PNM is the prior probability of a set of very rarely occur-
ring faults that need not be monitored against such
that PNM << IREQ. Certain faults are much more
likely to occur than others; for example, the probabil-
ity of occurrence of a dual-SV fault is the square of
that of independent single-SV faults.
References [25, 30, 32, 33] describe procedures to define
the number h of fault hypotheses that must be monitored
against, while conservatively accounting for the remaining
fault combinations using PNM in Eq. 23.9. The smaller h is,
the lighter the computational load of evaluating the first
term on the LHS in Eq. 23.9 gets, but the larger PNM
becomes. PNM also provides a means to account for
multi-measurement faults that are undetectable using
RAIM because of insufficient redundancy.
The detection threshold T is typically set based on an allo-
cated continuity risk requirement allocation CREQ,0 (e.g.
also specified in [34] for aviation applications) to limit
the probability of false alarms PFA (i.e. alarms under H0)
[34]. For detection only, T can be defined as
PFA = P q ≥ T H 0 PH 0 ≤ C REQ,0 23 10
In addition, let n and m respectively be the number of
measurements and number of parameters to be estimated
(i.e. the “states”). The n × 1 measurement vector z∗ is
assumed normally distributed with covariance matrix V∗.
608 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)

Vector z∗ can be pre-multiplied by V∗− 1 2 to obtain the “nor- a bound on the probability of HMI given Hi can be evaluated
malized” equation: for the worst-case fault. Let ni be the number of simultane-
ously faulted SVs under a given fault hypothesis Hi. Without
z = Hx + v + f 23 11
loss of generality, it is assumed that under Hi, the faulty mea-
where surements are the first ni elements of z. The worst-case
multi-measurement fault vector, which maximizes the integ-
z = V∗− 1 2 z∗ is the normalized measurement vector. rity risk given Hi, is derived in two steps [30]. First, the worst-
H is the n × m normalized observation matrix. case fault direction can be expressed analytically using the
x is the m × 1 state vector. −1
n × 1 vector: Ai ATi In − HP0 HT Ai ATi P0 HT α, where
f is the n × 1 normalized fault vector. T
Ai Ini 0ni × n − ni [30]. Second, the worst-case fault
v is the n × 1 normalized measurement noise
vector composed of zero-mean, unit-variance magnitude, fi, can be determined using a line search
independent and identically distributed (i.i. method. Thus, the χ 2 RAIM integrity and continuity risk
d.) Gaussian random variables. bounds can be expressed as
h
We use the notation: v ~ N(0n × 1, In) where 0a × b is an
PHMI ≤ max P ε0 > ℓ f i P q2χ < T 2χ f i PHi + PNM
a × b matrix of zeros (in this case, it is an n × 1 vector of i=0
fi

zeros) In is an n × n identity matrix.

The estimate error ε0 can be obtained using an LS estima-
tor. Let x be the state of interest, for example‚ the vertical posi-
tion coordinate, which is of primary concern for aircraft
approach navigation. Let α be an m × 1 vector used to extract
x out of the full state vector: αT = 0TmA × 1 1 0TmB × 1 ,
where, in the order in which states are stacked in x, mA
and mB are the number of states respectively before and
after state x. Assuming that H is full rank and that
n ≥ m, the LS estimate of x is defined as x 0 sT0 z
where sT0 αT P0 HT , and P0 ≡ (HTH)−1. The LS estimate
error appearing in Eq. 23.9 can be expressed as
ε0 N sT0 f , σ 20 αT P0 α .
23.7.3 Residual/Parity-Based and Solution
Separation RAIM
The χ 2 RAIM detection test statistic can be derived from the
(n − m) × 1 parity vector p, or equivalently from the n × 1
LS residual vector r, which both lie in the (n − m)-
dimensional parity space, or left null space of H, and can
be expressed as [22, 35]:
and PFA = P q2χ ≥ T 2χ H 0 PH 0 23 13
where we used the well-known fact that ε0 and q2χ are sta-
tistically independent [35], so that the joint probability in
Eq. 23.9 can be expressed as a product of probabilities. Also,
under the nominal, fault-free hypothesis (index i = 0), we
use the definition f0 ≡ 0. In contrast to χ 2 RAIM, PHMI
and PFA bounds are typically used in SS RAIM, which
are looser than Eq. (23.13), but are computationally effi-
cient because they do not require determination of worst-
case fault vectors.
In SS RAIM [24, 25], the full-set solution x 0 , obtained
using all n measurements in z, is distinguished from the
subset solution x i, derived using only the (n − ni) fault-free
measurements BTi z under Hi, where following the same
T
assumptions as for Ai, Bi 0 n − ni × ni In − ni . Assum-
ing that n − ni ≥ m and that BTi H is full rank, x i is defined as
x i sTi z , for i = 1, …, h, where sTi αT Pi HT Bi BTi and
−1
Pi HT Bi BTi H . It follows that, under Hi, the estimate
error εi can be expressed as εi N 0, σ 2i αT Pi α . The solu-
tion separations are defined as [20, 24, 25, 30]

p Qz = Q v + f and r In − HP0 HT z Δi x 0 − x i = ε0 − εi , and

23 12 Δi N sT0 − sTi f , σ 2Δi = σ 2i − σ 20 for i = 1, …, h
where the (n − m) × n parity matrix Q is defined as: 23 14
QQT = In − m and QH = 0(n − m) × m. The χ 2 RAIM detection Let TΔi be the SS RAIM detection thresholds. The SS
test statistic can be written as: q2χ pT p = rT r [22, 35]. q2χ RAIM PHMI and PFA can be bounded by [30]
follows a non-central chi-square distribution with (n − m)
h
degrees of freedom and non-centrality parameter λ2χ
PHMI ≤ P εi + T Δi > ℓ H i PHi + PNM and
(λ2χ f T QT Qf ) [35]. i=0
In χ 2 RAIM, integrity and continuity risk evaluation can be h
performed directly using Eqs. 23.9 and 23.10. In order to PFA ≤ P Δi ≥ T Δi H 0 PH0 23 15
avoid making assumptions on unknown fault distributions, i
 23.7 Introduction to RAIM 609

u3 u2 u3 u2
p
6 6

4 4
qχ Tχ
2 TΔ1 σΔ1
2
q3
TΔ3 σΔ3

p2
0
p2

0 q2
u1
u1 –2
–2 TΔ2 σΔ2
–4
–4
q1 Single-SV
–6
Fault Lines Fault Lines
–6
–6 –4 –2 0 2 4 X2 RAIM
–6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6 p1 SS RAIM
p1
Figure 23.12 χ 2 and SS RAIM detection boundaries. The
Figure 23.11 Test statistics for χ and SS RAIM in parity space.
2
detection boundaries for χ 2 and SS RAIM are a circle (or a hyper-
The χ 2 test statistic qχ is the norm of the parity vector p, whereas sphere in higher-dimensional parity space) and a polygon (or a
the SS test statistics qi, for i = 1, …, 3, are orthogonal projections of polytope), respectively [30]. In this example, the SS detection
p onto the fault mode lines. In this example, p is a bivariate thresholds are all equal (TΔ1 = TΔ2 = TΔ3), so that the polygon is a
normally distributed random vector, with unit-variance i.i.d. hexagon. Source: Reproduced with permission of John
elements. Curves of constant joint probability density describe Wiley & Sons.
circles (not represented) centered at the origin under H0, and
centered along the i-th fault mode line under fault hypothesis Hi.
are orthogonal projections of p onto each of the three fault
mode lines.
The resulting χ 2 and SS RAIM detection boundaries are
The PFA-bound in Eq. (23.15) is used to determine represented in Figure 23.12. The combined impact of meas-
the values of the thresholds TΔi ensuring that the re- urement noise and fault causes p to be nonzero. Detection
quirement CREQ, 0 is satisfied. TΔi can be expressed as is established if the parity vector p lands outside the detec-
TΔi = Q−1{CREQ, i/(2PH0)}σ Δi and CREQ,0 = hi= 1 CREQ,i , tion boundary. Figure 23.12 illustrates that the probability
where the function Q−1{} is the inverse tail probability of no detection (second joint event in Eq. 23.9) differs for χ 2
distribution of the standard normal distribution. and SS RAIM: it is the probability of being inside the dash-
For single-SV faults, that is, for ni = 1, Δi can be written as dotted circle for χ 2 RAIM, and inside the hexagon for SS
−1 2 RAIM. Further comparison of χ 2 and SS RAIM detection
[30] qi Δi σ Δi = uTi p , where ui QAi ATi QT QAi
T
capability can be found in [36, 37].
for i = 1, …, n with Ai = 01 × i − 1 1 01 × n − i ; that
is, ui is the unit direction vector of the ith column of Q.
The n solution separations (h = n when ni = 1) are projec- 23.7.4 Reducing Continuity Risk Using Fault
tions of p on ui. Exclusion
Both qχ and qi are represented in parity space in Section 23.7.3 was limited to fault detection and did not
Figure 23.11 for an illustrative example used in [35]. Let address exclusion. Detection provides a means of ensuring
us consider a scalar state x and a 3 × 1 measurement vector that PFA is lower than CREQ, 0 as expressed in Eq. 23.10.
z that are expressed as z = Hx + v + f where However, the complete continuity risk PLOC accounts for
H = 1 1 1 T and v ~ N(03 × 1, I3). Since m = 1 and all events causing loss of continuity (LOC), and can be
n = 3, the (n − m) parity space is two-dimensional, which expressed as
is convenient for display. The fault vector represents three
h
single-measurement faults with unknown fault magnitude PLOC = P D0 H i PHi + Pother 23 16
fi, for i = 1, 2, 3: f = f1 0 0 T , or f = 0 f2 0 T , or i=0

f = 0 0 f 3 T. Three “fault mode lines” are described by where D0 is the detection event. Note that PFA = P(D0| H0)PH0.
the mean of p as fi varies from −∞ to +∞. They have direc- The term Pother encompasses all other sources of LOC,
tion vectors ui defined above. Figure 23.11 illustrates the including unscheduled SV outages [31, 38], jamming, and
fact that qχ is the norm of p, whereas qi, for i = 1, …, 3, ionospheric scintillation.
610 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)

h
If the detector is efficient, then i = 1P D0 H i PHi ≈
h in Eq. 23.9 for detection only. The second term in Eq. 23.17
i = 1 PHi .
And if this probability is larger than the overall
continuity risk requirement CREQ, which is likely to occur
in multi-constellation GNSS where h is large, then faults
need to be excluded to continue using the system. This is
why fault exclusion procedures were designed in [32, 34, 39].
FDE procedures can be described in three main steps. (a)
The first step is the detection test described in Sections 23.7.2
and 23.7.3. (b) If a fault is detected (event D0), candidate sub-
set measurements to be excluded are considered (indicated
below with subscripts j). A second set of detection tests is
carried out to ensure that the remaining non-excluded mea-
surements are fault-free. An “exclusion test” is passed
(event D j) if no fault is detected in the remaining measure-
ments. (c) Finally, if none of the exclusion tests is satisfied
(event hj = 1 D j), the mission is interrupted, which impacts
continuity. Conversely, if one or more candidate subsets
meet the exclusion test, then any one of these subsets can
be excluded. However, excluding a subset that does not
eliminate HMI (wrong exclusion or fault-free exclusion
causing HMI) impacts integrity.
An upper bound on integrity risk for FDE can be defined
as [40]
h
PHMI ≤ P HI 0 , D0 H i PHi
i=0
h h
+ P HI j , D0 , D j H i PHi + PNM
j=1i=0
23 17
where HIj designates hazardous information when using
an estimation solution that excludes candidate subset j.
The first term in Eq. 23.17 is the same as the bound given
accounts for all fault hypotheses (subscript i), and all exclu-
sion candidates (j) [40]. In parallel, the continuity risk is
redefined as
h h
PLOC P D0 j = 1D j H i PHi + Pother
i=0
23 18
Equations (23.9) and (23.10) versus (23.17) and (23.18)
capture a fundamental trade-off of exclusion methods,
which aim at reducing continuity risk at the expense of
integrity risk. The continuity risk in Eq. 23.18 is lowered
using exclusion as compared to using detection only in
Eq. 23.16 derived from (23.10). The price to pay for this con-
tinuity risk reduction is the second term in Eq. 23.17, the
integrity risk of performing an exclusion, which was not
present in (23.9). The above PHMI and PLOC definitions
are implemented for SS and χ 2 RAIM in [40].
The SS and χ 2 RAIM no-detection and exclusion regions
are represented in Figure 23.13, for the illustrative example
described in Section 23.7.3. First, one can respectively recog-
nize in the left and right charts the hexagonal SS-based and
circular χ 2-based no-detection areas. Then, Figure 23.13
shows that, for both SS and χ 2 RAIM, exclusion areas
(dark-gray) are bands surrounding the fault mode lines.
These bands are sensible criteria for exclusion. If the parity
vector is near a fault line, then it is easy to figure out which
measurement to exclude. On the contrary, if the parity vector
lands in between two fault mode lines, then it becomes
extremely challenging to determine which of the two fault
modes caused the error that was detected, and it is safer
not to exclude and to trigger an alert.

SS RAIM χ2 RAIM

4 4

2 2
p2

0 0

–2 –2

–4 –4
Single-SV
Fault Lines
–6 –6
No Detection
–6 –4 –2 0 2 Exclustion –6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6
p1 p1

Figure 23.13 Parity space representations of no-detection and exclusion areas for SS (left) and χ 2 RAIM (right). If the parity vector
lands in the dark-shaded band surrounding fault line, there is a quantifiable probability that the faulty measurement is correctly identified.
It can therefore be excluded [30]. Source: Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

23.8 Advanced RAIM (ARAIM)
With the emergence of new GNSSs providing dual-
frequency ranging signals, the number of redundant iono-
sphere-error-free measurements increases considerably,
thereby opening the possibility of fulfilling stringent navi-
gation requirements at the user receiver, using RAIM. In
particular, RAIM can help alleviate requirements on
ground monitors. This is why researchers in the European
Union and in the United States are investigating Advanced
RAIM (ARAIM), not only for en route navigation, but also
for worldwide vertical guidance of aircraft [41–43].
The US–EU “Agreement on the Promotion, Provision and
Use of Galileo and GPS Satellite-Based Navigation Systems
and Related Applications” [44] was signed in 2004 with
the objective of developing GPS–Galileo based applications
for Safety-of-Life services. One goal in particular is to
establish whether ARAIM can be the basis for a multi-
constellation concept to support global air navigation.
ARAIM complements SBAS (see Chapter 13) [43]. It is
anticipated that ARAIM could support horizontal naviga-
tion (H-ARAIM) in cases where SBAS services are unavail-
able while providing superior performance as compared to
traditional RAIM. One of the most ambitious operations
that ARAIM could support is global vertical navigation of
aircraft (V-ARAIM), with LPV or LPV-200 requiring guid-
ance down to a 200 ft height above the runway.
To achieve this, ARAIM leverages three major future
developments:
• An increased number of satellites from multiple GNSS
constellations
•
Dual-frequency satellite signals allowing to eliminate the
impact of ionospheric errors
• An Integrity Support Message (ISM) providing integrity
parameter values to be used in the airborne ARAIM
algorithm
These elements are further discussed in Section 23.8.1. The
ARAIM measurement error and fault model is described in
Section 23.8.2, where an overview of the baseline airborne
ARAIM multiple hypothesis solution separation (MHSS)
algorithm is given. Section 23.8.3 presents an approach to
designing the optimal estimator in RAIM, which minimizes
integrity risk. This non-least-squares (NLS) estimator is
implemented in ARAIM. Preliminary ARAIM performance
evaluations are given in Section 23.8.4.
23.8.1 ARAIM Architecture
Unlike in SBAS, fault detection using ARAIM is autono-
mously performed at the airborne receiver. ARAIM also relies
upon a ground segment to validate, over hour-to-year-long
23.8 Advanced RAIM (ARAIM) 611
periods, the assertions made at the airborne receiver. In con-
trast to SBAS, the ARAIM ground monitor does not issue
alerts: it does not need to meet an integrity allocation or a time
to alarm. It is continuously running in the background of the
actual integrity monitoring process at the aircraft.
To incorporate information from multiple constellations
at different stages of their development, ARAIM employs
an ISM generated at the ground and broadcast to airborne
receivers. The ISM provides integrity parameters describing
measurement errors and faults, including, for example, the
prior probability of satellite fault, Psat, the prior probability
of constellation fault, Pconst, the standard deviation of nom-
inal ranging uncertainty due to satellite orbit and clock
ephemeris errors, σ URA, and a maximum value bNOM on
non-Gaussian ranging errors primarily due to signal defor-
mation [41, 42]. These parameters are key inputs to the air-
borne ARAIM algorithm, which determines the PL.
Candidate ARAIM architectures for ISM generation
include offline and online architectures [42]. Differences
between offline and online architectures are pointed out
in Figure 23.14. Both architectures leverage the
GNSS 1 GNSS 2 GNSS 3
Avionics with
integrity
monitoring
Data link to send
hourly changes in
range accuracy
Psat & Pconst
Performance
commitments
ephemeris from CSPs
Offline
Monitoring
Reference
Integrity Stations
Overlay
Support
Ephemeris ~15 globally
Message
(ISM) Dedicated
Online
Monitoring
Figure 23.14 Overview of Online ARAIM [42, 46]. Gray-shaded
elements indicate differences from Offline ARAIM. Online ARAIM
gives ANSP more control over ISM parameters by generating and
sending its own precise orbit and clock parameters called “overlay”
ephemeris. The overlay is generated using few dedicated ground
reference stations (RSs). By contrast‚ Offline ARAIM uses data from
hundreds of existing RS, for example, from SBAS and IGS. The ISM
is broadcast hourly for Online ARAIM, versus quarterly or yearly for
Offline ARAIM. Online ARAIM can help mitigate Offline ARAIM’s
availability risk caused by potentially weak CSP commitments on
achievable ranging performance. Source: Adapted from EU-US
Cooperation on Satellite Navigation [42].
612 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)
Constellation Service Providers (CSPs) Service Provider
Commitments (SPCs), for example, as specified in [6, 45]
for GPS. However, the SPCs are not intended for specific
applications. Thus, additional ground monitoring by Air
Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) will likely be
required, especially for V-ARAIM, because CSP SPCs
may not be tailored to specific requirements such as
LPV-200. Reference [43] foresees initial H-ARAIM opera-
tions with a static ISM (i.e., a fixed, unchanging ISM). After
an evaluation period, interested ANSPs may seek opera-
tional approval for V-ARAIM.
23.8.2 Baseline ARAIM Airborne Algorithm
References [42, 43] provide detailed descriptions of a
baseline ARAIM MHSS airborne algorithm, which serves
as an example integrity monitoring method to analyze
ARAIM performance. The method is based on the SS
RAIM principles described in Section 23.7 of this chapter.
Many useful developments came from refining this base-
line algorithm, including new results on the optimal
detector in ARAIM [36, 37], computationally efficient
approaches to deal with large numbers of subset solu-
tions [43], and the derivation of an optimal estimator,
which minimizes integrity risk in ARAIM as explained
in Section 23.8.3.
The design of this algorithm was in part driven by
requirements [43]. This chapter focuses on vertical
positioning performance to achieve LPV-200, based on
an interpretation [43, 47] of the International Civil Avi-
ation Organization (ICAO) Standards and Recom-
mended Practices (SARPs) [48]. In parallel to a
8 × 10−6 continuity risk requirement, ARAIM assumes ver-
tical positioning performance criteria, including a 10 m,
1−10−7 fault-free accuracy requirement, and a 35 m,
1−10−7 limit on the position error. This last integrity crite-
rion is the driver for loss of availability; it captures the fact
that the risk of the vertical protection level (VPL) exceeding
a VAL of ℓ = 35 m should be lower than IREQ = 10−7. Accu-
racy criteria do not account for fault conditions, whereas
VPL does.
Consistent with these requirements, ARAIM uses two
error models: an integrity error model and an accuracy
(or continuity) error model. The accuracy error model
assumes smaller values for σ URA and bNOM as compared
to the integrity model. In addition, both accuracy and integ-
rity error models account for residual tropospheric delay,
multipath errors‚ and receiver noise [42].
The ARAIM VPL equation can be derived from
Eq. (23.15) (by replacing the VAL ℓ by VPL), and is
obtained by solving the following equation:
VPL − b0 h
VPL − T Δi − bi
2Q + Q PHi
σ0 i=1
σi
+ PNM = I REQ 23 19
where bi, for i = 1, …, h, is the impact of the nominal meas-
urement bias bNOM on the vertical positioning error; we use
the notation b0 for the full-set solution and bi for the i-th
subset solution. As detailed in Section 23.7, establishing a
tight VPL, that is, a tight probabilistic bound on the vertical
positioning error, is instrumental to ensuring high availa-
bility. The next section describes an approach to finding
the optimal estimator, which minimizes VPL, or equiva-
lently, minimizes integrity risk.
23.8.3 Optimal NLS Estimator in ARAIM
Three main research efforts have investigated the possi-
bility of using NLS estimators, which, in exchange for a
slight increase in nominal positioning error, can substan-
tially lower the integrity risk in RAIM [49–51]. The first
two references pioneered the use of NLS estimators in
RAIM, but employed heuristic approaches to reduce
integrity risk. In 2012, in the context of ARAIM, Blanch
cast the NLS estimator design into a constrained optimi-
zation problem [51]. Further refinement of this method
yielded practical, computationally efficient implementa-
tions [52, 53].
Using the same notations as in Section 23.7, the NLS esti-
mate x NLS for the state of interest (as defined in Eq. 23.9
and in the text following Eq. 23.11) can be written
as:x NLS sT0 z + βT Qz, where the state estimate sT0 z = x 0
lies in the column space of H, and βTQz lies in the left null
space of H. The estimator design problem narrows down to
finding the (n − m) × 1 estimator modifier vector β, which
minimizes integrity risk while meeting continuity and
accuracy requirements.
The impact of β is best understood in comparison with a
more conventional LS estimator (β = 0). To illustrate this,
the example six-satellite geometry displayed on the left
chart in Figure 23.15 is considered. The right-hand chart
is a failure mode plot for a single-SV fault on SV4. In a
failure mode plot, the estimate error ε is displayed
versus normalized solution separation test statistic
qi ≡ Δi/σ Δi (defined in Section 23.7). “ε” designates
both ε0 for the LS estimator (represented using dashed
lines) and εNLS for the NLS estimator (dark-gray color, solid
lines).
The AL (ℓ = 15 m in this example) and the detection
threshold (approximately 5 (unitless)) define the bound-
aries of the HMI area. Lines of constant joint probability
density are ellipses because ε and qi are normally
 23.8 Advanced RAIM (ARAIM) 613

LS or
N 25 at
m
330 30 HMI area 5 esti
20

Estimate Error ε (m)

15
300 60 5
2
15 5
60 30 0

15
W E NLS

5
2

5
10 ator
estim
120 5 2
240
SV 4 2
5 15
210 150
S 15
25 25 15 5
0
0 2 4 6 8
Test Statistic q4 (unitless)

Figure 23.15 (LEFT) Azimuth-elevation sky plot for an example satellite geometry. (RIGHT) Failure mode plot for the single-SV fault
hypothesis on SV4 [52]. Ellipses of constant joint probability density are represented using solid lines and dark gray areas for the new
NLS-estimator-based method versus dashed lines when using the LS estimator. The ellipses are labeled in terms of −log10fηi(ε, qi), where
fηi(ε, qi) is the integrity risk probability density function. The failure mode slope is lower for the NLS estimator than for the LS estimator,
which reduces the risk of HMI. Source: Reproduced with permission of Cambridge University Press.

LS estimator Figure 23.15 only showed a single fault hypothesis, but

20 optimal NLS the complete integrity risk accounts for all hypothesized
fault conditions. The six single-SV fault hypotheses are
represented in Figure 23.16. One of the solid ellipses for
Estimate Error ε (m)

15 the LS estimator overlaps with the HMI area. In contrast,

the optimization method in [52] provides a means of pull-
ing all gray-shaded ellipses away from the HMI area,
10
thereby reducing PHMI. The optimal estimator is used in
ARAIM performance analyses.
5

23.8.4 ARAIM Performance Evaluation

0
0 2 4 6
Test Statistic qi (unitless)
Figure 23.16 Failure mode plot displaying all single-SV fault
hypotheses [52]. One of the solid ellipses for the LS estimator
overlaps with the HMI area, whereas the NLS estimator
optimization process provides a means of pulling the gray-shaded
ellipses away from this area, thereby reducing the integrity risk.
Source: Reproduced with permission of Cambridge
University Press.
distributed. As the fault magnitude varies, the means of ε
and of qi describe a “fault mode line” passing through
the origin.
The influence of the estimator modifier vector β is three-
fold. First, β provides a means of reducing the slope of the
failure mode line, thereby reducing the risk of HMI. Sec-
ond, for the LS estimator, ε0 and qi are statistically inde-
pendent, so that the major axis of the dashed ellipse is
horizontal. In contrast, β provides a means of changing
the ellipse’s orientation. Third, as should be expected from
an NLS estimator, the variance of εNLS is larger than that of
ε0, which explains why lowering integrity risk comes at the
cost of a decrease in accuracy performance.
8 The three ARAIM milestone reports provide availability
performance analyses for a range of H-ARAIM and
V-ARAIM requirements, measurement error and fault
model parameters, and system configurations, including
constellation scenarios. The baseline constellation com-
prises 24 GPS and 24 Galileo satellites [6, 54].
An example availability map is reproduced in
Figure 23.17 for the baseline GPS/Galileo constellation,
for Pconst = 10-4, Psat = 10-5 and σ URA = 1 m [42]. Availa-
bility is computed as the fraction of time where LPV200
requirements are met, for each location on a 5 × 5 lati-
tude-longitude grid, for satellite geometries simulated at
regular 10 minute intervals over a 24 hour period. In
Figure 23.17, availability is color-coded: dark purple corre-
sponds to availability greater than 99.9%, light purple
represents more than 99.5%, and dark blue is better
than 99%.
Over the past ten years, research on dual-frequency
multi-constellation ARAIM has focused on quantifying
ARAIM’s potential to complement SBAS both in the short
term with horizontal-ARAIM and in the longer term with
vertical-ARAIM. ARAIM has been a driving force in the
advancement of RAIM FDE methods. Current efforts are
614 23 GNSS Integrity and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM)

Availability as a function of user location

80

60

40

20
Latitude (deg)

–20

–40

–60

–80

–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150

Longitude (deg)

< 50% > 50% > 75% > 85% > 90% > 95% > 99% > 99.5% > 99.9%

VAL = 35, HAL = 40, EMTth = 15, σacc = 1.87, Coverage(99.5%) = 98.79%

Figure 23.17 LPV-200 Availability map using ARAIM for the baseline GPS/Galileo constellation, for Pconst = 10−4, Psat = 10−5, and
σ URA = 1 m [42]. The coverage of 99% availability, which is a key metric in ARAIM, is defined as the percentage of grid point locations
exceeding 99% availability. The coverage computation is weighted by the cosine of the location’s latitude, because grid point locations
near the equator represent larger areas than near the poles. In this case, coverage of 99% availability is 99.9%. Source: Reproduced with
permission of Cambridge University Press.

steered toward further refinement of standards for the ISM,
the user and ground segments, toward ground and airborne
algorithm prototyping and testing, and toward coordinated
development of compatible commitments by CSPs.
23.9 Summary
This chapter has presented a review of the methods used to
analyze and verify that integrity requirements are met in
GNSS applications while also satisfying accuracy, continu-
ity, and availability requirements. While a self-consistent
approach to GNSS integrity design and verification has
been developed, this task remains challenging because of
the very strict requirements on integrity and continuity,
which directly oppose each other and which must both
be met simultaneously. In addition, the application of these
methods to civil aviation requires conservative assumptions
and “worst-case” probability and error assessments that fall
under the philosophy of “specific risk.”
The second part of this chapter presents RAIM in detail as
a specific technique to meet these requirements without
relying on augmentation from ground systems such as
SBAS or GBAS. It first presents traditional residuals and
solution separation RAIM techniques and then shows
how Advanced RAIM, or ARAIM, has been developed from
the solution separation approach to RAIM. Performance
results for worldwide ARAIM support of LPV precision
approaches (which are provided by SBAS today within
SBAS coverage regions) are shown.
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 619

24

Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

Logan Scott
LS Consulting, United States

24.1 Introduction GNSS is a critical part of international infrastructure. Not

GNSS has been described as the stealth utility. When inter-
ference to GNSS occurs, as you might expect GNSS receiver
performance becomes degraded but unexpected effects are
also commonly seen. Among them, medical paging systems
have turned themselves off, and cellular base stations have
lost their ability to perform handoffs and so drop calls [1].
Marine radar displays have shown dire warnings to the
effect that position has been lost, and shipboard satellite
communications systems have completely failed [2]. GNSS
is deeply integrated into diverse systems, often to the point
where it almost becomes invisible, that is, until it fails.
only does it provide low-cost methods for obtaining precise
position, it is also the world’s backbone system for precise
time and frequency dissemination. In the United States,
14 of 16 critical infrastructure (CI) sectors have been iden-
tified as having critical dependencies on GNSS. These sec-
tors include transportation, emergency services, energy
distribution, financial services, agriculture, and informa-
tion technology. From the US Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) website, the definition of CI:
Critical infrastructure is the backbone of our
nation’s economy, security, and health. We know

•
it as the power we use in our homes, the water we
The medical paging system used GPS to provide fre-
drink, the transportation that moves us, and the
quency discipline to control the transmitter’s center fre-
communication systems we rely on to stay in touch
quency, and when GPS was lost, the transmitter turned
with friends and family.
itself off in accordance with FCC regulations regarding
Critical infrastructure are the assets, systems, and
frequency stability [1].

•
networks, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the
In the same incident, about 150 cellular base stations lost
United States that their incapacitation or destruction
their ability to perform handoffs. Why? GPS provided
would have a debilitating effect on security, national
precise timing to the base stations allowing them to syn-
economic security, national public health or safety,
chronize their code-division multiple access (CDMA) sig-
or any combination thereof.
nal transmission timings to a common time base.
Without GPS, they drifted with respect to each other‚
In a 2015 presentation to the PNT Advisory Board [3], Irv
and the precisely coordinated hand off between base sta-
Leveson estimated that the total economic impact of GPS
tions failed. People could initiate a call but when a hand-
amounted to $68 billion per year. In short, GNSS is some-
over was attempted, the new base station was not where
how integrated into just about everything we do, and the
it was expected to be and the call would drop, much like a
trend is accelerating in part because of autonomous vehi-
pair of trapeze artists who are out of sync.

•
cles, but also because in the Internet of Things (IoT), know-
In the Pole Star experiment [2], the shipboard GNSS kept
ing where the Things are is often important.
reporting position long after it had completely lost the
Widespread reliance on GNSS has a darker side, though:
real signals. The shipboard satellite communications sys-
GNSS has become part of the attack surface for adversaries
tem, unaware of the huge position errors, pointed its
seeking to damage and/or exploit systems reliant on GNSS.
high-gain antenna in the wrong direction and so missed
Attacks on GNSS are fundamentally a security question,
its intended target, the communications satellite (see
and so the question of “Why would someone do that?”
Figure 24.1).
has to be answered in order to develop a more nuanced
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c24.3d 619 15/12/2020 5:42:09 PM

 620 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation
Used By Permission: George Shaw, General
Lighthouse Authorities of the UK and Ireland
Figure 24.1 The “Voyage” of the Pole Star, a ship, shows how interference can cause massive positioning errors. These in turn led
to a failure in shipboard SATCOM due to antenna pointing errors.
understanding of probable locations, methods used‚ and
effective mitigations. Without motivation, an attack is very
unlikely.
In the case of military systems, motivations for attacking
GNSS are often pretty straightforward: deny navigation to
opposing forces so as to create confusion, make coordination
hard, and lessen their effectiveness; make GNSS-guided
weapons miss their targets, prevent forward controllers
and sensors from determining target coordinates, deny emit-
ter location systems precise time and position so they can’t
accurately determine emitter locations; make sensor data
less useful by limiting georeferenced overlay effectiveness.
In the civil arena, the motivation most often has some-
thing to do with a GNSS-dependent tracking and reporting
system. Criminal enterprises may use jammers to cover car
thefts and cargo thefts, victims of domestic violence may
use jamming to prevent stalkers from tracking them, and
city construction workers may use jammers to cover the
fact that they are paving someone’s private driveway. Com-
mercial fisherman may be tempted to jam vessel monitor-
ing systems (VMSs), but the mere fact of an attack gives rise
to suspicion if the VMS can recognize onboard jamming.
Similarly, the city construction workers may be looking
for a little extra income or perhaps, just a longer nap. This
might give rise to more civil spoofing attacks, particularly as
they become easier and less expensive to mount.
Attacks on GNSS follow a continuum but can be broadly
divided into two categories: jamming and spoofing. Jam-
ming is a denial-of-service style of attack where GNSS sig-
nals are masked by stronger interference signals to prevent
c24.3d 620
reception. As such, jamming’s objective tends toward area
denial of navigation (though the area may be just one vehi-
cle). Spoofing’s objective is basically to convince a GNSS
receiver or dependent system that it is somewhere (or some
time) that it is not. Often, but not always, this attack has
a specific “victim” in mind, for example‚ a location-
monitored fishing vessel, a location-monitored cargo con-
tainer, or a Pokémon Go gaming app (see Figure 24.2).
RF spoofing may also be used as a denial-of-service type
of attack where the objective is to create a more effective
jamming attack. Spoofing attacks are not necessarily
RF based.
Broadly speaking, spoofing attacks come in three flavors:
1) Cyberspoofing, where the spoofer captures or becomes
the device’s location object and then lies about position.
Essentially a man-in-the-middle attack, this is a partic-
ularly powerful attack since it gives the attacker com-
plete control over reported location, and it can be
launched from anywhere in the world. Relative location
spoofing may be achieved using correct location infor-
mation from compromised system elements as a basis.
The key to understanding and defending against these
attacks is to recognize that GNSS receivers and their
operating environments (e.g. a cell phone) are funda-
mentally computers, often running a full operating sys-
tem and connected to the Internet. The difficulty of
launching cyber attacks ranges from trivially simple to
fairly complex depending on the “victim.” Variations
include malicious software updates, root attacks,
15/12/2020 5:42:09 PM

Cyberspoofing
Figure 24.2 Two ways to cheat at Pokémon Go; cyberspoofing and RF spoofing.
man-in-the-middle attacks, falsified maps, incorrectly
georeferenced maps, reference station manipulation‚
and theft of signing credentials.
2) Differential corrections/data spoofing, where substitute
corrections are used to create relatively small but impor-
tant errors in navigation solutions. Many network-
connected receivers (e.g. Assisted-GNSS) do not read
data directly from satellites as a matter of course since
the process is so slow. For these receivers, ephemeris
data describing satellite orbits and/or clock corrections
may be manipulated to achieve the desired effects. Pub-
lic key infrastructure (PKI) cryptographic authentica-
tion methods (data signing) can make these sorts of
attacks much harder to mount.
3) RF overlay attacks using a coordinated signal constella-
tion broadcast, basically a GNSS signal generator [4–6].
Once found only in the military realm because of their
technical complexity, the advent of software-defined
radio (SDR) has made this sort of attack available to
script kiddies in recent years [7, 8]. The attack can be
very effective against an unwary receiver (most civil
receivers) but is more difficult to launch at a distance
since many exploits require knowing the true location
of the “victim.” RF overlay attacks are difficult to mount
against a wary receiver since numerous techniques can
detect the attack (more on this later). That said, RF
spoofing attacks can be extremely effective as an area
denial jamming attack since the receiver is fundamen-
tally a matched filter receiver for spoofing signals.
Contrasting the military and civil interference use cases,
military interference is more likely caused by an external
agent, whereas in the civil environment, internal agents
with close physical proximity to the affected equipment
are more likely. Civil attacks are much more likely to be
insider attacks. The specific motivations are myriad‚ but
c24.3d 621
24.2 The Effects of Jamming on GPS/GNSS Signals 621
RF Spoofing
understanding them is important when it comes to mitiga-
tions. First though, an examination of how interference
affects GNSS receivers.
24.2 The Effects of Jamming on
GPS/GNSS Signals
Figure 24.3 shows two range-Doppler (RD) maps, one
under nominal signal reception conditions and the other
where there is an in-band, spectrally matched jammer that
is 10,000 times stronger than the GPS P(Y)-code signal. In
both cases, a receiver could easily track the signal, the
pointy bit in the RD map, albeit with slightly less accuracy
in the jammed case. This sounds like very strong resistance
to jamming until we take a look at the received GPS signal
levels.
The L1 C/A signal is transmitted at a 25 W power level
into a 13 dBiC (times 20) antenna for an effective isotropic
radiated power (EIRP) of 25 ∗ 20 = 500 W. Nominally, these
are about the same parameters as a cellular base station, but
instead of having to travel only a couple of miles to the
receiver, GPS signals travel from satellites in a circular
medium Earth orbit (MEO) 20 200 km above Earth’s sur-
face. By the time it reaches Earth, the signal is weak, very
weak, about 20 times weaker than galactic noise. The L1
P(Y) signal is even weaker, about half the power of the
L1 C/A signal. A jammer 10,000 times more powerful than
a very weak signal is still very weak.
More formally, Table 24.1 shows specified nominal
received L1 signal levels from a GPS Block III satellite.
Levels for earlier-generation satellites are similar, except
for L1C, which debuted with Block III.
Referring back to Figure 24.3, received jamming levels
are usually described in terms of a power ratio J/S expressed
in units of decibels. Specifically:
15/12/2020 5:42:11 PM
 622 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

No Jamming Jamming
(Just Thermal Noise) (10,000 x Signal | J/S=40 dB)

P(Y)-Code Correlation Response (No Jamming, 20 msec PIT) P(Y)-Code Correlation Response (J/S=40 dB, 20 msec PIT)
Amplitude (volts)

Amplitude (volts)
40 40
20 20
0 0
500 500

15 15

0 0
10 10

Doppler Offset (Hz) Doppler Offset (Hz)

5 5

Time Offset (chips) Time Offset (chips)

–500 0 –500 0

Figure 24.3 Two range-Doppler (RD) maps, one under nominal signal reception conditions (left) and the other where there is an
in-band, spectrally matched jammer that is 10,000 times stronger than the GPS P(Y)-code signal(right). In both cases, a receiver can track
P(Y)-code military signal.

Table 24.1 Received minimum terrestrial RF signal strength
Signal Specification
L1 C/A IS-GPS-200J
L1 P(Y) IS-GPS-200J
L1C Pilot IS-GPS-800E
L1C Data IS-GPS-800E
J S dB = 10 log 10 j s
where
j is the received jammer power in watts
s is the received signal power in watts
Thus, a situation where the received jamming power is
10,000 times the received signal power corresponds to a
J/S of 40 dB. Table 24.1 shows that the nominal isotropic
P(Y) received level is −161.5 dBW, and so a J/S of 40 dB
means the jammer is received at −161.5dBW + 40 dB =
−121.5 dBW. This is not a difficult amount of power to
put on a target victim receiver.
So‚ how does a GNSS receiver operate in the presence of
jamming that is thousands of times more powerful than the
signal? Figure 24.4 is a notional jamming scenario invol-
ving a direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) GPS satel-
lite, a continuous wave (CW) jammer, and a receiver.
Also shown are spectrum plots at various points in the sig-
nal/processing chain. Focusing on P(Y)-code transmission,
the satellite starts with a 50 bps non-return-to-zero (NRZ)
data stream, multiplies that by a 10.23 MChip/s NRZ PN
code which also switches between values of 1 and −1.
The resultant is used to binary phase shift keying (BPSK)-
modulate a sine wave at the L1 frequency of 154fo =
1575.42 MHz. The spectrum of the signal (point 1) is
Isotropic signal level sin(x) / x centered at L1 with an equivalent noise bandwidth
of 10.23 MHz. The jammer in this case is a simple tone jam-
−158.50 dBW RHCP mer broadcasting CW at the L1 center frequency. Its spec-
−161.50 dBW RHCP trum is basically a narrowband spike at the L1 center
−158.25 dBW RHCP frequency (point 2).
−163.00 dBW RHCP The receiver antenna is stimulated by these two signals
(plus thermal noise), and the summation of the various sig-
nals is output. The composite spectrum is shown at Point 3.
24 1 Note that two separate signals are not seen, just the summa-
tion. The receiver then multiplies the composite signal by a
local reference of the PN code time phased to account for
propagation delay from the satellite to the receiver. Point
4 shows the composite output spectrum. The bandwidth
of the satellite signal collapses from 10.23 MHz to 50 Hz
because whenever the received signal is a 1, the local refer-
ence is a 1; and whenever it is a −1, the local reference is a
−1. The PN code is stripped off‚ and all that’s left is the
50 bps data stream with a bandwidth of 50 Hz.
The jammer though, goes from negligible bandwidth to a
10.23 MHz bandwidth mirroring what happened at the sat-
ellite when the PN code multiplied the sine wave centered
at L1. Finally, the receiver passes the code mixing output
through a 50 Hz band pass filter (BPF). The GPS signal
passes through largely un-attenuated but the jammer,
now with a 10.23 MHz bandwidth‚ mostly gets filtered out.
Table 24.2 presents a simplified J/S threshold analysis
where the objective is to quantify how much stronger a
CW jammer has to be in order to cause the receiver to lose
lock. Focusing on the P-code signal and following the pre-
vious discussion, the fraction of the jammer energy that gets
through the 50 Hz BPF is 50Hz/10,230,000 Hz = 1/204,600.

c24.3d 622 15/12/2020 5:42:12 PM

 24.2 The Effects of Jamming on GPS/GNSS Signals 623

1 4

Satellite

D(t)
data
PN(t)
50 Hz
PN Code BPF
Sin(2πfct) D(t)
Generator
PN(t-τ) data
PN Code
Receiver
Generator

Jammer 3
2 5

Sin(2πfct)

Figure 24.4 A notional jamming scenario involving a direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) GPS satellite, a continuous wave (CW)
jammer, and a receiver.

Table 24.2 Simplified J/S threshold analysis

Stated another way, if a jammer is 204,600 times as power- address interference effects for binary offset carrier (BOC)
ful as the signal, it will yield equal power out of the 50 Hz signal formats, and it doesn’t take into account interference
BPF. Now, in order to track a legacy signal (C/A code or with spectrum shapes other than that of a CW jammer at the
P(Y) code), the signal power needs to be around 10 times center frequency. Also, it does not take into account the
greater than noise, so to a good approximation, a P(Y) effects of thermal noise due to amplifiers and cosmic noise.
receiver will lose track once the j/s is greater than 20,460 The Betz equation [9–11] shown below provides a method
or stated in decibels, once the J/S exceeds 43 dB. For C/A for calculating effective baseband C/No accounting for signal
code, the analysis follows similar lines, but the calculated and interference spectral shapes assuming noise-like responses.
maximum J/S is a factor of ten less since the chipping rate
is a factor of 10 slower. The caveat though is that C/A code C C
=
has some structural vulnerabilities (explored later) that N0 effective N+I
2
make the analysis overly optimistic for C/A code receivers. βr 2
Cs Gs f df
− βr 2
24.2.1 The Betz Equation =
βr 2 βr 2
N0 Gs f df + Ct Gt f Gs f df
Figure 24.5 shows L1 GPS signal spectra after modernization. − βr 2 − βr 2
The preceding analysis, while useful as a general introduc- 24 2
tion, is severely limited in its scope of applicability. It doesn’t

c24.3d 623 15/12/2020 5:42:13 PM

 624 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

Normalized Source Spectrum Source Type BPSK(1), Peak at = 0 MHz

–60 Source Type BPSK(10), Peak at = 0 MHz
L1C* Source Type BOC(1,1), Peak at = –0.765 MHz
Source Type BOC(10,5), Peak at = –9.495 MHz
P(Y)-Code
–70
C/A-Code
M-Code

–80
dBW/Hz

–90

–100

–110
Center
Frequency of
–120 1575.42 MHz

–130
–15 –10 –5 0 5 10 15
Frequency (MHz)

Figure 24.5 L1 GPS signal spectra after modernization.

where coefficient (SSC). SSC is a measure of how strongly interfer-

Gs f Signal's Normalized Power Spectrum ence couples into baseband noise at a zero hertz frequency
∞ offset assuming the two signals are uncorrelated and act
Gs f df = 1 like noise with respect to one another. The inverse of the
−∞ SSC is sometimes referred to as processing gain. Also, note
Cs Received Signal Power that the receiver’s front-end filtering is represented as a rec-
tangular response extending from −βr/2 to +βr/2 Hz cen-
tered on the signal’s center frequency.
Gt f Jammer's Normalized Power Spectrum
∞
βr 2
Gt f df = 1
Spectral Separation Coefficient SSC = Gt f Gs f df
−∞
− βr 2
Ct Received Jammer Power
Evaluation of the Betz equation is typically performed
N0 Thermal Noise Power Spectral Density using numerical integration‚ but first a discussion of how
to compute No, the thermal noise power spectral density.
βr Front End Filter Bandwidth Hz No comprises two sources, noise due to external black-
body radiation and noise internally generated by the
C receiver. If NF is the noise figure in dB of the receiver refer-
numeric C No enced to 290K, then
No
Baseband C/No is basically the signal-to-noise ratio in a 1 N 0 = 10 log 10 k T antenna + T receiver dBW 24 3
Hz bandwidth. The above equation comprises three terms: where
in the numerator the signal power, and in the denominator Tantenna = Antenna Noise Temperature K
two terms: the contribution due to thermal noise effects and Treceiver = Receiver Noise Temperature K
the contribution due to interference effects. Of particular = 290 10NF dB 10 − 1
note, the contribution due to interference is equal to the k = Boltzman Constant
jamming power Ct scaled by the spectral separation = 1 38 x 10 − 23 Watts degree Kelvin

c24.3d 624 15/12/2020 5:42:14 PM

 24.2 The Effects of Jamming on GPS/GNSS Signals 625

Numerically integrating the Betz equation for a 10-kHz-

wide, narrowband jammer at the center frequency analo-
• To provide meaningful comparisons between signals
under a particular interference condition, it helps to
gous to that of Figure 24.4, Figure 24.6 plots effective C/ use a common reference power level for the S in
No as a function of J/SP for three signal types: C/A code, J/S. The chosen reference level in this and subsequent
P(Y)-code, and the L1C Pilot signal, a BOC(1,1) signal. plots is S = −161.5 dBW, the power level of the
A few preliminary comments are in order: P(Y) code as specified in Table 24.1. Hence the tem

•
J/SP.
The antenna temperature Tant used is 130 K. If a direc-
tional antenna is pointed toward the Milky Way, at L1 • In all cases, the front-end bandwidth is 24 MHz.

frequency the apparent blackbody radiation temperature
is about 140 K. Away from the Milky Way but not toward
the Sun, the apparent blackbody radiation temperature is
about 70 K. Point the antenna toward the ground or oper-
ate indoors and the apparent temperature will be some-
thing around 250 K to 300 K.
Comparing C/A code performance with P(Y) code per-
formance, at low J/SP values the C/A code yields a C/No
that is 3 dB (a factor of two) higher. This is because the
C/A code signal is received with a 3 dB higher power
level. It is a stronger signal‚ and until jamming levels
exceed thermal noise levels, it will yield a higher

• The receiver noise figure is usually set by the pre-amp,

and for GPS receivers is anywhere from about 1.5 to 5
C/No. As J/SP increases, the 10× wider spreading band-
width of P(Y)-code provides 10 times better rejection
dB, with 2 dB being typical. against the jammer but, because the P(Y) signal is only

• GNSS signals are normally below thermal noise, and so

most GNSS receivers use very low-precision A/D conver-
ters going into the correlators to save on power. The most
common is a 1.5-bit converter that puts out one of three
values: 1, 0, −1. Properly tuned and in Gaussian noise,
the loss relative to a high-precision converter is less than
1 dB [12, 13].
half as strong, the net gain is a factor of 10∗1/2 = 5, or 7
dB. Holding off on a fuller discussion for now, the
minimum required C/No to track C/A or P(Y) code is
around 27 dB-Hz. This corresponds to an SNR of
27(dB-Hz) − 10∗log10(50 Hz) = 10 dB in a 50 Hz band-
width consistent with the earlier discussion surrounding
Table 24.2.

All Cases:Tant. = 130K, NF = 2 dB, L = 1 dB,Gsig = 0dBiC, Gjam = 0dBiC, 24 Mhz Passband
50
3 dB L1CP-Code
Higher
45
Is
Better
40
BPSK(10) @–161.5dBW, Brick(10 kHz) Jammer @ 0 kHz Offset
BPSK(1) @–158.5dBW, Brick(10 kHz) Jammer @ 0 kHz Offset
35 C/A-Code BOC(1,1) @–158.3dBW, Brick(10 kHz) Jammer @ 0 kHz Offset
Effective C/N0 (dB–Hz)

30 P(Y)-Code

25 Assuming No
Receiver Nominal Unaided
Saturation! Tracking Threshold
20
Legacy Signal

15
Block III Signal 7 dB
10 Levels

5 J/S = 43 dB
(20,000 x)
10x 100x 1000x
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Incident J/SP (dB wrt S=–161.5 dBW)

Figure 24.6 Effective C/No as a function of J/Sp given a narrowband jammer at 0 Hz offset relative to the center frequency.

c24.3d 625 15/12/2020 5:42:15 PM

 626 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

c more sensitive to jamming”? Its peak spectral response

snr numeric = numeric T i
n0 is at −765 kHz with respect to the center frequency.
C What happens if we jam there? Figure 24.7 shows
SNR dB = dB − Hz + 10 log 10 T i
N0 C/No plots for this case‚ and sure enough, the L1C Pilot
C signal is strongly affected and has the lowest C/No of the
SNR dB = dB − Hz − 10 log 10 Bi
N0 three signals once jamming becomes strong. In another
24 4 interesting observation, the P(Y) code signal’s perfor-
where mance is much the same as for 0 Hz offset jamming‚
Ti predetection integration time in seconds but the C/A code now performs about 4 dB better than
Bi equivalent noise bandwidth is 1 Ti P(Y) code in this type of jamming. Again, Figure 24.5
offers some insight. The C/A code is a BPSK(1) format
Turning now to the L1C Pilot channel response to jam- signal and has relatively low spectral content at a
ming, there is very little effect until the jamming becomes −765 kHz offset. The SSC will therefore be smaller‚
extremely powerful, at least under the assumption that the and so relatively small amounts of jamming couple into
front-end doesn’t saturate. Returning to the spectrum plots the baseband response.
of Figure 24.5, note that the L1C Pilot Signal is a BOC(1,1) Up to this point‚ discussion has focused on narrowband
format signal and so has essentially no spectral content at interference. Figure 24.8 considers the case where jamming
the center frequency. The SSC in the Betz equation is thus energy is uniformly distributed over a 24 MHz bandwidth.
very small for this particular jammer. In fact, there would Interestingly, the P(Y) signal consistently yields the lowest
have been no effect if the jammer was truly a pure tone at C/No (worst performance), while the C/A and L1C Pilot
the center frequency. The only reason there is an effect is signals offer similar C/No. Why is this? Shouldn’t P(Y) code
that the jammer is 10 kHz wide. offer 10 times the resistance to in-band jamming given its
Again returning to Figure 24.5, we might ask, “is there 10 times faster chip rate? The answer once again is found
some other frequency where L1C Pilot signal might be in Figure 24.5. For the C/A code and L1C Pilot signals, a

All Cases:Tant.=130K, NF=2 dB, L=1 dB,Gsig=0dBiC, Gjam=0dBiC, 24 Mhz Passband

50
BPSK(10) @–161.5dBW, Brick(10 kHz) Jammer @ –765 kHz Offset
Higher BPSK(1) @–158.5dBW, Brick(10 kHz) Jammer @ –765 kHz Offset
45 BOC(1,1) @–158.3dBW, Brick(10 kHz) Jammer @ –765 kHz Offset
Is
Better
40

C/A-Code
35
Effective C/N0 (dB–Hz)

30
Block III Signal P(Y)-Code
25 Levels

20
Assuming No
L1CP-Code
Receiver
15
Saturation!

10

0
10x 100x 1000x
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Incident J/SP (dB wrt S=–161.5 dBW)

Figure 24.7 Effective C/No as a function of J/Sp given a narrowband jammer at 765 kHz offset relative to the center frequency.

c24.3d 626 15/12/2020 5:42:15 PM

 24.3 Jamming Effectiveness as a Function of Range 627

All Cases:Tant.=130K, NF=2 dB, L=1 dB,Gsig=0dBiC, Gjam=0dBiC, 24 Mhz Passband

50
BPSK(10) @–161.5dBW, Brick(24000 kHz) Jammer @ 0 kHz Offset
Higher BPSK(1) @–158.5dBW, Brick(24000 kHz) Jammer @ 0 kHz Offset
Is 45 BOC(1,1) @–158.3dBW, Brick(24000 kHz) Jammer @ 0 kHz Offset
Better
40
P(Y)-Code
35 Block III Signal
Levels C/A-Code
Effective C/N0 (dB–Hz)

30
Unaided Tracking
L1CP-Code
25 Threshold
Military
Legacy Signal Unaided Tracking
Signals Do
20 Not Always Threshold
Outperform Modernized Signal
15 Civil Signals In
Jamming!
10
9 dB
J/S =46 dB
5
(40,000 x)

0
10x 100x 1000x
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Incident J/SP (dB wrt S=–161.5 dBW)

Figure 24.8 Effective C/No as a function of J/Sp given a 24-MHz-wide jammer at 0 Hz offset relative to the center frequency.

24-MHz-wide jammer is mostly out of band‚ and the SSC is
correspondingly low.
Also, note that compared to the narrowband jammer case
(Figure 24.6), the P(Y) code C/No is 3 dB higher for a given
J/S. This is a consequence of the code mixing process in the
receiver of Figure 24.4. Multiplication in the time domain is
equivalent to convolution in the frequency domain.
A wideband jammer will be spread even further than a nar-
rowband jammer‚ and so after code mixing (point 4) even
less of its energy will show up in the frequency range of
the 50 Hz BPF.
Regarding tracking thresholds, the C/A and P(Y) code
signals are what is referred to as “legacy” signals‚ mean-
ing that they carry the 50 bps data stream on the same
channel as the primary navigation signal. Absent data
wipe-off, the maximum predetection integration time
is 20 ms, and phase lock loops have to use a two-
quadrant discriminator; for example, atan(Q/I) or
sign(I)∗Q. The penalty for this is roughly 6 dB in thresh-
old C/No performance compared with the case where
there is no data on the carrier and a four- quadrant dis-
criminator (atan2(Q,I)) is used.
“Modernized” signal architectures comprise two chan-
nels, a pilot channel with no data on it and a separate data
channel to carry ephemeris data, and so on. Typically, the
pilot and data channels use distinct spreading codes but
maintain a specific carrier and code phase relationship with
respect to each other. In the case of L1C, the pilot and data
channels have the same carrier phase‚ and the data channel
is 4.75 dB weaker. The data channel is usually not tracked
directly‚ but its carrier and code phase is inferred from the
pilot channel using the known relationships between the
signals.
Returning to Figure 24.8, tracking the P(Y) signal
requires a C/No of about 27 dB-Hz while‚ the L1C Pilot
requires a C/No of greater than 21 dB-Hz. This, combined
with the fact that L1C Pilot is a 3 dB stronger signal‚ means
that the L1C Pilot signal can withstand 9 dB greater jam-
ming, for this type of jamming. The C/A signal, being a
“legacy” design, performs only 3 dB better because of its
power level relative to P(Y).
24.3 Jamming Effectiveness as a
Function of Range
In assessing jamming effects, the role of RF propagation
effects is extremely important. Many analyses use free space
propagation to estimate jammer power as a function of
range‚ and as we shall see, they may overestimate effective
ranges by orders of magnitude. First though, the free space
model. The free space model predicts that signal strength
falls off with range at a rate of 1/R2.

c24.3d 627 15/12/2020 5:42:15 PM

 628 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

λ height above the ground. Is a 1000 W jammer even feasible?

Sreceived = Stransmitted + Gt + Gr + 20 log 10
4πR
where:
Sreceived is received signal power (dBW)
Stransmitted is transmitted signal power (dBW)
Gt is transmitter antenna gain in the direction of the
receiver (dBiC)
Gr is receiver antenna gain in the direction of the transmit-
ter (dBiC)
λ is the signal’s wavelength (19 cm@L1, 24 cm@L2)
R is the spatial Tx/Rx separation in the same units as
wavelength
EIRP dBW = Stransmitted + Gt
Figure 24.9 plots J/S as a function of range for jammer
EIRP of 1, 10, 100, and 1000 W using the free space model.
EIRP is a function of both transmitter power and its
antenna gain toward a receiver. For purposes of this com-
putation, a 10 W transmitter driving a highly directional
20 dBiC gain antenna is the same as a 1000
W transmitter driving a 0 dBiC omni-directional antenna;
both have an EIRP of 30 dBW.
Using a J/S of 43 dB as a benchmark, Figure 24.9 shows
that an unaided P(Y) code receiver would lose track at a
range of 350 km against a 1000 W EIRP jammer. This might
be true in outer space, but on Earth, as a minimum, the cur-
vature of Earth would limit the range depending on the
24 5
The answer is yes; look in your kitchen. A microwave oven
uses a magnetron to put out roughly 500 to 1000 W at 2.45
GHz. In a military environment, providing prime power to
operate a high-power jammer is likely the more challenging
problem.
Jammers and GNSS receivers are often ground based.
In a smooth field, at low angles of incidence, the ground
is a nearly perfect reflector. Figure 24.10 shows a
notional two-ray propagation model [14] where a signal
from the transmitter follows two paths to the receiver: a
direct path and a reflected path. To a close approxima-
tion, receive and transmit antenna gains are the same
for the direct and reflected paths. Depending on geome-
try, the reflected path can add to the direct path either
constructively or destructively. At close ranges, when
direct and reflected path signals add constructively, the
received power can exceed free space predictions by 6
dB‚ but at a slightly different range, signals can cancel
and nothing is seen. Finally, once the range exceeds
the first Fresnel break point, the direct and reflected sig-
nals add together with a relative phase that leads to sig-
nals falling off at a rate of 1/R4.
In reality, ground mobile propagation is nowhere near
as simple as the two-ray model [15]. Buildings, terrain,
reflections, and vegetation all affect the received inter-
ference power, especially when the interference source

Higher
Is 60
10 1 Watt EIRP, Free Space
Worse 10 00 10 Watt EIRP, Free Space
0W Wa 100 Watt EIRP, Free Space
(for the 10 att tt
Wa 1000 Watt EIRP, Free Space
GPS 1W tt
50 att
Receiver)
Can’t Track
Median J/S (dB wrt –160 dBW

40
Can Track

30 1000x Nominal Unaided P(Y)-code

Receiver J/S Threshold of 43 dB

20 100x

350 km
10 10x

10 km 100 km 1000 km
0
100 101 102 103
Range (km)

Figure 24.9 Incident J/S as a function of range assuming free space propagation.

c24.3d 628 15/12/2020 5:42:16 PM

 24.4 GPS L1 C/A Code Structural Vulnerabilities 629

Frequency = 1.5754 GHz, h1 = 30’, h2 = 5’, Fresnel Breakpoint at 0.18189 miles, Link Pt*Gt*Gr of 10 Watts
–10

–20
Two Ray
Higher –30 Model
Received
Power
–40
Power (dBm)

–50

–60
R2 Slope (Free Space)

–70

–80 R4 Slope

–90

–100
10–2 10–1 100 101
Range (miles)

Figure 24.10 Ground reflection can cause +6 dB power relative to free space prediction at short ranges.

is also ground based. Propagation effects are particularly
important in cellular systems‚ and numerous empirical
models have been developed based on measurement
campaigns that measure the median path loss as a func-
tion of frequency, antenna heights, urban environment,
and so on [16]. The tendency toward 1/R4 propagation
predicted by the two-ray model is well supported. One
of the earlier (and simpler) models is the Hata–
Okumura models and the variant described in 3GPP
TR 43.030 which divides environments into four
categories:
24.4 GPS L1 C/A Code Structural
Vulnerabilities
The GPS L1 C/A code signal presents a bit of a conundrum.
It is by far the single most popular navigation signal; every
GNSS receiver can receive it and for many, it is the only sig-
nal type used. It is the easiest signal to work with from an
acquisition and power consumption perspective [17]. It is
usually the ultimate fallback signal for when all else fails.
It is also, by far, the most easily interfered with since it uses
a short PN code that repeats every millisecond and there are

•• Hata
Hata
Urban
Suburban
no authentication features.
Figure 24.12 shows the actual spectrum of L1 C/A code

•• Hata
Hata
Rural Quasi-Open
Rural Open
The distinctions between different area types are some-
what subjective‚ and it should be emphasized that a Hata
Urban environment is still fairly open with median build-
ing heights of around 15 m. It is not an urban canyon such
as is seen in large cities. Figure 24.11 repeats the analysis of
Figure 24.9 for a 1000 W EIRP jammer but with different
propagation models. Under free space conditions, the pre-
dicted threshold range is 350 km as before, but in an urban
environment, the median threshold jamming range is
only 2.5 km.
PRN3. Broadly speaking‚ it has the sin(x)/x spectrum of a
BPSK signal but, because the PN code repeats itself once
every millisecond, the actual spectrum is a line spectrum.
Figure 24.13 shows a close-up of the spectrum over the
range 150 kHz to 170 kHz. The lines are separated by
1000 Hz due to the PN code repetition rate and have a nom-
inal width of ±50 Hz due to the 50 bps data stream. The spe-
cific line structure is specific to each PRN code, and the
lines can be as large as −21 dB with respect to the
total power.
Figure 24.14 shows an RD map for a receiver centered on
zero Doppler and matched to PRN 3. Input comprises an
PRN 3 L1 C/A signal centered at 500 Hz Doppler and

c24.3d 629 15/12/2020 5:42:17 PM

 630 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

Higher 1000 Watt EIRP Jammer at 100 feet AGL, Receiver at 5 feet AGL
Is 60
Free Space
Worse Hata Urban
Hata Suburban
(for the
Hata Rural Quasi-Open
GPS Hata Rural Open
50
Receiver)
Can’t Track
Median J/S (dB wrt –160 dBW)

40
Can Track

Nominal Unaided P(Y)‐code

30 1000x Receiver J/S Threshold of 43 dB

20 100x

2.5 km 350 km
10 10x

10 km 100 km 1000 km
0
100 101 102 103
Range (km)

Figure 24.11 Using more realistic near-Earth propagation models, median received J/S is much less than predicted by free space model.

L1 C/A PRN3 Power Spectra

0

–10

–20
Power (dBr total)

–30

–40

–50

–60
–2 –1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Frequency (Hz) x 106
Power Average of 1 x 262144 pt-FFTs, Hamming Window, Noise BW = 67.6688 Hz

Figure 24.12 GPS PRN 3 C/A code spectrum with respect to the center frequency.

30 chips code phase offset, and a CW jammer at the L1 cen- amplitudes. In Figure 24.14, we see the same pattern of
ter frequency + 159 kHz = 1575.579 MHz. The jammer is line responses moving from left to right from 0 Doppler
250 times more powerful than the C/A code signal, or stated offset.
another way, the J/S is 10 log10 (250) = 24 dB. The CW jam- In principle, a receiver could track the PRN3 signal
mer creates responses in the RD map whose magnitudes response in this situation‚ but if the jammer were to shift
follow the line spectrum of the code but in reverse order. frequency by +500 Hz to 159.5kHz, the line spectra
Starting at 159 kHz in Figure 24.13 and moving up in fre- responses also move by 500 Hz and now sit on top of the
quency, we see medium, bigger, biggest, and small signal response (which does not move except in response

c24.3d 630 15/12/2020 5:42:17 PM

 24.4 GPS L1 C/A Code Structural Vulnerabilities 631

L1 C/A PRN3 Power Spectra

–20

–22 C/A Code Repeats Itself

with 1 msec Period So
–24 Lines are 1 kHz Apart

–26 159 kHz

Power (dBr total)

1,000 Hz Separation
–28

–30

–32

–34

–36

–38

–40
1.5 1.52 1.54 1.56 1.58 1.6 1.62 1.64 1.66 1.68 1.7
Frequency (Hz) x 105

Figure 24.13 Close-up of C/A code line spectrum from 150 to 170 kHz offset relative to the center frequency.

C/A Search Correlation Responses A Continuous

16000
J/S = 24 dB (250 x) & 159 kHz Offset Wave (CW)
14000 Jammer Is Just a
12000 Sine Wave
10000 PRN3 Signal
Response
8000
0.3 0.4 0.5
6000 Time
4000

2000

0
100
90
Time

80
70
Offs

60
et (C

50
40
hips

30
20
)

10
–4000 –6000
0 0 –2000
4000 2000
6000
Doppler Offset (Hz)

Figure 24.14 In the range-Doppler map, the response to a CW jammer follows the PN code’s line spectrum.

to changes in relative geometry). In the absence of any

checks, the receiver’s phase lock loop could lock onto
• Look at the probability density function of the precorre-
lation samples‚ and note that they are not Gaussian
one of the stronger jammer lines and track it off into obliv- distributed.
ion. In point of fact though, there are several ways to iden-
tify the presence of a CW jammer. A few possibilities:
• Perform a spectrum analysis using FFTs to detect tone
jamming. This works surprisingly well even on 1.5-bit

•
precision samples (e.g. Figure 24.26) and is often part
Detect the fact that Early, Late, and Prompt signals all of a receiver’s diagnostic capabilities.
have the same power level. With a real signal, Early
and Late are about 6 dB down relative to Prompt for 1 • Finally, some receivers even have the capability to notch
out CW interference. For military receivers, the reasons
chip E/L separation.

•
are obvious but many civil receivers also have this capa-
Look at the RD map‚ and see that certain Dopplers have bility, so they can operate in complex EMI environments,
strong responses at all code phases. namely, cell phones.

c24.3d 631 15/12/2020 5:42:19 PM

 632 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation
At lower J/S levels, the effects of CW jamming can
become more pernicious since the jammer’s presence is
harder to detect. Figure 24.15 depicts an RD map where
the jammer is offset 161 kHz with respect to the PRN 3 cen-
ter frequency. The J/S is 12.3 dB, or 6 dB below thermal
noise in a 2 MHz bandwidth, so the net rise in power is only
1 dB, which is too small to be reliably observable by a pre-
correlation jamming meter. A receiver tracking PRN 3
might think it is tracking fine‚ but in fact the jammer can
distort the code correlation envelope and bias the code
tracking point by several meters as is shown in
Figure 24.16. Here, the top curve shows the distorted corre-
lation envelope‚ and the three lower curves show Early–
Late envelope responses for 1 chip, ½ chip, and ¼ chip
E/L separations, respectively. A naïve receiver looking only
at C/No meters, phase lock indicators‚ and code lock indi-
cators might think it has much better accuracy than it actu-
ally does, which can prove critical in applications like
harbor navigation and aircraft landing.
As a final observation on CW jammers, the receiver’s
predetection integration time (PIT) is also very impor-
tant. Lower-end receivers using short predetection times,
for example, 1 or 2 ms, have greater susceptibility to CW
jamming. This is because the range of line interaction
frequencies is inversely proportional to the PIT. With a
20 ms PIT, the line response needs to be within ±25
Hz of the desired signal for strongest effect. With a 1
ms PIT, the line response needs to be within ±500 Hz
for strongest effect, and since lines are spaced 1000 Hz
apart, there is always at least one line with a potentially
strong interaction.
The length 1023 L1 C/A codes defined in IS-GPS-200J are
a subset of a family of 1025 distinct Gold codes with
Case 1, C/A Search Correlation Response
PRN 3 Signal Response
Amplitude (volts)
10
5
0
6000
4000
2000
0 70
–2000
Doppler Offset (Hz)
–4000
–6000
10
0
Figure 24.15 PRN3 range-Doppler map with 161 kHz offset CW at J/S = 12.3 dB (precorrelation interference is 6 dB below thermal noise
in 2 MHz bandwidth). At lower interference levels, interference can degrade accuracy by distorting the correlation envelope.
c24.3d 632
well-defined auto- and cross-periodic correlation properties
described in Tables 24.3 and 24.4. Figure 24.17 shows the
autocorrelation response for PRN3 with temporal sidelobes
identified.
At zero Doppler offsets‚ any two equal power C/A codes
will yield a cross-correlation response where at 25% of rel-
ative code phases, the response is down by only 24 dB.
Figure 24.18 illustrates how an adversary can take advan-
tage of this. Here, the jammer transmits PRN1 at the same
nominal chip rate as GPS (1.023 MChip/s) and has a J/S of
24 dB relative to PRN 3, the desired signal. The Doppler off-
set between the two signals is 500 Hz. Trying to receive
other real signals, for example‚ PRN 23, would yield similar
RD maps where the specific structure is distinct but similar
looking.
Presented with this sort of correlation response on all sig-
nals, the receiver would likely have a difficult time acquir-
ing and maintaining lock on the real signal but might be
quite happy to lock onto the multitude of false peaks. This
is exactly what happened in the Pole Star experiment [2]
described in Figure 24.1. Receiver autonomous integrity
monitoring (RAIM) could easily have detected that the
receiver was tracking false “signals,” but such algorithms
are often not included in receivers.
Detecting the presence of this jammer type at the signals
level can be done using methods similar to those used to
detect CW interference but with the following caveats:
• Early, Prompt‚ and Late power levels will tend to be cor-
rect‚ and so that is not a great detection method.
• The jammer’s spectrum is that of a C/A code. Spectrum
analysis for detection is less reliable‚ and notch filtering is
not effective.
Track Bias is
31 meters
100
90
80
60
50
30
40
20
Time Offset (chips)
15/12/2020 5:42:21 PM
 24.4 GPS L1 C/A Code Structural Vulnerabilities 633

Prompt
Late Early

1
Volts

0 Correlation Envelope
–1
–2 –1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Early-Late
1
1-chip Separation DLL Discrim
Volts

0
–1 31 meters
–2 –1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2

1
0.5-chip Separation DLL Discrim
Volts

0
–1 19 meters
–2 –1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2

1 0.25-chip Separation DLL Discrim

Volts

0
19 meters
–1
–2 –1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Time (chips)

Figure 24.16 Correlation envelope and delay lock loop (DLL) discriminator responses with J/S=12.3 dB, thermal noise set to zero, and CW
jammer @ 161 kHz offset as in Figure 24.15.

Table 24.3 C/A Code periodic autocorrelation values (integer the latter with their Neumann–Hoffman codes. The L1C
code phase offsets) Pilot signal uses a 10× longer code (10230 chips vs. 1023
chips), and it imposes an additional 100 Hz overlay code
Autocorrelation Value Probability that repeats only once every 18 s. The result is that these
signals offer much better resistance to structural jamming
0 dB wrt peak 0.098% as is demonstrated in Figure 24.19. The top two RD maps
−23.9 dB wrt peak 12.5% show correlation responses at nominal C/No’s and with
−24.2 dB wrt peak 12.5% PRN1 (per ICD-GPS-800E) jamming for the L1C Pilot sig-
−60.2 dB wrt peak 75% nal. The bottom two figures show corresponding results
for the legacy L1 C/A signal. The L1C signal shows no par-
ticular sensitivity toward this sort of jamming, whereas the
Table 24.4 C/A Code periodic cross-correlation values (integer L1 C/A receiver is overwhelmed in a sea of confusion.
code phase offsets) The L1C Pilot signal has jamming resistance against most
jammer types that is similar to that of the P(Y) code. Its 3 dB
Cross Correlation Value Probability higher signal power, combined with a 6 dB lower tracking
threshold and no particular structural vulnerabilities,
−23.9 dB wrt peak 12.5%
makes up for its lower processing gain relative to P(Y).
−24.2 dB wrt peak 12.5%
Figure 24.20 plots J/S as a function of range where the jam-
−60.2 dB wrt peak 75% mer has an EIRP of 0.2 W, typical of many so-called “per-
sonal privacy devices” (PPD). Using a very optimistic J/S
Finally, before leaving the topic of structural vulnerabil- threshold of 24 dB for the C/A code signal, such a jammer
ities, modernized signals incorporate several techniques to could, in theory, be effective at ranges from 400 m in urban
mitigate these structural effects. They tend to use longer environments to 30 km under free space conditions. Corre-
codes with better cross-correlation properties that repeat sponding ranges for the L1C signal are 150 m and 4 km,
less frequently so as to break up the line structure. This respectively.
is done either by simply using a longer code and/or by con- In point of fact, the effective range of most PPDs is much
catenating a shorter code with an overlay code. The L5 sig- less. Their antennas are often of such poor quality that
nal architectures (IS-GPS-705D) provide a good example of more radiation occurs through the jammer casing than

c24.3d 633 15/12/2020 5:42:22 PM

 634 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

Case 1, Basic 1 msec PIT C/A Search Correlation Responses C/Nomax = 80.1105 dB-Hz

1500
20 msec Total PIT
C/A Code
Amplitude (volts)

1000 Temporal
Sidelobes

500

0
500
100
80
DO 0
PPL 60
ER 40
20 E
–500 0 RANG
Doppler Offset (Hz) Time Offset (chips)

Figure 24.17 C/A code correlation response for Case 1, basic 1 ms PIT C/A search.

Tracking Loops
Can Lock on To
These
PRN 3 Response
Amplitude (volts)

40
20
0
6000

4000

2000 100
90
80
0 70
60
Doppler Offset (Hz) –2000 50
40
30 Time Offset (chips)
–4000
20
10
–6000 0

Figure 24.18 PRN3 range-Doppler map with PRN1 Gold code jammer at J/S = 24 dB (250x) at 500 Hz offset, 20 ms PIT.

the antenna. The waveforms used, usually some form of fast signals (e.g. P(Y) code), whereas civil defenses tend
chirp [18], are not particularly effective against C/A codes to focus more on jammer detection and avoidance.
(Figure 24.21). And finally, the quality of manufacture is Possible jamming (and spoofing) mitigation approaches
such that they often have poor control over the center fre- include

••
quency, and so they may miss hitting GNSS frequencies
directly and rely instead on front-end saturation effects. Strong out-of-band signal rejection
Maintaining situational awareness

24.5 Jamming Mitigation • Frequency excision [19] and adaptive A/D conversion
[20, 13]

•• Avoid relying on civil signals

Signal diversity

••
Military and civil defenses against jamming share
many commonalities‚ but there are distinctions. Tightly coupled IMU aiding
Military defenses tend to emphasize protecting specific Adaptive array antennas

c24.3d 634 15/12/2020 5:42:23 PM

 24.5 Jamming Mitigation 635

No Jamming PRN1 Jamming (J/S=24)

PRN 3 Response PRN 3 Response

L1C

No Jamming PRN1 Jamming (J/S=24)

PRN 3 Response PRN 3 Response

L1
C/A

Figure 24.19 Correlation responses at nominal C/No’s and with PRN1 jamming for the L1C Pilot signal (top) and for the legacy L1 C/A
signal (bottom). The plots show that modernized signals have much better resistance to structure jamming.

0.2 Watt EIRP Jammer at 5 feet AGL, Victim Receiver at 30 feet AGL with 0 dB Gain Towards Jammer
–157 dBW Signal with 0 dB Gain towards Jammer
60

55
Fr
42 dB L1C Matched ee
50
Spectrum Jamming Sp
ac
Threshold eP
ro
45 pa
ga
tio Nominal GPS Signal:
Ha

n –157 dBW into 0 dBiC

Median J/S (dB)

ta

40
Ur
ba
n

35
Pr
op
ag

30
a

24 dB L1 C/A Capture
tio
n

Jamming Threshold
25

20
A Factor of 75 Variation in Range
Depending on Propagation
15

10
10–1 100 101 102
400 meters Range (km) 30 km

Figure 24.20 J/S as a function of range where the jammer has an EIRP of 0.2 W. The plot shows that the effective range of a jammer varies
widely depending on propagation and upon the GNSS signal type.

c24.3d 635 15/12/2020 5:42:24 PM

 636 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation
Jammer Found in the Wild
111.11 kHz Sweep Rate
–8.6 to +5.4 Mhz
J/S = 24 dB / 250x
J/S = 34 dB / 2,500x
Figure 24.21 Most jammers being sold in civil markets do not use effective waveforms‚ and their antennas are of poor quality.
The topics of adaptive array antennas and tightly coupled
IMU aiding are covered in Chapter 26 and 46 in this book
and so will not be covered here other than to note that in
the absence of these sorts of technologies, a determined
adversary will usually win in the battle to deny access to
a particular signal. Adaptive arrays can provide 30 to
70 dB of additional interference rejection by creating spatial
nulls in the direction of the jammer(s), and so are by far the
most effective means for preserving access to a given signal.
Their main drawback, aside from being potentially ITAR
controlled (the rules are complex), is that the array mani-
fold is physically large. Standard seven (7) element array
manifolds are 14” in diameter.
The main drawback with tightly coupled IMU aiding is
that in order to provide significant jamming protections
to a moving user, the IMU has to be of very good quality
(read expensive) so as to provide meaningful dynamic aid-
ing to a GNSS receiver so that its signal tracking band-
widths can be reduced. Even then, the J/S gains are
usually no more than 10 to 20 dB since oscillator phase
noise and signal propagation effects (e.g. tree-induced scin-
tillation) not measured by the IMU begin to limit how nar-
row tracking bandwidths can become. The real utility of an
IMU is often that it allows a user to ride out extended per-
iods of signal denial and efficiently reacquire signals in
jamming.
c24.3d 636
So, is the situation for civil users hopeless? Far from it. As
Table 24.5 shows, the civil user in principle has a plethora
of signals available at diverse frequencies from a host of
international satellite navigation systems, and they can also
rely on diverse network-assisted methods to determine
position and time. The core challenge for civil users is to
identify and discard suspect signals‚ or in other words,
maintain situational awareness. Also, civil users enjoy
the protection of the law; jamming and RF spoofing are ille-
gal and subject to major fines, $100,000 per incident in the
United States [21].
With the above as prelude, for both military and civil com-
munities, strong out-of-band interference rejection is
important. Computed using the Betz equation but with no
jamming, Figure 24.22 illustrates one of the key receiver
design trade-offs, namely‚ front-end bandwidth. For a given
desired signal, narrowing the front-end bandwidth usually
makes the receiver more resistant to the effects of out-of-
band interference but it also leads to greater SNR loss.
The earlier the filtering occurs in the RF chain, the less
chance of driving subsequent components into saturation.
Naturally narrowband antennas and low insertion loss BPFs
prior to pre-amplification deserve consideration. For mili-
tary receivers in particular, high-intercept-point amplifiers
and mixers prove beneficial in keeping operation linear even
with high interference input levels. The penalty‚ of course,
15/12/2020 5:42:26 PM
 24.5 Jamming Mitigation 637

Table 24.5 Navigation sensors are getting inexpensive (green linearity as a function of frequency is also improved‚ which
indicates common smartphone capabilities) is important for RTK and PPP applications. For these rea-
sons, precision receivers often use 20 MHz or wider
Satellite navigation systems Other navigation sensors front-ends even though they may use only relatively nar-
rowband signals like the L1 C/A signal. This is also the rea-
Global SatNav Systems Microphone/Speaker (Ultrasonic
Chirp) son precision receivers consistently show up as more
GPS
WiFi (RSS and RTT modes)
sensitive to harmful interference caused by LightSquared
GLONASS
(now Ligado) LTE transmissions.
BEIDOU Cellular TOA/TDOA
Finally, before leaving the topic of front-ends, in the case
GALILEO Bluetooth
of the L1C Pilot signal, there is a 4/33 duty factor BOC(6,1)
iBeacon component included expressly for improved multipath
6DOF MEMS IMU rejection, but to receive it, the front-end bandwidth has
Regional SatNav/ 3DOF Magnetic Field Sensor to be at least 14 MHz wide.
Augmentation Camera(s) (Point Space Database) Military receivers tend to be fairly good at recognizing the
Systems
presence of jamming‚ whereas civil receivers are often abys-
QZSS LTE Proximity Services mal in this task. Maintaining situational awareness is cru-
SBAS Atomic Clock or Equivalent cially important in jamming mitigation. If you don’t know
IRNSS LocataLites you have a problem (potentially), you won’t apply the cor-
NextNav (920–928 MHz) rect tools to provide for continued operation, and you won’t
SAR Imagery provide timely warnings to operators. A few examples:
Iridium (1617.775–1626.5 MHz)
Barometric Altimeter • In 2012, Gary P. Bojczak, an engineering firm employee,
used a cigarette lighter GPS jammer to jam the GPS-based
eLoran tracking device his employer had installed on the truck
he was driving [24]. He also inadvertently jammed the
recently relocated GPS ground reference stations at New-
ark International Airport. He was caught by the FCC
is higher power consumption by active components since (unusual), fined $32,000 and lost his job. If his employer’s
higher drive levels are usually needed to maintain linearity. tracking device had been able to detect and inform his
Conversely, widening bandwidths makes multipath employer of jamming, the results would probably have
rejection techniques such as narrow correlator tracking been different. He might have been called into his super-
[22] and strobe correlators [23] more effective. Phase visor’s office for the following conversation: “Gary,

BPSK(1)
–1
BPSK(10)

–2 BOC(1,1)
SNR Loss (dB)

BOC(6,1)
BOC(10,5)
–3

–4
Better Out of Band Interference Rejection Better Multipath Rejection Possible

More Signal Loss Higher A/D Sample Rates

Higher Cost/Power
–6
100 101
2-Sided Bandpass Filter Bandwidth (MHz)

Figure 24.22 Front-end filter bandwidth selection is a performance trade-off.

c24.3d 637 15/12/2020 5:42:28 PM

 638 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

I notice that you are jamming our tracker. I’d like it to to ~0.5 dB. In another even more popular variation, the 1.5-
stop.” In the civil environment, jamming mitigation bit A/D converter, the “zero” threshold is not implemented‚
can often be effected by social engineering, but only if and the three possible output values are {−1, 0, and −1}.
it is identified and reported appropriately. Such a converter has only about 0.9 dB of conversion loss

• Commenting on test results where timing receivers,

some with chip-scale atomic clocks, were exposed to
interference, Sarah Mahmood of DHS noted: “All the
receivers were vulnerable to jamming and spoofing … it
is one thing to say that you can switch over to backup
timing if GPS is unavailable but if your receivers aren’t
able to recognize that GPS is unavailable, or you’re
being spoofed, the capability of backup timing is
almost irrelevant. We need to make our receivers
smarter” [25].
So how can interference be detected and characterized?
The receiver’s automatic gain control (AGC) can play a cru-
cial role [26, 27]. All current GNSS signals are received at
power levels below thermal noise levels in their operating
bandwidth when using typical antennas. Anything that
raises power in the precorrelation bandwidth of a receiver
is likely to be due to interference. Figure 24.23 depicts the
A/D conversion/AGC loop found in virtually all GPS recei-
vers in some form. The AGC’s core objective is to set the
gain GA so a set percentage of 2-bit A/D converter outputs
correspond to “large” values of 3 and −3. In the feedback
control portion, depicted in yellow, VT% is set to 35% in a
Gaussian noise environment to hold A/D conversion losses
if VT% is set to 40%, and it considerably simplifies subse-
quent correlator processing.
Of particular interest for interference detection purposes,
the control voltage to the variable gain AGC amplifier Vi
can also be used to measure (jammer+noise) to noise power
((J+N)/N). Under unjammed conditions, the nominal
input power to an L1 C/A receiver in a 2 MHz bandwidth
is about −110 dBm, most of this due to naturally occurring
thermal and amplifier noise. In recent years, the aggregate
power from diverse GNSS satellites has further elevated
noise levels in the neighborhood of the GPS L1 center fre-
quency. The C/A code signal at −127 dBm is a factor of
50 (17 dB) weaker and so does not influence AGC opera-
tion. Small jammers or spoofers will also not influence
AGC operation since the AGC only reacts to the composite
of jamming + noise. If, however, interference starts rising
above the thermal noise floor, the AGC will respond by
decreasing the gain GA so as to maintain the correct per-
centage of “large” outputs. Response times to a change in
input power level are very fast, typically less than 1 ms,
and so pulse jamming characteristics can also be
determined.
If the receiver knows the control characteristics of the
AGC amplifier (β,α), then the receiver can determine the

(J+N)/N Reading
Pickoff
+
1 VT%
GAGC N
s 1
∑ For 1.5 bit ADC
–
N
Want ~40% “1” & “–1”

A/D Converter Clock

D/A
+
D-Type Bits: 2 1.5 1
– FlipFlop
Vi VB
3 1 1
Low IF VB
Analog GA +
1 0 1
Signal D-Type 0
0 – FlipFlop –1 0 –1
–VB
–3 –1 –1
GA = αe βVi +
D-Type
–VB – FlipFlop

A/D Conversion
Requires Automatic +
Constant Envelope
Gain Control (AGC) D-Type LPF
Detection Channel
– FlipFlop (correlator)
1.3VB (CW, Swept CW,
Gold)

Figure 24.23 Knowing you are jammed (or spoofed) is the first step‚ and the AGC can provide the first indications of interference.

c24.3d 638 15/12/2020 5:42:28 PM

 24.5 Jamming Mitigation 639

change in (J+N)/N given Vi. Additionally, if the receiver
knows the quiescent Vi associated with a thermal-noise-
only input, it can measure (J+N)/N, the jam-to-noise ratio,
on an absolute scale. To obtain the quiescent value, the
receiver can short the antenna on power-up as part of a
built-in test prior to operation. Alternatively, it can main-
tain and refine a historical value during normal operations,
the caution being that spoofers and jammers may try to
manipulate history-based values.
Figure 24.24 depicts (J+N)/N as a function of J/S for spe-
cific signals and associated minimum receiver front-end
bandwidths. Equation 24.6 shows the process for comput-
ing such curves. Recalling the prior discussion surrounding
the effects of low-power jamming on L1 C/A code
(Figures 24.15, 24.16), the AGC has minimal response to
low-power jammers. At a J/S of 12.3 dB, the rise in (J
+N)/N is only about 1 dB, and so such a jammer is unlikely
to be detectable via AGC monitoring. Computing and
examining the RD maps (Figure 24.15) can yield better
low-power jamming observability.
J+N j+n
dB = 10 log 10
N n
where
J dBW = J S dB + S dBW
N dBW = 10 log 10 B + N 0 dBW
j Watts = 10J 10
n Watts = 10N 10
The probability density function of a Gaussian source’s
amplitude is distinctly different from that of a constant
envelope (CE) source (CW, swept CW, or Gold code jam-
mer types) [20, 13]. Referring back to Figure 24.23, in an
additional refinement depicted in red, receivers can include
an additional comparator set to threshold at 1.3 VB. If a CE
jammer is present, this threshold will be crossed ~1% of the
time versus ~14% of the time for Gaussian-distributed jam-
ming if VT% is set to 40%. With the jammer type identified,
the receiver can adapt VT% if it is seeing CE jamming to
obtain several decibels of additional jamming resistance
[20, 28]. The TI-420 L1 C/A receiver developed by the
author’s team at Texas Instruments in the 1986 time frame
routinely outperformed P(Y)-code receivers against CE
jammers using this technique.
Figure 24.25 shows an example of AGC responses to
pulsed CW jamming at a J/N of 30 dB and with a 100 Hz
pulse repetition frequency. Gain adjustment is fast, sub-
millisecond, because the AGC operates on wide bandwidth
precorrelation signals. Of particular note, the CE detection
channel, shown in green on the lower trace, provides a clear
indication as to jammer type. With pulsed Gaussian noise,
it would hold steady at ~2 × 14% except for short transients
24 6 due to changes in input power level.
With a bit of additional FFT-based processing on AGC
gain and 1.5-bit ADC samples, the jammer’s pulse and spec-
tral characteristics can be determined. Figure 24.26 shows
from Equation 24 3
that a 1.5-bit ADC output spectrum has a surprising degree
of spectral fidelity. The CW jammer is clearly visible‚ and its
center frequency is readily determined. The additional
spectral line artifacts in the 1.5-bit ADC spectrum vary
depending on the ADC sample rate and the jammer’s

All Cases:Tant.=300 K, NF=2 dB

50
BPSK(10) @–161.5dBW, Inband Jamming, 17 MHz Passband
BPSK(1) @–158.5dBW, Inband Jamming, 1.7 MHz Passband
BOC(1,1) @–158.3dBW, Inband Jamming, 3.5 MHz Passband
40

30 C/A-Code
(J+N)/N (dB)

L1CP-Code
20
P(Y)-Code

10

–10
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Incident J/S (dB)

Figure 24.24 The AGC responds to a composite of J+N and will not react to small jammers.

c24.3d 639 15/12/2020 5:42:29 PM

 640 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

ON Input Signal AM Characteristics

1
(voltage gain) Gaussian: –170 dBm/Hz
CW: –80 dBm at 1350.5 kHz
Signal AM

0.5

OFF
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Front End Gain (GA)
80
70
Gain
60
(dB)
50
40
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Large Value Percentages

100
AGC Control Channel, V = 40%

Percent CE Monitor Channel, V = 1.3V

Large 50

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
CE Detection Channel (x2) Time (msec) CW Not CW

Figure 24.25 The AGC and A/D conversion process can measure J/N, pulse rate, and jammer type. In this example, for illustrative
purposes, the jammer is pulsed CW at 30 dB J/N (50 dB J/S) with a 100 Hz PRF.

ADC input spectrum

–140
–160
Power (dBW/Hz)

–180
–200
–220
–240
–260
–280
–2.5 –2 –1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
x 106

ADC output spectrum

–40

–50
Power (dBW/Hz)

–60

–70

–80

–90
–2.5 –2 –1.5 –1 –0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
x 106
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 24.26 A 1.5-bit A/D converter output has reasonable spectrum fidelity. The top curve shows the spectrum of the unquantized
signal‚ while the bottom figure shows the spectrum of the quantized signal.

c24.3d 640 15/12/2020 5:42:30 PM


frequency. Additional A/D conversion precision reduces
such artifacts.
The takeaway from the above discussions is that with
very simple hardware, a GNSS receiver can measure (J
+N)/N and also identify the approximate type of jamming
that it is seeing: pulse, CE, and Gaussian. More sophisti-
cated identification strategies are certainly possible‚ but
the point is this: receivers that take steps to develop situa-
tional awareness know something is going on, and so can
take action.
Like a smoke alarm, situational awareness doesn’t put
out the fire‚ but it does give warning to allow for more effec-
tive action. Referring back to Table 24.5, the action may be
to not use signals identified as having jamming present.
Timing receivers with atomic clock backups can start riding
the atomic clock until jamming ceases. Hybrid GPS/eLoran
receivers can place greater reliance on the eLoran signal
when GNSS signals are denied due to jamming. Knowing
you have a problem is the first step.
24.6 Spoofing Detection
First‚ a caveat; the intent of this section is to educate the
reader on spoofing detection and mitigation, not on how
to build a spoofer. Descriptions of spoofing techniques
are deliberately vague and incomplete by design.
Over the last few years‚ the possibility of RF spoofing has
received a lot of attention‚ and there have been a couple of
successful open literature demonstrations [8, 29]. More
recently, there have been numerous spoofing incidents in
which spoofing has been used as a denial-of-service form
of jamming [30, 31]. The success of these demonstrations
is more a testament to the utter naiveté of the victim recei-
vers than to the sophistication of the spoofers. Spoofing is
fairly easy to detect, but only if the receiver is looking for
it. Performing basic signal validations will usually reveal
that an RF spoofer is present, and depending on the meth-
ods, may allow for discrimination between real and faux
signals [32, 33] so as to allow continued operation even
while under attack.
What are some of the possible indicators that spoofing is
present and how hard are they to implement? Broadly
speaking, some of the more important techniques include
the following:
• Checking for inconsistencies between diverse navigation
sources and signals
•• Continuity checks in estimated time and position
Looking for anomalous signal characteristics with regard
to the signal-to-noise ratio, tracking glitches, and in the
appearance of RD maps
c24.3d 641
24.6 Spoofing Detection 641
• Detecting multiple signals having a common point of ori-
gin or direction of arrival; most spoofers transmit all faux
signals from one location
• Cryptographic verification that each signal originated
from a real satellite
None of the techniques is 100% reliable in all scenarios‚
but in concert, they can make undetected spoofing very
unlikely. If a significant percentage of civil receivers main-
tained basic situational awareness, it would establish a
form of herd immunity by making attempts at RF spoofing
less attractive to adversaries since the reliability of such
attacks would be lessened.
Receivers that use multiple signal types from multiple
sources (e.g. GPS, BeiDou, Glonass, and Galileo) and mul-
tiple frequencies (e.g. L1, L2, and L5) can makes the RF
spoofer’s task more onerous. In the Humphrey’s spoofing
demonstrations, the victim receivers were GPS L1 C/A-only
receivers. If the receivers had been looking for other signals,
for example‚ Glonass, RAIM-style tests would have quickly
revealed major inconsistencies and raised suspicion. That
said, in the United States, there are legal impediments
imposed by the FCC to using all GNSS signals available,
particularly in safety-critical applications where the benefit
would be greatest. Many of the technical objections to using
foreign GNSS signals can be overcome by using authenti-
cated out of band sources for ephemeris and clock
corrections.
Using additional sources such as WiFi positioning, cellu-
lar ranging and timing signals, and IMU, previously enum-
erated in Table 24.5, can make the spoofer’s task that much
harder‚ but as the Portland spoofing incident demon-
strated, only if those information sources are properly used
[34]. It is little wonder that cyberspoofing (discussed in the
chapter introduction) is often the preferred attack method,
especially for insider attacks where the “victim” is the
attacker (e.g. Automatic Identification System (AIS) spoof-
ing). The ability to recognize attacks and discard question-
able data is a key requirement for hardening navigation and
timing systems. Situational awareness is the first step.
Focusing on RF attacks for now, the first task of an RF
spoofer is to get the victim receiver to lock on to its naviga-
tionally consistent set of false signals instead of the real sig-
nals. It needs to do this without being detected and with a
high probability of success. If the receiver locks onto some
mix of real and spoof signals, spoofing can be detected using
RAIM-style algorithms. Sudden jumps in position and time
are highly detectable‚ and so the spoofer needs to mask this
as well.
One approach is to jam first so the receiver is “lost” and
then present a more powerful set of faux signals to be
acquired. If the target receiver hasn’t maintained a last
15/12/2020 5:42:33 PM
 642 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

known good position and time bias, the receiver might
accept the faux signals as valid even though they make
no physical sense. For example, a very simple spoofer might
use a signal generator with a canned scenario (e.g. circles)‚
or it might play back previously recorded signals. The
receiver should really be asking itself, why did the time esti-
mate change by 3 years upon reacquisition? Receivers need
to be extremely cautious after jamming and during initial
acquisition after having been off for a while.
Another approach, possibly used in combination with a
prior jamming attack, is to synchronously slide faux sig-
nals in underneath real signals at low power, then slowly
raise the power, and then draw off the receiver. The attack
has strong similarities to range gate walk-off methods used
in radar deception but with the additional requirement
that multiple satellite signal trackers have to be drawn
off in a coordinated and navigationally consistent pattern.
While straightforward in principle, this technique requires
precise knowledge of where the target receiver is, and, it
requires the spoofer to synchronize with the satellite nav-
igation system(s). Humphrey’s spoofing demonstrations
aboard a superyacht (see Chapter 25) were successful
because the spoofer was a limpet type [4] placed on the
vessel under attack. The spoofer knew the precise location
of the vessel in real time based on its own unspoofed GNSS
receiver and so was able to generate faux signals with pre-
cise offsets and drive the victim’s navigation solution.
Without this physical access, the spoofer would have
had to use sophisticated and complex remote tracking
methods to achieve the levels of accuracy needed for suc-
cess. One important exception to this requirement is if the
intended victim is a stationary timing receiver. Once the
attacker has accurately located the target receiver’s
antenna, perhaps using Google Earth, this becomes a fixed
set of variables.
At the RF/signals level, one of the more important anti-
spoofing techniques is to monitor C/No and jamming levels
to look for inconsistencies. If a spoofer transmits with too
little power, it risks a failure to capture the target receiver.
If it transmits too much power, the spoofer rises above ther-
mal noise and becomes visible to the AGC.
Figure 24.27 depicts a simplified spoofing scenario where
the spoofer is trying to spoof 12-signals simultaneously,
each with an equal power allocation, and all of the real sig-
nals are at specified minimum levels. All four curves are
drawn as a function of the incident total spoofer power.
The top curve shows the apparent C/No of authentic signals
as a function of the incident total spoofing power assuming

12-SV Spoofer with Tant=250 K, NF=2 dB, L=1 dB, 2 MHz Passband, Csigi=–157 dBW, Gsig=0dBIC, Gjam=0dBiC
Real Signal C/N0
60
C/N0 true
(dB-Hz) 40
Noise-like Assumption
20
–155 –150 –145 –140 –135 –130 –125
Spoof Signal C/N0
60

C/N0 spoof
(dB-Hz) 40

20
–155 –150 –145 –140 –135 –130 –125
Spoof+Thermal Noise Power to Thermal Noise Power (J+N)N
20

(J+N)/N 10
(dB)
0
–155 –150 –145 –140 –135 –130 –125
Spoof Signal1 / True Signal1 (dB)
20
Spoof Signal1 10
/True Signal1
(dB) 0
–10
–155 –150 –145 –140 –135 –130 –125
Incident Total Spoof Power (dBW)

Figure 24.27 Without careful power control on the spoofers’ part, they are easily detected since they will elicit an AGC response.

c24.3d 642 15/12/2020 5:42:33 PM


spoofing acts like noise with respect to the authentic signal.
The second curve shows the corresponding apparent C/No
of the faux signals. Both of these curves can be computed
using the Betz equation (Eq. 24.2). Of special note, depend-
ing on the receiver’s PIT and the specific placement of faux
signals in range and Doppler, real signals may be visible
with little or no degradation in C/No, and hence the dashed
red line. The third curve, computed using Eq. 24.6, shows
(J+N)/N assuming a 2 MHz passband. The final curve
depicts the relative power of one spoof signal relative to
one true signal. In general, if a spoofer is generating
N simultaneous equal power signals, the power devoted
to any one signal is −10log10(N) dB relative to the total
power. For a 12-channel spoofer, the power devoted to
any one signal is −10log10(12) = −10.8 dB with respect to
the total power.
The significance of this last curve is that in order to reliably
draw off a tracker and not cause obvious amplitude modula-
tion, the inserted faux signal needs to be about 9 dB stronger
than the real signal. This happens when the incident total
spoof power is −137 dBW. The corresponding rise in (J
+N)/N is a readily detectable 4.4 dB, and the apparent C/
No of the faux signal is 51 dB-Hz. An intelligent receiver will
notice this discrepancy; if it sees that jamming is present and
the measured C/No is higher than expected‚ it will become
suspicious and perhaps compute a RD map to see what is
happening (more on this later). Complicating the spoofer’s
task, it may not have complete knowledge of the target’s
antenna gain pattern, orientation‚ and polarization‚ and
the propagation channel may not be a simple free space
channel. To ensure tracking loop capture, additional power
is needed‚ but this makes the attack that much more visible.
Case 15 PRN 6 C/A Search Correlation Responses to TEXBAT3 @300 Seconds
10
Amplitude (volts)
5
0
1500
1000
500
0 8
Doppler Offset (Hz) –500
–1000
–1500
Figure 24.28 With sufficient range-Doppler separation between real and faux signals, in the range-Doppler map both signals are plainly
visible (but not conveniently labeled)
c24.3d 643
24.6 Spoofing Detection 643
For receivers with capable search engines, periodic or
cued examination of RD maps provides another good
strategy for detecting spoofing. Figure 24.28 shows
responses when a real signal and a faux signal are pres-
ent simultaneously at similar power levels. It may not be
obvious which signal is the real one‚ but the mere pres-
ence of two strong responses is enough to label the signal
as questionable for incorporation into the navigation
solution.
In situations where real and faux signals overlap with
similar correlation responses at a particular code phase
and frequency, the net result has similarities to multipath.
The correlation envelope becomes distorted in shape and,
depending on the relative carrier phase, the signals may
add constructively or destructively. During the initial
walk-off phase, these effects are observable unless the faux
signal is much stronger and can be used to detect the pres-
ence of spoofing.
If the spoofer tries to perform a coordinated walk-off with
code phase and carrier phase aligned like a real signal, the
relative carrier phase of the real and faux signals will
change 360o for each wavelength of the relative pseudor-
ange shift (19 cm at L1). The resultant observable is a rapid
fluctuation in the apparent signal power with a frequency
equal to [dRwalkoff/dt]/λ Hz. Depending on the relative post-
correlation amplitudes, the apparent phase of the compos-
ite signal will show varying levels of deviation synchronous
with the amplitude deviations. The spoofer may try to avoid
creating these artifacts by setting its frequency equal to that
of the real signal and then walking off only the code phase.
This in turn yields another observable. Presuming coherent
tracking, changes in pseudorange as measured by
IQ Vector Data Courtesy of T.E. Humphreys, J.A.
Bhatti, D.P. Shepard, and K.D. Wesson, “The Texas
Spoofing Test Battery: Toward a Standard for Evaluating
GPS Signal Authentication Techniques,” Proc. ION
GNSS, Nashville, TN, 2012.
Spoof Signal
Real Signal
10
9
7
6
5
4
3
2 Time Offset (chips)
1
0
15/12/2020 5:42:36 PM
 644 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation
accumulated carrier Doppler will diverge from changes in
pseudorange as measured by the accumulated code Dop-
pler. Either way, the intelligent receiver should be on the
lookout for these effects.
Real GNSS signals arrive at a receiver from diverse direc-
tions. When multiple signals arrive with a common direc-
tion of arrival‚ the receiver should be suspicious. This is
because spoofers typically broadcast all of their signals
via a single antenna‚ and so spoofing signals arrive at a tar-
get receiver with a common direction of arrival and/or cor-
related fading [35] and polarization characteristics [36].
Correlated fading is characteristic of ground mobile chan-
nels and can be detected without any special antenna cap-
abilities provided the spoofer and the receiver move with
respect to each other.
Referring to Figure 24.29, the direction of arrival sensing
can be accomplished using two or more antennas and mea-
suring the relative phase of the two post-correlation outputs
for each desired signal (e.g. PRN 2, PRN 6). Coherent track-
ing is not required since this is a relative phase measure-
ment, and in fact, the array manifold doesn’t have to be
well calibrated for this to work. The objective is not so much
to determine the actual direction of arrival but to detect sig-
nals with a common direction of arrival. If several signals
are seen to have arrived from the same direction, one strat-
egy is to not use any of them, even those seeming to come
from some other direction. This strategy might manifest as:
don’t use L1 C/A, spoofing is present; but none was
detected on civil L1 Glonass, so use it. A somewhat riskier
strategy is to discard signals with a common direction of
arrival and use those remaining as inputs for developing
a navigation solution. It should also be noted that this tech-
nique continues to be viable even if antenna elements have
Can Detect Spoofing Using Two Antennas
Excess Delay
τ=d sinθ/c
A sin(2πfc(t – τ) + ψ )
d sin θ
= A sin(2πfct + ψ – 2πfc )
c
Relative Phase Delay Is
2πfc
Mesurable Even Without
Phase Lock
Technique described in Hartman USP 5,557,284 issued 17 Sept, 1996
Figure 24.29 Signals coming from a spoofer can be detected by looking for signals with a common direction of arrival.
c24.3d 644
somewhat high mutual coupling that would be unaccepta-
ble for an interference-cancelling adaptive array.
24.7 Authenticatable Signals
Encrypting the spreading codes is a powerful anti-spoofing
technique since it denies the spoofer ready access to the
spreading codes; an adversary can no longer go to the
appropriate ICD and look up precisely how to generate a
faux signal for, say, PRN 23. Even if the adversary has
access to the relevant ICDs, he still needs the cryptographic
keys. Aside from stealing the keys, his only method for
accessing spreading codes is to listen for them off the air
as they are broadcast and then repeat them with appropri-
ate delays and frequency shifts, a daunting but not impos-
sible task referred to as meaconing. Even then, the
composite set of faux signals will always be delayed with
respect to real signals since meaconing is essentially a
bent-pipe repeater‚ while real signals follow a shorter direct
path to the receiver. An intelligent receiver will always
search from early to late in the code phase and look for
anomalies in time bias and time bias rate estimates symp-
tomatic of spoofing and meaconing. It should be empha-
sized that finding an anomaly does not mean that
spoofing is present; it simply means that caution is war-
ranted‚ and further investigation is needed before making
a definitive declaration.
For systems using encrypted spreading codes in real time,
protecting the cryptographic keys is a formidable challenge.
Unlike communications systems where different subgroups
can use distinct keys, in satellite navigation systems, every
single authorized user ultimately has to be able to derive the
Interfering
Source at
Frequency fc
θ
A sin(2πfct + ψ )
d
d sin θ
radians [0]radians
c
15/12/2020 5:42:37 PM

same key used to generate the spreading sequence at the
satellite. A compromise of any one user can have system-
wide ramifications. For this reason, encrypted real-time
spreading codes for SATNAV are likely to remain the pur-
view of military and government entities for the foreseeable
future. Civil entities are simply not secure enough to pro-
vide the level of symmetric key protection needed. That
said, asymmetric cryptography can play an important role
in securing civil signals by providing methods to authenti-
cate signals without requiring the user segment to hold
secrets. This is an active area of research that is expected
to culminate in future satellite and terrestrial deployments
for civil use.
As a first line of defense, satellite data broadcasts can
be cryptographically signed using public key/ private key
cryptography [4, 37–40]. In such schemes, an associated
key pair is generated comprising a private key and a pub-
lic key. The private key is used to sign data by creating a
cryptographic signature‚ and the corresponding public
key is used to verify signatures. The data itself is not
encrypted‚ but the appended signature can establish
the provenance of the data and that the data has not
been altered. The private key is closely held by the signer
(the satellite), and the public key is widely disseminated
to the user community. To prove the origin of the public
key and prevent key spoofing, the public key is signed by
a well-known trusted entity and distributed in the form
of an X.509 certificate (or equivalent). Certificate publi-
cation and distribution is needed only when the key pair
changes and might happen only once a year via out-of-
channel means, for example‚ Google Play. Again, there
is nothing secret about the public key; it can be widely
disseminated.
There are numerous signing algorithms available‚ but the
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)
detailed in FIPS-PUB 186-4 is representative of current best
practices for digital signing. Table 24.6 shows the security
performance and signature lengths for NIST-recommended
elliptic curves. To a close approximation, for a given secu-
rity level, the length of an ECDSA digital signature is about
four times as long.
Signature lengths are important since broadcast GNSS
data rates are generally quite slow, somewhere in the
25 bps to 250 bps range depending on signal type. Using
the L1CData signal as an exemplar, elements of the 50 bps
data stream (and the time of interval, TOI) can be crypto-
graphically signed by each satellite using a private signing
key unique to that satellite or to the satellite constellation.
Again, this does not encrypt the 50 bps data stream; it just
appends a digital signature to the data stream to authenti-
cate it. Subframe 3 messages, one of which is transmitted
every 18 s, carry up to 232 bits of payload. Two subframe
c24.3d 645
24.7 Authenticatable Signals 645
Table 24.6 ECDSA security strength and signature size
for NIST-recommended elliptic curves
(r,s)
Security strength Signature
Elliptic curve (bits) length (bits)
P-192 96 384
P-224 112 448
P-256 128 512
P-384 192 768
P-521 256 1024
3 messages would be needed to convey one digital signature
based on the P-224 elliptic curve [40]. In Transmitted once
every 3 min in a pair of subframe 3 messages, digital signing
would occupy a 20% duty factor on subframe 3 of the L1C
signal’s navigation message stream. For the interested
reader, there are more complex signing schemes [38]
described in the literature that achieve similar results with
fewer bits per second required, most notably approaches
based on the TESLA protocol. Such schemes may prevail
in practice‚ but their description is beyond the scope of this
book. Maintaining adequate protections in a post-quantum
environment may also influence the choice of algorithm
and key lengths.
Continuing, message signing allows security-conscious
receivers to verify that the data stream originated from a
real satellite, that it is correct, and that it is not fictitious.
Message signing forces potential spoofers to use off-the-
air, collected data streams — a difficult proposition against
receivers that read data, have accurate and secure a priori
knowledge of time, and check for excess signal delay
observable in time bias states. It also prevents malformed
50 bps data message attacks such as described in Nighswan-
der et al. [41].
Cryptographic data signing is an important anti-spoofing
step but is inadequate for several reasons:
1) The spreading codes used to measure the signal’s appar-
ent time of arrival (pseudorange) are not cryptographi-
cally bound to the signed message stream. A valid, off-
the-air data stream can be modulated onto an
ICD-specified spreading code stream with spoofer con-
trolled delay and Doppler. There is an inherent delay
in doing this‚ but under nominal C/No conditions,
the delay can be held to less than 1ms, mainly to
allow for accurate demodulation of off-the air data sym-
bols [4, 42]. If the target receiver doesn’t know time to
better than 1 ms, it may buy into the faux signals
and with a high degree of confidence that they are real
since the signature verification process succeeds.
15/12/2020 5:42:37 PM
 646 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

2) Many battery-operated GNSS receivers don’t read low
rate data (e.g. 50 bps for L1CD, the L1C data channel).
They turn on for only a few milliseconds to measure
pseudoranges and pseudorange rates to available satel-
lites, and then they turn off. Access to satellite ephem-
eris and other 50 bps data is obtained via a network
connection, or the receiver sends the measured pseudor-
anges to a remote site for position computations. Chip-
level binding is needed for these receivers.
3) Data signing does not provide a mechanism for proving
location to a remotely located second party (more on this
in the next section).
Figure 24.30 shows a signal construct to overcome these
limitations [4, 40, 43, 44], again using the L1C signal as an
exemplar. Here, 90% of the data channel’s timeline is
devoted to transmitting normal L1CP (IS-GPS-800E) sig-
nal‚ while the remaining 10% of the timeline is repurposed
to transmitting an encrypted spread spectrum security code
(SSSC) based on the aforementioned data stream signature.
Specifically, the digital signature, known only to the satel-
lite until it is transmitted, is also used to construct a water-
mark-generating key that is used up until the time that the
signature is transmitted. In the Chimera signal specifica-
tion, IS-AGT-100, the watermark-generating key is con-
structed by hashing the signature. Using the previously
described data signing approach, the watermark-
generating key changes once every 3 min.
The watermark insertions are performed at the PN chip
level and feature both an encrypted SSSC and a crypto-
graphically controlled time-hopping insertion pattern. This
latter feature combats certain power-modulation attacks by
making it difficult for a forger to be certain which chips are
SSSC versus normal IS-GPS-800 chips. In a further refine-
ment and if the satellite modulator can support it, inserted
chips can have cryptographically generated pseudorandom
carrier phase relative to the nominal signal [45].
From an SNR perspective, the individual watermark
chips (SSSC) have the same properties as the normal IS-
GPS-800 chips‚ and they are not individually visible to a
receiver. They are visible only after a period of correlation.
Receivers cannot correlate against watermark insertions in
real time since they don’t know the watermark-generating
key until it is published (broadcast). Receivers can‚ how-
ever‚ record raw A/D samples and store them in memory.
When the watermark-generating key becomes known, the
receiver can correlate against the watermark insertions and
check to make sure they correlate to an appropriate power
level and that they are correctly aligned in time and phase
with the nominal L1C code and carrier phase. As long as
the receiver knows the trusted time to within the authenti-
cation epoch (3 min in this case), it can be assured that the
only way a spoofer could generate an authenticatable signal
would be if it had received and manipulated off-the-air sig-
nals in a meaconing-style attack. Such an attack, while pos-
sible, is very complex to mount.
In regard to the watermark correlation process, it should
be noted that the reference waveform generated at the
receiver uses nonzero values only when the watermark is
expected to be present. The watermark reference waveform
is equal to zero for intervals where a normal IS-GPS-800 sig-
nal is expected. The other unusual aspect is that the correla-
tion response is computed only for the prompt channel
aligned with the code and carrier tracking provided by the
pilot channel. The receiver is not trying to track the water-
mark signal; it is simply trying to make sure it is there.
Figure 24.31 shows the probability of not detecting water-
marks (1-PDetection) assuming a 1000 ms collection interval,
a 5% watermark duty factor‚ and perfect phase lock. This cor-
respond to a 1000 ms coherent integration time‚ but because
of the 5% duty factor, from an SNR perspective the effective
integration time is 1000 ms ∗ 5% duty factor = 50 ms. Also,
because phase lock is assumed, its envelope can be computed
using only the in-phase channel. Probabilities of detection

Spread spectrum
Security code
Watermark Seed Value Cipher stream (SSSC)
Generation key Generator &
Time Hopping
(TH) Pattern
Type 2 Format
10 msec 10 msec

10% Duty Factor Time Hopped SSSC

Normal L1CDiSignal flow per Normal L1CDiSignal flow per

•••
IS-GPS-800 IS-GPS-800

Figure 24.30 Time-hopping insertion of spread spectrum security codes creates a watermark that is hard to observe without the
watermark-generating key.

c24.3d 646 15/12/2020 5:42:37 PM


Probaility of NOT Dectecting Watermark
(1.00 sec segment, WM DF = 5.0%, pfa = 1.00E-03)
1.E+00 PDwatermark
1.E-01 Lower
Is
Probability of
Better
1.E-02
NOT Detecting
valid watermark
using sum of N 1.E-03
partitions
1.E-04
Probability
of a False 1.E-05
Positive
N=1
1.E-06
15 18 21 24 27 30
c/No(dB-Hz)
Figure 24.31 Watermarks can provide an extremely low false positives rate and a high probability of detecting spoofing.
can be computed using the Marcum’s Q function and/or via
simulation.
It is important to recognize that failure to detect the
watermark is tantamount to saying that the signal is not
valid‚ and so failure to detect the watermark on a valid sig-
nal is essentially a false positive. The false positives rate on
spoofing detection schemes needs to be extremely low since
this is in many ways like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater;
a good idea, but only if there really is a fire. Similarly, the
probability of a false alarm is the probability of declaring
the watermark present when presented with an invalid sig-
nal‚ and so 1-Pfa is actually the probability of detecting
spoofing. The takeaway from this is that watermarks offer
an extremely reliable method for discriminating between
real and faux signals.
Incorporating the watermarking features of Figure 24.30
reduces the apparent SNR on the punctured channel by 0.9
dB [Loss (dB) = 20log10 (Normal Flow Duty Factor)], a
small penalty. Also note that the satellite must know the
digital signature before it is transmitted‚ and so data mes-
sage updates for signature-covered elements would need
to be restricted to the signing interval.
From the description so far, the reader may have the
impression that location authentication occurs only once
every 3 min and that time to first authentication could be
as long as 6 min. This would be true if all satellites changed
their watermark keys at the same time‚ but one refinement
is to have them change keys on a time-staggered basis. Hav-
ing even one or two authenticated signals places some
strong constraints on where the receiver can actually be.
Typically, anywhere from 8 to 13 GPS satellites are visible
in an unobstructed sky‚ and so the average time to first L1C
c24.3d 647
24.7 Authenticatable Signals 647
Pfa = 10–3
99.9% Probability
90% of Detecting
Spoofing
99%
99.9%
99.99%
99.999% Nominal
C/No
99.9999%
33 36 39 42 45
signal authentication can be held to around 3 min, and the
authentication refresh interval (time between authentica-
tions) might be 45 s assuming four time staggers.
That said, a fast key/slow key watermarking approach
such as the one shown in Figure 24.32 might be warranted
for fast authentication. Here, fast keys change every 6 s,
while the slow keys change once every 3 min as previously
described. Fast keys have the advantage of providing
speedier location authentication, but the watermarking
keys would have to be provided “via network”; possibly
by a set of secured key servers. The 50 bps L1CD data chan-
nel is inadequate to convey keys that change every 6 s.
This is the approach planned for the IS-AGT-100 signal
planned for initial broadcast by the NTS-3 satellite in
2022 [46, 47].
In closing this section, it is important to recognize that as
of 2019, there are no civil signals in space with any form of
authentication either at the message level or at the chip
level. This situation appears to be changing though. Both
the United States and EU [48] have strong candidates for
adding signal authentication to their WAAS & EGNOS
SBAS signals‚ and the EU has committed to including
authentication on their commercial services signals [49].
For SBAS, chip-level watermarking and data message sig-
natures can both be carried on a new quadrature signal
component first proposed in [4] and added to the legacy sig-
nal provided the signal is range disciplined. A particular
attraction of SBAS signals is that the modulator is located
on the ground‚ and the signals are relayed to users through
a bent-pipe GEO satellite transponder. No modifications
are required to the space component. Having even one
authenticatable ranging signal makes RF spoofing much
15/12/2020 5:42:38 PM
 648 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation
10 msec Type 3 Format 10 msec
5%fast key / 5% slow key Duty Factor Time Hopped SSSC
Normal L1CDi Signal Flow per Normal L1CDi Signal Flow per
IS-GPS-800) IS-GPS-800)
Figure 24.32 Fast Key (6 s) and Slow Key (3 min) SSSC streams support distinct user communities.
more difficult and, it provides a basis for beginning to do
Proof of Location.
24.8 Proof of Location and Receiver
Verification
Location is a key identity attribute in security-sensitive
applications. Security credentials can be lost or stolen.
When authenticating a user to receive sensitive informa-
tion from a server, we should be asking, “Where is the
request coming from and is the information requested rel-
evant and permissible at that location?” When a remotely
located device, for example‚ a traffic light or an electrical
generator, receives an actionable command, “Where did
that command come from?” should be a key question; sim-
ilarly a bank transfer.
Crowd-sourced databases and knowledge bases are sub-
ject to manipulation and poisoning by adversaries using
false georeferences. As a hypothetical, an adversary could
create a botnet of smartphones by sending specially crafted
MMS text messages to vulnerable phones and using the
Stagefright vulnerability (now patched CVE-2015-6602).
This would allow the adversary to perform arbitrary opera-
tions on victim devices through remote code execution and
privilege escalation. Then, the adversary could “place and
distribute” those phones on West Manchester Boulevard
in Los Angeles to create an apparent traffic jam whose
appearance would divert real vehicles, particularly autono-
mous driving vehicles, from the area. Then he could have a
pleasant drive over to Randy’s Donuts and not have to wait
in line for his chocolate Long John w/cream. Admittedly,
this is a trivial example, but it doesn’t take much imagina-
tion to come up with other more nefarious and profitable
exploits.
Assuring the “truthfulness” of reported PVT is a cyberse-
curity issue. An attack on location and timing information
may not use RF spoofing or jamming methods on the GNSS
receiver itself. Even if a GNSS receiver is working correctly,
a man-in-the-middle attack may simply inject false posi-
tions into the system data stream – in short, lie about posi-
tion. Receiver attestation and PVT signing can defend
c24.3d 648
•••
against simple variants of this attack, but it is not foolproof;
signing keys can be stolen or lost, particularly when dealing
with civil equipment with limited physical security capabil-
ities. To fight this, position reports can be verified and vali-
dated by looking for hard-to-forge elements of an
authenticatable GNSS signal, in short, the watermarks.
Proofs of location need to be operable on untrusted recei-
vers and systems – that is, proofs of location should seek to
minimize trust in the reporting party or any intervening
parties and systems such as cell phone modems, communi-
cations links, routers, switching centers, and so on. Trust is
dangerous.
So, how can location be proven to a remote site? Concep-
tually, the process might work much like a police detective
trying to verify someone’s alibi by asking overlapping ques-
tions. Questions might include: “Who were you with? What
movie were you at?” Witnesses of varying credibility and
observational capability might be interviewed to establish
an overall perspective.
Ideally, a location proof should use similar methods and
be based on multiple sources (multiple witnesses). GNSS
position reports, reports about what WiFi access points
were seen, video feeds of the area, photographs, audio
feeds, and so on can all aid in establishing the veracity of
a location report. That said, it is important to recognize that
location proofs also need strong time stamping. A location
proof without a trusted time stamp is not much of a proof;
you could have moved.
Figure 24.33 outlines how authenticatable signals
described in the last section signal might be used as part
of a Proof of Location. A GNSS front-end downconverts
the signal to a low intermediate or zero intermediate fre-
quency, an A/D converts the ensemble of all L1C GPS sig-
nals in view and forwards them to a location authentication
object (LAO), where they are sequestered. The nominal
duration of the location-signature burst would be anywhere
from about 50 to 200 ms and would be about 125 to 500 kilo-
bytes in size; roughly 1/16th to 1/4th the size of a typical
smartphone photograph. Once the watermark-generating
key(s) are published, a location authentication object can
validate that signal by checking to see that its watermark
component is present (see Figure 24.31). Then, using snap-
shot positioning techniques [50–52], the authenticator can
15/12/2020 5:42:39 PM

Authenticatable GNSS Signals
Location Signature
Stream Is Sent Before
Watermark Keys Are Published
TGHU307703022G1
Communi-
RF Front End &
A/D cations
Downconversion
Interface
Local GPS Receiver
(Optional in Some Cases)
Secure Server(s)
“Golden”
GNSS • Ephemeris / Symbol Stream
• Watermark Generating Keys
Receiver(s)
• 3 minutes/SV
• Location Signature is 125‐500 Kbyte (Nominal)
• Diverse Trust Models Are Possible
Figure 24.33 Process flow for Proof of Location using location signatures. By sending snippets of raw A/D samples to a location
authentication object before the watermark key has been published, a remote user can verify the reported location.
establish the position and time at which the raw A/D sam-
ples were collected. As an additional signal-level verifica-
tion, the authenticator can establish that the watermark
component has the same C/No as the regular IS-GPS-800
signal.
Figure 24.34 shows how accurately a watermark’s C/No
can be measured as a function of L1CD signal C/No. Under
nominal conditions‚ L1CP C/No is about 44 dB-Hz (corre-
sponding to an incident power of −158.25 dBW, 0 dBiC
antenna gain, a 2 dB noise figure, and an antenna noise
temperature of 130 K). Processing a 200 ms location-
signature segment yields 20 ms of watermark signal‚ and
the watermark C/No can be placed within an accuracy
band of ±0.7 dB 99% of the time (red bands). At an L1CP
C/No of 30 dB-Hz, the watermark C/No can be determined
to an accuracy of ±1 dB about 50% of the time (green
bands). This might correspond to a case with 10 dB of atten-
uation due to environmental factors.
Returning to Figure 24.33, it is extremely important to
note that the authentication object does not expressly
require any RF reception capabilities. The first-party GPS
front-end has done the required GPS signal reception.
Authentication objects can be constructed entirely as soft-
ware entities using well-known SDR techniques to process
samples. Additionally, the supplicant receiver might also be
asked to provide track state side information to aid in pro-
cessing the location signature and as a further source of val-
idation. Examples might include phase histories for PLLs
and DLLs, location and time, inertial states, and so on.
Another important aspect to keep in mind is that the
LAO does not have to operate in real time. It can run in
a general-purpose computing environment, a graphics
c24.3d 649
24.8 Proof of Location and Receiver Verification 649
Location Authentication
Object
No RFNeeded
Can Be All S/W
Local, Remote, or
Cloud Based
processing unit, another cell phone, a Raspberry Pi, or on
specialized hardware. In short, location authentication
objects can physically be anywhere – local, remote, or
cloud-based. This opens the way to diverse trust models.
For the LAO to determine and authenticate a supplicant
receiver’s location, in addition to the location signature
(raw A/D samples), it needs the watermark-generating keys
and satellite ephemeris data. This data might be made avail-
able in several ways:
1) Secured server(s) with attached GPS receivers could col-
lect required information and publish it as the data
becomes available.
2) A local receiver might provide the information from off-
the-air received satellite signals.
This last option is quite interesting as it raises the possi-
bility of independent location verification within a stand-
alone device. Figure 24.35 illustrates how a smartphone’s
location might be secured using authenticatable signals.
A LAO in the form factor of a microSD (Secure Digital) card
slips into the phone. Ideally, the LAO device would be tam-
per-resistant and have trusted platform module (TPM)-style
cryptographic capabilities [53] in addition to timekeeping,
bulk encryption/decryption, and a position-computing
engine. The GNSS receiver integral to the phone would feed
location signatures (raw A/D samples) to the microSD for
sequestration. Once authentication keys are published via
either satellite or Internet, it could compute the location
and sign the results. In effect, the microSD LAO device pro-
vides independent verification of the phone’s intrinsic
internal position solution. Additionally, location-based
security paradigms (e.g. no reading sensitive documents
15/12/2020 5:42:39 PM
 650 24 Interference: Origins, Effects, and Mitigation

4.0
50.0% High
Watermark C/No Estimation Error (dB wrt Truth)

200 msec Collection Interval

3.0 50.0% Low
10% Watermark Duty Factor 90.0% High
Coherent Integration 90.0% Low
2.0 99.0% High
99.0% Low

1.0

0.0

–1.0

–2.0 Nominal L1CP C/No is 44

dB‐Hz at ICD Minimum
Power Levels
–3.0

–4.0
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
L1CP Signal C/No (dB-Hz)

Figure 24.34 Watermark C/No estimation accuracy using 200 ms data record at 10% SSSC duty factor.

Small
Sequestration
Delay
«
+

Local Location Authentication Object

Tamper Resistance
TPM Capability
Time Keeping & Time Stamping
Computing Engine

+ : Even Better

Remote Location
Authentication Object

Figure 24.35 Civil devices can use watermarks in diverse ways to improve location assurances.

at Starbuck’s) could be enforced by the microSD device‚ and as additional location-signature elements for further
so this device could play an important role in developing corroboration.
secure cell phones and devices usable in a wide variety of
government, military‚ and civil applications.
Expanding on the concept, occasionally, location signa-
24.8.1 Other SATNAV Proof of Location
Schemes
tures could be sent from the phone to external authentica-
tion objects at remote locations for additional independent Other techniques for proving location have been proposed –
verification. This might be required only when accessing such as those in papers by Denning and MacDoran [54],
particularly sensitive data, or it might be done to check Psiaki et alia [55], Lo et alia [56], Zhefeng Li et alia [57],
the local microSD device (“Quis custodiet ipsos Heng et alia [58], and Scott [59]. Basically, these approaches
custodes?”). Following the police detective model, other use military signals as a watermark of opportunity. This is a
data such as inertial measurement unit and compass good idea; the watermarking schemes described in the last
outputs, cell tower IDs, WiFi BSSIDs, AGC settings, or sig- section face several programmatic and national policy hur-
nals from other GNSS systems, might also be sent to LAOs dles if they are to be implemented. The schemes developed

c24.3d 650 15/12/2020 5:42:40 PM


by these authors face no such obstacle, but there are some
significant drawbacks.
First, there is a presumption that military codes are
secure. This is hopefully true from a sovereign perspective,
but it is important to recognize that these schemes place
trust not only in the control segment and the space seg-
ment, but also in the hundreds of thousands of keyed mil-
itary user equipment fielded around the world. An
adversary may not choose to advertise the fact of a success-
ful compromise.
SNR is another issue. Civil uses are unlikely to have
access to military-code-generating keys. To minimize
squaring loss and thus reduce signature sizes, authentica-
tors need access to high-gain, multiple-beam antenna sys-
tems to provide more accurate military code sequence
references. This may be a shared resource between several
authenticators or unique to a particular one. A supplicant
and an authenticator must have shared satellite visibility
for several satellites. The approach described in the last
section does not suffer from such limitations since water-
mark-generating keys are implicitly available to the user
community (with a delay).
Another important issue is that military signals have dif-
ferent bandwidths and often are spectrally segregated from
civil signals. Consequently, specialized receiver front-end
designs and higher sampling rates may be needed by both
the supplicant and the authenticator to access military sig-
nals for use as a watermark. Referring back to Figure 24.22,
a 2-MHz-wide front-end passes most of the C/A code signal
energy and causes less than 1 dB of SNR loss for C/A code
signal reception. The same filtering leads to a 7 dB loss for
the BPSK(10) format Y-code. This means that associated
location signatures would need to be 7 dB (5 times) longer
to achieve the same confidence level.
Another significant limitation is that military code as
watermark schemes can’t easily operate in a stand-alone
device configuration as was depicted in Figure 24.35. The
alternative approaches all require strong network con-
nectivity to convey location signatures to a remote third
party authenticator. There are numerous strong use
cases for stand-alone, limited connection bandwidth
applications. For instance, in Figure 24.35, the cell
phone might use a FIPS-140 physical security hardened
microSD device to act as a location authenticator and
signer for most security transactions. Raw signatures
could be sent at very modest rates to authenticate the
authenticator.
Again, it needs to be emphasized that military signal as
watermark schemes are workable in many applications
and would prove invaluable. But, considering the above
limitations and weaknesses, they should be regarded as less
than optimal and a temporary stopgap solution.
c24.3d 651
References 651
24.9 Closing Remarks
The topic of interference effects and mitigations encom-
passes diverse elements including RF signal processing,
propagation modeling, cybersecurity, cryptography,
national policies, and law [60]. GNSS is becoming ever
more deeply embedded in national infrastructures and
social fabric‚ and so we can expect attacks and need to
defend against them. Toward this end, here are some
actionable recommendations, some at a manufacturer
level, others at a policy level:
1) Recognize that PNT (GNSS) is CI and harmonize loca-
tion assurance efforts across constituencies.
2) Build and integrate validated augmentation systems
(e.g. eLoran), and integrate them into a national PNT
architecture
3) Civil receivers need to develop situational awareness.
Exposure testing is crucial. Establish voluntary, prag-
matic receiver certification, attestation‚ and threat infor-
mation sharing programs. Provide a basis for purchase
decisions in critical applications.
4) Negotiate an end to unfettered jammer manufacture
and proliferation. Jamming affects everyone and has
no legitimate role in civil society.
5) Create authenticatable clock and ephemeris data and
differential corrections data with PKI data signing. Con-
sider both in-band and out-of-band distribution models
6) Provision for physical layer anti-spoofing and Proof of
Location using chip-level watermarking techniques.
7) Support secure and traceable time distribution (IEEE
P1588/eLoran/WWVB).
8) Explore methods for interference reporting and locating
using point defenses as well as crowd-sourced methods.
9) Protect spectrum for both US and foreign GNSSs. There
are tremendous benefits in having access to multiple
GNSS systems.
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 655

25

Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery

Mark Psiaki1 and Todd Humphreys2
1
Virginia Tech, United States
2
University of Texas at Austin, United States

25.1 Introduction would consist of one or more false signals that produced
pseudoranges which were inconsistent with other meas-
25.1.1 The Growing Concern Regarding GNSS ured pseudoranges. Given five or more measured pseudor-
Spoofing anges, the post-fit residuals could be computed as part of
the navigation solution and an alert generated whenever
GNSS spoofing is the deliberate transmission of false GNSS
a chi-squared consistency test statistic based on the resi-
signals or data with the intent of confusing or misleading a
duals was too large.
GNSS user. Typical military GNSS receivers are very hard to
In 2001, the Volpe Report alerted the GNSS community
spoof due to their use of symmetric private-key encryption
to the possibility that a sophisticated spoofer might gener-
to define their spreading codes. Civilian receivers use pub-
ate a set of self-consistent pseudoranges that could deceive
licly known, predictable spreading codes, which makes
a receiver without generating a pseudorange-based RAIM
them much more vulnerable to spoofing attack. Attacks
alert [13]. Further alarms were raised in 2003 [1, 14] and
against civilian receivers have been demonstrated in tests
2007 [15]. Nevertheless, these warnings were largely
going back to 2003 [1–4]. Attacks “in the wild” have been
ignored by civil receiver manufacturers and were unknown
alleged starting in 2011 [5], though it remains debatable
to the general public until a working receiver-spoofer
whether the incident in question involved GPS spoofing.
device was developed, tested, and announced in 2008 [2,
There is convincing evidence of at least one such attack.
16]. In addition to producing self-consistent pseudoranges,
It occurred in the Black Sea in June 2017, and it affected
this class of spoofer could drag its victim off to a false posi-
the navigation of a number of ships [6–8].
tion fix in a seamless, gentle manner that would avoid rais-
Cooperative spoofing, in which the spoofer owns or con-
ing any alerts about the operation of the victim’s GNSS
trols the victim receiver, is also on the rise [9–11]. The
receiver. It accomplished this task by receiving the same
“victim,” e.g., a ship’s captain or Pokémon Go player, gains
GNSS signals as the victim and by using knowledge of its
the ability to fish in forbidden waters or hunt Pokémon
geometry relative to the victim in order to lay down the ini-
from the comfort of a couch. In the case of smartphone
tial false signals on top of the true signals. It seems likely
cooperative spoofing, a downloadable application [9] poses
that military researchers were aware of the possibility of
as the GPS receiver on a smartphone in order to fool the
this type of spoofer. They may have developed a similar
game application into believing that the player and phone
device, but no such work has been publicly acknowledged.
are in some exotic location.
The advent of this new class of receiver-spoofer generated
a great deal of interest and concern within the GNSS
25.1.2 History of Spoofing Concerns community. It spawned a growing body of research into
Spoofing has long been recognized as a threat to civilian spoofing and detection. This chapter’s goal is to report on
GNSS receivers [12]. Early defenses focused on pseudor- the state of this body of research. Related reporting can
ange-based receiver autonomous integrity monitoring be found in the GNSS spoofing and detection survey papers
(RAIM). These defenses assumed that a spoofing attack [17–19].

Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
656 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery

25.1.3 Current Status transactions. Spoofing attacks that induced timing errors
in such devices could be used to disrupt communications,
Two important developments in spoofing and detection
trigger power outages, or confuse automated financial
have countervailing impacts. One is the lowering of bar-
trading.
riers to the development of spoofers. A GPS signal simula-
Some driverless automobiles depend on GNSS signals as
tor that is software defined was posted to the GitHub code
part of their position/velocity/attitude estimation systems.
sharing site in June 2015 [20]. Such software can be run on
GNSS spoofing might confuse such a system and cause
a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) GPS simulation hard-
the car to take a wrong exit, act erratically, or stop.
ware platform that costs less than $1000 [21]. Universal
Other cooperative “victims” besides Pokémon Go
Software Radio Peripherals (USRPs) [22] can also be used
cheaters may try to mount attacks on their own recei-
to run the GitHub GPS signal simulator, albeit at a some-
vers. Fishing boat captains might be tempted to do this
what higher price tag. These software and hardware tech-
in order to evade GNSS monitoring of whether they have
nologies can be combined to synthesize GNSS spoofing
entered restricted waters. Accused criminals under
attacks. They will enable many actors, perhaps even bright
house arrest might try to spoof the GNSS-equipped ankle
high-school students, to mount attacks. In fact, the authors
bracelets that monitor their whereabouts. Gig-economy
know of multiple cases where individuals with no techni-
drivers are employing spoofing technology to cut in line
cal background in GNSS or even in RF successfully built
at virtual airport queues [24]. The victims in such sce-
and tested simulator- or record-and-playback-based
narios are the agencies or companies that rely on GNSS
spoofers.
technologies.
The countervailing development is the introduction of
No end user of GNSS services wants to be the victim
the first commercial receiver that has a new defense
of a malicious spoofing attack. Users can hope that few,
against spoofing attacks which goes beyond the monitor-
if any, attacks will ever be mounted. Given the trends,
ing of pseudorange consistency [23]. It is a rudimentary
however, prudence suggests a need to develop and field
form of defense that works only if the signals are initially
economical defenses that will reliably defeat the most
authentic. It detects changes that are characteristic of a
likely attacks.
spoofing attack. If the receiver starts with spoofed signals
or if the detection methods somehow fail during the
change from authentic to spoofed signals, then this COTS 25.1.5 Goals and Organization of Chapter
spoofing detector will fail. Despite its limitations, it is a
The authors have been developing civilian GNSS spoofers
hopeful sign for the future that a receiver manufacturer
and defensive countermeasures since early 2008. This chap-
saw fit to make spoofing detection capabilities commer-
ter reviews the fundamental approaches that can be used
cially available. It is hoped that more manufacturers will
for GNSS spoofing and spoofing detection. It discusses
follow suit and will implement increasingly sophisticated
progress in these areas and defines the state of the art at
defenses.
the time of writing.
The remainder of this chapter is divided into five sections.
25.1.4 The Dangers of Spoofing
Section 25.2 describes various types of spoofing attacks and
There are many reasons why a spoofer might mount an the technology used to mount them. Section 25.3 covers
attack and why GNSS users would want spoofing spoofing detection systems. Section 25.4 discusses methods
defenses. Two tests demonstrated the possibility of steer- for recovering authentic position, navigation, and timing
ing a vehicle off-course via GNSS spoofing. A helicopter (PNT) information after an attack has been detected.
drone was nearly forced to the ground when it was pro- Section 25.5 reviews the methods of testing defenses against
grammed to hover at White Sands Missile Range in June spoofing.
2012 [3]. A superyacht was steered gently off-course in
the Mediterranean in July 2013 [4] without the bridge
crew being able to detect the fault. Such tactics could
25.2 GNSS Spoofing Attack Methods
be used to cause an airplane to crash or a ship to run
aground.
25.2.1 Definition of an Attack
Another form of attack would spoof a target receiver in
such a way that only its reported time, not position, would A GNSS spoofing attack is any manipulation of GNSS sig-
be erroneous. GNSS receivers are used as time standards for nals or a GNSS receiver that induces the receiver to report
cell phone towers, power grid monitors, and financial an incorrect position, velocity, or time, or to base these

outputs on signals that do not originate from the authentic
GNSS satellites. The first part of this definition is straight-
forward. The second part is needed in order to include the
attack mode of [2] in which the spoofer gently drags the vic-
tim receiver off of its true PNT fix in a continuous manner
that is difficult to detect. More will be said about this mode
in Section 25.2.5.
25.2.2 Software-Only Attacks on
Smartphone GNSS
Software-only spoofing represents a kind of attack that was
not foreseen in the Volpe Report. This type of spoofer is
shown schematically in Figure 25.1. This spoofer does not
transmit false RF signals. It does not spoof the smartphone’s
GNSS receiver at all. Rather, it is an extra application within
the smartphone that poses as the smartphone’s GNSS
receiver. It sends position fixes to the GNSS-dependent appli-
cation in a way that makes the victim application believe that
these positions originate from the smartphone’s built-in
GNSS receiver.
This type of spoofer is applicable only to systems where
the possibility exists for interposing the spoofer software
between the true GNSS receiver and the software module
that needs GNSS position, velocity, or timing fixes as inputs.
Smartphone applications are obvious examples. They are
the only known victims to date [9, 10]. Other systems with
this vulnerability may exist.
A software-only spoofer is economical. Unlike all other
spoofers, it requires no extra spoofing hardware. It does
not violate any FCC or international telecommunications
regulations because it does not broadcast any RF signals.
It is inexpensive and legal, at least for the time being.
Built-in GNSS antenna
Smartphone
GNSS-
GNSS receiver dependent
App
Disrupted
GNSS
Sreen joystick output link App that
to input false poses as GNSS
position receiver
Figure 25.1 Spoofing of a GNSS-dependent application in a
smartphone using another application that masquerades as the
phone’s GNSS receiver.
25.2 GNSS Spoofing Attack Methods 657
25.2.3 RF-Based Attacks
A conventional spoofing attack is carried out via broadcast
of false GNSS RF signals, as depicted in Figure 25.2. The
spoofer generates signals that appear to the victim receiver
to be authentic GNSS signals. They have the correct nom-
inal carrier frequency, the correct civilian spreading codes,
and believable navigation data messages. The spoofer trans-
mission antenna must be located in a region of the victim
receiver antenna’s gain pattern that has sufficient gain to
enable the victim to receive and process the false signals.
The victim antenna may also receive the true GNSS RF sig-
nals. Therefore, the spoofer must apply sufficient power to
induce the victim to lock onto and track the false signals.
There are various ways to accomplish this‚ and various cor-
responding needed power advantages of the spoofer.
Assuming an attack at a single frequency, the composite
signal that is received by the victim takes the form
N
j ωc t − ϕi t
y t = Re A i Di t − τ i t C i t − τ i t e
i=1
Ns
+ Asl Dsl t − τsl t C sl t − τsl t e j ωc t − ϕsl t
l=1
25 1
where N is the number of true signals‚ and Ns is the number
of spoofed signals. The carrier amplitude of the i-th true sig-
nal is Ai, and that of the l-th spoofed signal is Asl. The
respective data bit streams for the i-th true and l-th spoofed
signals are Di(t) and Dsl(t). The corresponding true and
spoofed spreading codes are Ci(t) and Csl(t). The i-th true
signal’s code phase and beat carrier-phase time histories
are, respectively, τi(t) and ϕi(t). Those of the l-th spoofed
GNSS constellation
True RF signals
GNSS
spoofer
False spoofer
RF signals
Victim
GNSS
receiver
Figure 25.2 Spoofing attack via RF transmission of false GNSS
signals.
658 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
signal are τsl(t) and ϕsl(t). The nominal carrier frequency is
ωc. It is common to the true and spoofed signals. The carrier
Doppler shift of the i-th true signal is − ϕi, and the carrier
Doppler shift of the l-th spoofed signal is − ϕsl .
Often the number of spoofed signals equals or exceeds the
number of true signals: Ns ≥ N, and all of the existing true
signals have spoofed counterparts. Thus, one can often
assume that the corresponding spoofed spreading codes
are Csi(t) = Ci(t) for all i = 1, …, N. In order for the spoofer
to overpower the true signals, it is necessary that Asi > Ai for
all i = 1, …, N so that the victim will lock onto and track the
false signals. Additional strategies may be required to
induce the victim to follow the false signals. Such strategies
vary by spoofing technique. They are discussed below in the
context of each specific technique.
The spoofer may transmit navigation bits identical to
those of the true signal: Dsi(t) = Di(t) for all i = 1, …, N.
In this case, its means of inducing a false position or timing
fix lies in its choice of the false code phases τsi(t) and beat
carrier phases ϕsi(t) for i = 1, …, N.
Another potential strategy is to spoof only the navigation
data bits so that the only differences between the spoofed
signals and the true signals, besides the increased power
levels, are the different Dsi(t) time histories. The spoofer
can adjust parts of the satellite data message in order to
induce a false PNT fix in the victim receiver.
25.2.4 Blind GNSS-Signal-Simulator-Based Attack
One of the simplest spoofing attacks transmits signals from
a GNSS RF signal simulator with little or no consideration
of the authentic GNSS signals. One could use an expensive
research-grade simulator, for example,[25], or one could
use publicly-accessible software [20] and a relatively inex-
pensive hardware platform [21]. The attacker pre-programs
a GNSS satellite/signal scenario, hooks the simulator out-
put to an RF amplifier and antenna, points the antenna
at the victim receiver’s antenna, and turns on the system.
Such an attack typically starts with a short jamming
interval, which causes the victim receiver to lose lock on
all of the authentic signals. The spoofer is engaged after
the jamming prelude. The victim receiver will start to re-
acquire GNSS signals. If there is a stronger spoofed signal
for each authentic signal, then the victim receiver will typ-
ically acquire only spoofed signals. Jam-then-spoof might
be deemed a “clumsy” attack mode because the initial jam-
ming could alert the victim receiver.
If the spoofer transmits particularly strong signals, then the
spoofer signals themselves may serve to jam the true signals
and induce the receiver to re-acquire the spoofed signals. The
initial attack still seems like jamming to the victim, which
affords it a possible mode of detection. The subsequent very
high power of the tracked inauthentic signals could give
the victim a second method of generating an alert.
After the onset of the attack, the victim receiver will
obtain its PNT fixes from the spoofer signals that it has
acquired and tracked. These fixes will be those that have
been pre-programmed into the spoofer. They can induce
an arbitrary erroneous position. The victim might have
thought it was in the Black Sea at the onset of the jamming
attack. After the jamming is over and after the victim has
re-acquired GNSS signals, it might find itself in Chicago
or even in low-Earth orbit. It behooves the spoofer not to
generate outlandish fixes if it wants to maintain its decep-
tion of the victim.
The authors speculate that the June 2017 Black Sea spoof-
ing incident described in [6–8] may have been an attack by a
spoofer in this blind signal-simulator class. Reference [7] indi-
cates that 20 ships were spoofed to show the same coordinates.
Thus, the spoofer was acting over a wide area with the same
signal in order to affect many ships in an identical manner.
Information that was reported by a ship’s master is contained
in [7]. He provided pictures of his charts to confirm his state-
ment that many ships were showing an identical location. He
also indicated that his GPS receiver experienced one or more
temporary outages. These outages might indicate an initial
jamming event or an extremely high power of the spoofer rel-
ative to the true signals, which would seem like a jamming
attack at first. In any event, this attack was not a stealthy
attack of the kind that is described in the next subsection.
25.2.5 Receiver-Spoofer Attack
A receiver-spoofer can mount attacks that are more sophis-
ticated than those from a simple simulator-based spoofer.
GNSS constellation
True RF signals
→ →
∆rtr ∆rvs
GNSS
receiver/
spoofer
False spoofer
RF signals for
all visible Victim
satellites GNSS
receiver
Figure 25.3 Receiver-spoofer attack mode.

This type of spoofer is depicted in Figure 25.3. It still uses a
signal simulator, but it also uses its own GNSS receiver. It is
able to acquire and track all visible GNSS signals, and it
uses those signals to determine its own position vector
r rs and its own receiver clock offset δrs. It knows the relative
position vector from its own receiver antenna to that of the
victim, Δ r vs . Some sort of survey or sensing system is
needed in order to determine this vector. Similarly, it
knows the position vector from its own receiver antenna
relative to its own transmitter antenna, Δ r tr .
The receiver-spoofer uses this information in order to
reconstruct the range-induced part of each satellite’s code
phase as it appears at the victim receiver. This takes the form
ρiv − ρirs
Δτi = τrsi − δrs +
c
This delay component does not include the effect of the
victim receiver’s clock offset. The new quantities used in
this equation are the code phase for the i-th GNSS satellite
as received by the receiver-spoofer, τrsi, and the ranges from
the victim receiver to the i-th satellite and from the receiver-
spoofer to this same satellite, respectively‚ ρiv and ρirs .
The receiver-spoofer uses its knowledge of the true sig-
nals and of the spoofer-victim relative geometry to synthe-
size spoofed spreading codes and spoofed data bit streams
that have a well-defined relationship to the true spreading
codes and data bit streams at the victim receiver antenna.
Suppose that the spoofer wants to induce a code phase off-
set of δτsi of the spoofed spreading code relative to the
authentic code at the victim receiver so that the spoofed
code for the i-th satellite is Ci[t − τi(t) − δτsi]. This offset
can be positive or negative. Then the receiver-spoofer must
synthesize the following spreading code internally:
Ci[t − τrsi(t) − δτrsi]. The quantity δτrsi is an internal
code-phase offset that the receiver-spoofer uses to perturb
its spoofed version of the spreading code from the code rep-
lica Ci[t − τrsi(t)] that it synthesizes as part of its standard
receiver baseband de-spreading operations. The needed
internal offset in the receiver-spoofer is related to the target
offset at the victim receiver through a function frsi that com-
bines various delay inputs to produce the needed offset:
δτrsi = f rsi δτsi , Δτi , τrsi , δrs , Δ r vs − Δ r tr
The one new term in this equation is δline. It is the total
delay in the receiver-spoofer from the time that a given part
of a spreading code arrives at its receiving antenna to the
time that a synthesized version would exit its transmitting
antenna if δτrsi were zero.
25.2 GNSS Spoofing Attack Methods 659
A stealthy attack scenario begins with each code-delay
offset set to 0 at the victim so that the spoofed signals lie
exactly on top of the true signals. That is, δτsi = 0 for all
i = 1, …, N initially. Each of the spoofed amplitudes starts
at zero: Asi = 0 for all i = 1, …, N. The Asi values are all
ramped up to be slightly larger than their corresponding
authentic values Ai while the corresponding δτsi offsets
are held constant at 0. After all of the Asi values are suffi-
ciently larger than the corresponding authentic signal
values, the code-phase offsets δτsi for i = 1, …, N are slowly
drawn away from zero in order to capture the receiver’s
code-phase tracking delay-lock loops (DLLs). The spoofed
carrier phase is synthesized in a way that drifts in concert
with the spoofed code phase so that the spoofed carrier
Doppler shift equals the non-dimensional spoofed code-
25 2 phase Doppler shift multiplied by the nominal carrier
frequency.
Some attack strategies lock the spoofed carrier phase to
the authentic carrier phase (to within a constant offset) dur-
ing the initial drag-off. This approach prevents a time-
varying interference between the code correlation func-
tions of the true and spoofed signals as drag-off is effected.
Drag-off must be done very slowly in this so-called “fre-
quency-locked” spoofing attack, but it has the advantage
of avoiding telltale thrashing in the carrier-to-noise ratio.
This frequency lock feature is turned off after the spoofed
code phase has been dragged far enough from the true code
phase to eliminate interference between the two codes’ cor-
relation functions.
The receiver-spoofer attack scenario for a single channel is
depicted in Figure 25.4. The black dash-dotted curve in this
figure is the spoofed signal. The blue solid curve is the sum of
the authentic signal and the spoofed signal. The horizontal
axis is the code-phase offset axis of a typical code correlation
c, δline
25 3
Figure 25.4 Evolution of a spoofed signal’s amplitude and code-
phase offset during the initial stages of a receiver-spoofer attack.
Spoofed signal: black dash-dotted curve; sum of spoofed and
authentic signals: blue solid curve; receiver tracking points: red
dots [19, 26]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
660 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
function. The three red dots are the early, prompt, and late
accumulation points of the victim receiver’s DLL. The fig-
ure’s five plots show successive snapshots of the initial part
of the attack. The top three plots show the interval when
δτsi = 0 while Asi is ramped up from 0 in the top plot to
slightly more than Ai in the middle plot. The lower two
plots show the initial drag-off of δτsi from 0 as the spoofer
captures the DLL. In the fourth trace, δτsi equals about one
full code chip, and the authentic and spoofed spreading
code autocorrelation functions interfere with each other.
In the fifth trace, δτsi equals about three chips, the spoofed
and authentic peaks are distinct, and the three receiver DLL
tracking points are centered on the spoofed peak. The
three-chip δτsi code-phase difference between these two
peaks equals the amount by which the spoofer is deceiving
the victim about its measured pseudorange.
Figure 25.4 depicts an attack in which the spoofed and
authentic carrier phases are equal‚ or nearly so. In typical
cases, close carrier-phase alignment will not occur. Even
if carrier-phase alignment does occur initially, it cannot
be maintained during drag-off if the spoofer’s carrier-phase
rate is held proportional to its code-phase rate. In these
more typical cases, the curves shown in Figure 25.4 would
be three-dimensional (i.e. having in-phase and quadrature
components of their correlation peaks), and the corre-
sponding plots would be more complicated. Nevertheless,
the sequence of events and the relative code-phase align-
ments would be the same as are shown in this figure.
The receiver-spoofer must be careful to synthesize a self-
consistent set of false pseudoranges. Otherwise, the victim
receiver will be able to detect the attack using simple pseu-
dorange-residuals-based RAIM calculations. A good way to
synthesize self-consistent spoofed pseudoranges is to base
them on a target spoofed position, r s, and a target spoofed
increment to the victim receiver clock offset, Δδs. Given the
three components of r s and the scalar Δδs, a self-consistent
set of target spoofed code-phase offsets at the victim
receiver takes the form
i i
δτsi = f si rs− r c, r rs + Δ r vs − r c, Δδs
for all i = 1, …, N 25 4
i
where fsi is an appropriately defined function, and r is the
position vector of the i-th GNSS satellite.
The spoofer chooses the spoofed position time history
r s t and the spoofed receiver clock offset increment time
history Δδs(t). It uses these time histories to synthesize a set
of N spoofed code-phase offset time histories using
Eq. (25.4) to compute the δτsi values followed by
Eq. (25.3) to compute the δτrsi values. Consistent with the
initial attack profile in Figure 25.4, the initial spoofed
position r s must equal the victim receiver antenna position
r v = r rs + Δ r vs , and the initial spoofed clock offset incre-
ment Δδs must be zero.
The problem of choosing spoofed power levels Asi for
i = 1, …, N can be tricky. The receiver-spoofer can measure
the received power levels at the output of its own receiver
RF front-end. If it knows its automatic gain control setting
and if it knows its attitude and its receiver antenna gain pat-
tern, then it can deduce the signal amplitudes at the victim
antenna. These amplitudes, however, are not the actual Ai
values that the victim receiver sees for the authentic signals
because those values depend on the victim receiver’s
antenna gain pattern and attitude. In addition, the spoofed
Asi values that will be seen at the victim antenna output
depend on the spoofer transmission power amplification,
its transmission antenna gain pattern, and the distance
from the spoofer transmission antenna to the victim
receiver antenna. The transmitter power amplification
and transmission antenna gain in the direction of the vic-
tim can be known to the spoofer in principle, but accurate
knowledge will require calibration.
The spoofer will be faced with uncertainties about the vic-
tim antenna gains in the directions of the authentic and
spoofed signals. A sophisticated spoofer might ascertain
the victim antenna model and measure its attitude. Given
a nominal gain pattern for the victim antenna model, this
information would give the spoofer some idea about gains.
Suppose that the spoofer seeks to achieve a spoofed
amplitude Asi = fiAi at the victim receiver, where fi is an
amplitude advantage factor. Typically this factor is chosen
to be larger than 1. Given a value of fi, the synthesized car-
rier amplitude in the receiver-spoofer should be
i
Atsi = f i Arsi gtsi r rs − r r rs + Δ r vs
i
− r , Gvi , Gvs , Δ r vs − Δ r tr λ, Grsri , Grst
25 5
where gtsi is an appropriately defined amplitude re-scaling
function. The quantities in this equation have the following
definitions: Atsi is the carrier amplitude of the digitally
synthesized spoofed signal. Its digital units are the input
units of the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that lies at
the start of the spoofer’s analog transmission chain. Arsi is
the carrier amplitude that the receiver-spoofer’s receiver
tracking loop estimates based on discriminator values. It
is given in the digital output units of the analog-to-digital
converter (ADC) that lies at the end of the spoofer’s analog
reception chain. Gvi is the victim receiver’s antenna gain
above a 0 dBic omnidirectional antenna in the direction of
the authentic signal from the i-th satellite. Gvs is the victim

receiver’s antenna gain in the direction of the spoofer trans-
mission antenna. Grsri is the gain of the spoofer’s entire RF
reception chain, starting at the input to the antenna and
ending at the output of the ADC for the direction of the sig-
nal from the i-th satellite. Its units are (ADC units)2/Watt.
Grst is the gain for the spoofer’s entire RF transmission chain,
starting at the input to the DAC and ending at the output of
its antenna for the direction from the spoofer to the victim
receiver. Its units are Watts/(DAC units)2. λ is the GNSS sig-
nal’s nominal carrier wavelength.
The challenges of computing the spoofed signal amplitude
using Eq. (25.5) concern the four gains Grsri, Grst, Gvi, and Gvs.
Calibration of the receiver-spoofer antenna and analog RF
chains can be used to get reasonable ideas of Grsri and Grst
if the receiver-spoofer attitude is known. Knowledge of Gvi
and Gvs will require both an antenna calibration and attitude
knowledge for the victim receiver. Approximations of the
victim antenna gain pattern may be available from nominal
data sheets if the antenna model is known, but these nom-
inal calibrations are likely to differ from the actual victim
unit. The attitude of the victim antenna will be determinable
only if the spoofer has a very sophisticated sensing system,
perhaps a vision-based system.
In many situations, it will be too difficult to synthesize an
Atsi that precisely achieves a given target amplitude advan-
tage fi. A typical spoofer will make estimates of the various
gains, and it will compute a lower bound for Atsi that will
guarantee a sufficiently large amplitude advantage to ensure
capture of the victim tracking loops. In practice, the residual
gain factor uncertainties in Eq. (25.5) dictate that the actual
amplitude advantage may be significantly larger than a tar-
get fi value in order to ensure capture of the victim tracking
loops. This difficulty for the spoofer can be used to advantage
when implementing spoofing defenses.
Three different groups are known to have built receiver-
spoofers of the kind described in this section [2, 27, 28].
It seems likely that additional receiver-spoofers have
been built.
25.2.6 Meaconing Attacks
Meaconing is the simple reception and re-transmission of
GNSS signals. This attack mode looks similar to that of
the receiver-spoofer in Figure 25.3. The difference is that
the meacon is a very simple device which receives, ampli-
fies, and re-broadcasts the entire GNSS signal spectrum.
A meacon simultaneously attacks simple civilian signals,
“hardened” civilian signals that include Navigation Mes-
sage Authentication (NMA) or spreading code authentica-
tion, and encrypted military signals.
The effect of a meaconing attack can be understood in
terms of Eqs. (25.3) and (25.4). The extra code-phase offsets
25.2 GNSS Spoofing Attack Methods 661
introduced at the meacon are δτrsi = 0 for all i = 1, …, N. One
can put this value on the left-hand side of Eq. (25.3) and
solve this equation to determine the effective code-phase
offsets at the victim receiver, δτsi for all i = 1, …, N. One
can then equate these with their values defined in terms
of the intended spoofed location r s and spoofed clock offset
increment Δδs. The resulting equations for i = 1, …, N can
be used to determine that the “chosen” spoofed location is
r s = r rs and the chosen spoofed clock offset increment is
Δδs = Δ r vs − Δ r tr c + δline > 0. That is, the location
of the meacon receiver antenna is the location that the vic-
tim receiver will deduce, and the added clock offset at the
victim receiver will be the net path delay from the input to
the meacon antenna to the input to the victim antenna.
This result is somewhat obvious.
The added delay Δδs indicates that the spoofed “true”
time will always be earlier than the actual true time at
the victim receiver. This fact can enable a detection strategy
in which the victim compares its estimated clock offset time
history with reasonable values based on the known level of
stability of its oscillator.
Note that the line delay δline is not necessarily fixed. The
spoofer may modulate this value to satisfy its own purposes.
In all cases, it will obey δline > 0.
25.2.7 Spoofing Navigation Data Bits
The navigation data bit stream Di[t − τi(t)] must be gener-
ated and broadcast by the spoofer. A good signal simulator
automatically generates a believable bit stream. A meacon
returns the true bit stream. A receiver-spoofer may use esti-
mates of the true Di[t − τi(t)] time history.
These data bits are unpredictable a priori, but many of the
bits repeat periodically. For example, the legacy GPS L1 C/A
code uses 50 Hz navigation data bits. The full navigation data
message largely repeats every 12.5 min, and much of the mes-
sage repeats every 30 s. Most of the non-repeating part consists
of time-of-week counters that can be predicted accurately.
A reasonable strategy for a receiver-spoofer operating on
a largely periodic data bit stream is to delay spoofing until
one full period of the bit stream has been received. It can
then use this period’s worth of bits and any needed counter
predictions to synthesize a very good estimate of Di[t − τi(t)]
– actually Di[t − τrsi(t) − δτrsi]. If there are a few unpredict-
able bits in this stream that do not repeat periodically, then
the spoofer may just synthesize guesses for such bits and
adjust any error-detecting (e.g., parity) bits accordingly.
At changeovers of the periodic message, which occur every
2 h for the GPS L1 C/A code legacy message, the receiver-
spoofer performs the changeover one full period late, that
is, 30 s late for the part that repeats every 30 s and
662 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
12.5 min late for the other part. The receiver-spoofer of [2]
forms its spoofed navigation data bits in this manner.
There are proposals to add special unpredictable bits to
the Di[t − τi(t)] data streams of future signals [29]. These
unpredictable bits would constitute a security code that
can be used for spoofing detection. In order to avoid detec-
tion, the spoofer would need to determine good estimates
for these bits and include them in its spoofed navigation
data bit stream. This type of attack is called a Security Code
Estimation and Replay (SCER) attack because the unpre-
dictable navigation bits constitute a security code [30].
The authentic signal’s limited signal-to-noise ratio forces
the spoofer to wait a certain amount of time after the start of
such a data bit in order to estimate its value with high reli-
ability. Suppose that this time delay is δτsD. The spoofer has
two options in this case. One option is to choose all δτrsi
values to respect δτrsi ≥ δτsD. This option places limitations
on the possible combinations of spoofed locations r s and
spoofed clock offset increments Δδs due to the impact of
this constraint on the calculations in Eqs. (25.3) and
(25.4). The spoofed scenario must lie between two
extremes. At one extreme, the spoofed victim location could
be further away from each satellite than the effective signal
path from the satellite through the spoofer and on to the
victim. At the other extreme, the spoofed location could
be arbitrary while the spoofed clock offset increment Δδs
was sufficiently positive to ensure that δτrsi ≥ δτsD for all
i = 1, …, N. It is possible to design a combination of the
spoofed position and the spoofed clock offset increment
that lies between these two extremes; that is, the spoofed
location would not be completely arbitrary, but Δδs would
be large enough to allow some flexibility in the choice of the
spoofed location. These limitations on the spoofer offer
detection options to the victim. If the spoofed location
needed to be further away from all the visible GNSS satel-
lites than the true location, then the spoofed altitude might
lie below sea level, which could trigger a spoofing alarm.
A sudden increase in Δδs to avoid this situation might be
noticed by the victim as being inconsistent with its oscilla-
tor’s known stability characteristics.
The other option for a SCER attack is to allow δτrsi < δτsD.
In this case, the spoofer will have to send some guess or
poor estimate of each unpredictable security code naviga-
tion data bit during the uncertainty window of duration
δτsD − δτrsi that occurs at the start of the bit’s spoofed trans-
mission interval. The resulting errors offer another avenue
for detection of this type of attack [30].
25.2.8 Additional Attack Possibilities
The basic ideas of blind signal simulation attacks, receiver-
spoofer attacks, and meaconing attacks have numerous
potential variations. These variations tend to complicate the
attacks and make them more expensive to mount. They also
tend to make defense countermeasures more difficult. This
subsection reviews some possible additional attack features.
25.2.8.1 Nulling Attack from a Receiver-Spoofer
A nulling attack by a receiver-spoofer broadcasts two sig-
nals for each signal that it seeks to spoof. The first is the
exact negative of the true signal. This first signal cancels
the true signal so that no evidence of it can be found at
the victim receiver. The second signal is the spoofed signal,
as in the second line of Eq. (25.1).
Referring again to Eq. (25.1), the number of spoofed
signals is Ns = 2N. The first N of these signals are the nul-
ling signals. Nulling demands that Asl = Al, Dsl(t) = Dl(t),
Csl(t) = Cl(t), τsl(t) = τl(t), and ϕsl(t) = ϕl(t) + π for all
l = 1, …, N. The final 180o (π radians) carrier-phase
shift achieves cancellation of the N authentic signals by
the nulling signals. The second N spoofed signals, the
l = (N + 1), …, (2N) signals, are the spoofed versions
of the signals that induce the spoofed receiver location r s
and the spoofed clock offset increment Δδs.
This type of attack is illustrated in Figure 25.5 by five suc-
cessive plots of the resulting code-phase correlation func-
tion for a single GNSS signal that would be seen by the
victim receiver during the attack’s onset. As in
Figure 25.4, the five successive plots in this figure show five
successive stages of the attack, with the initial stage
depicted in the top plot and the final stage shown in the bot-
tom plot. Initially the spoofed signal is aligned with the true
Figure 25.5 Onset of a nulling attack as viewed using the code-
delay correlation function. Nulling signal: green dashed curve,
spoofed signal: black dash-dotted curve; sum of nulling, spoofed,
and authentic signals: blue solid curve; receiver tracking points:
red dots.

signal in code-phase. The green dashed nulling signal and
the black dash-dotted spoofed signal for this channel start
with zero amplitude: Asl = 0 and As(l + N) = 0, as in the top
plot. Both amplitudes are slowly ramped up simultane-
ously, as shown in the second and third plots, until the nul-
ling amplitude equals the true amplitude: Asl = Al. The two
signals from the spoofer cancel each other in these two
plots. Therefore, the solid blue curve stays unchanged
and represents the authentic signal’s code-phase correla-
tion function. Starting in the fourth plot, the spoofer begins
to drag the spoofed code phase away from the authentic
code phase. That is, the black dash-dotted curve migrates
to the left. The green dashed nulling curve remains in
the center in order to cancel the true signal. By the bottom
plot, the early, prompt, and late receiver tracking points
have been dragged off to the left by about three full code
chips. There is a slight residual ripple at the location of
the true signal because the nulling signal’s correlation func-
tion does not exactly match the negative of the true signal.
Therefore, it does not exactly cancel the true signal. It
matches well enough, however, to make the ripples very
small. By comparing the blue curves in the bottom two plots
of Figure 25.4 with their counterparts in the bottom two
plots of this figure, it is apparent that a nulling attack is
harder to detect by looking for distortions of the code cor-
relation function.
It is very difficult to mount a good nulling attack. First,
the amplitude matching between the true signal and the
nulling signal must be very close. Referring to Eq. (25.5),
matching would require an accurate calibration of the
receiver-spoofer’s reception and transmission gains and
accurate calibration of the victim antenna’s gain ratios
between the authentic and spoofed signal reception direc-
tions. The receiver-spoofer would also need to know the
attitudes of the receiver-spoofer and victim antennas. Prob-
ably the victim antenna calibration knowledge requirement
is the hardest to meet.
An additional set of requirements would apply to the car-
rier phase. The receiver-spoofer would have to know and
control the absolute change between the received carrier
phase at its receiver antenna and the transmitted carrier
phase at its transmission antenna.
The receiver-spoofer would need to know the precise dis-
tance between its transmitter antenna and the victim
receiver antenna Δ r vs − Δ r tr . The error in its estimate
of this quantity would need to be a small fraction of the car-
rier wavelength.
25.2.8.2 High-Frequency Sensing of Victim Motion
Equations (25.3)–(25.5) all require knowledge of the posi-
tion of the victim receiver antenna relative to the
25.2 GNSS Spoofing Attack Methods 663
receiver-spoofer’s receiver antenna, Δ r vs . If the victim is
stationary relative to the spoofer, then the spoofer can
pre-survey this displacement vector. If the victim can move
relative to the spoofer, then the spoofer will need an active
sensor for use in determining the relative motion time
history Δ r vs t .
There exist spoofing detection strategies that rely on the
victim antenna undergoing small high-frequency motions
that the victim knows. In order to defeat such detection
strategies, the receiver-spoofer must have a sensor that
can produce high-bandwidth measurements of Δ r vs t .
In addition, its spoofed signal synthesis mechanization
must be able to respond to any sensed rapid changes in
Δ r vs t . It is possible for a spoofer to have this capability
at the cost of increased hardware complexity.
25.2.8.3 Multi-Channel Meaconing Attack
An advanced form of meaconing attack could be mounted if
the meacon were equipped with a small phased-array
receiving antenna instead of a single-element antenna. This
array could be used to implement multiple independent
meaconing channels. Each channel could steer its gain to
a different GNSS satellite. Each channel’s output could
be delayed in an independently steerable manner. After-
ward, it could be amplified, combined with the other chan-
nels’ signals, and re-broadcast through the spoofer
transmission antenna. An attack by this type would be sim-
ilar to an attack by the receiver-spoofer of Section 25.2.5.
The one important difference would be that the choice of
delays would be restricted to respect the limits δτrsi ≥ 0.
25.2.8.4 Patient Receiver-Spoofer Attacks
Another aspect of receiver-spoofer attacks is the speed with
which they drag the victim receiver off to false position or
timing fixes. Viewed in terms of Figure 25.4 or Figure 25.5,
patience concerns the speed at which the spoofed correla-
tion peak moves to the left. Stated in terms of the code-
phase spoofing calculations in Eqs. (25.3) and (25.4),
patience concerns the speed at which the spoofed position
r s moves away from the true victim position r rs + Δ r vs
and the speed at which the spoofed clock offset increment
Δδs changes from zero. If the spoofed position error
r s − r rs + Δ r vs changed too rapidly, then the victim
might notice an inconsistency with the expected changes
from an inertial navigation system (INS) – assuming it
had one. If Δδs(t) changed too rapidly, then the victim
might notice that its clock offset estimate exhibited large
rates of change that were inconsistent with its oscillator
stability.
664 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
A sophisticated receiver-spoofer could assess its victim’s
ability to monitor both position movement and clock offset
drift. It could induce spoofing offsets slowly so that changes
in r s − r rs + Δ r vs and changes in Δδs(t) are small
enough to lie within the expected variations that might
be caused by INS measurement error or oscillator drift.
25.2.8.5 Multi-Agent Attack
If expense is no object, then a spoofer might mount a multi-
agent attack like the one shown in Figure 25.6. Each of the
three single-channel spoofers is either a receiver-spoofer or
a meacon. It outputs just one spoofed signal, that of the
GNSS satellite with which it and the victim receiver
antenna form a line.
One of the main benefits of a multi-agent attack is that
the spoofed signals arrive at the victim antenna from a
diversity of directions. Some spoofing detection methods
use multiple antennas or a moving-antenna synthetic aper-
ture with INS aiding in order to measure the direction of
arrival of each GNSS signal. If all signals arrive from the
same direction, then the signals are obviously from a
spoofer or a meacon. A multi-agent spoofer can avoid being
detected by this method.
25.2.9 Spoofing Attack Categories
One can categorize spoofing attacks by the level of sophis-
tication or difficulty. An attack with a higher level of
sophistication or difficulty will require more resources to
GNSS constellation
True RF signals
Single channel False spoofer
receiver-spoofers or RF signals
meacons (possibly
drone-mounted)
Victim
GNSS
receiver
Figure 25.6 Spoofing attack mounted by multiple agents in
order to achieve correct diversity of spoofed signal directions of
arrival. Note that the true signals also arrive at the victim
receiver, despite appearances to the contrary in this figure.
mount. Therefore, the potential set of actors who would
mount such an attack is limited. The set of possible victims
is limited to those that the small set of actors might want to
spoof. Reference [19] lists 13 attack techniques. It ranks
them by a subjective assessment of their cost, where cost
is a measure of the difficulty of developing and deploying
the spoofing system. Reference [31] defines categories of
threat sources, ranging from truck drivers up to terrorist
organizations and governments. It also defines categories
of threats, which are spoofing attack modes that map to
some of the spoofing attack methods defined above.
These types of analyses are useful for assessing what type
of spoofing defenses one should implement. Some spoofing
attack methods are easy to detect. A user equipment
designer would rather develop defenses only for such
attacks, thereby minimizing the complexity and cost of
the detector. Some users, however, may feel threatened
by attackers with enough resources to develop advanced
spoofers. Such users should consider devoting the resources
that are needed to develop stronger spoofing defenses.
25.3 Methods for the Detection
of Spoofing Attacks
This section presents methods to detect that a spoofing
attack is underway. Such methods constitute the first part
of a defense. A victim receiver must know that it is under
attack in order to institute appropriate responses. Each
detection method presented in this section is accompanied
by a discussion of its effectiveness against various methods
of attack.
25.3.1 Fake GNSS Apps in Smartphones
The problem of detecting fake GNSS applications in smart-
phones lies partly in the realm of cybersecurity. One could
thwart malicious software by checking whether the plat-
form should or should not be trusted. Pokémon Go has
added a check of whether the user has gained root privi-
leges. If so, the user gets locked out of playing the
game [32].
GNSS-specific approaches might analyze the time his-
tories of the smartphone’s position and clock offset.
A detection strategy might try to discern micro- or
macro-level variations that were highly improbable. For
example, if a claimed position time history showed a smart-
phone user walking straight across the Grand Canyon, then
a GNSS-dependent application might issue a spoofing alert.
Such approaches would be analogous to credit card compa-
nies’ strategies for detecting fraud.

Methods for detecting and quarantining navigation
impostor software have not been studied extensively at
the time of the writing of this chapter. This is a topic that
deserves more attention.
25.3.2 Pseudorange Consistency for Navigation-
Level RAIM
Pseudorange consistency checks operate on the standard
pseudorange equations of a GNSS receiver:
i ver’s lock on all of the authentic signals.
Pi = cτi = r v − r + c δv − δi + νPi
where δv is the victim receiver’s clock offset, δi is the clock
offset of the i-th GNSS satellite, and νPi is the pseudorange
measurement noise. The measurement noise consists pri-
marily of thermal noise and multipath error. Ionosphere
and neutral atmosphere delays are neglected in this model
for the sake of simplicity. They should not be neglected in
actual receiver calculations.
Suppose that the pseudorange measurement noise is
assumed to be Gaussian with the following statistics:
E{νPi} = 0 for all i = 1, …, N
E νPi νPl = σ 2Pi δi,l for all i, l = 1, …, N
where σ Pi is the i-th pseudorange measurement error stand-
ard deviation and δi, l is the Kronecker delta, which equals 1
if i = l and 0 if i l. A reasonable value of σ Pi can be deduced
from the corresponding received carrier-to-noise-density
ratio, the accumulation bandwidth, the DLL bandwidth,
and the elevation. The elevation angle is used to get an idea
of the multipath contribution to the error. The thermal
noise and multipath contributions are combined in a
root-mean-square manner to yield σ Pi.
Navigation-level RAIM calculations start by solving the
standard least-squares problem for the navigation solution:
find r v and δv
i 2
1 N Pi rv r c δv
to minimize J r v , δv =
2i=1 σ Pi
i
where r and δi for i = 1, …, N are known from the satellites’
navigation data messages.
Suppose that r vopt and δvopt are the optimized victim
receiver position and clock offset. Then the optimized value
of the cost function is Jopt = J r vopt , δvopt . The quantity
2Jopt should be a sample from a degree-(N − 4) chi-squared
distribution.
This type of RAIM-based spoofing detection determines
whether 2Jopt is too large to be a random sample from a
degree-(N − 4) chi-squared distribution. The mean of this
25.3 Methods for the Detection of Spoofing Attacks 665
distribution is N − 4, and its standard deviation is
2 N − 4 . Therefore, values of 2Jopt larger than a thresh-
old such as γ = N − 4 + 3 2 N − 4 should occur rarely. If
such a threshold is exceeded by the navigation solution,
then a spoofing alert is issued.
This method can detect attacks that spoof only a subset of
the available signals in a way that fails to produce a self-
consistent navigation solution. This method is ineffective
against attacks that use Eqs. (25.3) and (25.4) to generate
all of the spoofed signals and that break the victim recei-
25 6
The advent of the spoofer of [2] rendered this detection
method unreliable as a stand-alone defense. It still may
have merit if used in combination with other defenses.
As new constellations augment the number of navigation
satellites, however, a spoofer faces the increasing challenge
of ensuring that it successfully spoofs each and every avail-
able signal. Otherwise, a victim will be able to detect its
attack using this method.
25.3.3 Signal Distortion/Anomaly Monitoring
for Tracking-Level RAIM
25 7 Newer forms of RAIM look at other quantities besides pseu-
dorange that are or can be computed autonomously within a
receiver. These quantities include the received signal power,
distortion of the complex code-delay/carrier-phase autocor-
relation function, and jumps in carrier phase or carrier Dop-
pler shift [33–38]. Examples of the kinds of distortion that
might be monitored are shown in Figures 25.7–25.10.
Figure 25.7 shows a strong gain in received signal power
across the entire GPS L1 C/A code spectrum during an
attack. This is an attack where the spoofer power advantage
factors, fi for i = 1, …, N, were probably set to about 2 so that
the spoofed power advantages were about 6 dB. A sudden
jump in received power could be used to issue a spoofing
alert [35]. Many receivers use an automatic gain control
δi (AGC) module to maintain the power levels at the outputs
of their RF front-ends. Such a receiver would need to report
25 8 the AGC gain to the digital part of its signal processing
chain in order to detect absolute power changes.
This type of defense will work against spoofers that have a
high level of uncertainty in their Eq. (25.5) calculations. They
typically capture the victim receiver’s tracking loops by over-
whelming the authentic signals’ power, as in Figure 25.7. If
the spoofer has less uncertainty about gains and can mount a
successful attack using less spoofer power, or using a nulling
spoofer, then this method of detection will fail.
Figure 25.8 shows attack-induced distortion of the com-
plex correlation function of the receiver. This figure plots
two views of the three-dimensional I and Q versus code-
phase offset. The left-hand panel of this figure is like the
666 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery

× 109

7
Spoofed Signal
Non-Spoofed Signal
6
Power Spectral Density

0
–1 –0.5 0 0.5 1
Frequency Offset (MHz)

Figure 25.7 Non-spoofed (red dash-dotted) and spoofed (blue solid) power spectral densities in the GPS L1 band prior to and after the
onset of an attack.

Telltale spoofer/true-signal
1.2 1.2 interaction distortion: complex
Non-Spoofed autocorrelation is non-planar
Spoofed
1 No apparent 1
spoofed
distortion in
In-Phase Accumulation

In-Phase Accumulation

0.8 correlation 0.8

magnitude
vs. code
offset
0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
–2 –1 0 1 2 –0.5 0 0.5
Code Offset (chips) Quadrature Accumulation

Figure 25.8 Two views of the three-dimensional I and Q versus code-phase offset immediately prior to an attack (blue solid curve) and
during the initial stage of a receiver-spoofer attack (red dash-dotted curve) [19]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

code-offset correlation functions that are shown in Fig- attack onset (red dash-dotted curve). The right-hand panel
ures 25.4 and 25.5. This figure is from an actual spoofing shows the distortion that is caused by the attack. The
attack against a GPS L1 C/A signal. The three-dimensional unspoofed blue solid curve lies along a single line in the
I and Q versus code-phase plot should be a simple C/A-code I versus Q plane. The spoofed red dash-dotted curve is
correlation with some rounding at its edges due to the finite not confined to a line in this plane.
bandwidth of the receiver’s RF front-end. It should lie along Another possibility is distortion in the I 2 + Q2 versus
a single line on the I versus Q projection of this plot. The code-offset view of this function. No such distortion exists
left-hand panel shows the expected C/A-code correlation in the left-hand panel of Figure 25.8, but Figure 25.4 clearly
function before the attack (blue solid curve) and after the illustrates this type of distortion in the fourth plot of its

attack sequence. This distortion occurs during the initial
drag-off of the spoofed code phase from the true code phase,
when the spoofed and authentic curves lie within two code
chips of each other.
A spoofing detector that is based on distortion monitor-
ing must evaluate its computed in-phase and quadrature
accumulations, I(δτk) and Q(δτk) for k = 1, …, Noffsets. The
delays δτk for k = 1, …, Noffsets are the code-phase offsets, rel-
ative to the prompt replica, of the spreading code replicas
that are used to compute the corresponding accumulations.
A typical receiver might use Noffsets = 3: δτ1 = −0.5τchip,
δτ2 = 0, and δτ3 = +0.5τchip, where τchip is the spreading
code’s chip duration. It might be wise to use a larger num-
ber of offsets and corresponding accumulations in order to
detect spoofing based on this method. A spoofing detection
algorithm would compare these accumulations to a non-
spoofed model of their values:
I(δτk) = AaccumR(τerr + δτk) cos (ϕerr) + νI(δτk)
for k = 1, …, Noffsets
Q δτk = Aaccum R τerr + δτk sin ϕerr + νQ δτk
for k = 1, …, Noffsets 25 9
where Aaccum is the accumulation amplitude, τerr is the
code-phase error of the prompt replica, ϕerr is the carrier-
phase error of the baseband mixing signal, R(τ) is the
code-offset correlation function that includes rounding
due to finite RF front-end bandwidth, and νI(δτk) and
νQ(δτk) are in-phase and quadrature noise. Statistical mod-
els of the in-phase and quadrature noise exhibit non-
negligible cross-correlations between νI(δτl) and νI(δτk)
and between νQ(δτl) and νQ(δτk).
One way to develop a spoofing detection test is to form a
cost function for the fit error in the accumulation models in
Eq. (25.9) and to optimize it by finding the best-fit values of
Aaccum, τerr, and ϕerr. The optimization problem would take
a form similar to that given in Eq. (25.8), except that
the measurements and models would involve I(δτk) and
Q(δτk) rather than pseudorange, the summation would be
performed over k, and the correlations between different
noise terms would be taken into account in defining the
cost function, which would require inversion of a noise cor-
relation matrix. If the resulting optimized cost were JIQopt,
then 2JIQopt would be a sample from a chi-squared distribu-
tion of degree 2Noffsets − 3 if the signals were authentic. This
fact could be used to set a threshold value for this measure-
ment residuals cost function. If the optimized cost exceeded
this threshold, then a spoofing alert would be issued.
There are three challenges for this detection method. The
first is that distortions only occur during the initial signal
drag-off. This is best illustrated by the fourth and fifth plots
25.3 Methods for the Detection of Spoofing Attacks 667
of Figure 25.4. The distortions are evident in the fourth plot
during the drag-off, but not in the fifth plot after drag-off
has caused the spoofed code phase to differ from the
authentic code phase by more than two code chips.
The second challenge for this detection method is that of
high spoofer amplitude. If the spoofer amplitude Asi is
much larger than the authentic amplitude Ai, then not
much distortion will exist because the spoofed signal will
dominate the I(δτk) and Q(δτk) signal models. Of course,
this challenge for a distortion-monitor-based detector
represents an opportunity for a power-based detector.
The third challenge is that of multipath. The distortions
being monitored for spoofing detection are the same as the
distortions caused by specular multipath. The spoofer must
somehow distinguish multipath from spoofing and issue a
spoofing alert only when a true spoofing attack is occurring.
Otherwise, there may be too many false alarms. The prob-
lem of multipath false alarms during distortion monitoring
and the opportunity afforded by simultaneous power mon-
itoring are addressed in [39].
A variant of this detection method would be to look at all
possible code-phase offsets and all possible carrier Doppler
shifts on a continuous basis. Such calculations constitute
the standard search operations during a signal acquisition.
Thus, continuous implementation of a re-acquisition signal
search could be implemented as part of a spoofing detection
algorithm. This strategy would locate the second peak on
the bottom plot of Figure 25.4 even after the spoofer had
dragged the code phase more than two chips away from
the authentic signal. This detection strategy places a greater
processing burden on the receiver. A weakness of this strat-
egy is exposed if the spoofer signal power is much larger
than that of the authentic signals. In this case, the spoofer
will also effectively jam the authentic signal, and the latter
signal may not be found during the re-acquisition search
due to its peak not rising high enough above the spoofed
noise floor. Of course, an over-powering spoofer presents
an easy target for a power-based detection method.
Signal distortion monitoring has the potential to detect a
variety of spoofing attacks. The only attacks that it cannot
detect are nulling attacks and over-powered attacks. In
both of these cases, the looked-for distortion does not exist.
This method only works during the initial drag-off phase of
a receiver-spoofer attack unless the costly continuous-re-
acquisition version of this method is implemented.
Another detection method is to look for jumps or slope
changes in typical quantities that are computed by the
receiver tracking loops. An example of a spoofing-induced
jump is shown in Figure 25.9. An example of a spoofing-
induced slope change is shown in Figure 25.10. The jump
in Figure 25.9 occurs in the time histories of the prompt
668 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery

× 108
1

0.5
In-Phase Accum

Sudden [I;Q] jump at onset

0 of spoofing attack

–0.5

–1
1
0
195.5 196 196.5
× 108 –1 194.5 195
193.5 194
Quadrature Accum Time (sec)

Figure 25.9 Three-dimensional plot of I and Q versus time at the onset of a receiver-spoofer attack.

2260 If the change magnitude were too large relative to the orig-
inal magnitude, then a spoofing alert would be issued.
2240 This approach would work well for static receivers. Its
Onset of spoofing attack reliability would degrade for dynamic receivers operating
2220
in harsh environments such as an urban area. In this case,
Doppler Shift (Hz)

Onset of drag-off
pure non-line-of-sight (LOS) signals and severe multipath
2200
(sudden 0.02 g increment could distort the correlation function in a way that could
in carrier acceleration/
2180 Doppler rate)
easily trigger false spoofing alarms.
Figure 25.10 shows a receiver’s computed carrier Doppler
2160 shift from its phase-lock loop (PLL) at the onset of an attack
by a receiver-spoofer. There are no anomalies during the
2140 initial part of the attack, starting at t = 200 s. This period
corresponds to the top three panels of Figure 25.4 when
2120
0 100 200 300 400 500 the spoofer is ramping up the amplitude of the spoofed sig-
Time (sec) nal. At t = 320 s, there is a sudden change in the slope of the
Figure 25.10 Carrier Doppler shift versus time at the onset of an PLL’s computed carrier Doppler shift. This change corre-
attack by a receiver-spoofer. sponds to the onset of code-phase drag-off, which occurs
between the third and fourth panels of Figure 25.4. The
spoofer generates a false carrier phase that diverges from
in-phase and quadrature accumulations, I(0) and Q(0). The the authentic carrier phase in order to avoid code-carrier
onset of spoofing produced a sudden jump in the two- divergence of the spoofed signal. The resulting sudden
dimensional vector [I(0); Q(0)], because of a sudden ampli- change in the slope of the received carrier Doppler shift
tude change, code-phase change, or carrier-phase change. time history offers a means of detecting the attack. This
Although not obvious from the perspective used in this plot, change might seem small to the spoofer. It amounts to a
the amplitude Aaccum suddenly increased by a factor of 3, 0.02 g change in the projection of the acceleration of the
and the carrier-phase error ϕerr suddenly increased by spoofed location onto the LOS to the spoofed satellite. This
40o. Such changes are unphysical for a stationary or slowly small change, however, is easily detectable by the victim
moving receiver. Simple spoofing detector calculations receiver.
could be implemented that computed the magnitudes of An implementation of this type of detection strategy
changes in the [I(0); Q(0)] vector from sample to sample. might use the beat carrier-phase acceleration output of a

typical third-order PLL. This output is the slope of the plot
in Figure 25.10. The detector would look for sudden
changes in this output and issue a spoofing alert if any
unphysical changes were detected. The levels of change
that should result in an alert would be dependent on the
type of application. A large ocean-going vessel would expe-
rience only small jumps in the beat carrier-phase accelera-
tion during normal cruising. A fighter jet could expect
much larger jumps during unspoofed operation. Thus,
the problem of detecting spoofing using this method would
be more difficult for a highly maneuverable vehicle.
This “jumps” method has the potential to detect a variety
of spoofing attacks. It cannot detect a very patient receiver-
spoofer because the attacker will not produce any sudden
jumps if it raises the amplitudes of its spoofed signals very
slowly and if it performs its post-capture drag-off very
slowly. In this case, however, the slowness of the attack will
afford greater opportunities for distortion-based methods to
detect the spoofer. Therefore, the challenge posed by a
patient spoofer to this detection strategy offers a corre-
sponding benefit to distortion-based detection methods. If
a receiver-spoofer uses a combination of nulling and
patience, however, then neither this method nor the distor-
tion-monitoring method will detect the attack. As with the
distortion method, this method can work only during the
initial phases of a spoofing attack.
Vector-based tracking loops have been proposed as means
of detecting a spoofing attack. A vector technique couples the
DLL and PLL tracking for all of the signals through the
requirement that they yield consistent position and velocity
solutions. Suppose that the spoofer attacks only a minority
of the signals. Then the remaining true signals can help the
attacked signals’ tracking loops coast through the attack onset
and eventually recover lock on the true signals [40]. Note,
however, that navigation-level RAIM, as in Section 25.3.2,
could also detect such an attack. Neither type of defense
would be effective against the current state of the art in
receiver-spoofers, which attack all signals simultaneously [2].
A vector tracking loop might be a useful component of a
defense that also monitored sudden changes in carrier Dop-
pler shift, as in Figure 25.10. A spoofer might employ inten-
tional code/carrier divergence during its initial drag-off in
order to avoid a sudden jump in the rate of change of carrier
Doppler shift. A vector tracking loop might detect an unrea-
sonable level of code/carrier divergence and use it as the
basis for a spoofing alert.
Another potential anomaly that can be monitored within
the receiver is unusual PNT drift. Drift-based detection meth-
ods look at temporal changes in the navigation solution’s
receiver clock offset δv(t), position vector r v t , and velocity
25.3 Methods for the Detection of Spoofing Attacks 669
vector r ν t Large changes in these quantities that are
unphysical can be used to generate spoofing alerts.
Changes in the estimated clock offset can be compared to
the receiver oscillator’s known root Allan variance. Sup-
pose that the root Allan variance curve is σ osc(τ) versus τ.
Then the receiver can ask whether
δv t − δv t − τ
> γ osc 25 10
τσ osc τ
where γ osc > 1 is the spoofing detection threshold. A value
on the order of γ osc = 3 might be used. Violation of this limit
would indicate an oscillator drift that was too large to be
physically believable and, therefore, likely the result of
spoofing.
A clock drift test requires a good characterization of the
receiver oscillator’s root Allan variance curve. If that curve
might be affected by rapid changes in temperature or by
vibration or acceleration of the receiver, then appropriate
measures must be taken to ensure that the system does
not produce false alarms due to these environmental
factors.
Spoofing detection based on position or velocity drift can
look for unphysical motions like the abrupt acceleration
change shown in Figure 25.10. Such techniques, however,
go beyond a channel-by-channel analysis of drift. Instead,
they look at the position and velocity solutions computed
by the receiver and assess whether they are reasonable
for the given user platform. For example, a spoofed ship’s
altitude that is much different from sea level should trigger
an alert. Some of the best methods for detecting physically
unrealistic motions fuse INS data with GNSS data. Detec-
tion methods based on INS data are the subject of the next
subsection.
The authors conjecture that the commercially available
spoofing detection system of [23] uses one or several of
this subsection’s techniques. The system is implemented
entirely within the receiver’s signal processing unit. It
does not require any of the external modifications or sig-
nals that are required by the methods that will be dis-
cussed below. It can detect spoofing only if it sees the
onset of a spoofing attack, which is consistent with most
of the methods discussed in this subsection. There is some
question about whether it uses power monitoring. One
might expect that power monitoring would enable it to
detect spoofing even if it did not see the change from
unspoofed operation to spoofed operation. If the absolute
power were significantly higher than expected under nor-
mal operation, what would prevent a power-based
method from generating an alert? Perhaps the system
has a power monitor that is only good at detecting
670 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
changes. Alternatively, perhaps the possible range of nor-
mal power levels is too large to be able to identify the pres-
ence of spoofed signals based purely on a certain absolute
power threshold.
25.3.4 Methods that Exploit INS Data
and GNSS/INS Data Fusion
Data from an INS can be used to detect spoofing in various
ways [41–46]. The idea of all such systems is to compare
motion time histories sensed by the GNSS receiver with
motion time histories sensed by the INS. If there is too
much disagreement between the two systems, then a spoof-
ing alert is issued.
Any comparison between GNSS and INS data is compli-
cated by the fact that their data types are very different.
Therefore, some sort of data fusion approach must be used.
The INS data most directly comparable to GNSS data are
the accelerometer outputs. The comparable GNSS data
are carrier Doppler shifts, which can be used to deduce
velocity, and pseudoranges, which can be used to deduce
position. An additional complication is that INS data are
sensed in a body-fixed INS coordinate system, whereas
GNSS data are most directly related to Earth-Centered/
Earth-Fixed (ECEF) coordinates. Comparisons can be
made if the INS accelerometer outputs are integrated to
produce velocity or position time histories that are directly
comparable to corresponding GNSS-derived velocities or
positions, as in [42]. Conversely, GNSS outputs can be dif-
ferentiated to produce accelerations that are directly com-
parable to INS outputs [45].
A powerful, but complicated, INS-based spoofing detec-
tion method uses a nonlinear Kalman filter to fuse the
GNSS data with the INS data in a tightly coupled manner,
as in [46]. Such a filter typically estimates position, velocity,
three-axis attitude, accelerometer biases, rate-gyro biases,
receiver clock offset, and receiver clock offset rate. It might
use the following 18-by-1 Kalman filter state vector
rv t
rν t
qt
x t = b acc t 25 11
b rg t
cδv t
cδv t
where q t is the 4-by-1 attitude quaternion that parame-
terizes the rotation from ECEF coordinates to INS coordi-
nates, b acc t is the 3-by-1 accelerometer bias vector
given in INS coordinates, and b rg t is the 3-by-1 rate-gyro
bias vector given in INS coordinates.
Standard Kalman filter operations can be used to deter-
mine the sum of the squares of the filter’s normalized inno-
vations. The innovations are the differences between
measured data and the Kalman filter’s a priori predictions
of the measurements. The filter’s normalized sum of
squares should be a sample from a chi-squared distribution
with degree equal to the number of scalar measurements
[47]. A spoofing detection alert is issued if this quantity is
too large to have been a random sample from the corre-
sponding chi-squared distribution.
The measured data that should be used in a tightly
coupled GNSS/INS system are the pseudorange measure-
ments and the carrier Doppler shift measurements. The
INS accelerometer and rate-gyro measurements are used
within the dynamic propagation model for the state vector.
This type of INS-based filter is known as a model-
replacement filter.
It is possible to use beat carrier-phase measurements in
place of the carrier Doppler shift measurements, but their
use would require the addition of beat carrier-phase bias
states to the filter. The use of either carrier Doppler shift
or beat carrier phase is highly recommended for spoofing
detection applications. These data types are much more
sensitive to small changes in position and velocity than
are pseudorange measurements. Their use in a tightly
coupled INS-based spoofing detector will greatly lower
the missed-detection probability for a given type of attack
and a given false-alarm probability.
A tightly coupled GNSS/INS spoofing detection approach
will work very well if the victim GNSS antenna location
r v t undergoes oscillations whose amplitudes equal a sig-
nificant fraction of a wavelength and whose frequency is
too high for the spoofer to measure and adjust its corre-
sponding Δ r vs t input to Eq. (25.4). The oscillations will
induce large normalized-innovations-squared measure-
ment residuals when under attack. The residuals will be
small when the received GNSS signals are all authentic
because the authentic signals respond correctly to the
r v t oscillations.
In order for this type of spoofing detection system to work
properly, it is necessary to use good tunings of its Kalman
filter process noise and measurement noise statistical mod-
els. The process noise model is defined by the bias drift
rates, the velocity random walk, and the angular random
walk statistics of the INS accelerometers and rate gyros.
The measurement noise model is defined by the thermal-
noise-induced and multipath-induced errors in the pseu-
dorange and carrier Doppler shift measurements. If any
of these sources of uncertainty are assigned erroneous
 25.3 Methods for the Detection of Spoofing Attacks 671

statistical models, then the chi-squared test will not achieve
its designed false-alarm and missed-detection probabilities.
Good INS-based methods can detect an attack that does
not reproduce the GNSS characteristics of the true high-
frequency motions of the victim receiver antenna. Any such
shortcoming will create a discrepancy between the INS and
GNSS data that the victim can notice and use to detect the
attack.
A Kalman-filter-based INS method can also detect any
attack that is impatient about the rate at which the spoofed
location r s t diverges from the true victim receiver loca-
tion r v t . If the divergence is too much larger than the
known drift statistics of the victim’s INS, then a spoofing
alert will be generated by the Kalman filter innovations test
statistic. On the other hand, if an attacker is patient enough
to avert INS-based detection, then it may become vulnera-
ble to detection by a signal monitor that looks for telltale
distortions like the ones described in the discussion of
Figure 25.8.
25.3.5 Encryption-Based Methods
Encryption-based methods rely on the presence of
encrypted signal features. The spoofer must not be able
to produce these features at the time of the attack, but
the intended victim must be able to estimate these features
from the received signal and evaluate whether they are
authentic shortly after their reception. This approach has
some similarities to symmetric secret-key encryption of
military GNSS signals. The main difference is that the vic-
tim receiver is not able to predict the features prior to
receiving them. This inability has the benefit of precluding
the need for a secret key to enable generation of the fea-
tures. There are three classes of methods of this type.
One method exploits the presence of an encrypted military
spreading code that is broadcast by the same satellite on the
same carrier with known code and carrier offsets from the
civilian spreading code. The second method uses unpredict-
able data bits that can be authenticated after the fact
through the use of a digital signing protocol. The third
method uses short segments of the spreading code that
are unpredictable [14]. They are called “digital water-
marks.” The generation key for each such segment is broad-
cast after the fact within the navigation data bit stream.
25.3.5.1 Receiver-Receiver Cross-Correlation
Methods
Methods that use military signals are described in [48–52].
These particular methods use the encrypted P(Y) signal on
the GPS L1 frequency in order to detect spoofing on the L1
C/A signal. The C/A and P(Y) signals are known to be in
phase quadrature with each other. This quadrature rela-
tionship of their baseband spreading codes is depicted in
Figure 25.11.

Known in-phase C/A code used for

tracking in both receivers Unknown encrypted quadrature P(Y) code
used for cross-correlation spoofing detection

Secure reference signal Victim receiver signal

2 2
C/A Signal

C/A Signal

0 0

–2 –2
12 12
10 10
P( 2 8 P( 2 8
Y) ps) Y) )
Si
0 6 (chi Si
0 6
(ch
ips
gn –2 4
Time gn –2 4
Tim
e
al al

Correlated portions of P(Y) code based on

C/A code to match timing between receivers

Figure 25.11 Code-phase and carrier-phase relationship of known C/A spreading code and encrypted P(Y) spreading code in two
receivers [49, 51]. Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.
672 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
Spoofing detection is carried out by using a secure
receiver to aid the victim receiver. The secure receiver is
located in a place where a spoofer is not able to attack it.
It is likely far away from the victim receiver, perhaps in
another country or on another continent. The only require-
ments on the secure receiver are that it be in a secure,
unspoofable location and that it see the same GNSS satel-
lites that the victim sees. It can only provide authentication
for signals that are visible to both receivers.
The secure receiver tracks its civilian spreading code
using standard DLL and PLL techniques. It steers its PLL
so that the civilian code is located on its in-phase base-
band-mixed signal. It then reads a noisy version of the mil-
itary signal from the quadrature baseband-mixed signal.
Identical operations are carried out on the victim receiver.
The resulting quadrature samples take the forms [51]
yqak = APaPY(tak) + νqak
yqbk = APb PY t bk + νqbk 25 12
with yqak being a quadrature sample from the secure
receiver and yqbk being a quadrature sample from the victim
receiver. The received carrier amplitudes of these two base-
band signals are APa and APb. These amplitudes can be
deduced from the C/A code amplitudes that are measured
by the receiver and by a cataloged relationship between the
C/A transmitted power and the P(Y) transmitted power on
the various GPS satellites [50]. The unknown function PY(t)
is the encrypted P(Y) spreading code, and the respective
sample times of the two receivers’ quadrature signals are
tak and tbk. The terms νqak and νqbk are the quadrature base-
band noise terms in the two receivers.
The two receivers’ C/A code DLLs measure their respec-
tive code delays. These code delays can be used to match
P(Y) samples between the two receivers. Suppose that this
matching procedure determines that tak and t b k + Δkab cor-
respond to the same portion of the C/A code.
The method uses Δkab and the quadrature samples to
compute the following cross-correlation detection statistic:
K
γ cc = yqak yqb k + Δkab 25 13
k=1
This statistic is compared to the threshold value γ th. If
γ cc < γ th, then a spoofing alert is issued. Otherwise, the
C/A code signal in the victim receiver is deemed to be
authentic because of the large correlation between its noisy
version of the P(Y) code and the secure receiver’s noisy ver-
sion of this same encrypted spreading code.
The value of the spoofing detection threshold γ th is
designed based on a formula that uses a number of inputs.
These inputs include the received carrier-to-noise density
ratios of the C/A code in the two receivers, the known rela-
tionship between the C/A code transmitted power and the
P(Y) code transmitted power, the noise variances of νqak
and νqbk, the sampling interval Δt = tak + 1 − tak = tbk + 1 − tbk,
the number of correlated samples in Eq. (25.13), K, and the
target false-alarm probability [51].
This method has the drawback of needing to bring the
quadrature samples from the two receivers, yqak and yqbk,
to a common location. These samples may have a frequency
of 5–10 MHz, and it may be necessary to sum them over a
full second in order to produce a high probability of detec-
tion for a low probability of false alarm. This fact implies
the need for a high-bandwidth data link between the recei-
vers or between each receiver and a third location. This
extra data link imposes a significant infrastructure cost
on this type of system.
Semi-codeless P(Y) signal processing techniques pro-
vide a means of economizing on bandwidth while
increasing the probability of detection for a given false-
alarm probability [49]. These techniques exploit knowl-
edge that the encrypted P(Y) code is the product of a pub-
licly known P code that chips at 10.23 MHz and an
encrypted W code that chips at slightly less than 0.5
MHz. The semi-codeless technique forms estimates of
the unknown W chips based on the raw quadrature sam-
ples and the known P code. These estimates are formed
independently in each of the two receivers. The semi-
codeless technique cross-correlates these W-chip esti-
mates. The decreased communications bandwidth is
caused by only needing to assemble W-chip estimates
in a common location. Their frequency is smaller than
the frequency of the raw samples by a factor of 10 or
more, leading to bandwidth savings. The increase in
the probability of detection occurs because of the proces-
sing gain that results from integrating the product of the
quadrature samples and the P code over the W-chip inter-
vals in order to estimate those chips. Correlation intervals
of 0.2 s duration have been shown to produce reliable
spoofing detections when using semi-codeless cross-
correlation techniques [49].
25.3.5.2 NMA
NMA techniques are a means of authenticating the naviga-
tion data bit stream Di(t). Suppose that this bit stream takes
the form
Di t = Dl ΠT t − lT 25 14
l
where Dl is the l-th data bit, T is the data bit transmission
interval, and ΠT(t) is the usual finite support function that

equals 1 if its argument lies in the range 0 ≤ t < T and that
equals zero otherwise. The Dl values are either +1 or −1.
Suppose that a certain subsequence of the Dl bits consti-
tute a single NMA block. Suppose, without loss of general-
ity, that this sequence is D1 , …, DL. In practice, the NMA bits
might not be contiguous. It is certain, however, that they
will occur in known locations within the data stream.
NMA works by using a public-key/private-key crypto-
graphic technique to generate a digital signature that con-
stitutes the NMA sequence D1 , …, DL . After receiving this
sequence, the victim receiver uses the known public key
to check whether the signature is correct. If it is correct,
then the navigation data block signed by the digital signa-
ture is declared authentic. If the signature is incorrect, then
a spoofing alert is issued [29]. Only the GNSS constellation
knows the private key that has been used to generate the
signature. Therefore, a spoofer cannot generate a correct
signature a priori.
One drawback of NMA is the long time that is required to
transmit an entire digital signature. The interval can be
minutes. Thus, its latency is typically much longer than that
of the cross-correlation method. The only latencies of the
cross-correlation method are the time for the two receivers
to process enough quadrature samples to form a good detec-
tion statistic, the time to transmit both sets of quadrature
samples to a common location, and the time to compute
the detection statistic in Eq. (25.13). The latency of this
competing system can be on the order of 1 s or less [50].
The most significant drawback of NMA is that it requires
a change of the transmitted navigation signal. This can be
challenging or even impossible for satellites that are already
in orbit with navigation message structures that are already
defined. The European Galileo system plans to implement
an NMA component within its data stream [53], and sim-
ulation-based tests of Galileo NMA spoofing detection have
been conducted [54]. It is unclear when other GNSS con-
stellations will follow suit.
25.3.5.3 NMA with Bit Distortion Detection
A spoofer may attempt to estimate the NMA bits on the fly
and replay the authentic bits on the spoofed signal. This
type of attack has been discussed in Section 25.2.7. It is
called a SCER attack. The SCER attack has two options.
One is to delay the spoofed signal enough to enable correct
estimation of the NMA bits before they are needed to con-
struct the spoofed signal. In this case, the SCER attacker
runs the risk of producing a suspiciously large spoofed vic-
tim clock offset δv.
The other SCER attack option is to broadcast a guess of
each NMA data bit during the short initial interval before
25.3 Methods for the Detection of Spoofing Attacks 673
it has a good estimate of the bit. Afterward, it transitions
to the true bit value if its guess is wrong.
An NMA defense can be augmented to look for this faulty
bit guessing on the part of the spoofer. This defense looks
for telltale bit transients in the initial part of each NMA data
bit interval [55]. It can average its assessment of whether
such transients are occurring over many NMA bits. If it sees
suspicious initial transients in about 50% of the bit intervals
or more, then it issues a spoofing alert.
25.3.5.4 Spreading Code “Digital Watermarks”
This technique places unpredictable spreading code seg-
ments in predictable locations within the otherwise-known
civilian spreading code sequence [14]. The receiver does not
use these short segments of the received signal for tracking
purposes. Instead, it records each segment’s baseband-
mixed samples. Afterward, it receives the key for generating
the spreading code segment. This key is sent through the
navigation data message. It uses this key to generate a rep-
lica of the spreading code segment, which it then uses to
compute correlations with its stored baseband samples. If
a high correlation value is achieved, then the signal is
deemed authentic. Otherwise, a spoofing alert is issued.
25.3.6 Antenna Array Methods that Sense
Direction of Arrival
A victim receiver that has an antenna array can exploit the
array’s direction-finding capabilities to implement spoofing
detection based on direction of arrival (DoA), as in
Figure 25.12. Example investigations of DoA-based spoof-
ing detection are [56–66]. The authentic signals arrive
along a diverse set of unit direction vectors, for example,
i−1 i i+1
ρv , ρ v , and ρ v for GNSS satellites i − 1, i, and
GNSS satellite i − 1
GNSS satellite i
GNSS satellite i + 1
→i
→i – 1
ρv ρv
GNSS
spoofer →i +1
ρv
→
ρvs
Antenna array of
victim receiver with Victim
direction-finding GNSS
capabilities receiver
Figure 25.12 Victim receiver with an antenna array that enables
direction-of-arrival measurement.
674 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
i + 1. All of the spoofed signals from a single transmitter,
i − 1, i, and i + 1, arrive along a common unit direction vec-
tor, ρ vs .
One method of spoofing detection measures all of the
DoA vectors [58]. Let these measured vectors be designated
i−1 i i+1
as ρ vm , ρ vm, and ρ vm . One way to make these measure-
ments is to consider only the beat carrier-phase single dif-
ferences between the antenna elements. Another method
exploits calibrations of the directional dependence of the
signal phase and amplitude at each antenna feed. The
measured unit direction vectors are given in a coordinate
system that is defined relative to the antenna array. There
are challenges to making these measurements, such as the
need to calibrate the unknown antenna manifolds [67].
Nevertheless, DoA measurement has proved to be an effec-
tive technique for use in spoofing detection [61].
The DoAs are also computable from the navigation solu-
tion and the satellite ephemerides. Let the computed unit
i−1 i i+1
direction vectors be designated as ρ vc ,
and ρ vc ,
These computed vectors are defined relative to reference
coordinates, typically‚ ECEF coordinates.
As an example, consider one possible DoA-based spoof-
ing detection algorithm: It solves two optimal estimation
problems and forms the difference of their minimum costs
in order to compute its spoofing detection test statistic. The
first optimal estimation problem fits the measured direction
vectors to the hypothesis that the signals are authentic. It
takes the form
find q
i i
1 N ρ vm A q ρ vc
to minimize Jns q =
2i=1 σ vmi
subject to qT q = 1
where q is the 4-by-1 unit-normalized attitude quaternion
that parameterizes the three-axis rotation from ECEF coor-
dinates to antenna coordinates, A q is the corresponding
3-by-3 orthonormal direction cosines matrix, and σ vmi is
the per-axis direction measurement error standard devia-
i
tion for the ρ vm measurement. A description of quaternions
and a formula for the direction cosines matrix are contained
in [68]. This is a constrained nonlinear optimization prob-
lem. Normally such problems are difficult to solve and
require some sort of iterative numerical solution. This par-
ticular problem is a version of Wahba’s problem and admits
a closed-form solution for the global minimum using
Davenport’s q-method. Davenport’s method computes the
optimal quaternion by solving for an eigenvector of a 4-
by-4 symmetric matrix [68].
The spoofing detection method’s second optimal estima-
tion problem fits the measured direction vectors to the
hypothesis that all of the signals are spoofed and that they
all arrive from the same direction. This common direction
vector is estimated in antenna coordinates, where it is
designated as ρ vsm. The optimal estimation problem for this
vector takes the form
find ρ vsm
i 2
1 N ρ vm ρ vsm
to minimize Js ρ vsm =
2i=1 σ vmi
T
subject to ρ vsm ρ vsm = 1 25 16
This is also a constrained nonlinear optimization problem.
It too can be solved in closed form. The solution algorithm
starts with the over-determined system of equations whose
half-sum-squared error cost is J s ρ vsm . This equation is lin-
ear in the unknown vector ρ vsm It takes the form
1 N
y = H ρ vsm , where y = ρ vm σ vm1 ; …; ρ vm σ vmN is a 3N-
by-1 vector and H = [I3 × 3/σ vm1; …; I3 × 3/σ vmN] is a 3N-
ρ vc .
by-3 matrix. By using a Lagrange multiplier to adjoin the
constraint to the cost function, one can show that the opti-
−1
mal solution takes the form ρ vsm = H T H + μI 3 × 3
H T y . The quantity μ is the unknown scalar Lagrange mul-
tiplier. It can be determined by substitution of the solution
back into the unit normalization constraint for ρ vsm and
finding the value of μ that causes this constraint to be sat-
isfied. The resulting equation can be transformed into a
sixth-order polynomial in μ that can be solved using stand-
ard numerical polynomial solution techniques. A singular
2 value decomposition of the H matrix and a corresponding
transformation of the ρ vsm solution vector will simplify
the derivation of the μ polynomial.
Suppose that the optimal quaternion for the non-spoofed
25 15
problem in Eq. (25.15) is qopt and that the corresponding
minimum cost is J nsopt = J ns qopt Suppose, also, that
the optimal spoofer direction vector for the spoofed
problem in Eq. (25.16) is ρ vsmopt and that the corresponding
minimum cost is J sopt = J s ρ vsmopt Then the spoofing
detection test statistic for this method equals the difference
of these two optimal costs:
γ DoA = J sopt − J nsopt 25 17
This test statistic should be a large positive number if the
signals are authentic. This will be true because Jnsopt will be
small due to the good fit of the non-spoofed hypothesis
while Jsopt will be large due to the poor fit of the spoofed
hypothesis. If the signals are all spoofed, then γ DoA should
be a negative number with a large magnitude based on sim-
ilar reasoning: Jnsopt will be large due to the poor fit of the
non-spoofed hypothesis‚ while Jsopt will be small due to

the good fit of the spoofed hypothesis. A spoofing alert
threshold γ DoAth can be defined based on a worst-case anal-
ysis of the false-alarm probability, similar to the analysis
given in [57]. A spoofing alert will be issued if γ DoA < γ DoAth.
It is possible to develop DoA-based spoofing detection
methods that use antenna configurations which give direc-
tional sensitivity without enabling full measurement of
i
each ρ vm direction vector. One such system uses known
one-dimensional antenna motion to create a synthetic aper-
ture [57]. Another system uses two antennas and estimates
i
dot products of the satellite directions ρ v with the direction
vector between the antennas [26]. A third system uses two
antennas with differing gain patterns, and it computes
received amplitude ratios between the two antennas for
each satellite [56]. Spoofing detection is based on a fit of
the DoA-sensitive data to a model of the non-spoofed
hypothesis, to a model of the spoofed hypothesis, or to both
types of models. The spoofed hypothesis postulates direc-
tional metrics that lack diversity among the different
received signals. The non-spoofed hypothesis looks for an
expected level of diversity in the metric that is consistent
with the DoA diversity of the true signals.
The spoofing detection system of [69] might reasona-
bly be lumped with this class of detectors. It uses a sin-
gle antenna element that has two feeds, one primarily
responsive to right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP)
signals and the other primarily responsive to left-hand
circularly polarized (LHCP) signals. The spoofing detec-
tion mode of this system exploits two expected features
of spoofed signals: (i) the presence of significant power
in the LHCP component and (ii) a lack of diversity of
the spoofed DoAs. Authentic signals should be primarily
RHCP and should have DoA diversity. The two assumed
properties of spoofed signals enable the system to distin-
guish between spoofed and non-spoofed signals when
operating in a special mode that combines the RHCP
and LHCP feeds using a time-varying relative phase
offset.
A DoA-based system can detect all spoofing attacks that
originate from a single spoofing transmitter antenna and
that cause the victim receiver to track only the spoofed sig-
nals. It may be possible to develop techniques that relax this
requirement to allow the victim receiver to track some
spoofed signals and some authentic signals. In that situa-
tion, it may be helpful to use pseudorange measurement
residuals from the navigation solution of Eq. (25.8) to dis-
tinguish spoofed and authentic signals. In any case, the
arrival of multiple signals from a common direction is a
dead giveaway that a spoofing attack is underway if the
authentic signals should be arriving from different
directions.
25.3 Methods for the Detection of Spoofing Attacks 675
DoA-based spoofing detection can fail against a multi-
agent spoofer like the one shown in Figure 25.6. If the mul-
tiple spoofers are aligned properly, then their measured
directions from the victim antenna will yield a good fit to
the non-spoofed problem in Eq. (25.15) and a poor fit to
the spoofed problem in Eq. (25.16).
25.3.7 Network-Based Defenses
Spoofing detection strategies have been proposed that
exploit networks of receivers [52, 70–73]. The common
theme of these methods is that multiple receivers collabo-
rate to detect the presence of the spoofer. Some of these
techniques are similar to network-based methods for
detecting and locating GNSS jammers [74]. The network
method proposed in [52] is the P(Y)-code cross-correlation
approach that has been discussed in Section 25.3.5. This
approach exploits the existence of a receiver network to
look for differences in the vestigial encrypted components
of received signals that could indicate an attack on one
receiver or on a subset of receivers.
Other networked approaches exploit the possibility that
multiple receivers are under attack by the same spoofer.
This class of networked methods includes a strategy which
uses the receiver network to derive DoA information that
can be used to distinguish between spoofed and non-
spoofed signals, as in methods based on antenna arrays
[71]. Other methods look for suspicious similarities
between pseudoranges or estimated positions [70, 73].
The method of [72] looks for telltale overlaps of reported
victim aircraft positions, as reported through ADS-B or sim-
ilar systems. This method also uses time differences of arri-
val of ADS-B signals at a network of ground-based ADS-B
receivers in order to form an independent estimate of an
aircraft’s location. It compares that location with the
reported location based on its GNSS receiver. Thus, this net-
worked-based method uses a form of data fusion to detect
GNSS spoofing.
Most network-based methods will fail if the spoofer has
enough transmission antenna directivity to target only a
single victim receiver. Reference [72] explicitly discounts
this possibility. That could be a rash assumption in certain
situations. On the other hand, the only known “in-the-
wild” spoofing attack is consistent with the multi-victim
assumption [7]. Therefore, networked approaches have
some merit.
25.3.8 Combined Defenses
It should be possible to enhance spoofing detection perfor-
mance by using multiple complementary techniques. INS-
based methods and clock-drift-based methods, if used in
676 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
combination, constrain the spoofer to move the false posi-
tion and clock fixes slowly away from the true values. This
slowness causes transient signal distortions to last longer
and therefore to be easier to detect by the methods of
Section 25.3.3. INS/clock-drift-based methods also prevent
a SCER attack on the NMA defense from quickly moving
the spoofed navigation bits late enough to enable accurate
estimation of the NMA digital signature bits prior to their
initial broadcast.
The foregoing are just two examples of how combined
techniques can yield stronger defenses than either tech-
nique used alone. There are additional combinations of
detection methods that have the potential to enhance detec-
tion. The enumeration of all such combinations is beyond
the scope of this chapter.
25.4 Methods for Recovery
of Authentic PNT Services During
a Spoofing Attack
A desirable component of a spoofing defense is a method to
recover the authentic PNT solution. Spoofing detection is
useful even if an authentic PNT solution is not recoverable.
In that case, the user receiver is lost, but it is better to know
that one is lost than to believe a false position fix. Best of all,
however, would be a recovery that allowed the victim
receiver to resume navigation using authenticated GNSS
signals.
25.4.1 Steps of Recovery
A full defense that includes recovery of PNT services can be
broken into four steps. The first step is detection of the
spoofing attack. The second step is to find the authentic sig-
nals among the spoofed signals. The third step is to verify
the authenticity of these newly found signals. The fourth
step is the re-computation of an authentic navigation solu-
tion from these signals.
Methods for accomplishing the detection step have been
covered in detail in the preceding section. Computation of
an authenticated navigation solution in the final step is also
straightforward. The difficult steps are the second and third
steps. How does one find the authentic signals? How does
one verify their authenticity?
25.4.2 Recovery and Verification of the
Authentic Signals
Recovery of the authentic signals can start with a standard
signal acquisition search over all possible code phases and
carrier Doppler shifts. A search of this type is illustrated in
x 108
Spoofed signal
2
1.5
Authentic signal
1
Λ
0.5
0
1
5000
0.5
0
τ (msec)
–5000 ωD /(2π) (Hz)
0
Figure 25.13 Re-acquisition search for the true signal when
there is also a spoofed signal.
Figure 25.13. It yields two distinct peaks that rise above the
noise floor. One is the authentic peak, and the other is the
spoofed peak. The spoofed peak is higher than the authen-
tic peak due to the spoofer’s use of an amplitude advantage
in order to capture the victim receiver’s tracking loops. It is
straightforward to find the authentic signal in this example.
It is clearly visible in the search space. Furthermore, it will
be the one with a different code phase or a different carrier
Doppler shift than the spoofed signal that the receiver is
already tracking.
Recovery of the authentic signal is much more difficult if
the spoofed signals have too much of a power advantage.
They can act as jammers and raise the effective noise floor
so that the authentic signals cannot be found. Additional
measures must be taken to find the true signals in this case,
if they can be found at all.
One strategy for finding a weak authentic signal is to
lengthen the coherent integration time of the acquisition
search accumulations. If the spoofed signal reproduces
the broadcast navigation data bit stream Di(t), then this
decoded data bit stream from the spoofed signal can be used
to lengthen the coherent integration interval beyond the
data bit period. One of the authors has used this technique
successfully in a data set associated with the spoofing and
detection tests of [26].
There is another possible way to deal with jamming of the
authentic signals if the victim receiver has an antenna
array. The array can be used to steer nulls in the directions
of the strongest spoofed signals. This approach may provide
enough reduction in the effective jamming power to enable
detection of the authentic signals. This technique should
work particularly well if the spoofing signals all come from
a common direction.

It is important that the victim receiver’s ADC have a suf-
ficient number of bits to pass the authentic signals with suf-
ficient resolution after the AGC has adjusted the input
power to avoid saturating the ADC due to the high power
of the spoofed signals. If the effective jammer power is too
much higher than the authentic signal power and if the
ADC has too few bits, then it may become impossible to
recover the authentic signals. Fortunately, a sophisticated
spoofer probably will not use an inordinate power advan-
tage for fear of allowing easy detection based on the power
test of Section 25.3.3.
Once the authentic signals have been found, the victim is
faced with two problems. Presumably the victim will have
found two signals for each satellite, one spoofed and the
other authentic. If there are N such signal pairs, then there
will be 2N possible ways of splitting the pairs into the
spoofed and authentic sets of N signals. The victim receiver
must apply an authentication test to each of these sets in
order to determine which one constitutes the authentic set.
Authentication methods will vary depending on the avail-
able hardware in the victim receiver. If it has an antenna
array with DoA capabilities, then each combination can
be used to compute the DoA-based spoofing detection statis-
tic γ DoA. The combination that gives the lowest value of the
statistic is the best candidate for the authentic set.
The pseudorange residuals test of Section 25.3.2 and
Eq. (25.8) can also be applied to the question of which sig-
nals are authentic. Presumably only two combinations will
produce a very low optimal cost in the solution to the prob-
lem in Eq. (25.8). One combination will be the spoofed set,
and the other combination will be the non-spoofed set. If
the receiver has already determined that several of the sig-
nals in one combination are spoofed signals, then it can use
this information in order to decide between the two sets.
It is possible that there will be just one detected signal for
several of the GNSS satellites. This one signal may be a
spoofed version, or it may be authentic. In this case, the
combinations that must be tried involve including or not
including this signal in a given set rather than including
one of two versions of this signal.
It is likely possible to combine the DoA fit test and the
pseudorange fit test to develop an improved authentication
test. This would be a good topic for further work.
There may be other practical ways to authenticate re-
acquired signals. One might consider the shape of the cor-
relation function. Perhaps the spoofed signals would have
sharper or more rounded shapes than the authentic cor-
relation peaks. Alternatively, the victim receiver could
execute a movement that the spoofer might find hard to
track and emulate in its signals. Only the authentic
signals would correctly respond to such purposeful posi-
tion dithering. This problem of developing additional
25.5 Testing of Defenses 677
authentication strategies is another good topic for further
work.
There could be situations in which it is impossible to
recover and authenticate four or more GNSS signals. The
victim receiver would have to give up at that point and seek
other means of dealing with its loss of GNSS PNT
information.
25.5 Testing of Defenses
Any proposed spoofing defense needs to be tested against a
set of spoofing attacks. The ideal tests would be against a
sophisticated receiver-spoofer that was broadcasting its
false signals over the air, as in [3, 4]. Such tests are difficult
to conduct because of prohibitions against broadcast in pro-
tected navigation RF bands.
An alternative is to connect the spoofer to the RF front-
end of a receiver via a signal combiner that is placed down-
stream of the victim antenna and upstream of the front-end.
This configuration is legal because the spoofer never actu-
ally broadcasts its signals over the air. This is the method
that was used in [50]. This method suffices to test certain
types of defenses, but it is not appropriate for other types
of defenses. In particular, DoA-based techniques and
coupled GNSS/INS techniques cannot be tested in this
manner.
Some high-end GNSS signal simulators provide the capa-
bility of simulating a receiver-spoofer attack against the
simulated authentic signals. Such simulators can be used
to test the same types of defenses that can be tested by con-
necting a receiver-spoofer between the receiver antenna
and the RF front-end.
DoA spoofing detection can be tested if the spoofer and
the victim receiver are both placed in an anechoic chamber.
A signal simulator or a repeater from an outdoor antenna
can be used to generate spoofer signals that are broadcast
over the air within the chamber. The chamber’s shielding
prevents illegal leakage of the signals into the open air. Sin-
gle-direction spoofing DoA geometry can be easily repro-
duced in a chamber, which ensures that the DoA test is
valid. This is the first test technique that was used in [57].
If a receiver-spoofer is unavailable, then one can use
the recorded data in the Texas Spoofing Test Battery
[75, 76]. These data can be replayed through a special
system that produces RF signals which are based on
recordings of both authentic signals and spoofer signals.
The output of the replay system is hooked to the receiver
in place of an antenna. Similar to wire-based combining
of the spoofer signal, this technique cannot be used to
evaluate defenses that employ DoA measurements or
GNSS/INS coupling.
678 25 Civilian GNSS Spoofing, Detection, and Recovery
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69 E. McMilin, Y.-H. Chen, D.S. De Lorenzo, S. Lo, D. Akos,
and P. Enge (2015, Sept.) “Field Test Validation of
Single-Element Antenna with Anti-Jam and Spoof
Detection,” in Proc. ION GNSS+, Tampa, Florida,
pp. 3314–3324.
70 E. Axell, M. Alexandersson, and T. Lindgren (2015, June)
“Results on GNSS Meaconing Detection with Multiple
COTS Receivers,” in International Conf. on Location and
GNSS (ICL-GNSS), Gothenburg, Sweden.
71 Z. Zhang and X. Zhan (2016) “GNSS Spoofing Network
Monitoring Based on Differential Pseudorange,” Sensors,
vol. 16, no. 10.
72 K. Jansen, M. Schafer, D. Moser, V. Lenders, C. Popper, and
J. Schmitt (2018, May) “Crowd-GPS-Sec: Leveraging
Crowdsourcing to Detect and Localize GPS Spoofing
Attacks,” in IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
(SP2018), San Francisco, California, pp. 189–202.
73 F.A. Milaat and H. Liu (2018, June) “Decentralized
Detection of GPS Spoofing in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks,”
IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 1256–1259.
74 L. Strizic, D.M. Akos, and S. Lo (2018, Jan.)
“Crowdsourcing GNSS Jammer Detection and
Localization,” in Proc. ION International Technical
Meeting, Reston, Virginia, pp. 626–641.
75 T.E. Humphreys, J.A. Bhatti, D.P. Shepard, and K.D.
Wesson (2012) “The Texas Spoofing Test Battery: Toward a
Standard for Evaluating GPS Signal Authentication
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3569–3583.
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Test Battery (TEXBAT). Version 1.1. [Online]. Available:
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26
GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
Andrew O’Brien, Chi-Chih Chen, and Inder J. Gupta
The Ohio State University, United States
An antenna is one of the primary components of all
GNSS receiver systems. Its performance and characteris-
tics play critical roles in driving the received signal qual-
ity as well as relating the receiver’s position solution to a
precise point in physical space. A testament to the impor-
tance of antennas in the GNSS community is the sheer
variety of antennas that are available for different naviga-
tion, surveying‚ and timing applications. For receiver
system designers and their users, it is essential to under-
stand how a particular antenna could affect a specific
GNSS receiver application. It is also important to be
familiar with antennas that offer special capabilities. This
applies to both simple, single-element antennas as well as
more advanced antenna arrays, which have found
increasing utility in the state-of-the-art GNSS receiver
systems.
The goal of this chapter is to provide an understanding
of the key features of modern GNSS receiver antennas
and antenna arrays. The first half of the chapter is
devoted to single-element antennas. The first section
begins with a review of important antenna concepts
and terminology. Next, the reader is shown how an
antenna can be modeled as a simple direction-dependent
filter, which provides a convenient and accurate means
of understanding how an antenna will affect a GNSS
receiver’s pseudorange and phase measurements. This
is followed by a survey of different GNSS antenna types
used in modern practice, and the motivations behind
their use in different applications will be discussed.
The second half of this chapter is devoted to multi-
element antenna arrays. A review of important antenna
array design parameters is provided along with a discus-
sion of how antenna arrays are used in GNSS receiver
systems. The final sections address a variety of array sig-
nal processing techniques used to provide enhanced cap-
abilities to GNSS receivers.
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
c26.3d 681
681
26.1 Overview of Antenna Concepts
and Terminology
Figure 26.1 shows a high-level diagram of how an antenna
fits in with other important components of a GNSS receiver
system. At the most fundamental level, an antenna is the
part of the system designed to radiate or to receive electro-
magnetic waves. In many applications, the low-noise
amplifier (LNA) and passband filtering is moved into the
antenna itself and becomes part of the physical antenna
assembly. These antennas are called active antennas. This
allows the antenna to be connected to the receiver using
long cables that would otherwise create attenuation and
degrade performance. Passive antennas do not have these
active components, or these components are a part of the
receiver front-end, and the cable length to the receiver is
kept very small. It should also be noted that the passive
antennas encountered in common practice are reciprocal
antennas. That is, their behavior is identical whether they
are transmitting or receiving. Although GNSS antennas are
only used to receive signals, one commonly encounters
antenna specifications that discuss GNSS antenna radia-
tion. This wording is true even for active GNSS antennas,
where the components in an active GNSS antenna would
prevent it from actually being used for transmission.
The most important parameter for quantifying the per-
formance of an antenna is its gain, G(θ, ϕ), which is the
ratio of the signal intensity (received at the antenna termi-
nal) in a given direction (θ, ϕ) to the signal intensity that
would be received if the antenna were isotropic. An iso-
tropic antenna is a hypothetical, ideal antenna that receives
or radiates its power uniformly in all directions at all polar-
izations. An isotropic antenna is often used as a reference
antenna from which to define the antenna gain, among
other things. Since incident GNSS satellite signals are weak,
it is important for a GNSS antenna to have enough antenna
15/12/2020 5:48:22 PM
 682 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing

Active Antenna Passive Antenna

Filters & GNSS GNSS

Front End Receiver Front End Receiver
LNA Cable
Cable (RF)
(RF & Power)

Figure 26.1 Block diagram of receiver system components showing a typical (left) active antenna system and (right) passive
antenna system.

θ 0
–30 5.00 30

0.00
–5.00
–60 60
–10.00
–15.00
–20.00

–90 90

–120 120
Antenna Gain (dB)

0 20 40 (mm)
–150 150

–180

Figure 26.2 Example simulated gain pattern (right-hand circular polarization) of a simple GPS L1 patch antenna.

gain in order to ensure a sufficiently high signal-to-noise
ratio (SNR) prior to demodulation and decoding.
An antenna pattern may refer to the angular distribution
of any quantity that characterizes the antenna; however,
when used in performance specifications, the term typically
refers to the antenna’s gain pattern. When no direction is
specified, the gain of an antenna is understood to refer to
the maximum of the gain pattern. Figure 26.2 shows the
simulated gain pattern of a simple GPS patch antenna.
The antenna pattern typically has a preferred direction,
and the lobe surrounding the maximum radiated field
region is called the main lobe‚ while the other features
are called sidelobes. For a good antenna, the sidelobe level
is much lower than the main lobe level. The angular extent
of the main lobe defines the antenna beamwidth. Conven-
tionally, beamwidth refers to the half-power beamwidth,
which is the angular size of the region over which the
received signal gain drops by a factor of two relative to
the peak gain. In some cases, beamwidth might be rede-
fined to mean the region over with a specified minimum
gain level is achieved. The desired beamwidth of an
antenna depends on the application. Typically, GNSS recei-
vers are meant to receive signals arriving from satellites dis-
tributed over the entire sky, and GNSS antennas should
have very wide beamwidths. In other cases, such as hand-
held GNSS receivers, the antenna orientation is arbitrary,
and antennas are designed to be omnidirectional, making
the concept of a beamwidth less relevant.
The antenna terminal is the part of the antenna used to
connect it to a receiver. Most commonly, for antennas that
are not integrated with a receiver, this terminal would be a
TNC, BNC, F-type‚ or SMA port that a cable connects to.
One must keep in mind that this connection is a transmis-
sion line, and the antenna presents a particular input

c26.3d 682 15/12/2020 5:48:22 PM

 26.1 Overview of Antenna Concepts and Terminology 683

0.00

Antenna S11 (dB)

–5.00

m1
m2
–10.00

–15.00

Name X Y
–20.00
m1 1.5605 –9.5055
m2 1.5895 –10.0307
m3 1.5760 –24.4400
m3
–25.00
1.50 1.52 1.55 1.58 1.60 1.63 1.65
Freq [GHz]

Figure 26.3 Example simulated S11 versus frequency in the zenith direction for a simple GPS L1 patch antenna.

impedance that must be matched to the cable and the rest of
the receiver system. If the antenna input impedance is
poorly matched to the cable and receiver system, then there
will be a loss of received power. The realized gain of an
antenna, GR, accounts for the mismatch between the
antenna and the rest of the receiver:
GR θ, ϕ = M G θ, ϕ 26 1
Here, M is the impedance mismatch factor. If we consider
an antenna that is transmitting, the impedance mismatch
factor is defined as the ratio of the power accepted by an
antenna to the power incident at the antenna’s terminal.
For a receiving antenna, the realized gain relates the inci-
dent power to the power of the signal actually delivered to
the rest of the receiver system. Therefore, it is the gain value
that should be used when calculating a GNSS signal’s
received power. The impedance mismatch is commonly
represented in terms of an input reflection coefficient, Γ:
An example simulated S11 measurement for a simple GPS
antenna is shown in Figure 26.3. This is a measurement
of the amount of signal power that is returned from the
antenna terminal when a signal has been input into it.
Since we expect the antenna to radiate this input power
away, S11 should be very low. This measurement cannot
quantify the power actually radiated by the antenna, since
the power could have been lost to other factors in the
antenna. Nonetheless, it is a useful metric for checking
antenna behavior. For a well-designed antenna, S11 should
be quite small (less than −15 dB) and should typically not
exceed −10 dB. Here, we have assumed the antenna is pas-
sive and reciprocal; an S11 measurement such as this cannot
be meaningfully performed with an active antenna.
It is also common to further decompose the antenna’s
absolute gain into a product of two components: the
antenna radiation efficiency η and the antenna directivity
pattern D(θ, ϕ):

M = 1− Γ 2 26 2 G θ, ϕ = ηD θ, ϕ , 26 4

It is also common to see the impedance matching proper-
ties of an antenna specified in terms of the voltage standing
wave ratio (VSWR):
1+ Γ
VSWR = 26 3
1− Γ
The reflection coefficient is also directly related to the
return loss of the antenna. In terminology used for micro-
wave component characterization, the return loss is often
determined by an S11 measurement, which characterizes
the signal returned from port 1 for a signal input to port 1.
For a passive reciprocal antenna, the reception efficiency
is equivalent to the radiation efficiency. The antenna radi-
ation efficiency is defined as the ratio of the total power
radiated by an antenna to the net power accepted by the
antenna from its terminal. No antenna perfectly radiates
all the energy it accepts from the feed cable. Power is lost
due to conversion of electromagnetic energy into thermal
energy and is often attributed to electrical conduction loss
in conductors and resistors. Loss may also be attributed to
material (i.e. dielectric or ferromagnetic) absorption. The
directivity pattern is the ratio of the radiation intensity in

c26.3d 683 15/12/2020 5:48:23 PM

 684 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
a given direction from the antenna to the radiation inten-
sity integrated over all directions. When no direction is spe-
cified, it is implied that the directivity of the antenna is the
maximum value of the directivity pattern.
Though we have not explicitly denoted it, all of the
antenna parameters defined above (gain, beamwidth, S11,
etc., …) are frequency dependent. The antenna bandwidth
is the frequency range over which the antenna offers suffi-
cient performance for a particular application. An antenna
might be designed to operate over a single band or multiple,
separate frequency bands; as such, bandwidth would be
specified separately for each band. For commercial GNSS
receivers that receive a single GNSS signal, the bandwidth
could be as small as 2 MHz, whereas, for GNSS receivers
using all available satellite constellations, the bandwidth
could be as large as 500 MHz. For well-designed antennas,
the gain will be relatively flat over the frequency range of
interest. Often, flatness characteristics will be specified to
ensure that signal distortion will be minimized. Although
antennas are designed for particular frequencies, this does
not mean they necessarily offer sufficient rejection of sig-
nals at other frequencies. Antennas exhibit out-of-band
rejection that does not meet the level necessary for protec-
tion of GNSS receiver applications. Hence, antennas are
almost always combined with additional passband filters.
The passband filter can be integrated into the antenna,
inserted as a discrete connectorized component between
the antenna and receiver, or be part of the receiver front-
end electronics.
For active antennas, power is typically provided by the
receiver as direct current (DC) over the same RF cable over
which GNSS signals are received. One should ensure com-
patibility between the power requirements of the antenna
and the power supply specifications of the receiver. If one
uses an active antenna with a receiver that does not provide
power for it, the antenna will not function correctly and no
signal will reach the GNSS receiver. In this case, one can
use a bias-T to provide external power to the antenna. If
one uses a passive antenna with a receiver that provides
DC power, one must be careful to ensure the passive
antenna does not short DC. In this case, a capacitor can
be used to block DC and allow the system to operate.
The gain of an active antenna is commonly specified as
the sum of both the passive antenna component and the
gain of the integrated LNA. For an active antenna, the gain
must be understood in relation to the amount of thermal
noise introduced by the LNA. In this case, the gain-to-
temperature ratio (G/T) is normally used as the
performance measure. The total gain of an active antenna
is given by
G θ, ϕ = Ga θ, ϕ + G f + Gb + Gl ,
c26.3d 684
where all quantities are in dB. Ga is the gain of the antenna,
Gf is the gain of the feed line, Gb is the gain of bias-T, and Gl
is the gain of the LNA. Note that Gf and Gb are negative
quantities. The total temperature of an active antenna is
given by
F f −1 Fb − 1 Fl − 1
T = Ta + + + To,
Gf G f Gb G f Gb Gl
26 6
where Ta is the antenna temperature. Ff, Fb, and Fl are the
noise figures for the filter, bias-T, and LNA, respectively. In
the above equation, To is the ambient temperature (290 K
in most applications). Higher G/T corresponds to better
active antenna performance.
In this section, we provided only a brief overview of the
most important antenna terminology. Definitions followed
from IEEE Standard Definitions of Terms for Antennas
(145-1983). The reader is referred to other sources [1] and
[2] for more detailed information. We note that antenna
polarization has not been explicitly mentioned in the above
discussion. Since GNSS satellite signals are right-hand cir-
cularly polarized (RHCP), it is typically implied that the
antenna parameters are quantified for RHCP polarization
unless otherwise specified. Polarization and its important
effects are discussed later in this chapter.
26.2 Effects of Antennas on GNSS
Signals
One can imagine a hypothetical, ideal GNSS antenna that
occupies a single infinitesimal point in space. In this case,
all of the delay and phase measurements made by a GNSS
receiver using this ideal antenna would be geometrically
related to this point in a perfect manner. In fact, most math-
ematical models of GNSS measurements treat antennas as a
perfect point. Unfortunately, real antennas do not behave as
an infinitesimal point in space; rather, real antennas alter the
received GNSS signals in significant ways. In this section, we
will discuss how to model these effects on GNSS signals.
26.2.1 Modeling an Antenna as a Filter
To begin, we define a coordinate system for the antenna
called the antenna reference frame (ARF). The origin of
the ARF is a point commonly referred to as the antenna ref-
erence point (ARP). The ARF and ARP are not intrinsic
electromagnetic properties of the antenna but instead are
arbitrary and often chosen to be an easily identifiable loca-
tion or marking on the exterior of the antenna. As we will
see, the reference point plays an important role in connect-
26 5
ing GNSS receiver measurements to the physical world.
15/12/2020 5:48:24 PM

The behavior of a linear device or system is often charac-
terized by its frequency response, H(f), which is the ratio of
the magnitude and phase of the output signal relative to
that of the input. In the frequency domain, the relation
between an input signal X(f) and output signal Y(f) is simply
Y f =H f X f
An antenna also acts as a linear system with respect to
electromagnetic fields and can be characterized by a com-
plex-valued antenna response, Ap(θ, ϕ, f).
Y f = Ap θ, ϕ, f X f
For an antenna, the input to the system is an incident
electromagnetic plane wave that is characterized by an inci-
dent signal direction (θ, ϕ) and frequency f. A given
antenna response only applies to waves incident with a cer-
tain type of polarization, which we will label p. A plane
wave occupies all of space with a phase that varies based
on location, so we will define the input to our system X
(f) as the magnitude and phase of the electric field at the
ARP location. The output Y(f) is the corresponding voltage
produced on the antenna terminal when the antenna is in
the presence of this incident field. In this way, the antenna
response is defined as the magnitude and phase of the
antenna output signal relative to the signal that would have
been received by an isotropic antenna located at the refer-
ence point. Note that the realized gain GR of a GNSS
antenna corresponds to the magnitude squared of the
RHCP component of the antenna response, AR,
θ Antenna
Reference 4.5
Frame
Magnitude (dB)
3.5
3
Reference Point 1560
20
Phase (deg)
10
0
ϕ
–10
1560
X (f) Y (f)
Ap(θ, ϕ, f )
Figure 26.4 (Left) Example antenna reference frame and (right) a simulated antenna response versus frequency in the zenith direction for
a simple GPS L1 patch antenna.
c26.3d 685
26.2 Effects of Antennas on GNSS Signals 685
2
GR θ, ϕ, f = AR θ, ϕ, f 26 9
A GNSS signal is modulated onto the magnitude and
phase of each plane wave, so an antenna can be modeled
as a direction-dependent linear time-invariant (LTI) filter
acting on the GNSS signal. That is, if x(t) is the GNSS signal
26 7 after it has reached the geometric point in space located at
the ARP, then the output signal y(t) after going through the
antenna is completely characterized by
yt = AR θ, ϕ, f X f e j2πft df 26 10
26 8
This is a simple and accurate way to conceptualize what
an antenna is doing to a GNSS signal, and such response
functions are routinely provided by an antenna measure-
ment or a computational antenna simulation software. It
is important to understand the a particular response is rel-
ative to the ARP and corresponding coordinate system,
although the reference can be shifted to a new location
by applying a transform to the antenna response.
Figure 26.4 shows an example antenna response for a sim-
ple GPS patch antenna. The magnitude and phase of the
antenna response is shown over the GPS L1 band for a sig-
nal incident from the zenith. Note that the antenna
response varies with frequency. Later in this chapter, we
will discuss how these variations create direction-
dependent errors in the GNSS receiver measurements.
The RF front-end for a GNSS receiver system contains
components – located in the receiver and within active
1565 1570 1575 1580 1585 1590
Freq (MHz)
1565 1570 1575 1580 1585 1590
Freq (MHz)
15/12/2020 5:48:24 PM
 686 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
antennas – including a number of devices such as ampli-
fiers, filters, mixers, limiters, and diodes. Although these
components could act nonlinearly, a well-designed front-
end maintains a high degree of linearity over the range of
signal inputs for the application for which it has been
designed. As a result, it is common practice to also model
the front-end effects as an LTI filter.
In some cases, it might be difficult to delineate what is the
antenna. Many GNSS antennas are integrated into other
equipment or mounted on complex structures that could
encompass entire platforms (i.e. vehicles, ships‚ and air-
craft). Many antennas, such as patch antennas, are
designed to be placed on large flat metal structures referred
to as ground planes. The size and shape of the ground plane
(or the platform serving as one) has effects on the antenna
performance that cannot be separated from the antenna
itself. The antenna will couple to nearby structures and
received fields will scatter, creating platform multipath.
For improved accuracy, the effects of the platform should
be incorporated into any analysis involving characteriza-
tion of antenna performance [3]. To model the effects on
GNSS signals, the entire platform can be incorporated into
the antenna response given in Eq. 26.8. When this is the
case, it is referred to as an in situ antenna response, as
the antenna has been characterized in the environment
for which it is intended to be used. This method can even
be extended to environments where the platform varies
in time, such as helicopters and other rotorcraft, through
the use of linear time-varying (LTV) filters [4].
26.2.2 Effects on GNSS Receiver Measurements
As discussed in the previous section, antennas behave as
spatial-temporal filters for GNSS signals. Instead of acting
as a perfect point in space, real antennas introduce addi-
tional direction-dependent delay and phase shifts into
received GNSS signals. This introduces bias errors into car-
rier-phase and pseudorange measurements made by GNSS
receivers and are known as antenna-induced biases. It is
only by understanding the effects of these biases that one
can understand to which point in space and time a partic-
ular GNSS receiver solution actually corresponds.
The antenna-induced carrier phase and code delay bias
are defined as direction-dependent functions, which we
will denote as ϕa(θ, ϕ) and τa(θ, ϕ), respectively. These
are the additional phase and delay caused by the antenna
for a signal received from a given direction. These biases
are different for each GNSS signal type and each GNSS sig-
nal frequency band. That is, strictly speaking, they could
also be different for signals on the same frequency band
with different spectra (i.e. GPS L1 C/A-, P/Y-, and M-coded
signals may have different antenna-induced biases);
c26.3d 686
however, for many simple antennas, these differences
could be negligible. The biases are always defined as rela-
tive to the ARP. That is, if we choose a different ARP, the
biases would be different. If one were to correct for these
biases by subtracting them from the raw phase and pseu-
dorange measurements, the receiver position and time
solution would correspond perfectly to the ARP in physical
space. If not corrected, the error introduced into the posi-
tion and time solution is more complicated. How these
biases affect the receiver position and time solution will
depend on how the receiver forms a solution using the indi-
vidual raw measurements – it is not a property of the
antenna alone. Therefore, the focus of this section is on
how the biases effect raw phase and delay measurements.
Conventionally, it has been useful to utilize the concept
of an antenna phase center (APC) when one talks about
relating a position solution to a particular point in space
[5, 6]. Unlike the ARP, which can be chosen arbitrarily,
the APC is an inherent property of the antenna. The stand-
ard definition of the APC is the point in space that lies at the
center of a sphere (whose radius extends into the far field)
such that the phase of the antenna’s radiation pattern is
effectively constant. The APC is found by only considering
the phase over angular regions where the gain is significant,
which, for typical GNSS antennas, means the upper hemi-
sphere. The APC represents the best-fit approximation of
the antenna carrier-phase biases to a point in space (a point
which need not actually be located on the physical antenna
itself ). If this approximation is very good for all incident
signal angles, the antenna is said to have a stable phase cen-
ter and the antenna can be treated as if it were a point in
space when using the carrier-phase measurements, such
as for carrier-phase differential positioning. In some cases,
the APC is very closely aligned with the centerline of the
antenna, and only a vertical phase center offset need be spe-
cified. In other cases, the APC approximation needs to be
extended to account for offsets that depend on other factors.
There are extensions to the APC concept that allow satellite
elevation-angle dependence or general direction depend-
ence. While mostly used for carrier phase, the same concept
has also been used to characterize delays. In any case, one
should keep in mind that the concept of an APC is an
approximation. That is, it is the best fit of the direction-
dependent phase behavior of an antenna that only applies
to certain types of antenna, whereas direct usage of direc-
tion-dependent antenna-induced biases provides a general
and complete characterization.
If a measured or simulated antenna response Ap(f, θ, ϕ) is
available, one can easily calculate the antenna-induced
biases in the carrier-phase and pseudorange measure-
ments. Let α represent the phase of the RHCP component
of the antenna response in radians:
15/12/2020 5:48:24 PM

α θ, ϕ, f = AR θ, ϕ, f 26 11
For a GNSS signal with center frequency fc, the carrier-
phase bias ϕa of the antenna on that signal is often approxi-
mated as the phase of the response the center frequency,
and the code delay bias τa is often approximated as the
group delay at the center frequency:
ϕa θ, ϕ = α θ, ϕ, f c 26 12
1 dα θ, ϕ, f c
τa θ, ϕ = , 26 13
2π df
which are given here in units of radians and seconds,
respectively. However, if the antenna response varies
appreciably with frequency, these equations are approxi-
mations. For more accuracy, one must account for the
antenna response over its entire frequency range and power
spectral density S(f) of the GNSS signal. In this case, the
antenna-induced biases are given by
ϕa θ, ϕ = S f AR θ, ϕ, f e − j2πf τa df , 26 14
τa θ, ϕ = arg max τ S f AR θ, ϕ, f e − j2πfτ df
26 15
While these equations are very accurate in cases where
the antenna response is well behaved, they are also an
approximation. The tracking loops in GNSS receivers use
discriminators to estimate the phase and delay of the signal.
A typical delay-lock-loop (DLL) discriminator function is
based on assumptions regarding the shape and symmetry
of the received GNSS signal’s cross-correlation function
[7]. Since the antenna acts as a filter that can introduce gen-
eral distortion into the signal, the shape of the cross-
correlation function could affect the delay estimate. The
expected value for the cross-correlation function between
the signal received by the antenna and the one received
by an ideal isotropic antenna located at the reference point
is given by
Rτ = S f AR θ, ϕ, f e − j2πf τ df , 26 16
and a more accurate calculation of the antenna-induced
biases can account for receiver tracking-loop implementa-
tions acting on this cross-correlation function. For example,
in a GNSS receiver with an early-minus-late discriminator,
the antenna-induced code delay bias will satisfy
R τa − τ s = R τ a + τs , 26 17
where τs is the spacing between the early, prompt, and late
correlator taps.
While our discussion has focused on usage of the antenna
response to calculate antenna-induced biases, in practice
c26.3d 687
26.2 Effects of Antennas on GNSS Signals 687
one can also use differential GNSS receiver measurements
to measure antenna-induced biases and to calibrate GNSS
antennas. Extensive work describing these approaches is
provided in the following references [8–11]. Finally, it
should also be noted that significant variations can exist
between antennas of the same model due to mechanical tol-
erances during fabrication, temperature‚ and aging.
26.2.3 Effects due to Antenna Polarization
If one were to look toward a GNSS satellite and observe the
electric field vector at a particular point in space as an inci-
dent GNSS signal passed through it, one would observe the
electric field vector rotating in a counter-clockwise direc-
tion in a plane perpendicular to the direction of propaga-
tion. Much like the fingers of your right-hand curl
counter-clockwise when your thumb points toward you,
we say that the signal transmitted from a GNSS satellite
is RHCP. Antennas, like GNSS signals, are also polarized,
and this polarization affects both the antenna design as well
as GNSS receiver phase measurements in ways that are
important to understand.
Most GNSS antennas have been designed to receive
RHCP signals. Left-hand circular polarized (LHCP) electric
fields are orthogonal to RHCP ones, and if the antenna
were perfectly designed, then it would not receive any sig-
nals that were LHCP. However, real antennas are never
perfect‚ and they do receive some LHCP waves. The polar-
ization purity of an antenna in different directions is often
quantified by plotting gain pattern of co-polarized and
cross-polarized components levels together. For example,
Figure 26.5(a) shows the gain of the RHCP and LHCP com-
ponents of a simple GPS patch antenna on a small ground
plane at the L1 center frequency. The figure also includes
plots of gain for the horizontal (H) and vertical (V) polari-
zations. For this figure, the angle of ascension θ varies from
behind the ground plane (θ = ± 180 ) to boresight (θ = 0 ),
which emphasizes the effects of polarization at low eleva-
tion angles. Alternatively, the axial ratio is a commonly
used metric to describe the polarization purity of an
antenna. The axial ratio of an antenna is the ratio of the
major to minor axes of a polarization ellipse, which in
our case corresponds to the antenna response AR(θ, ϕ, f)
for the RHCP component and the antenna response
AL(θ, ϕ, f) for the LHCP component
AR θ, ϕ, f AL θ, ϕ, f +1
AR θ, ϕ, f =
AR θ, ϕ, f AL θ, ϕ, f −1
26 18
and is often specified in dB. Note that for a perfect RHCP
antenna, the axial ratio is close to unity. For linearly polar-
ized antenna, the axial ratio is ∞.
15/12/2020 5:48:24 PM
 688 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing

(a) (b)
10 20
RHCP
5
LHCP 18
H
V 16
0
14

Axial Ratio (dB)

–5
12
Gain (dB)

–10 10

–15 8

6
–20
4
–25
2
–30 0
–150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150 –150 –100 –50 0 50 100 150
θ (deg) θ (deg)

Figure 26.5 (Left) Example simulated gain pattern plots for four different polarizations and (right) the corresponding axial ratio of a
simple GPS L1 patch antenna on a small ground plane.

The response of an antenna is completely characterized
given the complex antenna response for two polarizations.
Using this information, the response of the antenna to inci-
dent signals with any polarization can be calculated. Typi-
cally, these two polarizations are provided as a pair of
RHCP and LHCP or a pair of horizontal and vertical polar-
izations. One can use a transformation such as
1
AR θ, ϕ, f = AH θ, ϕ, f − jAV θ, ϕ, f
2 26.2.3.1
26 19
1 ized GNSS antennas is known as phase wind-up. When a
AL θ, ϕ, f = AH θ, ϕ, f + jAV θ, ϕ, f
2
26 20
to convert horizontal (H) and vertical (V) polarization
antenna responses into RHCP and LHCP components,
and vice versa.
It is important to keep in mind that when an incident
electromagnetic wave reflects and scatters off of surfaces,
its polarization can change. When an RHCP incident wave
reflects off a large flat surface, its polarization changes to be
LHCP. In this way, antennas that are designed to only
receive RHCP signals can provide some degree of multipath
suppression. When RHCP waves scatter off more compli-
cated structures with edges and corners, the signal will have
arbitrary polarization. Unfortunately, most circular polar-
ized antennas tend to become linearly polarized near the
horizon (as in Figure 26.5), which is exactly where the mul-
tipath is expected to originate for many GNSS applications.
Consequently, geodetic GNSS antennas are specifically
designed to improve the rejection of LHCP signals near
the horizon. Alternatively, some GNSS antennas have actu-
ally been developed that are LHCP, as this offers the best
reception of reflected GNSS signals for applications such
as reflectometry for GNSS remote sensing. For some hand-
held or vehicle-mounted GNSS receivers that are used in
environments with high multipath and limited line-of-sight
to GNSS satellites, linearly polarized antennas are used.
Phase Wind-Up due to Polarization
An often-observed phenomenon related to circular polar-
GNSS antenna is rotated, a predictable change in the recei-
ver’s carrier phase of measurements occurs, even if the posi-
tion of the antenna remains constant. We distinguish two
components of this phase wind-up phenomenon: the com-
ponent caused by the antenna and the component caused
by the polarization properties of the signal.
The carrier-phase bias introduced by most GNSS anten-
nas exhibits a predictable variation versus the azimuth
angle that we refer to as antenna phase wind-up.
Figure 26.6(a) shows the carrier-phase bias of a simple
GPS L1 RHCP polarized patch antenna. If one were to
rotate the antenna azimuthally 360 in a counter-clockwise
direction, one would observe the carrier-phase “wind-up”
360 . This behavior is due to the fact that the time-
harmonic currents introduced on an antenna by an inci-
dent GNSS signal tend to be rotationally symmetric. In this
way, physical rotation of the antenna produces a current
distribution that is similar to advancing the phase in time.
As a result, the phase wind-up behavior extends down to
the horizon of circular polarized antennas, and even its

c26.3d 688 15/12/2020 5:48:25 PM

 26.2 Effects of Antennas on GNSS Signals 689

antenna pattern becomes linear polarized at those angles.
Figure 26.6(b) shows the effect of subtracting the azimuth
angle from the phase. Unwinding of the phase in this man-
ner reveals more subtle carrier-phase effects of this partic-
ular antenna. Carrier-phase wind-up needs to be accounted
for in a number of GNSS applications in which phase infor-
mation is used on a moving receiver. Note that it is a prop-
erty of the antenna and cannot be universally applied to all
GNSS antennas. One important thing to note is that if a sig-
nal passes through the zenith, Figure 26.6 indicates that its
phase will jump by 180 , but this is not what actually hap-
pens. One must also account for phase wind-up due to the
orientation of the polarized signal‚ as described next.
A second important phenomenon is known as polariza-
tion phase wind-up. Unlike azimuthal phase wind-up,
which is a property of the antenna, polarization phase
wind-up is due the inherent polarization orientation of
the incident signal [12]. To convey the effect, it is easiest
to consider the case of a rotating antenna. Let us assume
there is an incident signal from direction (θ, ϕ), and define
a pair of basis vectors in a spherical coordinate system,
cos θ cos ϕ − sin ϕ
θ θ, ϕ = cos θ sin ϕ , ϕ θ, ϕ = cos θ ,
− sin θ 0
26 21
as depicted in Figure 26.7. Next, let us assume that the
antenna undergoes a rotation around its reference point.
Let the antenna rotation be specified by the rotation oper-
ator R( ), which rotates vectors from the original coordinate
system into the new prime coordinate system, where the
new incident signal direction from the perspective of the
antenna is (θ , ϕ ). We have two basis vectors θ θ , ϕ
and ϕ θ , ϕ , but we also bring along the old basis
vectors by rotating them as well, θ θ, ϕ = R θ θ, ϕ

(a) (b)

θ (deg)
(deg)
10
150 0
–10
100
–20
50
–30

0 –40
ϕ ϕ –50
θ –50
–60
–100 –70
–80
–150
–90

Figure 26.6 Example simulated carrier phase over the upper hemisphere for a simple GPS patch antenna at the L1 center frequency
(left) before and (right) after removal of azimuthal phase wind-up.

(a) (b)
z ‸ ‸
‸ ϕ′ θ′
‸ ϕ
ϕ′

‸
R ‸ ‸
θ′ θ ϕ (θ′, ϕ′)
ψ
y

‸
θ (θ′, ϕ′)
x
Figure 26.7 Diagram of the coordinate system basis vectors of a polarized electromagnetic field before and after rotation of the antenna.

c26.3d 689 15/12/2020 5:48:25 PM

 690 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
and ϕ θ, ϕ = R ϕ θ, ϕ . These two sets of vectors will be
rotated with respect to one another. We can define the
amount of rotation by an angle ψ,
θ θ, ϕ ϕ θ ,ϕ
ψ = tan − 1 26 22
θ θ, ϕ θ θ ,ϕ
which is simply the amount of rotation that occurs along
the axis corresponding to the signal direction.
In doing so, we will find that the antenna responses for
linear polarizations transform in the following ways:
AV θ , ϕ = cos ψ AV θ , ϕ + sin ψ AH θ , ϕ
26 23
AH θ , ϕ = sin ψ AV θ , ϕ + cos ψ AH θ , ϕ
26 24
For certain rotations of the antenna, vertical polarization
becomes horizontal and vice versa – as expected. On the
other hand, circular polarizations undergo a phase shift
proportional to the rotation angle:
AR θ , ϕ = AR θ , ϕ ejψ 26 25
− jψ
AL θ , ϕ = AL θ , ϕ e 26 26
What this is telling us is that the effect of an antenna on
an incident signal cannot be characterized by only its direc-
tion (θ, ϕ); instead, there is an additional angle ψ that is
related to the orientation of the incident field (or equiva-
lently, the transmitter).
Although we have rotated the antenna in this example,
the results are the same if the antenna remains fixed and
we allow the incident signal direction to change as GNSS
satellites move. Fundamentally, the incident field has an
orientation that must be accounted for. As indicated in
Eq. 26.25, this phase change is not captured in antenna pat-
tern data implicitly, but instead must be captured in the
geometric model between the receiver and transmitter.
The reader is referred to [13] for more detailed information.
In many differential carrier-phase applications with fixed
antennas, the act of differencing carrier-phase measure-
ments cancels out these effects, which are often neglected
in mathematical measurement models.
26.3 Example GNSS Antennas
This section provides an overview of some of the more pop-
ular GNSS antenna types. Due to space limitations, it is not
possible to cover the wide variety of available GNSS anten-
nas. For a more thorough discussion, the reader is referred
to [13, 14].
c26.3d 690
26.3.1 Single-Band GNSS Antennas
The majority of low-cost commercial GNSS receivers oper-
ate over a single frequency band. The antennas used with
these receivers are small and are narrow bandwidth
(2 MHz to 50 MHz). As such, these antenna are the simplest
to design and the least expensive. Microstrip patch anten-
nas (MPA) and its variants are the most ubiquitous of all
single-band GNSS antennas. The other popular antenna
for low-cost receivers is the quadrifilar helix antenna
(QHA). The operation and design of these two antenna
types are reviewed below.
26.3.1.1 Microstrip Patch Antenna
The basic MPA consists of a metallic conductor that is typ-
ically square or circular in shape and is etched on the top
surface of a dielectric substrate. In general, the dielectric
substrate is a little larger than the metallic conductor.
The opposite side (bottom) of the dielectric substrate has
copper cladding. Often the antenna is placed over a ground
plane that is much larger than the antenna. In that case, the
bottom surface becomes part of the ground plane. The
antenna is often excited with a coaxial cable where the
inner conductor is connected to the top patch and the outer
conductor is connected to the ground plane. Alternative
feeding techniques are also possible, such as aperture-
coupled feeds and proximity probes. There could also be
multiple points of excitation. Figure 26.8 shows a typical
MPA for the GPS L1 band.
The metallic patch and the ground plane form a highly
resonant radio-frequency cavity. The energy stored inside
the cavity radiates out from the edges of the metallic patch.
The resonant frequency of the cavity depends on the shape
and size of the metallic patch and the permittivity of the
dielectric substrate. In general, increasing the size of the
patch lowers the resonant frequency. Increasing the per-
mittivity also lowers the resonant frequency. Thus, by using
a substrate with high permittivity, one can reduce the size
of an MPA. The thickness of the substrate is strongly related
to the bandwidth of the antenna, with larger bandwidths
corresponding to thicker substrates. However, increasing
the thickness beyond a certain value leads to higher-order
modes in the antenna, which is usually undesired. For sub-
strates with high permittivity, this puts a limit on the sub-
strate thickness, and it becomes increasingly difficult to
design small MPAs with a large bandwidth [15]. The band-
width of a patch is about 2%. With advanced designs, this
can be increased to 10%. These MPAs use low-permittivity
substrates, and thus are large in size (cross section and
height). Since MPAs are resonant antennas, their band-
width is dictated by the return loss (i.e. how well the
antenna is matched to the receiver input impedance). An
15/12/2020 5:48:26 PM

m
m
30
24 mm
6 mm
Dielectric Constant = 16
Figure 26.8 Example GPS microstrip patch antenna with a single probe feed (Chen et al. [14]). Source: Reproduced with permission of
John Wiley & Sons.
MPA, when operating in its fundamental mode, has the
greatest gain along boresight direction (perpendicular to
the patch), and the gain drops toward the horizon. The
boresight gain drops with an increase in the thickness of
the dielectric substrate. Low-permittivity substrates are
used in better-performing GNSS antennas, but high-
permittivity substrates lead to reduced size. For multi-
element GNSS antenna arrays, patches with high-
permittivity substrates are used to make individual ele-
ments more compact.
To obtain RHCP polarization in MPAs, two feed probes
are often used that are located orthogonally at specified dis-
tances from the edges of the patch. The probes are con-
nected to a quadrature hybrid, such as a branch-line
coupler, in order to obtain an equal-magnitude but 90
phase difference, which leads to RHCP radiation. Some-
times a single asymmetrical (see Figure 26.9) probe feed
is placed on a square patch in order to obtain RHCP polar-
ization. In this case, the patch is slightly modified near the
corners in order to help generate RHCP polarization.
Figure 26.9 shows an example of a very common com-
mercial L1-band GPS antenna design. This design is based
on the popular dielectric-loaded patch whose circular
polarization is achieved by using two quadrature-phased
orthogonal resonant modes that could be excited by
employing a corner-cut, offset feed with a rectangular-
shaped patch [16, 17]. Figure 26.9(b) shows the gain pat-
terns in two orthogonal elevation planes for both RHCP
(solid line) and LHCP (dashed line) components, which
exhibits excellent gain level and coverage down to 10 ele-
vation angle. The LHCP gain remains low compared to the
RHCP gain over the entire sky. Figure 26.9(c) shows the
impedance bandwidth based on the −10 dB reflection coef-
ficient criterion to be approximately 29 MHz. Figure 26.9(d)
shows the polarization bandwidth based on the RHCP/
LHCP > 10 dB criterion, and it is approximately 15 MHz.
c26.3d 691
26.3 Example GNSS Antennas 691
30 mm
24 mm
2.8 mm
26.3.1.2 Quadrifilar Helix Antenna
A QHA, also known as a “volute,” is especially suitable for
use in handheld receivers and mobile terminals [18]. It con-
sists of four helical resonant elements wrapped around a
cylinder. The four elements (arms) are driven in phase
quadrature to produce a broad RHCP beam. A QHA can
be fed from the top or at the bottom with the other end
either shortened or left open. When it is fed from the top,
the bottom end is normally shortened to provide radiation
from the top; whereas, when it is fed from the bottom, the
top end is left open to provide forward radiation. Its size can
also be controlled by using a dielectric material cylinder.
Moreover, one can use printed circuit technology to reduce
the cost. Two types of QHAs are used with GNSS receivers:
self-phasing QHAs and externally phased QHAs.
Self-phasing QHAs use a balun (balance to unbalance)
approach to feed the four elements. The two adjacent arms
are connected to the center conductor of the coaxial cable,
whereas the other two adjacent arms are connected to the
outer conductor of the coaxial cable. Thus, these two sets of
arms have a 180 phase difference. The lengths of the adja-
cent arms are adjusted to produce another 90 phase differ-
ence. The other ends of the four arms of this top-fed QHAs
are short-circuited, and, after reflection from the shorted
end, the field is radiated from the top. Since a circular polar-
ized signal changes its polarization after reflection, the four
arms of this QHA are wound in the left sense. Though it is
cost-effective to build a self-phased QHA, its design is little
bit more involved. Also, because of the feeding mechanism,
it has a smaller bandwidth as compared to an externally
phased QHA.
In an externally phased QHA, the four arms of the QHA
are fed using an external broadband phasing network. It
consists of a 180 hybrid ring coupler and two 90
branch-line couplers. This network feeds the four arms with
equal amplitude and with a relative phase of 0 , −90 ,
15/12/2020 5:48:26 PM
 692 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing

(a) (b) θ θ
0 0
–30 30 –30 30
(X = 20.05 mm, Y = 20.47 mm) cutoff (2 mm × 2 mm) 0.00 0.00
PEC patch –5.00 –5.00
–60
Gain –10.00 60 –60 Gain –10.00 60
Z
(dB) (dB) –15.00
–15.00

25 mm –20.00 –20.00

Y
–90 90 –90 90

Feed Offset
4 mm
(x)-1.7 mm
X
25 mm (y)-1.8 mm ϕ 0° –120 ϕ 90°
εr = 20 –120 120 120

PEC ground plane (70mm × 70mm) –150

–150 150 150
–180 –180

(c) (d)
0 5

–5
15 MHz
0 10dB 10dB
29 MHz
Reflection Coefficient (dB)

–10
–5
–15
RHCP Gain LHCP Gain
Gain (dBI)
–10
–20
–15
–25

–30 –20

–35 –25

–40 –30
1.520 1.530 1.540 1.550 1.560 1.570 1.580 1.590 1.600 1.610 1.620 1.520 1.530 1.540 1.550 1.560 1.570 1.580 1.590 1.600 1.610 1.620
Freq [GHz] Freq [GHz]

Figure 26.9 An microstrip patch antenna for GPS L1-band receivers showing (a) antenna geometry, (b) elevation patterns in principal
planes for RHCP (solid line) and LHCP (dashed line), (c) reflection coefficient as a function of frequency, and (d) RHCP- and LHCP-realized
gain at zenith (Chen et al. [14]). Source: Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

−180 , and −270 resulting in RHCP end-fire radiation. The using a short-ended QFA, as shown in Figure 26.11, where
use of the external phasing network leads to easy design of the helical arm length is approximately 1/2 wavelengths.
the individual arms in that all the arms are of equal length Although the axial ratio of the short-ended QFA is not as
and are easy to tune. Also, as will be discussed in the next good as that of the open-ended QFA, its shorter height
section, one can easily design the antenna for multi-band makes it a popular antenna choice for small mobile devices.
GNSS receivers. However, since both the open-ended and short-ended
The cylindrical core used in QHAs, in general, is made QFAs are narrowband, they are limited to a single GNSS
either from foam or other low-permittivity material such frequency band.
as Teflon. As pointed out earlier, high-permittivity cores,
such as ceramic cores, can be used to reduce the overall size
of QHAs. The presence of the high-permittivity core alters
26.3.2 Multi-Band GNSS Antennas
the phase velocity of the radio-frequency currents and
affects the radiation pattern of the antenna. The pitch angle Modernized GNSS receivers receive signals from multiple-
and length of the four helix elements are adjusted to com- frequency bands (L1 and L2, or L1, L2 and L5, etc.). In each
pensate for these effects. Leisten [19] has used high- band, the bandwidth of the satellite signal could be as large
permittivity cores to design very-small-sized QHAs for as 30 MHz. These receivers, as expected, use multiple band
GNSS receivers. antennas resulting in complex antenna design and
Figure 26.10 shows a 16-cm-tall open-ended QFA above a increased cost. The conventional MPAs and QHAs
6 cm × 6 cm ground plane with left-hand helix winding and described in the previous section are narrowband antennas
external right-hand phasing. Note that the antenna has and are not good for modern applications. One can, how-
good upper hemispherical coverage and an excellent axial ever, use multiple collocated microstrip patches or quadri-
ratio. The height of the QFA can be further reduced by filar helices for multi-frequency operation.

c26.3d 692 15/12/2020 5:48:27 PM

 26.3 Example GNSS Antennas 693

10
RHCP end-fire pattern RHCP

left-hand winding –10

end-fire

Realized Gain (dBic)

–20

–30
LHCP
Z
–40
right-hand phasing

–180° –50
–270°
Y 1GHz
–90° –60
X
0° –180 –150 –120 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180
Theta [deg]

Figure 26.10 Axial-mode 1 GHz QHA. LH helix and RH phasing produce RHCP end-fire pattern.

10
RHCP

–10
end-fire
Realized Gain (dBic)

–20

–30 LHCP

–40

–50

1GHz
–60
–180 –150 –120 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180
Theta [deg]

Figure 26.11 Short-ended QHA with a ground plane size of 9.3 cm by 9.3 cm.

26.3.2.1 Stacked-Patch Antennas frequency band. Figure 26.12 shows an example stacked-
Stacked-patch antennas are very popular for multiple- patch design [22]. The top-feed technique is the most pop-
frequency band operation [20, 21]. In these antennas, mul- ular approach for feeding stacked-patch antennas. In this
tiple resonant patch antennas are stacked on top of each technique, the inner conductor of each feed probe passes
other with the topmost patch resonating at the highest through the bottom patches without making any electrical

c26.3d 693 15/12/2020 5:48:29 PM

 694 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing

Single-fed LP stacked patch antenna

5

D
0
K16
d1
h1 –5
d2
K30

dB
h2
Duroid –10
d 6010LM
L5/E5a

–15
E5b Gain
Vertical L1
strips w1 L2 S11
w2 Chip resistor:
Coaxial –20
50 Ω
connector 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6
frequency (GHz)

Figure 26.12 Example stacked-patch GPS antenna supporting L1 and L2 frequency bands (Zhou et al. [22]). Source: Reproduced with
permission of IEEE.

l1
W
D TMM10i Jsurf[A_per_n]
l2 εr = 9.8
l3 r1 L 1.0000e+002
9.2929e+001
h1 εr = 45 8.5857e+001
h3 7.8786e+001
7.1714e+001
h2 6.4643e+001
5.7571e+001
5.0500e+001
4.3429e+001
3.6357e+001
Parameters Value(mm) Parameters Value (mm) 2.9286e+001
L 9.52 r1 2.5 2.2214e+001
1.5143e+001
W 0.58 h1 1.27 8.0714e+000
l1 2.29 h2 10 1.0000e+000

l2 0.61 h3 9.8 L2 band L1 band

l3 1.02

Figure 26.13 Compact dual-band (L1 and L2) GPS antenna (M. Chen and C.-C. Chen [24]). Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

contact and is soldered to the topmost patch. The location
of each probe is optimized to provide a good impedance
match at multiple-frequency bands. The larger bottom
patch acts as a ground plane for the next upper patch. Since
there is strong coupling between various patches, the
design of a stacked patch is not straightforward‚ and many
iterations are needed to come up with a working antenna.
When high-permittivity substrate are used to reduce the
size of a stacked-patch antenna, the integrity of the bond
between the two substrates and/or between the metal patch
and the substrate can be problematic. Also, holes for the
internal feed probes can weaken the high-permittivity sub-
strates. One can avoid the internal feed probes by using
proximity probes [23].
A unique compact dual-band GPS antenna with external
probes was developed by Chen et. al. [24] and is shown in
Figure 26.13. The proposed antenna is composed of a single
slot-loaded conducting patch fabricated on a Rogers
TMM10i board (h1 = 1.27 mm, ϵr = 9.8, tan δ = 0.002) using
standard PCB fabrication processes. The bottom substrate is
a high-dielectric ceramic puck (h2 = 10 mm, ϵr = 45, tan δ ~
0.0001). The two substrates are bonded together using
ECCOSTOCK dielectric paste (ϵr = 15) to avoid air gaps
and the low-dielectric bonding layer formed by common
glues, both of which cause detuning of resonant frequen-
cies. This new design is also mechanically superior to
conventional stacked-patch designs where the presence of
the middle conducting patch weakens the bonding between
the top and bottom layers. Two conducting strips
(width=2 mm, height=9.8 mm) on the side serve as prox-
imity feeds for the new design. The bottom ends of these
strips are connected to the outputs of a 0 –90 hybrid to
obtain the RHCP property. These two external probes made
of conducting strips are conveniently located on the side.
The probes are connected to a feeding circuitry on a 1.27-
mm-thick FR4 board (ϵr = 4.4) as shown in Figure 26.14.
The bottom of the antenna and feeding circuitry shares
the same ground. Two equal-length microstrip lines with

c26.3d 694 15/12/2020 5:48:31 PM


5
0
–5
–10
Realized Gain (dBic)
–15
–20
–25
–30
–35
–40
–45
–50
–55
–60
1.1
Figure 26.14 Measured and simulated RHCP and LHCP gain at the zenith (M. Chen and C.-C. Chen [24]). Source: Reproduced with
permission of IEEE.
a characteristic impedance of 50 Ω connect the outputs of a
commercial broadband 0 –90 chip hybrid to the bottom of
the two antenna probes.
The right images of Figure 26.13 show the computed
magnitude of the equivalent currents on the top patch at
1227 MHz (left) and 1575 MHz (right). This shows that
the resonant current distribution occupies the entire patch
in L2 mode‚ and the current is mostly concentrated around
the meandered slots in L1 mode. The meandered slots, the
center circular hole, and the high-dielectric substrate help
to establish L2 mode resonance within the physically small
antenna volume. The concentration of fields only around
slots in the L1 band also makes it possible to tune the L1
frequency independently by adjusting the length, l3, of
the inner tuning stub.
Figure 26.14 shows the simulated and measured broad-
side gain of a fabricated antenna element mounted on a
117.2 mm × 117.2 mm FR4 board containing the feeding
circuitry. The RHCP antenna gain is around 3.2 dBi at
1.227 GHz and 3.5 dBi at 1.575 GHz. The RHCP to LHCP
isolation is 20 dB at the L2 band and 15 dB at the L1 band.
The axial ratio is found to be 1.3 dB at 1.227 GHz and 1.9 dB
at 1.575 GHz. The 3 dB bandwidth of the lower mode is
45 MHz from 1200 MHz to 1245 MHz and that of the higher
mode is 50 MHz from 1545 MHz to 1595 MHz at the zenith.
These bandwidths are sufficient to support GNSS signals
with modern coding schemes.
26.3.2.2 Multi-Band QHA
QHAs can also be designed for multi-band operation. In
this case, one QHA is either placed on top of or is enclosed
c26.3d 695
26.3 Example GNSS Antennas 695
Simulated RHCP Gain
Simulated LHCP Gain
Measured RHCP Gain
Measured LHCP Gain
1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7
Frequency (GHz)
within the other QHA. One can also rotationally offset the
two QHAs such that their arms are interleaved. As
expected, design of multi-band QHAs is more involved‚
and these do not perform as well as individual single-band
QHAs. A triple-band ceramic-loaded QHA has been
reported by Liu [25] for operation in GPS L1, L2, and L5
bands. It consists of two separate antennas mounted on
top of each other, a dielectric-loaded QHA at the top and
a dielectric-loaded octo-filar helix at the bottom. The two
antennas work in combination to provide triple-band cov-
erage. However, due to the ceramic core, the bandwidth is
quite small.
An interesting dual-band, externally fed QHA has been
designed by Lamensdorf and Smolinski [26, 27]. Basically,
the QHA is designed for operation at the L2 GPS frequency
band. However‚ using trap filters along the four helical
arms, the antenna is forced to radiate at the L1 band.
The trap filters act as open circuits at the L1 band and short
circuits at the L2 band. Thus, the antenna radiates at both
frequency bands. The antenna has a good match at the L1
band and L2 band frequencies with more than 2% band-
width in each band.
26.3.3 Wideband GNSS Antennas
The state-of-the-art GNSS receivers utilize all available
GNSS satellite signals. The frequency range of all of these
signals extends from approximately 1150 MHz to 1300
MHz and 1550 MHz to 1620 MHz. The antennas used with
these receivers are wideband antennas that may, in general,
operate over the 1150 MHz to 1620 MHz frequency band.
MPAs and QHAs are very hard to design for this large
15/12/2020 5:48:32 PM
 696 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing

50 mm raise above reference point 54.3 mm

67.2 mm A B C
z z z
x x x
add a infinite ground plane
(a) (b)
10 100
C 50
RHCP Gain [dBi]

5 0

Phase [deg]
B
–50
0 –100 C
A&B
–150
A
–5 –200
1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8
Frequency [GHz] Frequency [GHz]
(c) (d)
10 50
C
C
RHCP Gain [dBi]

0 0
A&B Phase [deg]
–10 –50 B

–20 –100
A
–30 –150
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
Elevation angle, θ [deg] Elevation angle, θ [deg]

Figure 26.15 Cross bowtie antenna with and without a PEC ground plane backing. (a) RHCP gain response at the zenith‚ (b) phase
response at the zenith‚ (c) RHCP gain elevation pattern at 1380 MHz, (d) phase elevation pattern at 1380 MHz (Zhou et al.[22]).
Source: Reproduced with permission of IEEE.

frequency band. Three common wideband GNSS antennas
are discussed in this section.
26.3.3.1 Bowtie Antennas
It is well known that one can increase the thickness of a
dipole or a monopole antenna to increase its bandwidth.
Based on this principle, bowtie dipole antennas [28, 29]
have been designed for wideband operation. Bowtie dipoles
are linearly polarized; however, one can use multiple bow-
tie antennas with proper phasing to produce RHCP radia-
tion. The cross bowtie turnstile antenna is a broadband
version of the original turnstile dipoles introduced in [28,
29]. The two orthogonal dipoles are fed 90 out of phase
from a unique balun design with only a single coaxial wave-
guide. The dipoles in all three designs droop down from the
horizontal plane in order to achieve a better axial ratio at
lower elevation angles. The droop angle in the turnstile ele-
ment varies between 30 and 45 .
Figure 26.15 shows an example cross bowtie antenna
design. RHCP polarization can be achieved by combining
the signals of two orthogonal bowtie dipole elements with
the quadrature phase difference. Figure 26.15(a) plots the
simulated realized RHCP gain versus frequency in the
zenith direction for three different cases: (A) a free-standing
cross bowtie antenna on a reference plane where the ARP is
located at the origin of the coordinate system, (B) an
antenna elevated vertically at 54.3 mm (λ/4 at 1380 MHz)
above the ARP, and (C) same as case (B) except that an infi-
nite perfect conducting plane is added. The signal phase
versus frequency at the zenith is shown in Figure 26.15
(b). The phase variation is related to the impedance match-
ing condition and the location of the antenna’s effective
aperture (or phase centers). The nonlinear phase behavior
is caused by the finite impedance bandwidth associated
with finite bowtie dipole antennas. Figures 26.15(c) and
26.15(d) show the antenna gain and phase along an eleva-
tion cut at 1380 MHz. Note that the antenna has good upper
hemispherical coverage and a constant phase.
26.3.3.2 Planar Spiral Antenna (PSA)
Spiral antennas were introduced in the 1950s by Edwin
Turner‚ who experimentally demonstrated that an Archi-
medean spiral delivered a constant input impedance and
circular polarization (CP) over a wide frequency range.

c26.3d 696 15/12/2020 5:48:33 PM


His work generated great interest in spiral and frequency-
independent antennas [30, 31], including those of Dyson
for the planar and equiangular antenna [32–36]. PSAs fall
into the category of traveling wave antennas, where the
radiation occurs while electromagnetic waves are traveling
along a guided structure. Spiral antennas are made from
either spiral wires or spiral slots cut into a metal conductor.
Figure 26.16 shows the top view of the two typical two-
arm planar spiral antennas. The outer diameter of the
antenna determines the lowest frequency of operation,
whereas the diameter at the feed region determines the
highest frequency of operation. In a self-complementary
spiral, the width of the conductor is the same as the gap
between the two adjacent conductors. Four-arm spirals
are typically used in GNSS antennas to achieve better azi-
muth symmetry. The radiation from a conventional spiral is
bidirectional (in the upper hemisphere as well as in the
lower hemisphere). To prevent undesired back lobes, the
spiral is backed by a metallic cavity whose depth is
Archimedean Spiral
Figure 26.16 Example two-arm Archimedean and equiangular spirals (Volakis et al. [15]). Source: Reproduced with permission of
McGraw-Hill.
Figure 26.17 Conical spiral antenna (CSA) examples. (Left) Archimedean CSA, (right) Log CSA.
c26.3d 697
26.3 Example GNSS Antennas 697
approximately equal to quarter of the wavelength at the
lowest frequency. To decrease the height of the cavity, it
can be filled with some dielectric material or absorber;
however, this can introduce additional loss. This cavity
makes the spiral frequency dependent, and the design of
the cavity is very important for proper operation of the spi-
ral. Many GNSS antennas using a spiral configuration have
been developed and are available in the open mar-
ket [37–39].
26.3.3.3 Conical Spiral Antenna (CSA)
Another common type of circular polarized traveling wave
antenna is the CSA. As shown in Figure 26.17, it is a three-
dimensional version of the planar spiral antenna. By
extending a spiral antenna in the third dimension, one
can make the antenna more directive (upward radiation)
and thus can avoid the use of the cavity. For GNSS applica-
tions, one needs to cover the whole upper hemisphere, and
the CSA should be designed to not be very directive. For a
Equiangular Spiral
15/12/2020 5:48:33 PM
 698 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing

10 10
1.1 GHz 1.1 GHz
1.2 GHz 1.2 GHz
5 5
1.3 GHz RHCP 1.3 GHz
RHCP 1.4 GHz 1.4 GHz
0 0 1.5 GHz
1.5 GHz
1.6 GHz 1.6 GHz
–5 –5
Realized Gain [dBic]

Realized Gain [dBic]

–10 –10 LHCP
–15 LHCP –15

–20 –20

–25 –25

–30 –30

–35 –35

–40 –40
–180 –150 –120 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 –180 –150 –120 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180
Theta [deg] Theta [deg]

Figure 26.18 (Left) Resistively terminated three-turn log CSA without ground plane and (right) resistively terminated log CSA above a
finite 23 cm conducting ground plane.

given CSA height, one can adjust the directivity by control- satellites in view, low cross-polarized (LHCP) response
ling the pitch angle (the number of turns). A loosely wound and back lobes (to deemphasize signal multipath), and a
spiral is less directive; however, it will have more back radi- very stable phase center. In order to minimize the back
ation, increased cross-polarization, and a worse axial ratio. lobes, these antennas are mounted on a ground plane.
As expected, these are design trade-offs. The CSA can also For most applications, this ground plane cannot be very
be mounted on a ground plane in order to reduce the back large, and diffracted fields from the rim of the ground plane
lobe and cross-polarized fields. lead to back lobes in the gain pattern as well as high cross-
Figure 26.18 plots the elevation gain patterns of the polarized gain near the horizon.
RHCP and LHCP components for the three-turn, 155- Most commercial high-precision GNSS antennas employ
mm-tall resistive-coated (at the bottom) free-standing some sort of choking rings to improve the axial ratio at
CSA at six sample frequencies within the GNSS frequency lower elevation angles and suppress aforementioned unde-
range. These results exhibit very good and stable RHCP sired edge diffractions. However, such treatments can add
gain patterns versus frequency and a more than 20 dB significant size and weight and can narrow the antenna pat-
RHCP/LHCP gain ratio from −45 to 45 . However, there tern, weakening satellite reception at low elevation angles.
is significant LHCP polarization below the 45 elevation The design of choke rings that are able to operate over wide
angle. This is not desirable as it will pick up multipath sig- bandwidths can also be difficult. Electronic band-gap
nals and cause position estimation errors. This high-LHCP (EBG) ground planes [40] have been proposed for a low
back lobe is a consequence of trading off low directivity for profile solution to reduce edge diffraction in some GNSS
broad sky coverage and can be mitigated by placing a con- antennas. If these treatments are narrowband, they might
ducting ground plane beneath the antenna. The ground be unsuitable for multi-band and multi-GNSS receivers.
plane will reflect the downward LHCP waves into RHCP The use of resistive treatment near the ground plane has
waves into the sky region as demonstrated in the right plot been successfully used to reduce the edge diffraction from
of Figure 26.18. This plot shows a significant reduction in the ground plane. For example, the antenna presented in
the LHCP gain at low elevation angles and below the hori- [41] uses a resistive tapered ground plane with a resistivity
zon. The interference from this additional RHCP compo- that varies from zero (perfect conductor) at the center to 800
nent in the sky region will also produce different ohms/square at the outer perimeter. This ground plane
variations in the RHCP gain patterns at different frequen- design covers the entire GNSS frequency band.
cies in the sky region. A lower antenna height can reduce One novel high-precision GNSS antenna is shown in
this interference effect, but this will also lower the maxi- Figure 26.19. The antenna is based on a conical spiral
mum gain. design with additional lightweight resistive treatments that
include a vertical cylindrical wall, a circular array of verti-
cal fins, and a resistive rim around the ground plane edge.
26.3.4 High-Precision GNSS Antennas These treatments were used for controlling the RHCP gain
Antennas for high-precision applications should have good and improving the axial ratio with minimal impact on sat-
coverage over the horizon to receive signals from all ellite reception at low elevation angles. Figure 26.20 shows

c26.3d 698 15/12/2020 5:48:34 PM

 26.3 Example GNSS Antennas 699

Arm Width = 60° 155 mm

Resistive Wall Resistive Terminator Inner Spiral radius r1 = 4 mm

130 Ω/sq 25 Ω/sq Outer Spiral radius r2 = 58 mm
Resistive Rim Resistive
130 Ω/sq 25 Ω/sq
95 mm 80 mm
44 mm

13 mm
381mm ground (229 mm PEC + 152 mm resistive sheet)

Radome

Resistive Wall
d
Resistive Rim

Conical Spiral

Resistive Fine

Conducting Ground

Plastic Base
GNSS antenna prototype
without radome and R-fence GNSS antenna prototype stackup

Figure 26.19 Novel lightweight high-precision GNSS antenna design.

10 10
1.1 GHz 1.1 GHz
5 1.2 GHz 5 1.2 GHz
1.3 GHz 1.3 GHz
RHCP 1.4 GHz 1.4 GHz
0 1.5 GHz 0
RHCP 1.5 GHz
1.6 GHz 1.6 GHz
–5 –5
Realized Gain [dBic]
Realized Gain [dBic]

–10 –10

–15 –15
LHCP
LHCP
–20 –20

–25 –25

–30 –30

–35 –35

–40 –40
–180 –150 –120 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 –180 –150 –120 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180
Theta [deg] Theta [deg]

Figure 26.20 Comparison of (left) simulated and (right) measured realized gain patterns.

the simulated and measured RHCP and LHCP elevation
gain patterns. The antenna exhibits a good polarization iso-
lation and low LHCP gain near the horizon. It also has
excellent sky-to-ground gain ratio, making it more effective
in suppressing multipath interference as compared to other
GNSS antennas. Figure 26.21 shows the measured
performance at the center frequency of L1, L2, and L5
bands. The center of each circular plot corresponds to the
zenith and the outer edge corresponds to the horizon. Four
separate rows of plots are shown, each of which corre-
sponds to a different performance metric: RHCP realized
gain, axial ratio, carrier-phase bias, and code delay bias.

c26.3d 699 15/12/2020 5:48:35 PM

 700 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing

GPS L1 GPS L2 GPS L5

5
ϕ
2.5
(a)
0[dBic]

–2.5

–5
(b) 3
ϕ
2.5

1.5[dB]

0.5

0
(c) 15
ϕ
10

0 deg

–5

–10

–15
(d) 10
ϕ 8
6
4
2
0 cm
–2
–4
–6
–8
–10

Figure 26.21 Measured performance of the antenna shown in Figure 26.19 for GPS L1, L2‚ and L5 bands, showing upper-hemisphere
metrics: (a) gain, (b) axial ratio, (c) carrier-phase bias, and (d) code delay bias.

26.3.5 Reconfigurable GNSS Antennas for Beam lead to loss of low-elevation satellites, it will tend to
Switching and Nulling improve the overall receiver performance. A few beam-
switchable nulling antennas are described below.
It is expected that most GNSS signal multipath as well as
A simple beam-switching antenna for the GPS L1 band is
intentional or unintentional radio-frequency interference
described in [42], which consists of two stacked patches.
(RFI) will originate from directions near or below the hori-
The upper patch element is used in the normal mode,
zon for a number of important GNSS applications. To sup-
and this element has a wide main beam to receive signals
press these undesired signals, reconfigurable antennas that
from GPS satellites down to the horizon. The lower patch
perform beam switching and simple nulling have been pro-
antenna has high gain (9 dBic) toward the zenith and
posed. These antennas possess a pattern that is switched
low gain (−15 dBic) toward the horizon, which is desirable
between two primary modes. In the normal mode, the
for suppressing signal multipath and/or RFI. Switching
antenna pattern has a wide main beam to receive signals
between the two patches can be performed manually or
from all satellites in view. In multipath environments
automatically by varying the DC voltage on the center con-
and/or in the presence of interfering signals, the antenna
ductor of the coaxial cable connecting the antenna to the
pattern is switched to a narrow main beam mode with
GPS receiver. When the antenna is in narrow beamwidth
reduced gain or nulls around the horizon. While this can

c26.3d 700 15/12/2020 5:48:37 PM


mode, the gain around the horizon is approximately 8 dB
lower than while operating in normal mode.
A different beam-switchable antenna design for both GPS
L1 and L2 bands is reported in [43] and [44]. The antenna,
shown in Figure 26.22, consists of three dielectric layers,
each approximately 22 cm in linear dimension. The bottom
dielectric layer has a metallic coating at the bottom surface
and a 5 cm square patch at the top that is designed to radiate
at the GPS L2 frequency band. The middle layer has a
2.5 cm square patch at the top to radiate at the GPS L1 band.
This patch is surrounded by a 2-cm-thick dielectric strip to
control surface waves. The top layer has a metallic strip of
the same dimensions as the strip on the middle dielectric
layer. The top layer strip, however, is switch-loaded to vary
the mode of operation of the antenna. The switches are
turned on and off in order to vary the beam pattern of
the antenna for vertical polarization. When the switches
are turned on, the antenna has a wider main beam;
whereas, when the switches are turned off, the antenna
has a narrower main beam. Also, the narrower beam has
a higher response along the zenith. Thus, one can switch
between the two beams to provide some degree of multi-
path and/or RFI suppression.
An antenna that has been designed to steer a ring null
toward the horizon is described in [45]. It consists of two
concentric microstrip patch elements. The signal received
by the inner patch is used in nulling the RFI received by
the outer angular ring antenna. Though the ring antenna
is resonant in a higher mode, it is forced to generate RHCP
Figure 26.22 Beam-switchable dual-band GPS antenna based on
characteristic modes (Lee et al. [44]). Source: Reproduced with
permission of John Wiley & Sons.
c26.3d 701
26.4 Antenna Arrays for GNSS Receivers 701
lower-order (TM11) far fields. This allows the needed co-
modal phase tracking between the two elements for signal
cancellation. Both elements are connected to sets of four
coaxial probes that are symmetrically spaced at 90 inter-
vals. This forces RHCP fields and suppresses higher-order
modes from being excited in the outer ring element. To gen-
erate a spatial ring null around the horizon, the signals
received by the inner patch and outer ring are combined
through an adaptive nulling network. First, the signal
received by the inner patch is attenuated such that its mag-
nitude is equal to the signal received by the outer ring ele-
ment from the selected direction. Next, the phase is
adjusted until the two signals are out of phase. The result-
ing antenna radiation pattern has a null that covers all azi-
muthal angles at the selected elevation angle.
Reconfigurable single-element antennas that perform
beam switching and nulling provide limited multipath sup-
pression and RFI mitigation capability. For operation in
severe RFI environments, one uses multiple element anten-
nas with GNSS receivers. With multiple antennas, the sig-
nals received by various antenna elements are adaptively
weighted and summed together such that RFI is suppressed
by orders-of-magnitude improvement. These antennas,
called adaptive antennas, are discussed in the following
sections.
26.4 Antenna Arrays for GNSS
Receivers
Antenna arrays have found widespread use in many GNSS
receiver systems used today. Two-element antenna arrays
provide precise heading/attitude sensors for use as marine
compasses and high-precision heading aiding for IMUs
[46]. Arrays are able to determine the direction of GNSS
signals, which is useful for security applications that want
to confirm the authenticity of received GNSS signals [47].
By combining the signals received from multiple elements,
the antenna has increased gain and reduced beamwidths in
controllable directions, which is useful for multipath and
interference mitigation in critical military and civilian
applications [48]. High-gain GNSS antennas with multiple
polarizations are used in receiving weak scattered
signals for remote sensing applications. In all, arrays are
important for the GNSS community to understand. This
section begins with an overview of the important features
of antenna arrays before a discussion of array signal proces-
sing later in this chapter.
In Section 26.2.1, we defined the antenna response
Ap(θ, ϕ, f) for a single-element antenna. When dealing with
an antenna array where each element has a single port, the
15/12/2020 5:48:38 PM
 702 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
antenna responses for each element are collected into a sin-
gle set that we refer to as the antenna array manifold. It is
important to note that the antenna array has a single ARP.
The antenna response for each element in the array is
defined relative to this common reference point. Also, the
antenna response of each element should be found in the
presence of the other elements so that the effects of mutual
coupling are accounted for. Under these conditions, the
antenna array manifold can be used to characterize the
effects of the antenna array on the received GNSS signals,
as will be discussed later.
For typical GNSS receiver applications, there are two
main methods for utilizing multiple antennas. In the first
method, the signals from multiple antennas enter the
receiver‚ where they are processed separately‚ and satellite
signals acquired and tracked from all antennas. This is
commonly done when using antenna arrays for heading
and attitude determination or GNSS signal direction-of-
arrival estimation, where the differential GNSS measure-
ments made between the two antennas carry the relevant
information. The second method for utilizing multiple
antennas is to weight and sum the RF signals together
before that signal is used by the receiver. The content of
the rest of this chapter is primarily focused on the latter.
When the signals received by various elements are
weighted and summed together to produce an array output
signal, the effect of the antenna response of each antenna
element can be observed in the composite antenna array
pattern. An example antenna array pattern is shown in
Figure 26.23. By summing up the signals from multiple
antennas, an increase in the received power relative to a
single-element antenna can occur, which is called the array
15
Z Array Pattern
10
Realized Gain (dB)
–5
x 0 50 100 (mm)
–10
–15
Figure 26.23 Example seven-element GPS L1 patch array showing the simulated gain pattern of each element (dashed) and the
composite array pattern (solid).
c26.3d 702
gain. If K is the number of antenna elements in the array, an
approximation for the array gain is 10 log10(K), although
this is not the case in general since each antenna element
might not have the same gain in a given direction.
The antenna array pattern will have a decreased beam-
width and will have a different number of sidelobes and
levels.
The most important factor determining an array’s perfor-
mance is the number and geometric distribution of antenna
elements. The most typical distribution is a planar array, in
which elements form a two-dimensional arrangement on a
plane in a circular form. The array aperture is the rough size
of a planar array. Within this aperture, array elements are
typically distributed with half-wavelength spacing at some
target frequency. When this is the case, the array aperture is
“full.” If one packs additional antenna elements into this
aperture, the increase in performance (i.e. gain and beam-
width) might only improve by a small amount. In this
sense, it is the size of the aperture that drives performance,
not necessarily the number of elements. This is one of the
key physical limitations driving the limits of what perfor-
mance can be achieved with miniaturized antenna arrays.
GNSS antenna arrays in use today have 4–9 antenna
elements filling apertures on the order of 10 to 40 cm in
diameter. For adaptive nulling applications, the number
of interference sources that can be nulled is roughly is
the number of elements minus one; however, one must
be careful since this is an approximation.
Certain array processing algorithms make use of the con-
cept of a reference antenna element. Typically, circular
antenna arrays will have one antenna element in the center
that will serve as the reference. For circular arrays, the
Element Patterns
–80 –60 –40 –20 0 20 40 60 80
θ (deg)
15/12/2020 5:48:38 PM

elements will sometimes be clocked, that is, rotated based
on their location around a circular distribution in order to
create a symmetry in antenna patterns. The reader is
referred to a variety of different array configurations in lit-
erature. Antenna arrays could have a three-dimensional
distribution of elements to increase resolution at low eleva-
tion angles [49]. Array elements might be packed so densely
that the array becomes a continuous aperture [50]. In some
cases, arrays are sparsely distributed over larger distances.
In other cases, the arrays include analog hardware, such as
Butler matrices, that forms beams or modes before analog-
to-digital conversion. Arrays for handheld applications
have also been developed [51], as well as arrays that are dis-
tributed around platforms for increased coverage during
arbitrary rotations [12].
When multiple antenna elements are brought close
together, they begin to electromagnetically couple to one
another‚ and their antenna patterns and performance begin
to change as compared to each element in isolation. This is
known as mutual coupling. Since the individual antenna
elements were likely designed and optimized in isolation,
the effect of mutual coupling typically has a degrading
effect on performance. As multiple elements are brought
together in different geometrical configurations, the pri-
mary effect is to make each element’s pattern dissimilar
from one another. Figure 26.24 shows the effects on mutual
coupling between two simple patch antennas. Tradition-
ally, there has been an emphasis on minimizing mutual
coupling when designing an array; however, one should
be aware that it is not always an important factor nor is
it feasible to keep closely spaced antenna elements from
7
Z
6
5
Realized Gain (dB)
4
1 2
3
2 Antenna Element #1
Y (With Mutual Coupling)
1
0
x 0 50 100 (mm)
–1
–2
–80
Figure 26.24 Simulated gain pattern of two antenna elements before and after incorporating mutual coupling.
c26.3d 703
26.5 Array Signal Processing for GNSS Receivers 703
coupling without compromising other performance metrics
[52]. It is important to note that the effects of mutual cou-
pling are often modeled as a frequency- and/or direction-
independent mutual coupling matrix; however, this is an
approximation, and the accuracy of this approximation
becomes worse as antenna elements become more wide-
band and packed closer together.
26.5 Array Signal Processing for GNSS
Receivers
This section reviews the signal processing techniques and
algorithms used with GNSS antenna arrays. Although there
are different ways arrays can be used, the focus of this
section is on antenna arrays for adaptive interference sup-
pression, which is one of the most important uses of arrays
for GNSS applications. There are many different ways to
design and implement this array signal processing, which
are driven by a number of different motivations, including
computational complexity, optimization criteria, available
information, and tightness of integration with the GNSS
receiver hardware itself. We have chosen to limit the dis-
cussion to the most popular techniques currently in use
today. This section begins with an analytic model for adapt-
ive antenna array using space-time adaptive processing
(STAP). Different types of STAP adaptive filtering algo-
rithms will be introduced, as well as how the adaptive filters
are numerically implemented. Adaptive antennas can have
a significant effect on the GNSS signals, and equations will
Antenna Element in Isolation
(No Mutual Coupling )
Antenna Element #2
(With Mutual Coupling)
–60 –40 –20 0 20 40 60 80
θ (deg)
15/12/2020 5:48:39 PM
 704 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
be provided for understanding how to analyze these effects.
Finally, alternative adaptive filtering architectures will be
introduced, including space-frequency adaptive processing
(SFAP) as well as post-correlation designs.
26.5.1 Space-Time Adaptive Processing
Figure 26.25 shows a simplified model of an adaptive
antenna array with adaptive filtering. There are K antenna
elements, and Ak(f, θ, ϕ) represents the frequency response
of the k-th element for a given polarization in the (θ, ϕ)
direction. Each antenna element is backed by front-end
electronics, represented by Fk(f), which downconvert the
signal to baseband and perform analog-to-digital conver-
sion. The front-end electronics include LNAs, filters, mix-
ers, and other components. The digitized signal for each
element is sent through a finite impulse response (FIR) fil-
ter with L taps each that is represented by Wk(f) in the fre-
quency domain. Note that a system with L = 1 (i.e. a single
complex weight behind each element) is known as space-
only processing (SOP), and a system with L > 1 is known
as STAP. The outputs from each of the adaptive FIR filters
are summed to form a single array output. The output is
said to correspond to an adaptive channel. A particular
adaptive antenna system could have several adaptive chan-
nels. The digitized signals from all elements could be sent to
each adaptive channel and processed with different sets of
adaptive filter weights to produce multiple array output
signals.
For a desired GNSS signal d(t) incident along the (θd, ϕd)
direction, the n-th discrete sample after passing through the
antenna element and the front-end electronics in the k-th
channel is given by
dk n = D f Ak f , θd , ϕd F k f e j2πfnT s df ,
A1(f,θ,ϕ) A2(f,θ,ϕ)
F1(f) F2(f)
W1(f) W2(f)
Figure 26.25 Simplified model of space-time adaptive processing for GNSS antenna arrays.
c26.3d 704
where D(f) is the Fourier transform of d(t), and Ts is the
discrete sampling period. Here‚ it is implied that the
antenna response Ak(f, θd, ϕd) polarization corresponds to
RHCP polarization for GNSS signals. The integration is
carried over the frequency band of the desired signal.
Similarly, for an interference signal i(t) incident along the
(θi, ϕi) direction, the n-th discrete sample after passing
through the antenna element and the front-end electronics
in the k-th channel is given by
ik n = I f A k f , θ i , ϕi F k f e j2πfnT s
df , 26 28
where I(f) is the Fourier transform of i(t). Again, it is
implied that the polarization of the antenna response used
in this equation corresponds to the polarization of the inter-
ference signal. For a signal scenario with M number of
interference signals, the n-th sample of the total combined
signal in the k-th channel after the front-end electronics
stage is then given by
M
x k n = dk n + ik,m n + νk n , 26 29
m=1
where νk[n] is the thermal noise in the k-th channel. The
thermal noise, in general, is assumed to be independent
between channels. Note that for this formulation, xk[n] con-
tains just a single GNSS signal of interest (SOI). In reality,
multiple GNSS signals reside in the same frequency band.
However, assuming that the cross-correlations between the
satellite signals are small and that the satellite signal
powers are much lower than the interference signal powers
and the noise, the presence of other satellite signals can be
ignored.
For an adaptive array system with L taps, the n-th snap-
shot of the signal from the k-th channel prior to the adapt-
26 27
ive filtering stage can be represented in vector form by
AK(f,θ,ϕ)
Antenna Array
Front-End
FK(f) Electronics
WK(f) Adaptive Filters
Σ
Adaptive Antenna Output
15/12/2020 5:48:40 PM
 26.5 Array Signal Processing for GNSS Receivers 705

xk n = x k n …x k n − L + 1 T
, 26 30 the transpose, respectively. Assuming that the desired sig-
nal is uncorrelated with the interfering signals and the ther-
where the superscript T denotes the matrix transpose mal noise is uncorrelated with all the signals incident on
operation. The snapshots from all antenna elements can the antenna array, the expected output power from the
be combined into a single vector given by adaptive antenna can be separated into separate
x1 n components

xn = 26 31 P = Pd + Pi + Pu 26 37

xK n with a separate correlation matrix for each signal

component
From Eq. 26.29, it can be seen that the received signals in
1 H 1
the k-th channel can be decomposed into three distinct Pd = w E x∗d n xTd n w = wH Φd w 26 38
2 2
components: desired signal, interference signal, and the
1 H 1
noise. Thus, x[n] can also be decomposed into the three Pi = w E x∗i n xTi n w = w H Φi w, 26 39
2 2
components, given by
1 H ∗ 1
x n = x d n + xi n + x ν n 26 32 P u = w E x u n x u n w = w H Φu w
T
26 40
2 2
The subscripts d, i, and ν denote the desired, interference, Using Eqs. (26.38)–(26.40), one can calculate the SNR,
and noise components, respectively. The adaptive FIR filter signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), and signal-to-interfer-
weights for the k-th channel can also be represented in vec- ence-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the array output.
tor form as For a GNSS receiver equipped with an adaptive antenna,
the array output is fed into the receiver‚ where it is cross-
T
wk = wk1 wkL , 26 33 correlated with a locally generated reference signal r(t).
where wkl is the complex weight for the l-th tap of the k-th The cross-correlation function estimate R using N samples
channel. The weights from all the antenna elements can be is given by
combined into a single weight vector 1 N
Rτ = y n r ∗ nT s + τ , 26 41
w1 Nn=1

w= , 26 34 where τ is the relative delay introduced in the reference sig-

nal. If we let τ0 be the delay that maximizes the cross-
wK
correlation function, then substituting Eq. 26.35 into
and the array output signal is given by Eq. 26.41 produces
y n = wT x n 26 35 1 N
R τ0 = w T x n r ∗ nT s + τ0
Nn=1
In reality, the adaptive filter weights will also vary in time
∗
at an update rate determined by the specific implementa- = wT s τ0 , 26 42
tion of the adaptive filtering algorithm. However, in this
model, we are interested in capturing the steady-state per- where s τ0 is called the correlation vector. Using
formance of the adaptive antenna and treat the weights Eq. 26.32, the correlation vector can be written as the
as fixed. sum of sd τ0 and su τ0 , which are the desired and unde-
The expected output power from the adaptive antenna sired (interference and noise) components of the correla-
can be written as tion vector. The receiver carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N0) is
given by [53]
1
P= E y∗ n y n 1 w H sd τ 0
2
2 C N0 =
1 T E w H su τ 0 2
= w H E x∗ n x T n w
2
1 1 w H Φd τ 0 w
= wH Φw, 26 36 = 26 43
2 T w H Φu τ 0 w

where Φ is the KL × KL signal correlation matrix of the where T is the coherent integration time‚ and the post-
adaptive antenna. In Eq. 26.36, the superscripts ∗ and H correlation matrices for the desired and undesired compo-
denote the complex conjugate and complex conjugate of nents are defined as

c26.3d 705 15/12/2020 5:48:40 PM

 706 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
Φd τ0 = sd τ0 sH
d τ0 , 26 44
H
Φu τ0 = E su τ0 su τ0 26 45
For a given set of antenna array weights, one can use
Eq. 26.43 to calculate the C/N0 for the antenna array in a
given signal and interference environment. In the following
section, some popular algorithms for adapting the antenna
weights are discussed.
26.5.2 Adaptive Filtering Algorithms
There are a variety of adaptive filtering algorithms available
that can be used to determine the filter weights in real time
based on the received signals. Here, we differentiate
between the adaptive filtering algorithm (which analyti-
cally defines the steady-state solution to some optimization
equation) from the actual numerical implementation of the
adaptive filter, which is discussed in the next section. This
section describes a few of the most popular adaptive filter-
ing algorithms used in GNSS adaptive antennas, although a
significant number of alternative designs have been pro-
posed in the literature.
The most common algorithms used in modern adaptive
antennas are based on minimizing the total output power
(Eq. 26.36) of the array subject to a single constraint. Math-
ematically, the approach can be written as
1 H
wc = arg min w w Φw such that uH
c w = 1,
2 directions while simultaneously adaptively forming nulls
26 46
where uc is the constraint vector. One can use Lagrange
multiplier method to solve Eq. 26.46, which yields
Φ − 1 uc
wc = −1 26 47
c Φ
uH uc
The weight vector wc satisfies the constraint Eq. 26.46
and varies based on the RF environment via the correlation
matrix Φ. These weights are known as the linearly con-
strained minimum power (LCMP) weights [54]. Since we
typically assume the GNSS signals are below the noise floor
and that the interference and noise are zero mean, it is
sometimes implied that Φ is also the covariance matrix
of the undesired signal and that Eq. 26.47 is also the linearly
constrained minimum variance (LCMV) solution as well.
The following subsections review algorithms that have
the form of Eq. 26.47. Note that we will specify the con-
straint vector by
T pared to simple null-steering adaptive antennas. These
uc = u1,1 u1,2 … u1,L u2,1 … uK,L , 26 48
where its entries uk, l correspond to the k-th antenna ele-
ment and l-th filter tap.
c26.3d 706
26.5.2.1 Simple Null Steering
A common constraint that is frequently used in GNSS
antenna arrays is to fix the weight of the center tap lr of a
selected antenna element kr (i.e. the reference element)
to unity. This constraint vector is defined as
1 k = k r , l = lr
uk,l = 26 49
0 else
where the nonzero entry corresponds to the center tap of
the reference element. Note that the constraint vector is
the same for all satellites in view. Thus, in a given frequency
band, the same set of weights can be used to receive signals
from all satellites in view. The weights will be adapted to
suppress strong (above the noise floor) interfering signals.
In the process of suppressing the interfering signals, the
antenna response in the signal direction can vary signifi-
cantly. The antenna gain in the satellite direction can
increase or drop. For this reason, adaptive antennas based
on this constraint vector are referred to as null-steering
adaptive antennas [55]. These are very popular in the cur-
rent GNSS receivers as the weights can be adapted very effi-
ciently‚ and no knowledge of the antenna array and/or
satellite signals is needed.
26.5.2.2 Beamforming/Null Steering
The next most common algorithm used for GNSS adaptive
antennas forms array pattern beams in GNSS satellite
in interference directions [54]. Algorithms that operate
like this are referred to as beamforming/null-steering
antennas. The constraint vector is chosen so that the
sum of the signals received at the center taps of various
antenna elements from the satellite direction (θd, ϕd) at
the carrier frequency fc is fixed to unity. This constraint
vector can be written as
A∗k f c , θd , ϕd F ∗k f c l = lr
uk,l = 26 50
0 else
Note that the nonzero entries correspond to the center
tap (lr) of various antenna elements. This constraint vector
depends on the satellite direction, and thus differs from one
satellite in view to the next satellite in view. Also, one needs
to know the in situ antenna response of the individual
antenna elements as well as the response of the front-ends.
Therefore, an adaptive antenna using this algorithm
requires additional implementation complexity as com-
adaptive antennas, however, have the advantage of provid-
ing additional gain and reduced antenna-induced biases in
the received GNSS signals.
15/12/2020 5:48:40 PM

26.5.2.3 Correlation Vector
Another choice of constraint vector is based on the desired
signal component of the correlation vector. In order to cal-
culate the correlation vector, one would normally need to
know the delay and carrier phase associated with the
locally generated PRN sequence; however, we can let the
reference signal have the same phase and delay as the sig-
nal received by the center tap of an isotropic antenna ele-
ment located at the phase reference point of the antenna
array followed by an ideal front-end. In this case, the entries
of the constraint vector are given by
l − N 2+ 1 T s
uk,l = S f A∗k f , θd , ϕd F ∗k f e j2πf
where S(f) is the power spectral density of the GNSS SOI,
and Ts is the sampling period. Note that this constraint vec-
tor not only depends on the satellite direction but also
depends on the satellite signal spectra. Thus, adaptive
antenna weights will be different for different GNSS satel-
lite signals, which increases the implementation require-
ments. In the absence of interfering signals, this
constraint vector leads to direction-independent carrier
phase and delay for all satellites.
Both the beamforming/null-steering and the correlation
vector algorithms require the angular locations of the GNSS
satellites in the antenna array coordinate system. This
information can be obtained from the GNSS receiver, so
it is implied there is communication from the receiver to
the adaptive antenna electronics, and it can be said that
the two are loosely coupled. On the other hand, the simple
null-steering algorithm requires no information from the
GNSS receiver and can operate completely independently.
26.5.2.4 MMSE Adaptive Antennas
The last two constraint vectors require knowledge of the in
situ antenna manifold as well as knowledge of the front-end
response of the antenna electronics. This information is not
only hard to obtain but can also vary with time. To
overcome this obstacle, one popular approach is based on
minimizing the mean-squared-error (MSE) between the
array output and a locally generated reference signal r[n].
Using Eq. 26.35, the MSE is given by
∗ vector of Φu τ0 Φd τ0 , and λ is the associated eigenvalue.
ϵ=E w x n −r n
T
x n w−r n
T
The antenna weights that lead to minimum MSE are then
given by
w m = αΦ − 1 sr ,
where α is a scalar, and sr is the correlation vector between
the signal received at each tap of each antenna elements
c26.3d 707
26.5 Array Signal Processing for GNSS Receivers 707
and the locally generated reference signal, r[n]. sr is
given by
sr = E x∗ n r n 26 54
If one compares Eq. 26.53 with Eq. 26.47, one will notice
that the two are quite similar except that the constraint vec-
tor, uc, has been replaced with the correlation vector, sr. In
general, α is selected such that the weight corresponding to
the center tap of the reference element is kept fixed, and
other weights are adjusted to minimize the MSE. These
weights are referred to as the MMSE weights. In this case,
the reference signal could be the prompt PRN sequence
df generated by the GNSS receiver, and the adaptive antenna
electronics would need to be tightly coupled with the GNSS
26 51
receiver in order to receive this information.
In practice, a finite number of samples are used to esti-
mate the correlation vector, sr. In the presence of strong
interfering signals, the estimated correlation vector sr is,
therefore, dominated by the undesired signals. Neverthe-
less, the antenna weights will still converge to their desired
values as long as the reference signal is perfectly correlated
to the GNSS signal. MMSE-based adaptive antennas yield
the same C/N0 as correlation-vector-based GNSS adaptive
antennas.
26.5.2.5 Optimal C/N0 Weights
Rather than minimizing the output power in Eq. 26.46, a
more GNSS-specific optimization of the weights would be
to maximize the C/N0 at the output of the array. In
Eq. 26.43, the C/N0 for an incident GNSS signal was speci-
fied in terms of a specific set of adaptive filter weights. This
allows the optimization to be mathematically stated as
1 H
w 0 = arg min w w Φu τ 0 w such that
2
wH Φd τ0 w = 1,
26 55
The solution to this optimization problem has the
form [56]
−1
w 0 = λ Φu τ 0 Φd τ 0 w0 , 26 56
where λ is a scalar constant. Thus, w0 is equal to the eigen-
−1
26 52 Equation 26.56 can be further simplified to yield
−1
w 0 = α0 Φ u τ0 sd τ0 , 26 57
where α0 is another scalar constant. Note that one needs to
26 53
know τ0 to calculate the optimal weights; however, C/N0 is
not very sensitive to τ0, and it can be set equal to the delay
associated with the center tap of the reference element.
15/12/2020 5:48:40 PM
 708 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
26.5.3 Effects of Antenna Arrays on GNSS
Signals
In Section 26.2, we discussed how a single-element antenna
acts as a linear filter for incident GNSS signals. The effect
of an antenna array can also be modeled as a filter. Starting
with the STAP-based antenna array model in Figure 26.25,
the total system response of the adaptive antenna with K
elements can be described as
K have been proposed. One method is to predict and correct
H θ, ϕ, f = Ak θ, ϕ, f F k f W k f 26 58
k=1
The individual antenna element responses Ak are quan-
tified in the presence of the other antenna elements such
that they include the effects of mutual coupling. The total
system response also incorporates the front-end antenna
electronics Fk and the fixed or adaptive array weighting
Wk, where the details of various quantities are defined as
before. In this case, for an incoming signal with power spec-
tral density of S(f), the cross-correlation between the inci-
dent GNSS signal at the antenna phase reference point
and the antenna output is given by
R θ, ϕ, τ = S f H θ, ϕ, f e − j2πf τ
df 26 59
If all the quantities in Eq. 26.58 are known, then the
antenna array is completely characterized‚ and one can
use Eq. 26.59 along with the GNSS receiver discriminator
characteristic to calculate the antenna-induced biases. If
desired, the GNSS receiver measurements can then be cor-
rected for the antenna-induced biases. In the case of adapt-
ive antenna arrays, the adaptive filter weights change based
on the RFI environment and other factors. Therefore, the
weights are not known ahead of time‚ and simple pre-
calibration of the antenna-induced biases is not possible.
While one can calibrate the antenna-induced biases in
the absence of all interfering signals, these calibrated values
may not hold in the presence of interfering signals.
For precision GNSS applications, one should attempt to
minimize the errors associated with antenna-induced
biases. For single-element antennas, certain antenna
designs can be utilized to minimize these biases, and, sim-
ilarly, one would expect that a well-designed antenna array
might help in reducing the antenna-induced biases. How-
ever, for many GNSS adaptive antennas, this may not be
a practical approach. First, many modern GNSS receiver
antenna arrays have small apertures with closely packed
elements. There is demand to make the aperture even smal-
ler so that even small platforms can be equipped with GNSS
receivers protected by adaptive antennas. These arrays will
necessarily have strong coupling between various antenna
elements, leading to large antenna-induced biases. Second,
c26.3d 708
even if an antenna array is well designed, it is typically
mounted on complex platforms that will couple with the
antenna or scatter incident fields, creating bias errors.
Finally, adaptive antenna arrays with STAP or SFAP form
patterns to suppress interference, and conventional adapt-
ive weighting algorithms can lead to large antenna-induced
biases [7, 57, 58].
In order to overcome antenna-induced errors caused by
adaptive antenna arrays, a variety of different approaches
for the adaptive antenna-induced biases in the receiver [59,
60]. This requires that real-time information about the
adaptive filter weights be sent to the receiver. Another
method is to design new adaptive filtering algorithms spe-
cifically to mitigate antenna-induced biases [56, 61]. How-
ever, these algorithms can have increased implementation
complexity and require very accurate antenna manifold
information. Another approach is to implement MMSE
methods that can provide reduced antenna-induced biases
without excessive information [62].
26.5.4 Example Adaptive Antenna Simulation
Results
Simulations were performed to demonstrate the perfor-
mance differences between adaptive filtering algorithms.
A seven-element circular array of GPS L1 patch antennas
mounted on a small ground plane was simulated in compu-
tational electromagnetic codes. The array is shown in
Figure 26.23. Each element was simulated in the presence
of the others in order to capture the effects of mutual cou-
pling. Arrays similar to this are commonly used for GNSS
applications. The front-end electronics are assumed to be
ideal and are effectively neglected. The front-end thermal
noise is assumed white, zero-mean Gaussian. The antenna
electronics implement seven-tap STAP with 24 MHz system
bandwidth and sampling rate. The SOI is a GPS P-coded sig-
nal with an incident signal power of −30 dB SNR, and its
angle of arrival is varied. The STAP filter weights are ana-
lytically computed using equations described in the previ-
ous sections assuming the weights have converged to a
steady state in a constant signal scenario. Receiver perfor-
mance metrics are also evaluated using the analytic equa-
tions. The interference scenarios include wideband and
partial-band interferers. Wideband interferers occupy the
entire system bandwidth‚ while partial-band interferers
have a narrower bandwidth and are offset from the L1 car-
rier frequency. All interferers are strong with a 50 dB inter-
ference-to-noise ratio (INR) and are incident from angles
near the horizon as indicated in each figure.
Figure 26.26 shows the simulated performance of the dif-
ferent adaptive filtering algorithms in two interference
15/12/2020 5:48:40 PM
 26.5 Array Signal Processing for GNSS Receivers 709

(a) (b)
55 55

50 50
C/N0(dB–Hz)

C/N0(dB–Hz)
45 45

40 40
NS NS
35 BF/NS 35 BF/NS
CV CV
OP OP
30 30
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
θ (deg) θ (deg)

50 50

0 0
Code Delay Bias (cm)

Code Delay Bias (cm)

–50 –50

–100 –100
NS NS
BF/NS BF/NS
CV CV
–150 –150
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
θ (deg) θ (deg)

NS NS
150 150
BF/NS BF/NS
CV CV
Carrier Phase Bias (deg)

Carrier Phase Bias (deg)

100 100

50 50

0 0

–50 –50

–100 –100

–150 –150

–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90

θ (deg) θ (deg)

Figure 26.26 Simulated performance of an adaptive antenna array showing C/N0, code delay bias, and carrier-phase bias versus elevation
angle (a) in the absence of interference and (b) in the presence of a single wideband interferer.

environments. Each row of plots shows the C/N0, carrier-
phase bias, and code delay bias. In each plot, the incident
angle of ascension θ of the GNSS signal is varied from
−90 to 90 (i.e. a principal plane cut going from horizon
to horizon passing through the zenith). The performance
of three different adaptive filtering algorithms is compared:
simple null steering (NS), beamforming / null-steering
(BF/NS), and correlation vector (CV). In the plots showing
the C/N0 performance, the optimal C/N0 (OP) algorithm is
also included. The left column shows results in the absence
of interference. In this case, we can observe that the simple
null-steering algorithm has reduced C/N0 performance as
compared to the other algorithms because it does not per-
form beamforming and lacks array gain. We also observe
that the other algorithms come very close to the optimal
C/N0 performance. We observe that the beamforming/

c26.3d 709 15/12/2020 5:48:40 PM

 710 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
null-steering algorithm does not introduce carrier-phase
biases, while the CV algorithm has neither carrier phase
nor code delay biases. The right column of Figure 26.26
shows the performance in the presence of a single wide-
band interferer. The direction of the interference is indi-
cated by the arrow. While performance has degraded in
the angular region around the interferer, we see that all
algorithms provide protection against it and allow suffi-
cient C/N0 at other angles. It should also be noted that
the antenna-induced biases introduced by certain algo-
rithms have changed as compared to the scenario without
interferers. This highlights the fact that antenna calibration
in the absence of interference cannot be applied to adaptive
antennas.
Figure 26.27 shows the performance in two additional
interference scenarios. The interference directions are indi-
cated by the arrows. The left column shows results in the
presence of two wideband interferers. Again, the use of
adaptive interference suppression has allowed the receiver
system to provide good C/N0 over a large portion of the sky.
The right column shows the case with three partial-band
interferers. Since these interferers occupy only a small por-
tion of the frequency band, STAP is able to null them and
still provide good C/N0 even in directions near the inter-
ferers. However, the act of temporally nulling the interfer-
ence has caused distortions in the GPS signal, resulting in a
larger antenna-induced bias.
26.5.5 Adaptive Filtering Implementations
The adaptive filtering algorithms described above make use
of the received signal correlation matrices in order to adapt
to the signal environment. Traditionally, forming and
inverting this matrix has been computationally costly,
and a number of approaches were developed to allow effi-
cient implementation of the adaptive filter weight
algorithms [63–67].
26.5.5.1 Sample Matrix Inversion (SMI)
It is clear that if the covariance matrix Φ is known, then it is
straightforward to calculate the adaptive antenna weights.
One can use multiple snapshots of the signals received at
various taps of K elements to estimate the covariance
matrix; that is,
1 M−1 ∗
Φn = x n − m xT n − m , 26 60
Mm=0
where M is the number of samples used in estimation of the
covariance matrix. Note that the larger M is, the better the
estimated covariance matrix will be. As a rule of thumb,
M > 2KL + 3, where K is the number of elements‚ and L
c26.3d 710
is the number of taps. This method of calculating the adapt-
ive antenna weights is called SMI.
SMI implementation leads to converged weights (no past
memory) and a stable solution as long as the estimated
covariance matrix is full rank. However, for a large value
of the product KL, it is computationally inefficient as many
operations are needed to estimate the covariance matrix
(Eq. (26.60)) and to solve the system of equations. Though
many approaches, such as systolic arrays, have been devel-
oped to decrease the computation requirements, it still
might not be sufficient for many systems. Also, there will
be some time lag between the input samples and the output
samples unless one is willing to use the “stale” weights (i.e.
weights calculated from the previous snapshots are applied
to the current snapshots). These are the two main draw-
backs of SMI implementation.
In the case of the MMSE algorithm, one also needs to esti-
mate the CV, sr. Again, one can use multiple snapshots of
x[n] to estimate sr. The number of samples used in the esti-
mation of sr can be different from the number of snapshots
used to estimate the covariance matrix. In general, many
more snapshots are used in the estimation of sr.
26.5.5.2 Recursive Least Squares (RLS)
In an RLS implementation, the latest snapshots of x[n] are
used to calculate the inverse of the covariance matrix
directly. Let
Φ n = λ f Φ n − 1 + x∗ n x T n , 26 61
where λf is a real number called “forget factor.” Then
assuming that Φ(n − 1) is invertible, it can be shown that
1 Φ − 1 n − 1 x∗ n xT n Φ − 1 n − 1
Φ−1 n = Φ−1 n − 1 −
λf λ f + x T n Φ − 1 n − 1 x∗ n
26 62
Therefore, Φ−1[n] can be calculated very efficiently. To
guarantee inversion, one can assume Φ[0] = I. This imple-
mentation has excellent performance in time-varying RF
environments. The forget factor, λf, is generally chosen
between 0.95 and 0.99.
Note that in RLS implementations, one can update the
weights with every snapshot; however, it is neither practical
nor recommended. Many snapshots are skipped between
weight updates, and the adaptive weights are stale. Further-
more, many updates may be needed before the weights to
converge to a steady-state value, and it can exhibit stability
problems in finite-precision implementations.
26.5.5.3 Least Mean Squares (LMS)
In an LMS implementation, one does not calculate the
inverse of the covariance matrix or solve a system of
15/12/2020 5:48:41 PM
 26.5 Array Signal Processing for GNSS Receivers 711

(a) (b)

55 55

50 50
C/N0(dB–Hz)

C/N0(dB–Hz)
45 45

40 40
NS NS
35 BF/NS 35 BF/NS
CV CV
OP OP
30 30
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
θ (deg) θ (deg)

50 50

0 0
Code Delay Bias (cm)

Code Delay Bias (cm)

–50 –50

–100 –100
NS NS
BF/NS BF/NS
CV CV
–150 –150
–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90
θ (deg) θ (deg)

NS NS
150 150
BF/NS BF/NS
CV CV
Carrier Phase Bias (deg)
Carrier Phase Bias (deg)

100 100

50 50

0 0

–50 –50

–100 –100

–150 –150

–90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90

θ (deg) θ (deg)

Figure 26.27 Simulated performance of an adaptive antenna array showing C/N0, code delay bias, and carrier-phase bias versus elevation
angle in the presence of (a) two wideband interferers and (b) three narrowband interferers.

equations. Instead, the covariance matrix Φ is used directly ϵ n = r n − xT n w n 26 64

to update the antenna weights, which leads to a very effi-
cient implementation. Originally, LMS was developed for Substituting Eq. 26.64 into Eq. 26.63 yields
MMSE-based adaptive antennas [68]. It was suggested that w n + 1 = w n + μ n E x∗ n r n − μ n E x∗ n xT n w n
the weights be updated using 26 65
w n + 1 = w n + μ n E x∗ n ϵ n , 26 63 = w n + μ n sr n − μ n Φ n w n 26 66
where μ[n] is a scalar constant‚ and ϵ[n] is the error Note that in a static signal environment, the weights will
between the array output and the reference signal. That is, converge to their steady-state values as given in Eq. (26.53).

c26.3d 711 15/12/2020 5:48:41 PM

 712 26 GNSS Receiver Antennas and Antenna Array Signal Processing
Also, Φ is used directly in updating the antenna weights, so
the weights can be updated very efficiently.
In an LMS implementation, like an RLS implementation,
the weights can be updated with every snapshot. However,
it is not recommended‚ as the weights can become noisy. In
practice, many samples are skipped between weight
updates. One can use all these samples or a fraction of these
samples to estimate sr[n] and Φ[n]. LMS implementations
also lead to stale weights in the sense that previously
updated weights are used with the most recent snapshots.
In an LMS implementation, weights go through a transi-
tion before reaching their steady-state value. The transition
period or convergence time depends on μ[n]. The larger
μ[n] is, the faster the convergence will be. If μ[n] is selected
to be too large, the system becomes unstable as it (LMS) is a
closed-loop implementation in that input as well as output
are used to update the antenna weights. For a stable system,
γ γ
μn = = , 26 67
E xT n x∗ n Pn
where 0 < γ < 1 and P[n] is the total power in all the signals
incident on the antenna array. μ[n] decreases with an
increase in P[n]. Also‚ the strongest signal dictates the
selected value of μ[n]. For signal scenarios consisting of
jammers with a large dynamic range, the convergence rate
can be quite slow. In fact, the convergence rate depends on
the eigenvalue spread of the covariance matrix. The larger
the spread is, the slower the convergence will be. Neverthe-
less, the implementation is stable, converges to steady-state
values of the weights‚ and is efficient to implement.
The weights in Eq. 26.66 can also be written as
w n + 1 = I − μ n Φ n w n + μ n sr n , 26 68
which represents the LMS implementation of MMSE-based
adaptive antennas. For LCMV-based adaptive antennas,
the LMS implementation is given by
w n + 1 = P I − μ n Φ n w n + f, 26 69
where P and f depend on the constraint vector, uc, and are
defined as
P = I − fuH
c ,
uc
f= H 26 70
uc uc
Note that uH H
c f = 1, uc P = 0 , and the weights in Eq.
26.69 meet the selected constraint (i.e., uH
c w n + 1 = 1).
Many variants of RLS and LMS implementations have
been proposed in the open literature. In fact, before the dig-
ital revolution, this was one of the most researched topics.
While implementations that lead to faster convergence and
are still stable have been proposed, they come with an
increased cost of implementation.
c26.3d 712
26.5.6 Space-Frequency Adaptive Processing
In the above discussion, STAP was used to calculate and
apply the antenna filtering in the time domain. One can
also carry out this processing in the frequency domain
using the fast Fourier transform (FFT) to transfer the
antenna snapshots back and forth to the frequency domain
[69, 70]. Frequency domain processing provides the ability
to process individual frequency bins independently. That is,
instead of dealing with a single KL × KL correlation matrix,
one deals with L, K × K matrices. While this technically
leads to suboptimal performance, the increase in computa-
tional efficiency allows one to make up for the loss in per-
formance by increasing the number of frequency bins.
Thus, when the number of taps becomes large, single-bin
processing becomes quite attractive. For example, if a STAP
system has 15 taps, single-bin frequency processing can
have 32 or 64 bins. The use of this single-bin frequency pro-
cessing is sometimes referred to as narrowband STAP or
SFAP. It has been shown that the implementation require-
ments of SFAP are significantly lower than those of STAP as
the length of the adaptive filter increases [71].
For improved performance in an SFAP implementation,
time domain snapshots can be multiplied by a window
function before the application of the FFT. This limits spec-
tral leakage of strong narrowband interference to a few fre-
quency bins. The inverse of the window function is applied
to the time domain samples obtained after the inverse FFT
is applied to the output frequency domain samples. SFAP
processed the received signals in batches, and the proces-
sing can distorts the end samples of a batch of the time
domain samples. To minimize this distortion, some over-
lapping of the time domain samples is carried out. In gen-
eral, 50% overlapping is carried out; that is, each time
domain sample is processed twice, although it has been
shown that one can easily reduce the overlapping to 25%
in order to further reduce the implementation require-
ments [71]. SFAP has many other attractive features, such
as its increased frequency resolution over large bandwidths,
and the ability to completely remove the antenna-induced
biases when performing beamforming.
26.6 Summary
Modern GNSS receiver systems must meet a number of
increasing demands, including higher precision, a larger
number of supported GNSS signals, incorporation into
smaller platforms, and increased reliability in a wider range
of environments. The antennas chosen for these systems
play an important role in satisfying these requirements.
This chapter has provided a high-level review of the key
15/12/2020 5:48:41 PM

features of antennas for modern GNSS receiver systems. It
is by no means comprehensive. The reader is referred to
alternate references, such as [13], for more detailed infor-
mation. The importance of the antenna in the overall sys-
tem should not be disregarded, since it plays a crucial
role in determining signal quality and driving error budgets
for state-of-the-art precision applications.
The use of antenna arrays with GNSS receiver systems
has now become commonplace. Although we have focused
on one of their most advantageous capabilities – adaptive
interference suppression – they offer numerous other uses,
including precise attitude determination, high gain, and
direction-of-arrival verification. Recent work has gone into
the miniaturization of antenna arrays to open up the range
of applications and platforms. Although array processing
has been computationally demanding in the past, steady
improvements in computation performance have eased this
burden‚ and we will likely see improvements as array signal
processing is more deeply integrated with receiver proces-
sing in the near future.
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 717

Part C

Satellite Navigation for Engineering and Scientific Applications

 719

27

Global Geodesy and Reference Frames

Chris Rizos1, Zuheir Altamimi2, and Gary Johnson3
1
University of New South, Wales, Australia
2
Institut National de l’Information Géographique et Forestière, France
3
Geoscience, Australia, Australia

27.1 Global Geodesy reliably determined. Geodesy is therefore providing vital

insights into dynamic Earth System processes (Chapter 28).
27.1.1 Background Geodesy is also a geospatial discipline that provides the
foundation for surveying and mapping (Chapter 55). Geod-
Geodesy is the science of the study of Earth’s properties of
esy does this by providing the TRF so that the temporal
shape, gravity, and rotation [1] – requiring their measure-
coordinates of any object, built structure, or land feature
ment in both a spatial and temporal sense. These properties
can be unambiguously expressed; as well as by aiding the
change with time because Earth is a dynamic system com-
development of the tools and methodologies for precise
prising fluid atmosphere and oceans, mobile tectonic plates
positioning and mapping. It is not surprising that geodesy
and active geological faults, changing distributions of ice,
performs these dual functions because the same GNSS tech-
snow, surface and ground water, and numerous deep Earth
nology, and the TRF that services geodetic science, are also
processes.
used by many other geospatial applications in engineering,
In the past half century or so, geodetic science has been
surveying, navigation, and mapping.
revolutionized by the expansion of the geodetic measure-
In the context of this chapter, GNSS geodesy comprises
ment toolkit to include a number of space techniques,
the following:
based primarily on the tracking of artificial Earth satellites,

•
such as the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), sat-
ellite and lunar laser ranging, and Doppler frequency mea-
surements; as well as the radio-astrometric technique
known as Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). In
modern geodesy, “shape” can be considered synonymous
with “position” – the mathematical description of location
of any point on or above the surface of Earth with very high
Precise GNSS positioning methodologies that have been
developed over the past three or so decades – the math-
ematical modeling of carrier-phase observations, the
operational procedures for determining sub-centimeter-
level coordinate accuracies, the field receivers that track
the GNSS signals, the measurement processing software,
and so on [2–4].

•
accuracy – for which GNSS is ideally suited. The focus of
modern geodesy is now the monitoring of changes with
time of the three fundamental Earth properties of shape:
3D position of ground stations, gravity, and rotation. This
requires the definition, realization, and maintenance of
high-fidelity, high-accuracy geodetic reference systems –
the one most relevant for the aforementioned space geo-
Ground infrastructure used to augment GNSS accuracy –
the networks of permanent GNSS receivers installed at
ground stations which substantially improve GNSS posi-
tioning accuracy, and which, in addition, are vital to both
the definition of national TRFs as well as providing a
means of connecting to the appropriate TRF for the geo-
spatial or geoscience application of interest.

•
detic techniques being the Terrestrial Reference System
(TRS). Its practical realization – the Terrestrial Reference
Frame (TRF) (see Section 27.3) – allows comparison of geo-
detic measurements that have been made over periods of up
to several decades, so that variations in the size and shape,
gravity field‚ and rotational characteristics of Earth can be
GNSS services to support precise geodetic positioning – to
overcome some of the systematic errors of GNSS posi-
tioning, such as satellite orbit and clock errors, satellite
signal biases, and atmospheric signal disturbances, such
as provided by the International GNSS Service (IGS) [5].

Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
720 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames
• TRFs defined at the global, regional‚ or national level in
which the precise coordinates are expressed – in this
regard‚ special mention should be made of the role of
the IGS in providing the means to connect to the global
TRF (see Section 27.2).
This chapter is organized into three parts. The first part is
an introduction to space geodesy, the principles of GNSS
geodesy, and the International Association of Geodesy
(IAG). The IAG is the scientific association that organizes
the space geodetic services that support high-accuracy
GNSS positioning for scientific and societal applications.
The most important of the IAG services is the IGS, and
the second part of the chapter gives a short description of
the IGS and its role in providing the geodetic infrastructure
and services that underpin precision GNSS positioning. The
third part describes one of the most important products of
modern geodesy, the TRF. A brief explanation is given of
how the International Terrestrial Reference Frame
(ITRF) is realized, including some information on the cur-
rent ITRF2014.
27.1.2 The IAG
At the invitation of the Prussian General Johann Jacob
Baeyer, representatives of the states of Prussia, Austria,
and Saxony met in 1862 in Berlin to discuss Baeyer’s “Pro-
posal for a Central European Arc Measurement.” By the
end of that year, 16 nation-states had agreed to participate
in the project: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, seven
German states (Baden, Bavaria, Hannover, Mecklenburg,
Prussia, Saxony, and Saxe-Gotha), Italy, the Netherlands,
Poland, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland. The IAG counts
this international scientific initiative, and the organization
it spawned, as its origin [6].
The idea for the project had been submitted by Baeyer to
the Prussian Ministry of War in his document “On the Size
and Figure of the Earth: A Memorandum on the Establish-
ment of a Central European Arc Measurement, Along with
a Sketch Map” (“Über die Größe und Figur der Erde: eine
Denkschrift zur Begründung einer Mitteleuropäischen
Gradmessung nebst einer Übersichtskarte”). The aim was
to connect the numerous Central European astronomical
observatories by the existing or planned triangulation net-
works, in order to determine the regional and local anoma-
lies of the curvature of the figure of Earth. This was the
basis for all precise point positioning in science and prac-
tice, and the beginning of interpreting these anomalies with
respect to the structure and composition of the outer layer
of Earth, which was explicitly mentioned by Baeyer as a
scientific challenge. The project extended rapidly to other
European states‚ and consequently the name of the
organization was changed in 1867 to “Europäische
Gradmessung,” and in 1886 to “Internationale Erdmes-
sung” (“Association Internationale de Géodésie”) with
additional member states Argentina, Chile, Japan, Mexico,
and the United States.
A primary motivation for the founding of these associa-
tions was to encourage international cooperation for a prac-
tical geodetic project, with the outcome being improved
reference frame and geoid knowledge to support conti-
nent-wide mapping [6]. It must be acknowledged that the
(perhaps utopian) goals of close European cooperation
and unfettered sharing of geodetic data were not substan-
tially achieved until well after World War II. However, in
the past few decades‚ the IAG again strongly promoted
global collaboration to advance the science and practice
of geodesy. Today, the IAG is an important association
under the umbrella of the International Union of Geodesy
and Geophysics, which in 2019 celebrated its founding cen-
tenary [7].
The IAG [8] accomplishes its mission through the activ-
ities of its commissions, inter-commission committees, ser-
vices, and the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS –
[9]). The IAG services span the relevant geometric, gravi-
metric, oceanographic, and related properties of Earth.
GGOS was established by the IAG in 2007 to support the
ambitious goals of modern geodesy, derived from the recog-
nition that geodesy is an observational science that nowa-
days deals with [10] (Figure 27.1):
• Monitoring of the solid Earth (i.e. displacement, subsid-
ence or deformation of the ground and structures, due to
tectonic, volcanic‚ and other natural phenomena, as well
as human activity).
• Monitoring of variations in the liquid Earth (e.g. sea level
rise, ice sheets, mesoscale sea surface topography fea-
tures, mass transport).
• Monitoring variations in the Earth’s rotation (polar
motion, length of day).
• Monitoring the atmosphere with satellite geodetic tech-
niques (ionosphere and troposphere composition, and
physical state).
• Monitoring the temporal variations in the gravity field of
the Earth, as well as mapping the geoid with increasing
accuracy and spatial resolution.
• Determining satellite orbits (including those of Earth
observation and navigation satellites).
• Determining positions, and their changes with time, of
points on or above the surface of the Earth with the
utmost accuracy.
The IAG services of the four primary space geodesy tech-
niques are the cornerstones of GGOS: the IGS [5, 11], the
International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS – [12, 13]), the

Figure 27.1 The Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS):
applications, geoscience parameters‚ and space geodetic
techniques. Source: Reproduced with permission of GGOS.
International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS
– [14, 15]), and the International Doppler Orbitography and
Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) Service
(IDS – [16, 17]). These services generate products, including
precise satellite orbits and clocks, ground station coordi-
nates, Earth rotation parameters, atmospheric refraction
quantities, and others.
Networks of the space geodesy observing stations of these
geometric IAG services are the physical realization of the
ITRF [18]). The International Earth Rotation and Refer-
ence Systems Service (IERS – [19]) is responsible for com-
bining the necessary analyses of the individual geometric
IAG services to produce the ITRF – so as to satisfy the
requirements for science and society for a stable, high-accu-
racy, global geodetic reference frame. The latest realization
is known as ITRF2014 (see Section 27.3 [20]). The majority
of the fundamental observing stations underpinning the
ITRF realization belong to the IGS tracking station network
(Figure 27.4 [21]).
A challenge that geodesy is now facing is to maintain the
ITRF accuracy and stability over time at the level of milli-
meter and sub-millimeter per year, respectively, that is
required for Earth science applications [10], such as the
determination of global sea level change; glacial isostatic
27.1 Global Geodesy 721
adjustments due to deglaciation since the last glacial max-
imum and to current mass change of the ice sheets; pre-,
co-, and post-seismic deformations associated with large
earthquakes; early warnings for tsunamis, landslides,
earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; as well as deforma-
tion and structural monitoring.
27.1.3 The Impact of GNSS on Modern Geodesy
What has enabled geodesy to change from an obscure
applied science to today’s cutting-edge geoscience? There
are a number of reasons for this. First, modern geodesy
relies on space technology, and enormous strides have been
made in accuracy, resolution, and coverage due to advances
in satellite sensors and an expanding suite of satellite mis-
sions. Second, geodesy can determine Earth parameters to
an accuracy that no other remote sensing technique can.
These include the position and velocity of points on the sur-
face of the Earth, the shape and variations of the ocean, ice
and land surfaces, and the spatial and temporal features of
the gravity field. However, what relentlessly drives geodesy
into the future is the innovative use of GNSS signals.
GNSS is the most versatile space geodetic technology ever
developed for high-accuracy positioning of points on or
above the surface of the Earth. GNSS is therefore crucial
to studying the faint signatures of the Earth that find
expression in changes in shape of the Earth’s surface via
time-varying coordinates of sampled ground points. This
also requires a highly accurate ITRF. Furthermore, GNSS
is the "go-to" technology for precise orbit determination
of satellite altimetry, gravity mapping, and remote sensing
satellites (Chapter 28). In addition, GNSS is a technology
for monitoring important parameters of the atmosphere
and Earth’s surface – the former by virtue of the distortion
of GNSS signals as they propagate through the ionosphere
(Chapter 31) and troposphere (Chapter 30), and the latter
from an analysis of reflected GNSS signals off the ocean
and land surfaces (Chapter 34).
High-accuracy GNSS positioning is synonymous with the
differential positioning mode that utilizes (a minimum of )
two receivers, with one antenna set up at a reference station
of known coordinate, and the other at the point whose coor-
dinate needs to be determined – which may be a static
ground station or a moving platform [22, 23] (Chapter 19).
As a result, GNSS positioning accuracy can be defined in
relative terms, for example‚ as a ratio of coordinate error
(typically expressed as a 95% uncertainty) to distance
(separating the two GNSS receivers). The coordinate error
can then be expressed in distance units by scaling the ratio
by this baseline distance. For example, “0.1 parts-per-mil-
lion” (or ppm) is a relative accuracy measure of 1 cm
(95% confidence value) between two receivers 100 km
722 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames

apart, or 10 cm error over a 1000 km baseline distance, and
so forth. The differential GNSS techniques based on carrier-
phase measurements can deliver relative coordinate
accuracies as low as a few millimeters when top-of-the-line
GNSS receivers are used, following strict operational guide-
lines, and the measurements are processed using sophisti-
cated software [23].
The reader is referred to such texts as [3, 4] for a detailed
treatment of the measurement models and algorithms that
make possible such high-accuracy positioning perfor-
mance. However, in addition to hardware, software, and
operational procedures, there are several other innovations
of GNSS geodesy that have contributed to making it such a
powerful technology.
The first one was the widespread establishment of perma-
nent GNSS reference receivers, or continuously operating
reference stations (CORSs). In the early 1980s, use of
GPS for geodetic applications required the measurement
of baselines between pairs of simultaneously operating
receivers over distances from several tens to hundreds,
and even thousands of kilometers. The research organiza-
tions and government agencies that conducted such sur-
veys were responsible for the setting up, operation, and
demount of all the receivers. This would be done in the con-
text of a geodetic survey to establish (typically) a network of
coordinated ground marks to define a nation’s reference
frame. For geoscience applications, changes in ground
mark coordinates were measured by GPS surveys that were
repeated on (for example) an annual basis. There was a con-
siderable logistical challenge in executing GNSS geodetic
surveys in this way. A network of CORSs would obviate
the need to operate reference receivers during GNSS sur-
veys, and would be especially useful for geodetic tasks such
as the monitoring of continuous (as opposed to episodic)
changes in the coordinates of ground marks used to char-
acterize crustal motion or ground deformation.
CORSs range from single-receiver installations to vast
networks of CORS across entire countries (as in Japan’s
GEONET [24]), regions (e.g. EUREF’s permanent CORS
network [25]), and globally (for example‚ the IGS station
network with more than 500 stations [21]). Most CORS net-
works are not homogeneous, with different agencies and
organizations being responsible for their operation. CORSs
may have different equipment configurations, different
types of antennas and ground mark monuments, addres-
sing the needs of different user communities. However,
GNSS geodesy, particularly via the IGS (Section 27.2),
strives to standardize the site and equipment guide-
lines [26].
Figure 27.2 shows a typical choke-ring antenna installed
on a concrete pillar (left, without radome) and on a rigid
tripod (right, with radome). Not shown in either image
is the instrument cabinet where the receiver itself is
housed (together with communications, batteries, and

Figure 27.2 Two examples of geodetic-grade continuously operating reference station GNSS installations. (Left) On concrete pillar at
Mount Stromlo, outside Canberra, Australia, without radome, in front of the satellite laser ranging (SLR) tracking station; (right) drilled-
braced monument at Petrof Lake, Alaska, United States, part of the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (left photo credit: Geoscience
Australia; right photo credit: UNAVCO). Source: Reproduced with permission of Geoscience Australia; Reproduced with permission of
UNAVCO.

other ancillary equipment), power systems such as solar
panels, lightning protection, additional pillars or witness
marks, and so on. CORS installations such as these are
a considerable investment by an agency or organization
in GNSS ground infrastructure for accuracy augmenta-
tion. CORS ground infrastructure is a defining character-
istic of GNSS geodesy and surveying.
A second innovation is the availability of a variety of
GNSS products and services, including those provided
directly by the IGS [27], by web services for GNSS measure-
ment processing [28–30], and by service providers for real-
time GNSS positioning for surveying and engineering appli-
cations [31–33]; as well as standardized data and transmis-
sion formats that support GNSS interoperability [34, 35].
The third innovation is the increasing adoption of the
ITRF [18] (Section 27.3). There are a number of reasons
for this:
1) The ITRF is globally applicable and maintained by the
IERS as a scientific service.
2) The coordinates of many GNSS CORSs provide a con-
nection to the ITRF.
3) Any GNSS receiver can be easily connected to the ITRF
using a variety of positioning techniques (Chapters 19
and 20), via CORS measurements and the aforemen-
tioned IGS GNSS products and services.
27.1.4 Geodetic GNSS
27.1.4.1 Surveying and Geodesy
GNSS is a fundamental tool for the geodetic, land, engineer-
ing‚ and hydrographic surveyor [23]. As already mentioned,
GNSS survey tasks relate to the determination of high-
accuracy coordinates in a well-defined reference frame,
using positioning techniques based on the processing of
carrier-phase measurements. This enhanced GNSS posi-
tioning accuracy is possible because of the refinement of
the special instrumentation, the sophisticated software,
and field operations that has taken place over the last three
decades or more. Differential GNSS (DGNSS) is capable of
achieving positioning accuracies three orders of magnitude
higher than using the standard single-receiver GPS tech-
nique (Chapter 2).
GNSS geodesy is an extension of GPS geodesy principles.
All mathematical concepts, measurement principles, oper-
ational procedures‚ and applications were first developed
using GPS technology. The first decade of GPS geodesy
was characterized by static positioning‚ in which two
GPS receivers recorded measurements during an observa-
tion session, and subsequent measurement processing back
in the office computed the baseline vector connecting a
ground mark of known geodetic coordinate to a point
27.1 Global Geodesy 723
whose coordinate was to be determined. The processing
was undertaken one observation session at a time, to com-
pute the single-session baseline vectors between the pair of
simultaneously operating receivers, which were then com-
bined into a geodetic network. A network of coordinated
ground points observed in this way is an effective realiza-
tion of a geodetic datum that can be used for subsequent
surveying and mapping tasks.
In summary, GNSS geodesy is characterized by the
following:
• Records carrier-phase measurements in the field, during
a specified observation period.
• Uses top-of-the-line geodetic-grade receivers and
antennas.
•• Installed on stable ground monuments.
Facilitates the determination of relative coordinates
between a minimum of two simultaneously operating
stationary receivers.
•
Used for continental-scale projects and (typically) long
baselines.
•
Subsequently processed using sophisticated multi-sta-
tion, multi-session software.
•
Incorporates additional information on reference frame
and measurement errors from geodetic service providers.
27.1.4.2 Static GNSS Positioning Techniques
One of the key features of DGNSS techniques compared to
terrestrial geodetic techniques is that inter-visibility
between pairs of observing GNSS receivers is not necessary.
In fact, the distance between GNSS receivers may range
from several kilometers to hundreds, and even thousands
of kilometers. The ground marks whose coordinates are
to be determined are static. For many geodetic applications,
great care is taken to build stable monuments upon which
the GNSS antennas are mounted – concrete pillars, steel
pins, metal tripods‚ or poles – fixed to bedrock or attached
to structures (Figure 27.2). These coordinated ground
marks can be used as datum control marks to which all
other lower-accuracy surveys are connected using standard
terrestrial or GNSS-based surveying and mapping techni-
ques. When resurveyed on a regular basis (or monitored
continuously), they can measure ground displacement or
subsidence, either locally or in the context of large-scale tec-
tonic movements, and so on.
Surveys (and hence coordinates derived from them) were
(and still are to a large extent) classified in a hierarchical
sense – from the highest geodetic categories through to
lower-accuracy control, engineering, and mapping surveys.
The accuracies of such GNSS surveys range from the sub-
centimeter to perhaps the decimeter level. There is a com-
plex relationship between the accuracy required and the
724 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames
GNSS hardware, field procedures, augmentation services,
and measurement processing software that should be used
[2, 23]. GNSS hardware varies the least – typically multi-
frequency, multi-constellation GNSS receiver equipment
is used. In contrast, the measurement modeling within
the processing software exhibits considerable variation,
from commercial systems designed for land and engi-
neering surveying that are optimized for short-baseline
scenarios and ease of use, to geodetic software used for
the long-baseline geoscientific applications referred to ear-
lier. The pertinent characteristics of several GNSS geodesy
methodologies are discussed below.
Global GNSS Geodesy. GNSS geodesy makes use of
ultra-accurate, long-baseline GNSS techniques – capable of
relative positioning accuracies as high as a few parts-per-
billion over baseline lengths of hundreds to thousands of
kilometers. Applications are ITRF definition and mainte-
nance (see Section 27.3), connecting national geodetic ref-
erence frames to the ITRF, precise satellite orbit
determination, and tectonic motion studies. Some charac-
teristics of GNSS geodesy are listed below:
• The carrier-phase measurements are made by top-of-the-
line, multi-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS recei-
vers installed at stable ground marks or monuments.
To date‚ GPS satellites are mostly being tracked, though
increasingly measurements are also made to GLONASS,
BeiDou, and Galileo satellites.
• Observation sessions are many hours (and even days) in
length during which carrier-phase measurements are
recorded for post-survey analysis. However, at CORS
sites‚ this typically involves the segmentation into 24-
hour observation session measurement files for subse-
quent processing.
• The measurement processing is undertaken using com-
plex geodetic software, which typically involves not only
the computation of the coordinates of the GNSS recei-
vers, but also a variety of signal biases, GNSS satellite
orbits, atmospheric delay biases, and Earth Orientation
Parameters (EOPs).
• Such analysis is typical of what IGS Analysis Centers
undertake on a continuous basis (see Section 27.2).
GNSS for Geodetic Control. Geodetic surveying is con-
cerned with the establishment of geodetic reference frames.
These are typically at national scale, but they may also refer
to individual project applications – though these are some-
times referred to as “control surveys”. Geodetic datums are
realized by ground marks with known ellipsoidal coordi-
nates that can be used by any surveyor or engineer as start-
ing coordinates for subsequent surveys to support mapping,
surveying, construction‚ or engineering activities. Precise
GPS static positioning has revolutionized geodetic
surveying because it has replaced traditional labor-
intensive terrestrial surveying techniques. As in the case
of global GNSS geodesy techniques, geodetic-grade recei-
vers are used. Multiple receivers may be deployed (a min-
imum of two), which are used to record simultaneously
tracked GPS (and increasingly other GNSS) satellites. Some
characteristics of geodetic control GNSS surveys are listed
below, for two field deployment scenarios:
• Campaign mode single-baseline or multi-station:
– Observation sessions are typically several hours in
length, and measurements are recorded in data files
for subsequent processing [35].
– Logistical considerations are important, so that recei-
vers are moved to pre-established ground marks, and
operated according to a carefully defined timetable [36].
– Recorded measurements from the pair (or more) of
simultaneously operating receivers are processed, one
observation session at a time, to compute the single-
session baseline vectors. The software that is used
may be commercial (capable of ppm-level relative accu-
racy for relatively short inter-receiver distances, of sev-
eral tens of kilometers or so), or geodetic-grade (when
longer baselines are processed, or more complex
multi-station/multi-session processing is undertaken).
– Subsequently these single-session solutions may be
combined in a secondary network adjustment when
datum constraints are applied – typically in the form
of “fixed” known coordinates of one or more datum
points – if commercial software has been used. (This
step may not be necessary if using state-of-the-art,
multi-session geodetic-grade software.) In this way,
the datum is propagated to other GNSS-surveyed
ground marks.
• Surveys with the aid of CORS infrastructure:
– Ground marks to be surveyed in the national datum
are occupied as in the above scenario. The logistical
challenges are substantially reduced, as the geodetic
surveyor needs only to be responsible for transporting,
setting up, and operating their own GNSS receiver(s).
– Measurement processing is undertaken using the techni-
ques mentioned above. The data files from the CORS are
downloaded for subsequent measurement processing.
– As an alternative to processing the measurement data
themselves – a task that requires considerable analyst
skill – surveyors can submit data files to one of several
Web processing engines such as NGS’s OPUS [28],
NRCAN’s CRCS-PPP [29], GA’s AUSPOS [30], and
others.
GNSS Deformation Surveys. Ground deformation sur-
veys are undertaken to measure the change in the

coordinates of stable points or monuments fixed to the
Earth’s surface or to engineered structures [23]. The points
may move in a horizontal or vertical sense, or in three
dimensions, with signature characteristics across a wide
range of time and spatial scales, from motion on the order
of millimeters or centimeters per year, to rapid ground or
structural shaking reaching magnitudes of many deci-
meters. The sub-categories of deformation surveys include
building or structural monitoring (during or after construc-
tion), building or structural movement due to wind or load
effects, landslide monitoring, co-seismic displacement,
ground subsidence (due to underground fluid extraction
or mining) or inflation (due to build-up of magma below
volcanoes), tide gauge stability monitoring, local tectonic
fault motion, and post-seismic response. We can distin-
guish two typical deformation scenarios: small, slow, and
(in general) steady motion, in contrast to large, rapid and
(in general) unpredictable displacement. Some characteris-
tics of GNSS deformation surveys are listed below:
•
Rapid ground displacement due to catastrophic events
such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides,
and so on:
– Continuous operations are ideal, and typically in real-
time, remote monitoring mode.
– Real-time (RT) continuous is typically in so-called "real-
time kinematic" (RTK) mode [37] (Chapter 19), other-
wise non-RT simplified measurement processing with
commercial software in single-baseline mode [22].
– Monumentation, from highly stable, permanent
antenna mounts to low-cost, temporary marks.
– CORS, but installations may use low-cost, single-
frequency GNSS receivers, in circumstances where
many monitoring receivers are required and/or there
is a possibility they could be destroyed.
• Rapid deformation of structures due to wind and loads:
– Continuous operations in real-time monitoring typi-
cally using the RTK GNSS technique (if in alarm
mode), otherwise post-processing of recorded mea-
surements using commercial software in single-
baseline mode.
– Monumentation on buildings or ground marks, and
may vary from stable, permanent antenna mounts to
temporary marks.
– Choice of either top-of-the-line GNSS receivers, possi-
bly augmented with accelerometers or inclinometers
for deformation monitoring of high-value structures,
or low-cost GNSS receivers.
•
Slow subsidence, for example‚ due to extraction of
ground fluids or underground mining, or movement of
tide gauges:
27.2 The IGS 725
– CORS installation for high-value projects, or repeat
GNSS surveys of low-cost ground marks (varying time
intervals).
– Use standard commercial static or rapid static GNSS
surveying techniques, of comparatively short baselines
(perhaps up to a few kilometers in length).
• Slow horizontal motion, such as pre-seismic deforma-
tion, would employ similar techniques to those above,
with the critical parameters influencing selection of
GNSS surveying technique being the expected magnitude
of ground or structural deformation, and the inter-
receiver distances.
27.2 The IGS
27.2.1 Background
It would not be possible to talk about modern global geod-
esy and reference frames without referring to the contribu-
tion of the IGS. The IGS has been mentioned earlier in this
chapter (Section 27.1) as well as with reference to the ITRF
(Section 27.3). By the late 1980s‚ it was becoming obvious
that GPS would significantly change global geodesy. The
densification and application of reference frames would
come to rely heavily on high-accuracy, differential GPS
measurement analysis. To facilitate this outcome, it was
agreed that a civilian global reference receiver network
would be needed to make the measurements that would
allow for the estimation of constellation parameters and
the reference frame. This would alleviate the need for the
temporary deployment of globally distributed reference
receiver infrastructure for specific regional studies
(Section 27.1.3). Consequently, regional studies could be
undertaken more efficiently, and more consistently, thus
increasing both the quality and number of such studies.
This concept provided the impetus to begin planning
what ultimately became one of the largest collaborative
GNSS research programs ever undertaken, the Interna-
tional GPS Service, which was in 2005 renamed the Inter-
national GNSS Service in recognition of the fact that other
GNSS constellations could be utilized to fulfill the mission
of the IGS. The impact of the IGS has extended well beyond
the establishment of the globally consistent network of ref-
erence stations. The generation of the IGS products
required collaboration across many research institutions,
resulting in a new era of benchmarked geodetic science,
and inter-comparison of geodetic analyses. It also
demanded the standardization of data and product formats,
and the open sharing of data and products. Lastly‚ the
establishment of the IGS has facilitated dialogues between
726 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames
system infrastructure owners, constellation providers,
instrument manufacturers, and the research community,
about specific characteristics and biases of GNSS measure-
ments that would not have been possible if GNSS geodesy
progressed only on an individual researcher basis.
27.2.2 IGS Mission
The IGS provides, on an openly available basis, the
highest-quality GNSS data, products, and services in
support of the TRF; Earth observation and research;
Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT); and other
applications that benefit the scientific community and
society. (IGS Terms of Reference 2017 [38])
The combination of open data policies with high-quality
data, products‚ and services has resulted in the widespread
reliance on the IGS for contributions to a range of scientific,
industrial‚ and societal endeavors. These endeavors far
exceed those originally envisioned when the IGS was
launched as an IAG service in 1994. In fact, even today
IGS products are being used in new science and applica-
tions as the quest for positioning precision becomes ever
more entrenched in society.
27.2.3 IGS Organizational Values
Fundamental to the IGS are key values that are shared
across the organization:
•
Advocacy of an open data policy, with data and products
readily available to all users at no cost.
• Contributions from, and participation by, all organiza-
tions willing to adopt these values.
• Very high degree of IGS product reliability through
redundancy of the IGS components.
•
Technical evolution through friendly competition
between different IGS analysis centers.
•
Dedicated engagement with policy entities to raise
awareness of the IGS, and geodesy in general.
It is these organizational values that have facilitated the
contribution the IGS has made to global geodesy and refer-
ence frames over the last two decades. Readers are referred
to [39] for a detailed description of the IGS structure, pro-
ducts‚ and services. These are summarized in Figure 27.3.
27.2.4 Advocacy of an Open Data Policy, with
Data and Products Readily Available to All Users
IGS data, products, and services support a wide variety of
geodetic research and scholarly endeavors. For instance,
application of IGS products to local, regional‚ and global
neo-tectonic studies is now commonplace, with sub-
millimeter relative site velocity precisions being achievable
(Chapter 28). Similar products, albeit in real time, are also
utilized to support mainstream precise positioning applica-
tions that touch millions of users in virtually all segments of
the global economy.
IGS offers free and open access to the highest accuracy
data products available. The data and products are actually
produced by participating organizations with the IGS ful-
filling a coordination role (Figure 27.3). These products
include GNSS tracking data from over 500 worldwide refer-
ence stations (Figures 27.4 and 27.5), satellite orbits and
clocks with the highest precision, EOPs and weekly geocen-
tric site coordinates and velocities, tropospheric zenith path
delays‚ and ionospheric total electron content grids [27].
The products are distributed via 4 global data centers and
24 regional or product data centers. With such a distributed
network of data centers, high levels of product availability
are achieved, resulting in many agencies and organizations
considering the IGS as part of the GNSS fundamental infra-
structure. This unfortunately is often demonstrated by
users utilizing products from the IGS without due recogni-
tion or acknowledgment of the contribution of the IGS.
In order to facilitate the exchange of data, and the effi-
cient distribution of products, the IGS has developed a
number of common data and product standards, including
RINEX, SP3, and ANTEX [26]. While initially developed for
use within the IGS community, these standards have been
adopted more broadly by many GNSS user communities,
driven largely by software vendors, ensuring their utilities
can input IGS data and products.
27.2.5 Contributions From and Participation by
Many Organizations
The IGS is a service of the IAG [8] (Section 27.1.2), and
accordingly a component of the GGOS [9]. With over 350
self-funded organizations from 118 countries, the IGS is
the largest collaborative geodetic research project in the
world. Participating agencies include space agencies with
globally distributed networks of CORS, national mapping
and surveying agencies, universities, research centers, pri-
vate companies‚ and individuals. Having the largest num-
ber of participating agencies of any IAG service, and the
largest network of ground stations, the IGS is a fundamen-
tal contribution to the IAG’s efforts to enhance society’s
understanding of the so-called “Earth System”.
The IGS associate members, nominated by the contribut-
ing organizations, elect a Governing Board as per the IGS
Terms of Reference [38]. The Governing Board organizes
participants into working groups, pilot projects, and ser-
vices; and elects individuals to coordinate or chair each

Figure 27.3 IGS at a glance – extracted from the IGS Strategic Plan 2017. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech IGS Central Bureau.
component. Pivotal to the ongoing operation of the IGS is
the Central Bureau, which is the only component of the
IGS that is specifically funded to undertake this task, in this
case by NASA. All other contributions to the IGS are made
voluntarily by agencies, institutions, or individuals.
While contributions are encouraged from new partici-
pants, benchmarking occurs by product coordinators
before new contributions are included in the routine IGS
product releases to ensure the overall quality of product
is maintained. Reliability and sustainability of product
27.2 The IGS 727
submissions is also assessed before products are integrated
into the IGS combined products.
27.2.6 Effective Reliability Through Redundancy
of IGS Components
The IGS is a distributed multi-national collaboration. Not
only are the GNSS reference stations of the IGS network
distributed across all regions of the Earth, but data centers
(DCs), product centers and, to a lesser extent, analysis
728 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames

IGS Network 2017

GPS
GPS + GLONASS
Multi GNSS

Figure 27.4 Global IGS tracking network stations. Source: From IGS. Reproduced with permission of IGS.

IGS Real Time

Service Network 2017

Figure 27.5 Global distribution of tracking sites in the IGS Real-Time Service. Source: From IGS. Reproduced with permission of IGS.

centers (ACs) are also widely distributed. This distribution
is intended to help load-balance internet traffic from DCs,
but also to encourage regional participation in the IGS. This
cooperative characteristic of the IGS has resulted in multi-
ple agencies undertaking similar activities independently,
and then inter-comparing the results, allowing effective
product generation reliability through redundancy. The
IGS has a long-held philosophy that a combined product
will, in general, be of better quality than any of the inde-
pendent contributions, provided suitable specification of

input parameters and constraints are applied across all con-
tributions. The net effect is that a combined solution can
still be computed even when one or more of the independ-
ent source solutions are unavailable. Hence, while the IGS
does not claim to offer or guarantee a specific service level
performance, in reality very high levels of availability and
reliability are achieved.
With so many different product types, and teams of inter-
ested researchers focusing on specific issues, the IGS seg-
ments its activities into working groups and pilot
projects. Each of these components reports its progress to
the Governing Board on a biannual basis, with targeted
biennial IGS workshops arranged to bring associate mem-
bers together to develop work plans for the coming two
years. During the intervening period‚ working groups con-
tinue to function independently, generating products,
undertaking comparisons, and producing peer-reviewed
scientific literature.
The current WGs are [40] the following:
• Antenna Working Group (AWG) – To increase the accu-
racy and consistency of IGS products, the AWG coordi-
nates research on GNSS receiver and satellite antenna
phase center determination, and manages official IGS
antenna files and their formats.
•
Bias and Calibration Working Group (BCWG) – Different
GNSS observables are subject to different satellite biases
that can degrade the IGS products. The BCWG coordi-
nates research on computing and monitoring GNSS
biases, and develops guidelines for handling these biases.
•
Clock Products Working Group (CPWG) – The CPWG is
responsible for aligning the combined IGS products to a
highly precise timescale traceable to the world standard,
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
•
Data Center Working Group (DCWG) – The DCWG
works to improve the provision of data and products from
the operational, regional‚ and global DCs.
•
Ionosphere Working Group (IWG) – The IWG produces
global ionosphere maps of Ionosphere Vertical Total
Electron Content (TEC). A major task of IWG is to make
available global ionosphere maps from the TEC maps
produced independently by the Ionosphere Associate
Analysis Centers within the IGS.
• Multi-GNSS Working Group (MGWG) –The MGWG
supports the MGEX Project by facilitating estimation
of inter-system biases and comparing the performance
of multi-GNSS equipment and processing software.
The MGEX Project was established to track, collate‚
and analyze all available GNSS signals, including those
from BeiDou (Chapter 6), Galileo (Chapter 5), and
QZSS (Chapter 8), in addition to GPS and GLONASS
(Chapter 4) satellites.
27.2 The IGS 729
• Precise Point Positioning with Ambiguity Resolution
Working Group (RFWG) – The WG investigates the
interoperability of PPP-AR products generated by various
ACs, with a view to analyzing the feasibility and benefits
of having the IGS adopt a modernized combination proc-
ess considering the consistency of the satellite clock and
bias products.
• Reference Frame Working Group (RFWG) – The RFWG
combines solutions from the IGS ACs to form the IGS sta-
tion positions and velocity products, and Earth rotation
parameters, for inclusion in the IGS realization of ITRF
(see Section 27.3).
• Real-Time Working Group (RTWG) – The RTWG sup-
ports the development and integration of real-time tech-
nologies, standards‚ and infrastructure to produce high-
accuracy IGS products in real time. The RTWG operates
the IGS Real-Time Service (RTS) to support Precise Point
Positioning (PPP) (Chapter 20) at global scales, in real
time (see Figure 27.5).
• RINEX Working Group (RINEX-WG) – The RINEX-WG
jointly manages the RINEX format with the Radio Tech-
nical Commission for Maritime Services-Special Com-
mittee 104 (RTCM-SC104) [34]. RINEX has been
widely adopted as an industry standard for archiving
and exchanging GNSS observations, and newer versions
support multiple GNSS constellations.
• Space Vehicle Orbit Dynamics Working Group
(SVODWG) – The SVODWG brings together IGS groups
working on orbit dynamics and attitude modeling of
spacecraft. This work includes the development of force
and attitude models for new GNSS constellations to fully
exploit all new signals with the highest accuracy possible.
• Tide Gauge (TIGA) Working Group – TIGA is a pilot
study for establishing a service to analyze GPS data from
stations at or near tide gauges in the IGS network to sup-
port accurate measurement of sea level change across
the globe.
• Troposphere Working Group (TWG) – The TWG sup-
ports development of the IGS troposphere products by
combining tropospheric delay solutions from individual
ACs to improve the accuracy of PPP solutions.
27.2.7 Technical Evolution Through Friendly
Competition
The evolution of products within the IGS is driven strongly
by friendly competition within each of the components
mentioned above, and by utilizing products that are esti-
mated independently by other observing services. The min-
imization of modeling errors is often completed using
empirical estimation in purpose-built analysis software
tools at each of the research centers. Inter-comparison of
730 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames

COD
EMR
Final Orbits (AC solutions compared to IGS Final) ESA
GFZ
300 GRG
(smoothed)
JPL
MIT
NGS
250
SIO
IGR

200
Weighted RMS [mm]

150

100

50

0
700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000
Time [GPS weeks]

Figure 27.6 Weighted RMS of final GPS orbits. Source: From Geoscience Australia / MIT Analysis Center Coordinator. Reproduced with
permission of Geoscience Australia MIT Analysis Center Coordinator.

results then provides evidence-based validation of adopted The following list summarizes the primary modeling issues
modeling improvements. As an example, Figure 27.6 shows that have benefited from considerable research and even-
the convergence of the weighted RMS (mm) of the individ- tual implementation in the routine product generation
ual AC orbit solutions with respect to the IGS Final Orbits within the IGS:

•
for the period 1994–April 2019. Clearly‚ significant
improvements in coherence have been achieved over this Network density, distribution and quality, and reference
frame alignments.

•
long period of operation. Importantly‚ each AC uses their
own software utilities‚ ensuring that group errors caused Solar radiation pressure, yaw and attitude models,
including the handling of satellite eclipse periods.

•
by repeated use of faulty software are detected through
inter-comparison. Tropospheric modeling, parameterization including
The IGS network has also evolved over its life from a mapping functions and frequency of zenith tropospheric
delay (ZTD) estimation, and horizontal gradients.

•
sparse, and often unreliable‚ network to today’s network
with over 500 stations globally distributed across Earth Ambiguity resolution refinement, including long-
baseline algorithms.

••
(Figure 27.4). While the distribution of the network is still
not optimal in some regions, it is significantly better than Satellite and station phase center variation parameters.
Observation weighting, including elevation dependency.

•
the network available in the mid-1990s. Observation data
quantity, quality, and consistency have had a considerable Clock modeling, including correction for radial
orbit error.

•
effect on the quality of the resultant analysis products.
Importantly, each individual AC can choose their own net-
work configuration from the available IGS network‚ allow-
ing for an additional degree of independence of products.
Earth rotation parameter modeling, including Interna-
tional Astronomical Union (IAU) recommendations on
precession and nutation, and application of the pole tide
corrections (solid Earth and ocean).

••
The availability of observation data is likely to have been
the largest contributor to improved product precision.
GNSS modeling improvements have also had a very sig-
nificant impact on product quality. While implementation
of model improvements has sometimes proved to be prob-
lematic, further validating the benefit of solution inter-
comparisons [41], the eventual correct implementation
has certainly contributed to the overall improvement.
Application of ocean tide corrections.
Albedo models and antenna thrust models.
Although much has been achieved by the IGS, the quest
for new and improved products continues. Consideration of
error budgets is now extending beyond consistency within
the IGS. As the GGOS aims to understand and model the
“Earth System,” it is important that consistency be

achieved across all of the observing elements of the GGOS
[9, 10]. As such, IGS, along with the other geodetic services
[12, 14, 16], are now examining common parameters and
determining the appropriateness of agreeing on unified
parameter values or a methodological approach. For
instance, the gravity fields used in the GNSS orbit integra-
tions should be updated to match modern fields to make
them consistent with the fields being used by the other
IAG services.
Similar consideration needs to be given to whether site-
dependent physical parameters should be managed in an
integrated way across all observing systems at a site. The
IGS, through the GNSS technology, can offer far greater
temporal and spatial variability of site displacement esti-
mates than the other geodetic techniques, reinforcing the
crucial role the IGS plays within GGOS. However, tech-
nique-specific errors need to be well understood before con-
straints on site displacement can be applied uniformly
across all techniques. For instance, the site-dependent cal-
ibration of GNSS antennas is needed since these have a
direct effect on the ITRF realization and position offsets
when antennas are changed (Section 27.3). The IGS is
developing procedures aimed at resolving these uncertain-
ties without disturbing an existing antenna installation, or
the resultant long-term coordinate time series. Investiga-
tion and potential development of an in situ antenna cali-
bration system are a key element of this investigation.
Ultimately the inter-comparison of products across the
geodetic techniques allows for identification and possible
quantification of some of the system-dependent artifacts.
As an example, researchers have noted the appearance of
the GPS draconitic signal and harmonics of this period in
time series of various geodetic products (e.g. site positions
and EOPs). Assessments are currently being undertaken to
determine if other GNSS constellations suffer the same arti-
facts, and what the impact of this signal is on time series
estimates of site coordinate and velocity. Inter-comparisons
with SLR [13] and VLBI [15] time series may prove
valuable.
27.2.8 Dedicated Engagement with Policy
Entities to Raise Mutual Awareness of the IGS and
Geodesy in General
The capability generated by the IGS has applicability in
many fields of science, and therefore informs policy making
at the national government level. The need to provide high-
quality evidence-based science to policy makers continues
to grow as society grapples with Earth-change-related
issues such as sea level rise, environmental degradation,
and management of natural hazards. The push toward
automation and intelligent information technologies is also
creating a growth in precise positioning applications as part
27.2 The IGS 731
of an increase in geospatial enablement. This also creates a
growing need for engagement between geodesy and policy.
The IGS is directly engaged with policy entities in order to
raise awareness of the capability the IGS offers, and geodesy
more generally. These include the Committee on Earth
Observation Satellites (CEOS), Global Sea Level Observing
System (GLOSS), Group on Earth Observations (GEO), ISC
World Data Service (WDS), UN Global Geospatial Informa-
tion Management (UNGGIM), and the International Com-
mittee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG).
While the majority of the above engagements concern
sharing information about the IGS products and services
with communities who are likely to obtain value from
them, the engagement with the ICG is particularly impor-
tant as it facilitates a two-way conversation with GNSS con-
stellation providers on behalf of the research community
about specific satellite characteristics and biases that would
not have been possible on an individual researcher basis.
Similar exchanges with instrument manufacturers have
occurred in the past‚ resulting in information being shared
about instrument data formats and biases that are now inte-
grated into common utilities such as TEQC [42]. By engag-
ing with policy making entities, the IGS aims to maximize
its impact, and to remain relevant to society.
27.2.9 Looking Forward
The IGS strives to be the premier source of GNSS-related
data, products, services‚ and expertise in support of science
and society. In order to achieve this goal, the participants
need to be agile in how operations are undertaken and very
connected to stakeholders, ensuring the IGS understands
their current requirements and future needs.
The transition from a GNSS service supporting reference
frame and the geosciences to an RTS is an example of how
the IGS has evolved to embrace whole new user commu-
nities, and how it has had to modify its processes to achieve
this outcome. In doing so, the IGS needs to regularly reas-
sess and restate its organizational values, ensuring any new
activities or projects undertaken are aligned with the
broader interests of the contributing agencies. As such‚
the IGS has developed a strategic plan which is refreshed
every four years [43]. A new version was released in
late 2017.
Recently the IGS has joined with the ICG’s International
GNSS Monitoring and Assessment (IGMA) Task Force to
create the Joint GNSS Monitoring Project and Working
Group. This project aims to utilize existing expertise from
within the IGS, supplemented with new groups not cur-
rently participating in the IGS, to monitor key system para-
meters from all GNSS constellations. The objective of the
project is to provide some level of public trust in the perfor-
mance of these systems. It is also intended to provide a
732 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames
forum for discussion between the IGS and the GNSS con-
stellation providers about system performance in general.
In this way‚ the IGS hopes to become more openly utilized
by the system providers as a source of GNSS expertise.
It is abundantly clear that society will embrace GNSS
positioning with ever-increasing accuracy and integrity
requirements. The IGS has demonstrated its capabilities
for over two decades of continuous operation, and shown
that its capabilities have been significantly improved. The
prevailing strength of cooperation between infrastructure
providers, government agencies, research institutions,
and individual researchers within the IGS has proved to
be its key strength. As society calls for greater positioning
accuracy for applications in a huge variety of devices need-
ing open standards, the need for a service like the IGS can
only continue to grow.
27.3 Terrestrial Reference Systems
27.3.1 Background
A standard and long-term stable reference frame is required
for the quantification of Earth changes in space and time
due to various geodynamic processes and for the determi-
nation of precise positions of objects on the Earth’s surface
or the centers of mass of artificial satellites in space.
There are several vocabularies used to describe mathe-
matical geodetic references, but in the context of space
geodesy we adopt here the terminology of chapter 4 of
the IERS Conventions [44]. We distinguish between the
theoretical or mathematical definition of that reference,
the TRS and its practical or numerical realization accessible
to the users, the TRF, being a global, regional‚ or national
reference frame. The mathematical and physical properties
of a TRS at the theoretical level or a TRF at the realization
level are fully specified by an origin, a scale, and an orien-
tation, as well as the time evolution of these three funda-
mental defining parameters.
The reader may refer to [44] for a more detailed mathe-
matical definition and description of TRS and TRF, but also
of the International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS)
and the International Terrestrial Reference Frame
(ITRF). Although it is important to distinguish between
the TRS and the TRF, we focus in this chapter on the
TRF, because of its easy accessibility and use by operational
and scientific geodetic users.
27.3.2 Types of TRFs
In practice there are two categories of TRFs: secular and
quasi-instantaneous TRFs. The former is the critical refer-
ence needed for scientific applications, including all solid
Earth investigations and precise satellite orbit determina-
tion. It is also needed for operational geodetic users who
wish to align their national or even local reference frames
to it using GNSS technology. When constructed, a secular
reference frame retains, by definition, only the linear part
of ground station motion that is due (mainly) to plate tec-
tonics. A secular reference frame is accessible to the users
through station positions (X) at a given epoch (t0) and sta-
tion velocities (X ), so that a station position at any epoch
(t) is obtained by
X t = X t0 + X t − t0 27 1
and its variance at epoch t is obtained by
var X t = var X t 0 + 2 t − t 0 cov X, X
2
+ t − t0 var X 27 2
A quasi-instantaneous reference frame provides mean
station positions at a given epoch (with no information
about time variations or coordinate changes), adjusted
using data collected over a short time span: a few hours,
one day, and up to perhaps one week. A time series of such
reference frames may embed all types of station motions
and variations: linear, periodic, position offsets caused by
instrument changes or geophysical events (earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions, or landslides), and post-seismic defor-
mations for stations impacted by major earthquakes.
Quasi-instantaneous reference frames still rely on the avail-
ability of a secular reference frame, such as the ITRF, for at
least the definition of the orientation and its time evolution.
One of the fundamental subjects that geodesy has always
dealt with is the definition, realization, and maintenance of
reference systems and frames [1]. Before the era of space
techniques, traditional geodesy was based on the so-called
triangulation method, where ground station coordinates
were determined using classical terrestrial measurements.
Such reference frames (or datums) are by nature hybrids,
since they are constructed by adjusting 2D measurements
(directions and distances) together with 1D height mea-
surements determined with spirit leveling methods, and
involve geoid undulations and the choice of an ellipsoid
of reference; see, for example, [1]. With the advent of space
geodesy since the early 1980s, reference systems and frames
became three dimensional and global by nature, making
use of satellite observations and other celestial objects,
obviating the need of any ellipsoid or geoid of reference.
27.3.3 Space Geodetic Techniques and
Reference Frames
In general, space geodetic techniques rely on two types of
methods: the dynamic method, which makes use of the

laws of motion of artificial satellites, and the kinematic (or
astrometric) method, which is based on the directions to
celestial objects, such as stars and radio sources.
The dynamic method of satellite orbit determination is
itself divided into two positioning techniques: the bidirec-
tional and unidirectional techniques. The two-way method
of SLR or lunar laser ranging (LLR) is based on the round
trip of a laser pulse emitted from an Earth-fixed telescope,
reflected by a target (reflector), and then collected by a
receiver placed next to the transmitter [13]. The unidirec-
tional method relies on the propagation of radio waves.
In addition to the GNSS techniques, which are described
in this book, the French DORIS system (developed by
CNES and IGN) is based on the Doppler frequency shift
– frequency difference between the time of transmission
and reception – which is a function of the satellite-receiver
relative speed. In contrast to GNSS, DORIS is an uplink sys-
tem where signals are emitted from Earth-fixed beacons to
satellites with onboard DORIS receivers.
The astrometric methods have made considerable prog-
ress since the 1970s with the VLBI technique [15]. This
technique relies on the simultaneous reception by at least
two antennas (radio telescopes) of the same wavefront in
the same radio frequency band. The received signals are
then processed by a correlator which determines the fre-
quency of the fringes and the arrival delay of the signal
at the two antennas. This delay permits the determination
of the baseline between the electrical phase centers of the
two radio astronomy antennas.
None of these four space geodetic techniques on its own –
GNSS, DORIS, SLR, and VLBI – is able to provide the full
reference-frame-defining parameters (origin, scale, and ori-
entation). While satellite techniques are in theory sensitive
to the Earth’s center of mass (a physical natural origin of
the TRF – a point around which the satellite orbits), differ-
ences in origin components between estimated SLR, GNSS‚
and DORIS frames exist, and reach up to several centi-
meters. A VLBI-derived TRF can only be realized if its ori-
gin is specified via mathematical constraints, with respect
to external satellite data.
While the TRF physical parameters (origin and scale) are
critical for science applications, the orientation and its time
evolution are of less consequence and are arbitrarily
defined. Combining multi-technique reference frames is
therefore recognized to be the method that not only takes
advantage of the strengths, and compensates for weak-
nesses and systematic errors, of the different techniques,
but it also allows a more accurate global reference frame
and its defining parameters. This is the fundamental basis
of the implementation of the ITRF, which rely on the con-
tributions of the four space geodetic techniques. These tech-
niques are organized as scientific services within the IAG
27.3 Terrestrial Reference Systems 733
[8]: the IDS [16], the IGS [5], the ILRS [12], and the IVS
[14] (see Section 27.1).
27.3.4 Global, Regional‚ and National Reference
Frames
Truly global reference frames started to become available
with the advent of space geodesy, as individual tech-
nique-specific frames, or as combined frames such as the
ITRF. The ITRF history dates back to 1985 when a first
combined TRF was constructed using space geodesy data,
and called at that time the BIH (Bureau International de
l’Heure) Terrestrial System 1984 (or BTS84) [45].
The proliferation of modern regional and national refer-
ence frames effectively started from the beginning of the
1990s, with the progress made in GPS/GNSS technology,
in particular its ease of use and low cost, and the availability
of the IGS satellite orbit and clock products (Section 27.2).
Consequently‚ regional and national reference frames used
today are GNSS-based reference frames, but are all con-
nected and compatible with the global ITRF via the univer-
sal use of IGS products (which themselves are consistent
with the ITRF). A detailed description of GNSS-based
regional and national reference frames can be found in
[46]. In addition, general guidelines on how to realize
GNSS-based local, regional, and global reference frames,
fully consistent with and optimally aligned to the ITRF,
are provided in [46].
One of the global reference frames worth mentioning
here, other than the ITRF, is the series of IGSyy frames.
At its inception‚ the IGS adopted the ITRF solutions as
the reference frames for the IGS orbits [46]. However, the
IGS started in 2000 to establish its own, internally more
consistent GPS-only frame, but still inheriting the ITRF def-
inition in terms of origin, scale, and orientation. When the
IGS switched from relative to absolute model corrections to
account for antenna phase center variations (PCV) [47], the
IGS adopted the ITRF2005 [48] so as to establish its specific
frame known as IGS05. It is composed of about 100 IGS sta-
tions whose coordinates were corrected to account for rel-
ative-to-absolute PCV differences. In order to preserve the
ITRF2005 origin, scale, and orientation, the IGS05 was
aligned to the ITRF2005 using a 14-parameter similarity
transformation [49]. Similar to the IGS05, on 17 April
2011, the IGS established the IGS08 frame, derived from
the ITRF2008, where corrections were applied to 65 IGS
stations to the ITRF2008 positions in order to comply with
the antenna calibration models [50]. A similar procedure
has been applied to the ITRF2014 [51] coordinates of 252
stable IGS stations to form the IGS14 frame, with correc-
tions applied in order to account for antenna calibration
models used in present-day GNSS data analysis.
734 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames

27.3.5 Building the ITRF
Thirteen versions of the ITRF were published since the cre-
ation of the IERS [19] in 1988. The current one is the
ITRF2014. The complete list of ITRF solutions can be found
in Table 27.1.
Up to the ITRF2000 [52], the input space geodetic data
used were long-term (station positions and velocities) solu-
tions provided by individual ACs of the four space geodetic
techniques. Starting with the ITRF2005 [48], the input data
are in the form of time series (weekly from satellite techni-
ques and 24-hour sessions from VLBI) of station positions
and daily EOPs. In the following, we describe the current
ITRF combination strategy based on time series analysis,
provide more details about the ITRF2014, and briefly sum-
marize the means of access to the ITRF products.
27.3.5.1 Combination Strategy
The ITRF determination fundamentally depends not only
on space geodetic solutions but also on the availability of
terrestrial measurements, or local tie surveys, connecting
the reference points of geodetic instruments at co-location
sites.

Table 27.1 Transformation parameters at epoch 2010.0 and their yearly rates from the ITRF2014 to past ITRF frames.

Frame Tx (mm) Ty (mm) Tz (mm) D (ppb) Rx (mas) Ry (mas) Rz (mas)

rates mm/yr mm/yr mm/yr ppb/yr mas/yr mas/yr mas/yr

ITRF2008 1.6 1.9 2.4 −0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00

rates 0.0 0.0 −0.1 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00

ITRF2005 2.6 1.0 −2.3 0.92 0.00 0.00 0.00

rates 0.3 0.0 −0.1 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00

ITRF2000 0.7 1.2 −26.1 2.12 0.00 0.00 0.00

rates 0.1 0.1 −1.9 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.00

ITRF97 7.4 −0.5 −62.8 3.80 0.00 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02

ITRF96 7.4 −0.5 −62.8 3.80 0.00 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02

ITRF94 7.4 −0.5 −62.8 3.80 0.00 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02

ITRF93 −50.4 3.3 −60.2 4.29 −2.81 −3.38 0.40

rates −2.8 −0.1 −2.5 0.12 −0.11 −0.19 0.07

ITRF92 15.4 1.5 −70.8 3.09 0.00 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02

ITRF91 27.4 15.5 −76.8 4.49 0.00 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02

ITRF90 25.4 11.5 −92.8 4.79 0.00 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02

ITRF89 30.4 35.5 −130.8 8.19 0.00 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02

ITRF88 25.4 −0.5 −154.8 11.29 0.10 0.00 0.26

rates 0.1 −0.5 −3.3 0.12 0.00 0.00 0.02
−9
Note: Tx, Ty and Tz are the translation components in millimeters, D is the scale factor in ppb (10 ), and Rx, Ry and Rz are the rotation parameters,
around the three axes X, Y, Z, in milli-arc-seconds.

Dedicated software – known as CATREF (Combination
and Analysis of Terrestrial Reference Frames) – was devel-
oped in the early 1990s, and continuously updated to
enable time series analysis and ITRF computations. The
CATREF combination model used for the ITRF combi-
nation is described in several publications [48, 51–53].
There are basically two steps used for the ITRF construc-
tion: (1) “stacking” the individual time series to estimate
a long-term solution per technique comprising station posi-
tions at a reference epoch, velocities, and daily EOPs; and
(2) combining the resulting long-term solutions of the four
techniques together with the local ties in co-location sites.
The CATREF combination model involves a 14-parameter
similarity transformation, station positions and velocities,
and EOPs. When stacking time series of station positions
and EOPs, the reference frame definition over the 14 defining
parameters is specified via the application of minimum and/
or internal constraints, as detailed in [48].
The ITRF definition of origin, scale, orientation, and
their respective time evolutions is specified in the second
step, when combining the four long-term solutions together
using information on local ties. The ITRF long-term origin
coincides with that of the SLR frame over the time span of
the observations, that started in 1993.0 with the availability
SLR observations of the two LAGEOS satellites. In practice,
there are zero translations and zero translation rates
between the ITRF and the long-term SLR frame con-
structed using observations from 1993.0.
The ITRF long-term scale coincides with (i.e. no scale and
scale rate with respect to) the average of SLR and VLBI
long-term intrinsic scales. The ITRF orientation and its
time evolution are continuously maintained to be the same,
by successive alignments between ITRF solutions. Local
ties are incorporated into the ITRF combinations with full
variance covariance information, and considering the time
epoch of each site survey.
27.3.5.2 The ITRF2014 Solution
Compared to past ITRF releases, the ITRF2014 generation
involved two main innovations concerned with nonlinear
station motions: (1) modeling the periodic seasonal signals
for ground stations with sufficient time span; and (2) post-
seismic deformation (PSD) for sites affected by major
earthquakes [51]. The submitted solutions cover the entire
observation history of each one of the four space geodetic
techniques.
The IVS [14] contribution involves 5789 session-wise
solutions [54, 55]; 407 sessions involving only two stations
were discarded from the ITRF2014 processing since they
were not designed for TRF determination. The majority
(86%) of the VLBI sessions include only a small number
of stations, ranging between 3 and 9. Among the remaining
27.3 Terrestrial Reference Systems 735
sessions, 391 involve 10–19 stations, 8 with 20 stations, and
2 include 21 and 32 stations.
The ILRS [12] contribution comprises 244 fortnightly
solutions, with polar motion and length of day (LOD) esti-
mated every 3 days for the period 1983.0–1993.0, using
LAGEOS I satellite data, and 1147 weekly solutions with
daily polar motion and LOD estimates thereafter, using
data acquired on LAGEOS I, LAGEOS II, ETALON I,
and ETALON II satellites [56].
The IGS-submitted time series comprise 7714 daily solu-
tions spanning the time period 1994.0–2015.1 [56]. Two IGS
ACs have used available GLONASS data in addition to
GPS [57].
The IDS [16] contribution is a combined time series invol-
ving six ACs, using data from all available satellites with an
onboard DORIS receiver, and comprises 1140 weekly solu-
tions spanning the period 1993.0–2015.0 [58].
Figure 27.7 shows the full ITRF2014 network, comprising
1499 ground stations located at 975 sites, where about 10%
of them are co-located with two, three, or four distinct space
geodetic instruments.
Modeling the station seasonal signals is accomplished by
adding to the combination model the appropriate parameters
(coefficients) of sinusoidal functions, while the PSDs were
accounted for, before the stacking, by applying parametric
models that were first fitted to IGS daily station position time
series solutions [51]. We then applied the corrections pre-
dicted by the GNSS-fitted models to the nearby stations of
the other three space geodetic techniques at earthquake co-
location sites, before stacking their respective time series.
The main motivation of modeling the periodic (annual
and semi-annual) signals is to ensure the most robust esti-
mation of station linear velocities, and so they are not part
of the ITRF2014 products. On the other hand, the fitted
PSD parametric models are effectively part of the ITRF2014
products‚ and the users should be aware of their impor-
tance and how to apply them, depending on their applica-
tions. Failure to do so could introduce position errors at the
decimeter level for many ground stations impacted by PSD.
Full details of the PSD functions and their usage are pro-
vided in [51] and at the ITRF2014 website [20].
27.3.6 Usage of and Access to the ITRF
27.3.6.1 Using ITRF Coordinates
The ITRF products are provided to the users in the form of
station positions at a given (arbitrary) epoch, station linear
velocities, and EOPs. The choice of the epoch for the ITRF
coordinates does not in principle matter, though it is cho-
sen to be approximately in the middle of the time span of
the most significant set of observations. In fact, the user
can actually propagate the ITRF station positions, and their
736 27 Global Geodesy and Reference Frames
ITRF2014 sites
90°
60°
30°
0°
–30°
–60°
–90°
VLBI SLR GNSS DORIS
Figure 27.7 ITRF2014 network highlighting VLBI, SLR, and DORIS sites co-located with GNSS [Altamimi et al. 51]. Source: Reproduced
with permission of IERS/ITRF.
associated variances, from the reference epoch t0 to any
other epoch t using Equations 27.1 and 27.2.
Note that by definition, and by construction, the ITRF is a
linear (secular) frame, and hence the coordinates vary only
linearly, defined by the provided linear station velocities,
even for earthquake sites that experience significant PSD.
However, in the case of the ITRF2014, the user interested
in ground positions during the post-seismic trajectory of
a station subject to PSD should add the sum of all PSD cor-
rections, XPSD(t), to the linearly propagated position using
the following equation:
X PSD t = X t 0 + X t − t 0 + δX PSD t 27 3
where δXPSD(t) is the total sum of PSD corrections at epoch
t. The ITRF2014 PSD parametric models, together with all
equations allowing the computation of the PSD correction,
XPSD(t), are available at [20].
27.3.6.2 Transformation Parameters Between ITRF
Frames
For some applications, users might need to transform from
one ITRF frame to another. Table 27.1 lists the set of
14 transformation parameters from the most recent ITRF
solution, the ITRF2014, to past ITRF solutions. Note that
the transformation parameters listed in the table are valid
at epoch 2010.0. If the transformation parameters are
90°
60°
30°
0°
–30°
–60°
–90°
needed at another epoch t, they should be computed using
the following equation. For a given parameter P and its rate
P, its value at any epoch t is obtained as
P t = P 2010 0 + P t − 2010 0 27 4
27.3.6.3 Access to the ITRF Using IGS Products
Guidelines for GNSS-based reference frame implementa-
tion and their alignment to the ITRF are provided in
[46]. For completeness, we summarize here the steps to fol-
low in computing the coordinates of GNSS ground stations
in the ITRF using IGS products. The following general steps
are valid for: (1) any type of network, being local, national,
regional or global; and (2) observations spanning short
intervals, ranging from a few hours, one day, and to one
week. The steps are as follows:
1) Select a reference set of ITRF/IGS stations‚ and collect
RINEX data from the IGS DCs.
2) Process data from your ground stations together with
the selected ITRF/IGS stations.
3) Fix IGS satellite orbits, satellite clocks, and EOPs.
4) Eventually, add minimum constraint conditions in the
processing (see [46]).
The resulting solution for ground station coordinates will
be expressed in the ITRF frame that is consistent with the

IGS orbits that are used. Further steps for consistency
checks are as follows:
5) Propagate the official ITRF coordinates of the ground
stations included in the processing, using Eq. 37.1 or
37.3 at the central epoch (tc) of the observations used.
6) Compare the estimated coordinates of the ITRF stations
included in the processing with the official ITRF values
propagated at (tc) in Step 5, and check for consistency by
fitting a seven-parameter similarity transformation. The
seven parameters should be statistically zero with no
outliers (post-fit residuals larger than a certain thresh-
old, say 1 cm).
Regarding the reference set of ITRF/IGS stations that are
included in the processing, it is advised to include ground
stations with global coverage, selected from the set of IGS
reference frame stations, such as the IGS14 network. The
resulting station coordinates can also be transformed to
another ITRF frame using the transformation parameters
listed in Table 27.1, using Eq. 27.4 and the seven-parameter
similarity transformation given by (from Frame 1 to
Frame 2):
X X Tx X 14
Y = Y + Ty +D Y website, http://ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov, <accessed
Z Z Tz Z 14 April 2020>
2 1 1
0 − Rz Ry X for geodesy and astrometry,” Journal of Geodynamics,
+ Rz 0 − Rx × Y
− Ry Rx 0 Z
Note that Eq. 27.5 is valid at a given epoch, which should
be the same for not only the coordinates in the two frames,
but also for the set of transformation parameters.
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<accessed 14 April 2020>
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asr.2015.12.021, 2016.

28
GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
Yehuda Bock1 and Shimon Wdowinski2
1
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, United States
2
Florida International University, United States
28.1 Introduction
The original concept in the 1970s of a global positioning
system as a real-time positioning and navigation tool with
several meters precision did not anticipate the major role
that it would play in unraveling the complexities of tectonic
plate motion, plate boundary deformation, volcanism,
hydrology, glaciology‚ and climate, all applications requir-
ing millimeter-level precision. Space geodetic positioning
provided the first direct measurement of tectonic plate
motion; it was only a few years earlier when the theory
of plate tectonics had become the paradigm for geologists
and geophysicists. The primary advantage of GPS is that
it provides highly accurate three-dimensional positions
and changes in position (displacements) of static, kine-
matic‚ and dynamic platforms with respect to a global ter-
restrial reference frame. Today, there are thousands of GPS
stations at regional and global scales (Figures 28.1 and
28.2), and numerous precise GPS field surveys have been
conducted (Figure 28.3). Increasingly, real-time GPS obser-
vations are contributing to early warning systems for miti-
gating the effects of natural hazards such as earthquakes,
volcanoes‚ and tsunamis.
We describe in this chapter how GPS geodesy has become
an increasingly important discipline in Earth sciences by
providing critical observations for modeling and under-
standing of physical processes at local to global scales.
We cover only briefly the technical aspects of GPS fully
described in other chapters, but provide enough detail to
understand the fundamentals of GPS geodesy as it pertains
to physical applications.
We refer the reader to earlier pertinent reviews on tec-
tonic geodesy [1, 2], seafloor geodesy (GPS-Acoustics) [3],
volcano geodesy [4, 5], grand challenges facing geodesy
[6], GPS geodesy [7], and global navigation satellite systems
– GNSSs [8]. An important complementary geodetic
Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century: Integrated Satellite Navigation, Sensor Systems, and Civil Applications, Volume 1,
First Edition. Edited by Y. T. Jade Morton, Frank van Diggelen, James J. Spilker Jr., and Bradford W. Parkinson.
© 2021 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
c28.3d 741
741
measurement system mentioned in this chapter is Interfer-
ometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) [9].
28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS
28.2.1 History
Geodesy, the oldest science, studies the size, shape‚ and
deformations of Earth, first determined through terrestrial
(distance – trilateration, angles – triangulation) and extra-
terrestrial observations (of the Sun, Moon‚ and stars), and
precise timekeeping. Astronomic positioning‚ the predeces-
sor of satellite (space) geodesy‚ required an inertial and ter-
restrial reference frame and consideration of the effects of
precession and nutation, polar motion‚ and Earth rotation
to relate the two [10]. Geodetic astronomy is an intensive
observational technique that provided a precision of about
0.1 to 1 arcsecond (~0.3–30 m) in latitude, longitude‚ and
orientation (azimuth) for triangulation and trilateration
networks. Triangulation is a surveying technique that mea-
sures angles between survey monuments with optical
instruments, and a short baseline measured with an invar
tape to determine network scale. The technique of trilatera-
tion, measuring distance by an electromagnetic instrument,
replaced triangulation and was used extensively for crustal
deformation and volcano surveys, notably by the US Geo-
logical Survey [11].
In the early 1980s‚ geodesists demonstrated that GPS
could achieve millimeter-accuracy relative positioning,
well beyond the constellation’s original design specifica-
tions, by utilizing the dual-frequency carrier phase observa-
tions and resolving the integer-cycle phase ambiguities
[12–14]. These early efforts were demonstrated on short
baselines (several kilometers), and were limited by the
number of available satellites within a narrow window of
15/12/2020 5:57:53 PM
 0° 60° 120° 180° –120° –60° 0°

60° 60°

0° 0°

–60° –60°

0° 60° 120° 180° –120° –60° 0°

Figure 28.1 Continuous GPS stations and tectonic environment. Shown are thousands of continuous GPS (cGPS) stations (white triangles)
established for global and regional geodetic applications, earthquakes greater than magnitude five (brown squares) since 1990, major
tectonic plate boundaries (black lines), and earthquake centroid moment tensor (CMT) solutions (“beach balls”) (Section 28.4.2) for
significant earthquakes observed by GPS over the last 25 years. The map is centered on the Pacific Rim, which along with the Indonesian
archipelago, contain the world’s major subduction zones – the area has produced 9 of the largest 10 earthquakes in recorded history.
Produced by Dara Goldberg.

Figure 28.2 Typical continuous GPS station. Deeply-anchored braced Southern California Integrated Network (SCIGN) monument and
antenna (under the radome) of a typical cGPS station (SIO5 in La Jolla, California) for monitoring tectonic plate boundary deformation
(Section 28.3), earthquake early warning (Section 28.4.2) and GPS meteorology. The small white box on the monument’s vertical leg
contains a MEMS accelerometer used for seismogeodesy (Section 28.2.3). In the background are equipment enclosures, solar panels, a
radio antenna for real-time transmission of data‚ and meteorological instruments. Source: Photo courtesy of D. Glen Offield.

c28.3d 742 15/12/2020 5:57:53 PM


Figure 28.3 GPS survey. Buried National Geodetic Survey GPS benchmark located in the seismically active Imperial Valley of
Southern California. It is part of a network of hundreds of buried markers established in the late 1970s to measure crustal deformation
associated with the Imperial fault, and initially surveyed with trilateration [31]. Source: Courtesy of Prof. David Sandwell, the surveyor
in the picture, standing near a tripod and GPS choke ring antenna.
several hours that shifted by nearly 4 s each day according
to Earth’s sidereal rotation. Initial precision was expressed
in parts per million starting with parts in 106 or 1–10 mm at
distances of 1–10 km [15, 16]. As the baselines increased in
length‚ the effects of tropospheric refraction and residual
orbital errors became apparent and required enhancements
in GPS analysis methods. Techniques for estimation of
tropospheric refraction and other effects were well devel-
oped from analyses of very long baseline interferometry
(VLBI) [17, 18]. At this point, precision was expressed in
parts in 107 [19]. The GPS broadcast ephemeris with
meter-level orbital precision was insufficient for longer
baselines, so techniques were developed for regional orbit
determination [20]. For regional networks (hundreds of
kilometers in extent), 5–10 cm error in satellite position
was sufficient to produce millimeter-level relative posi-
tions, suitable for investigating plate boundary deforma-
tion. At larger scales, in particular for studies of global
plate motion at the requisite accuracy, improved orbit
determination was required [21]. The earliest concept
was a bootstrapping procedure referred to as the fiducial
approach [22], where well-determined Earth-centered
Earth-fixed coordinates available through VLBI, laser ran-
ging to satellites (LRS), and GPS were constrained to
c28.3d 743
28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS 743
estimate orbital elements and positions of new GPS sta-
tions. Using this approach enabled integer-cycle phase
ambiguity resolution at distances of 1–2000 km [23, 24],
with a precision on the order of 1–2 parts in 108. To extend
this capability to global scales‚ it was necessary to apply the
fiducial concept globally. The earliest effort in the mid-
1980s was the Cooperative International GPS Network
(CIGNET) led by the US National Geodetic Survey (NGS)
[25, 26]. This effort was followed by the establishment of
the International GPS Service for Geodynamics (IGS) [27]
in the early 1990s. Today, the renamed International GNSS
Service (IGS) (http://www.igs.org/), a mostly volunteer
global cooperative effort, provides precise orbit and Earth
orientation estimation from several hundred globally dis-
tributed GPS tracking stations (Figure 28.1). The service
consists of multiple global analysis and global data centers,
and a central bureau. The global analysis centers provide
precise GPS satellite orbits and clock estimates and Earth
Orientation Parameters (EOPs), which are consistent with
the latest International Terrestrial Reference Frame
(ITRF2014 – http://itrf.ign.fr/ITRF_solutions/2014/) and
international conventions [28]. The IGS also maintains
standards for instrumentation and station deployments,
data formats, data analysis‚ and data archiving [29, 30].
15/12/2020 5:57:56 PM
 744 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
The availability of IGS products and access to the ITRF
allow for precision on the order of 1 part in 109; effectively
there is no longer the need to specify a distance-dependent
term. To maintain millimeter-level position precision, how-
ever, it is essential to properly record and archive the appro-
priate “metadata” including, for example, antenna type and
serial number, receiver type, serial number and firmware
version, antenna eccentricities (height and any horizontal
offsets), antenna phase calibration values, and dates when
changes in any of these have occurred. Keeping metadata
up to date is the responsibility of the station operators
and the IGS global data centers, and other regional data
centers.
Another notable community resource is UNAVCO
founded in the United States in the mid-1980s. Today it
is a nonprofit university-governed organization with
global extent that supports and promotes Earth science,
and other related fields of study, by advancing high-
precision geodetic techniques such as GPS and InSAR
(http://www.unavco.org/).
28.2.2 Analysis Methods
There are two basic approaches to geodetic GPS analysis,
relative (interferometric) positioning, and precise point
positioning. As in the early demonstration experiments,
relative positioning of a “baseline” between two stations
requires a reference station, whose precise coordinates
are known, and estimation of the coordinates of the
second station [12, 14]. This can be easily extended to a
network of many stations and a number of reference
stations [16]. The practical limit in distance or network
scale for geodetic precision is dependent on the ability
to resolve integer-cycle phase ambiguities after doubly
differencing dual-frequency phase and pseudorange
observations between stations and satellites [23, 24].
However, as the observation span increases‚ the benefit
of ambiguity resolution is reduced. Also important in
relative positioning is the reduction in correlated
troposphere and ionospheric errors, which are a function
of the baseline distance. For the troposphere, the correla-
tion length is on the order of tens of kilometers; for the
ionosphere‚ the effect is approximately proportional to
the distance. The network positioning (fiducial) approach
is required to estimate satellite orbits and EOPs from a
global network of reference stations.
Precise point positioning (PPP) [32] was introduced as a
way to individually and very efficiently estimate local and
regional station positions with respect to the global refer-
ence network (ITRF), the same network used to estimate
the satellite orbits and EOP [33]. However, PPP requires
the estimation of satellite and receiver clock parameters,
c28.3d 744
which are eliminated in relative positioning. When first
introduced, PPP did not include ambiguity resolution‚ so
the precision was poorer than network positioning. Since
then, techniques have been developed to allow PPP with
ambiguity resolution [34–37]. The main advantage of PPP
is the speed of computations. The efficiency of network
positioning rapidly decreases approximately as the cube
of the number of stations. To compensate, the network
can be divided into subnetworks with overlapping stations
and then re-combined through a least-squares network
adjustment. The success of PPP is primarily due to the fact
that baselines in a GPS network are only weakly corre-
lated [38].
28.2.3 GPS Seismology and Seismogeodesy
High-rate, ≥1 sample per second (sps – also expressed as Hz),
instantaneous surveying with geodetic precision was first
applied in tectonic GPS to measure freely slipping (creeping)
geological faults [39]. High-rate GPS has also been used in
support of dynamic applications such as movement of ice
sheets for climate studies, georeferencing of airborne LiDAR
surveys [40], GPS-Acoustics (GPS-A) for seafloor positioning
[41], and engineering seismology [42]. GPS seismology pro-
vides estimates of dynamic displacements during earthquake
shaking [43–47], in addition to permanent (static) ground dis-
placements. A comprehensive archive of GPS high-rate displa-
cements of 29 earthquakes from 2003–2018 with moment
magnitudes of Mw 6.0–9.0 is described by Ruhl et al.
(2018) [48]. Seismogeodesy, the optimal combination of col-
located high-rate GPS and seismic data, provides coseismic
(static and dynamic) displacements and seismic velocities
[49] (Table 28.1).
GPS networks have captured large-amplitude teleseismic
waves (seismic signals greater than about a thousand kilo-
meters from an earthquake’s location), first for the 2002
Mw7.9 Denali fault, Alaska earthquake with stations
up to 4000 km away [50–52], 14 000 km from the 2004
Mw9.3 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake [60], and several
thousand kilometers from the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-Oki
earthquake [67]. However, at these distances‚ dynamic
GPS displacements are only accurate enough to discern
large earthquakes (~M>7.5), while traditional seismic mea-
surements at any location on Earth can resolve earthquakes
as small as > M 5.3, a factor of 1000 better than geodesy.
GPS seismology and seismogeodesy are particularly
advantageous in the near field (within tens of kilometers)
of large earthquakes (Figure 28.4) for local earthquake
and tsunami warning and rapid response (Section 28.4).
Broadband seismometers that measure ground velocities
go off-scale (“clip”) when close to an earthquake’s epicen-
ter, while GPS does not [52]. Therefore, seismic stations are
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 28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS 745

Table 28.1 Significant earthquakes measured with GPS equipped with strong-motion instruments (accelerometers)
seismology and seismogeodesy that do not clip – some operate continuously while others
are triggered by the broadband instrument before it clips.
Earthquake Mw References Absolute station displacement is the most useful measure-
ment for downstream modeling of the earthquake source
2002 Denali fault, Alaska 7.9 [50–52]
(Section 28.3.7), but seismology requires single integration
2003 San Simeon, California 6.6 [53]
of observed broadband velocities or a double integration of
2003 Tokachi-oki, Japan1 8.3 [54–57] accelerations. The accuracy of absolute displacements from
2004 Parkfield, California 6.0 [58, 59] broadband seismometers is poor because of its limits in
2004 Sumatra-Andaman, Indonesia 9.3 [60] dynamic range. Doubly integrating accelerations to displace-
2005 West off Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan 7.0 [61] ments is subject to various spurious breaks, termed “base-
2008 Wenchuan, China 8.0 [62] line” errors (not to be confused with GPS baselines), due
2010 Mentawai, Indonesia 7.7 [63] to numerical errors in the integration procedure, mechanical
hysteresis, and cross-axis sensitivity between the test mass/
2010 Maule, Chile1 8.8 [63, 64]
electromechanical system used to measure each component
2010 El Mayor-Cucapah, Mexico1 7.2 [57]
of motion [74–77]. The main disadvantage is that acceler-
2011 Tohoku-oki, Japan1 9.0 [57, 65–67]
ometers are incapable of discerning between rotational
2012 Nicoya, Costa Rica 7.5 [63, 68] and translational motions [78, 79], leading to unphysical
2014 Napa, California1 6.1 [63] drifts in the resulting displacements. Baseline corrections
2014 Aegean Sea, Greece 6.5 [63] are usually taken into account by a high-pass filter [80],
2014 Iquique, Chile 8.2 [69] resulting in accurate recovery of the mid- to high-frequency
2015 Illapel, Chile1 8.3 [69] portion of the displacement record. However, in the process
2016 Kumamoto, Japan1 7.0 [70]
long-period information‚ in particular‚ the static offset is lost
[81]. The static offset (permanent motion) is critical for rapid
2016 Kaikōura, New Zealand 7.8 [71]
estimation of earthquake magnitude and mechanism, an
2017 Chiapas, Mexico1 8.2 [72]
essential element for earthquake and tsunami early warning
2019 Ridgecrest, California 7.1 [73] (Section 28.4). Finally, unlike GPS, seismic instruments are
1
Sufficient GPS/accelerometer collocations available for subject to magnitude saturation, meaning that is not possible
seismogeodesy. to distinguish between, say, a magnitude 8 and 9 earthquake

Broadband Accelerometer GPS Seismogeodetic

250 Hz 100-200 Hz 1-10 Hz

Singly Integrate Doubly Integrate

velocities Accelerations Direct
Displacements
+
Static offset
Lose Lose
Static offset Static offset

kalman Filter:
displacement
Magnitude Magnitude No Magnitude
Saturation Saturation Saturation
Clips in Integration
Near Field Biases Cannot Detect velocity
P-wave Detection P-wave Detection P-wave

Figure 28.4 Displacements derived from GPS and seismic instruments: advantages and disadvantages. The seismogeodetic combination
of GPS displacements, broadband velocities, and strong motion accelerations using a Kalman filter maintains the advantages of
each data type and minimizes their disadvantages.

c28.3d 745 15/12/2020 5:57:57 PM

 746 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
(a factor of about 30 difference in energy release), since the
scaling relationships between seismic wave arrivals and
earthquake magnitude break down at higher magnitudes
[82, 83].
There are other differences between GPS and seismic sen-
sors. Seismic observations are local, with respect to an iner-
tial reference frame as they involve the movement of a test
mass inside an electromechanical system. On the other
hand, GPS instruments provide spatial (non-inertial) obser-
vations with respect to a global terrestrial reference frame.
Siting requirements are also different. Seismometers are
ideally located in stable underground seismic vaults or in
boreholes to minimize temperature- and pressure-induced
tilts and to shield against electromagnetic interference. GPS
stations must be located aboveground to view the GPS satel-
lites and avoid significant obstructions. It is not surprising,
then, that there are few collocations of seismic and geo-
detic-quality GPS instruments. Seismic stations generally
sample at very high rates (e.g. 100–200 sps) compared to
“high-rate” GPS stations with a typical sample rate of
1–10 sps. The very-high-rate seismic data mitigates the ali-
asing effect of lower-rate GPS data [84]. As a practical mat-
ter, seismic data are less verbose than GPS data‚ so that
communication requirements for GPS stations are more
severe even with the difference in sampling rate, and more
so with the availability of other GNSS constellations.
It is clear that collocating GPS and seismic instruments
for recovery of seismic motion at the full range of frequen-
cies from high frequencies up to the static displacement
with high precision is preferred (Figure 28.4). For earth-
quake early warning‚ where timely near-source observa-
tions is critical, GPS is not sensitive enough to detect
seismic P-waves, particularly in the vertical direction where
the P-wave with millimeter-level amplitudes is most pro-
nounced; the precision of real-time GPS instantaneous dis-
placements is about 1 cm in the horizontal components and
5–10 cm in the vertical [46]. The displacement precision
observed with seismogeodesy during dynamic shaking is
reduced by a factor of two in the vertical and by about
20% in the horizontal component, compared to GPS alone,
though still dominated by long-period errors in the GPS
observations due to multipath [42]. Since the dynamic
range of GPS instruments has no upper limit, GPS and
broadband seismic sensors cover together the entire possi-
ble range of dynamic and static surface displacement. To
this end, GPS displacements were used as long-period con-
straints for the deconvolution (integration) of accelerome-
ter data for 30 s data collected during the 1999 Mw7.1
Hector Mine, California earthquake [85] and 1 sps GPS data
for the 2003 Mw8.3 Tokachi-Oki, Japan earthquake [55].
c28.3d 746
Displacements and baseline offsets in the accelerometer
records were estimated by weighted least squares, after cor-
recting for possible spurious rotations of the acceler-
ometers. These early efforts were not suitable for real-
time applications such as early warning. A multi-rate Kal-
man filter suitable for real-time implementation was pro-
posed to optimally combine high-rate (1 sps) GPS
displacements and very-high-rate (100–250 sps) accelerom-
eter observations, first targeted for structural monitoring
and engineering seismology [86]. This method was used
to monitor the loads of runners on the Verrazano suspen-
sion bridge at the start of the 2004 New York City marathon
[87]. Retrospective real-time capabilities were demon-
strated for the 2010 Mw7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake
in northern Baja California, Mexico [49] and the 2011
Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake [65] (Section 28.4).
A study comparing the displacements and seismic velocities
obtained with observatory-grade accelerometers and inex-
pensive microelectromechanical (MEMS) accelerometers
demonstrated the same level of precision in seismic velocity
at distances of tens of kilometers for earthquakes as small as
~M4, where there is no permanent displacement [42, 88].
It is possible to remove much of the GPS error contribu-
ted by multipath noise with sidereal filtering, taking advan-
tage of the nominally 12-h satellite periods that result in
daily repeated signatures in the GPS data and positions
[39, 89, 90]. However, this is only effective for seismically
quiescent periods and may even reduce precision during
strong ground motion [46, 91], because multipath is not
dominant at these frequencies [52, 92]. In any case, redu-
cing multipath effects, which is challenging in a real-time
environment, is still not sufficient to allow P-wave detec-
tion, compared to accelerometer or velocity waveforms
[88], even with observations from multiple GNSS constella-
tions such as GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou [91]. How-
ever, the satellite orbit periods of these constellations do
not follow the 12-h nominal value, so that standard sidereal
filtering is mostly ineffective.
28.2.4 Observation Models
28.2.4.1 Basic Concepts
Here we only present the basic mathematics of precise GPS
positioning. Other chapters cover this and related topics
such as orbit determination and GPS meteorology in detail.
The basic elements of precise GPS positioning can be
summarized as a quartet of idealized equations for the car-
rier phase observations (φ1, φ2), in distance units, and pseu-
dorange observations (P1, P2) at frequencies f1 (L1) and f2
(L2) for a single satellite and single station as,
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 28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS 747

φ1 1 −1 1 0 r at any instant of time [21]. Access to accurate satellite

φ2 1 − f1 f2 2
0 1 I ephemerides at the 1–2 cm level in instantaneous satellite
= , position, available today through a series of IGS products
P1 1 1 0 0 λ1 N 1
(ultra-rapid, rapid‚ and final orbits), is essential to achiev-
2
P2 1 f1 f2 0 0 λ2 N 2 ing millimeter-level positioning in geophysical applica-
28 1 tions; the broadcast ephemeris transmitted by the GPS
satellites has meter-level precision, not sufficient for many
where r denotes the non-dispersive signal travel distance
geodetic applications.
(the “geometric term”), I is the dispersive ionospheric
Although the effects of the ionosphere are dispersive and
effect, and N1 and N2 are integer-cycle phase ambiguities.
can be eliminated to first order by the “ionosphere-free” lin-
The objective is to estimate the station position (embedded
ear combination of the L1 and L2 phase observations, resid-
in r), while fixing the ambiguities to their integer values
ual ionospheric refraction and antenna multipath (also
[93] in the presence of ionospheric refraction. The range
dispersive) are the limiting factors in phase ambiguity reso-
for station i and satellite j is given by
lution. The “ionosphere-free” linear combination is given by
r ij t, t − τij t = r j t − τij t − ri t , 28 2 1 f2 f2
φLC = 2 φ1 − φ2 ;
f2 f1 f1
a nonlinear function of the satellite position vector rj at the 1−
f1
time of signal transmission t − τij t and the receiver posi-
= 1227 6 1575 42 = 60 77 28 6
tion vector ri at the time of reception t. The receiver position
is defined in a right-handed Earth-fixed Earth-centered ter- so that the non-integer ambiguity term for φLC is
restrial reference frame by N φLC 0 56N 1 − 1 98 N 2 − N 1 28 7
Xi t The variance in the ionosphere-free combination is by
ri t = Yi t 28 3 error propagation
Zi t 2

By convention, the X and Y axes are in Earth’s equatorial
plane with X in the direction of the point of zero longitude
and the Z axis in the direction of Earth’s pole of rotation.
The satellite position at any epoch of time is described by
the satellite’s equations of motion in a geocentric inertial
reference frame as
d j
r = rj
dt
d j GM j
r = 3 r j + r Perturbing
dt r
The station position in a terrestrial reference frame and
the satellite position in an inertial frame are related
through a series of rotations to account for precession, nuta-
tion, Earth rotation‚ and polar motion [10]. The first term
on the right of Eq. (28.5) is the spherical part of Earth’s
gravitational field. The second term represents perturbing
forces (accelerations) acting on the satellite, including the
non-spherical part of Earth’s gravitational field, luni-solar
gravitational effects, solar radiation pressure, and other
perturbations such as satellite maneuvers. Solving the
equations of motion for each GPS satellite based on obser-
vations from a global network of GPS stations, referred to as
“orbit determination” and covered in Chapter 11, provides
estimates of the satellite’s state (“the satellite ephemeris”)
2
1 f2
σ 2φLC = 2 1+ σ 2 ≈ 10 4σ 2 ,
f2 f1
1−
f1
28 8
assuming that the L1 and L2 variances, σ 21 and σ 22 , are of
equal weight (=σ 2) and uncorrelated. In most cases (except
28 4 for very short baselines in network positioning described
below), phase observations φ1 and φ2 are combined to form
φLC since the increase in variance by an order of magnitude
28 5 is negligible compared to that of the ionospheric sig-
nal delay.
The direct GPS signals from the satellite antenna to the
receiver antenna are also perturbed by the non-dispersive
neutral atmosphere (the troposphere) and are interfered
with indirect signals (multipath), for example, reflections
off objects near the GPS antenna. Furthermore, the signal
is perturbed by imperfect receiver and satellite clocks,
introducing timing and “clock” biases. The clock errors
are eliminated in relative (network) positioning, but need
to be taken into account for PPP [32]. The measurements
themselves are subject to error due, for example, to thermal
noise in the GPS receiver; errors can vary from one type of
GPS receiver to the other. Other factors to be considered are
phase wind-up on a dynamic platform, due to the electro-
magnetic nature of circularly polarized waves [94];

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 748 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

realization of the ITRF [95]; Earth tides, atmospheric load-

ing [28]; and relativistic effects [96].
To achieve millimeter-level geodetic precision‚ it is nec-
essary to clearly identify the phase centers of the transmit-
ting satellite antenna [97] and receiving ground antenna
[98], and the exact point to be positioned. Absolute phase
center variations with and without antenna covers
(“radomes”) at L1 and L2 frequencies for all known
geodetic-quality antennas are estimated through single
robot-mounted calibration by collecting thousands of
observations at different orientations [99]. Tables of phase
center values are maintained by the IGS. In practice, the
corrections are imperfect‚ and changes in antenna types
will often result in spurious offsets in position time
series‚ so changing antennas is avoided to the extent pos-
sible. Antennas are oriented to true north to reduce azi-
muthal effects and to be consistent with the calibration
corrections. The precise relationship of the geodetic
marker to the phase centers must be clearly identified.
This is typically given as the vertical antenna “height,”
although there may be horizontal offsets, as well. The
GPS antenna mount needs to be level with respect to
the direction of the local gravity field and centered over
Figure 28.5 Custom GPS equipment for cGPS monitoring
the marker. The geodetic community has expended signif- stations. (Top) SCIGN short antenna radome; (bottom) antenna
icant efforts to reduce systematic errors due to centering adapter/mount. Source: Courtesy of SCIGN project.
and leveling of the GPS antenna. For example, the South-
ern California Integrated GPS Network (SCIGN) project
designed a precision antenna adapter (mount) with a fixed j
The model for an L1 or L2 phase measurement li at a par-
antenna height (0.0083 m), leveling capability, ensuring
ticular epoch of time can be expressed in distance units by
insignificant error in re-centering in the event that the
the observation equation .
antenna needs to be replaced. This adapter and the SCIGN
radome (Figure 28.5) have been adopted by many other lij = r ij t, t − τij t + c dt i t + dt j t − τij t +
GPS geophysical monitoring networks. j j j j j
+ MH i ZHDi + MW i ZWDi + MGi GN cos α + GE sin α −
Geodetic GPS analysis software has been critical to the
accomplishments described in this chapter. The earliest − I ij +λ N ij + Bi − B j
+ mij + εij
software packages, which are still being maintained today, 28 9
include Bernese (at Astronomical Institute, University of
Berne – [100, 101]), GAMIT (“GPS at MIT” – [102]), and where r ij (Eq. (28.2)) denotes the geometric (in vacuum)
GIPSY-OASIS (“GNSS-Inferred Positioning System and range between station i and satellite j, t is the time of signal
Orbit Analysis Simulation Program” at the National Aero- reception, τij is time delay between transmission and recep-
nautics and Space Administration (NASA), Jet Propulsion tion, and c is the speed of light. The second term on the right
Laboratory) [32, 35]. includes dti the receiver clock error, and dtj is the satellite
clock error; for our purposes, we will simply refer to it as the
j
clock error dt. ZHDi is the tropospheric zenith hydrostatic
28.2.4.2 Physical Models and Observation Equations
delay‚ MH ij is the hydrostatic mapping function that maps
Here we describe the basic functional and stochastic mod-
the ZHD to lower elevation angles, ZWDij is the zenith
els (“observation equations”) that relate the GPS observa- j
bles and the physical parameters of interest, for example‚ “wet” delay with the wet mapping function MW i , and gra-
station position. We assume that the satellite orbits are dient parameters GN in the north and GE east components,
j
known without error, the satellite and receiver antenna azimuth α, and the gradient mapping function MGi to
phase centers and geodetic mark are well determined‚ model azimuthal asymmetries in the atmospheric refrac-
and the metadata are accurate. tive index due to atmospheric conditions [103, 104]. I ij is

c28.3d 748 15/12/2020 5:57:57 PM


the total effect of the ionosphere along the signal’s path. N ij
denotes the integer-cycle phase ambiguity, Bi and Bj denote
the non-integer (fractional) parts of receiver- and satellite-
specific clock biases, respectively, and λ is the wavelength.
j
The term mi denotes total signal multipath effects at the
transmitting and receiving antennas; here we will neglect
multipath at the satellite transmission antenna and refer
j
to this term as mi. Similarly, we replace εi by εi. The obser-
vation equations for a P1 or P2 pseudorange measurement
are the same as the phase measurements (Eq. (28.9)) except
that there is no ambiguity term N ij and the sign is reversed
for the dispersive ionosphere term I ij .
The integer cycles are counted once tracking starts to
a satellite‚ so only the initial integer-cycle phase
j
ambiguities N i need to be estimated. However, in practice,
phase observations may include losses of receiver phase
lock and cycle slips (jumps of integer cycles) due to a variety
of factors including signal obstructions, severe multipath,
gaps in the data due to communication failures, satellite
rising and setting, severe ionospheric disturbances, and
so on. Losing count of the number of integer cycles in
the signal propagation complicates phase ambiguity resolu-
tion and reduces the precision of the parameters of interest,
if not taken into account. Therefore, efficient geodetic GPS
algorithms include automatic detection and repair of
cycle slips.
We assume that the phase measurement error term is dis-
tributed as
E ε = 0; D ε = σ 20 C ε 28 10
E denotes statistical expectation, D denotes statistical disper-
sion, Cε is the covariance matrix of observation errors,
P= C ε− 1 is the weight matrix, and σ 20 is an a priori variance
factor. If we further assume that the observations are uncor-
related in space and time‚ then the covariance matrix Cε is
diagonal. The uncertainties in the longer wavelength pseu-
dorange measurements are about two orders of magnitude
larger than the phase errors, on the order of about a meter.
Depending on the application, three-dimensional
positions (Eq. (28.3)), zenith troposphere delays ZTDi, ion-
ospheric delays I ij , and multipath effects mi may be para-
meters of specific interest (“signals”). Three-dimensional
positions/displacements are the primary parameters of
j
interest for tectonic geodesy. Ionospheric parameters I i
may be eliminated to first order through the linear combi-
nation of phase measurements (Eq. (28.6)), but are of inter-
est in tsunami modeling based on gravity wave and acoustic
wave disruptions of the ionosphere [105], as discussed in
Chapter 32. The troposphere parameters are of interest in
GPS meteorology, as discussed in Chapter 30; ZWD with
c28.3d 749
28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS 749
surface pressure and temperature measurements can be
used to estimate atmospheric water vapor, in particular pre-
cipitable water (PW) [106]. Multipath effects are considered
to be “noise” in most applications although receiver multi-
path mi can also be exploited as a “signal” for local environ-
mental applications (Section 28.6.4 and Chapter 34; e.g. soil
moisture, snow cover, ocean wave heights [107]).
Except for very short baselines in relative positioning, we
form the ionosphere-free linear combination (Eq. (28.6)).
The linearized observation (Eq. (28.9)) is
δlij LC = Dij δx i + cδΔt + MH ij δ ZHDij + MW ij δ ZWDij +
+ λLC δ N ij + Bi − B j + mLCi + εLCi ,
28 11
where λLC = c/(f1 + f2), and δ is the incremental adjustment
to an estimated parameter relative to its a priori value. For
j
example, Di is the partial derivative for the position para-
meters such that
j xi − x j
Di = j 28 12
di
We assume that E εLC = 0 and D εLC = σ 20 C εLC 10 4σ 20
Cϵ. The estimated parameters N lj + Bi − B j are real-valued.
We assume that the precise satellite orbits xj and satellite
clock parameters are available from the IGS, or another
external source, and held fixed. The a priori station coordi-
nates are their best true-of-date values with respect to the
ITRF. For simplicity, we have ignored the troposphere hor-
izontal gradients and lumped the clock term into Δt. Note
that multipath is dispersive‚ so mLCi denotes the magnified
effect. The estimation of the parameters of interest can be
performed through the well-known weighted least-squares
inversion or other inversion methods.
In relative positioning‚ the bias terms Bi and Bj are elimi-
nated by differencing the observation equations between
stations and satellites (“double differencing”), isolating
the ambiguity term N ij. The phase ambiguity term resulting
from the ionosphere-free linear combination has a non-
integer value since it is multiplied by λLC. Precise pseudor-
ange measurements, although much less precise than the
phase measurements, provide valuable constraints for
ambiguity resolution. The pseudoranges are used to extract
the integer-cycle phase ambiguities N1 and N2 by first esti-
mating N2 − N1, the so called “wide-lane” or “Melbourne–
Wübbena” combination with an effective wavelength of
86.2 cm, compared to the narrower wavelength (“narrow-
lane”) L1 (~19 cm) and L2 (~24 cm) phase observations
[108, 109] such that
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 750 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
f1 − f2
N 2 − N 1 = φ2 − φ1 + P 1 + P2 28 13
f1 + f2
Once the N2 − N1 ambiguities are resolved‚ then one can
try to resolve the “narrow-lane” N1 ambiguities (now with
an effective wavelength of 10.7 cm). Usually, the wide-lane
ambiguity can be resolved, even for networks of global
extent, by inverting multiple data epochs at static stations,
as long as the pseudorange errors are a fraction of the wide-
lane wavelength. This is more complicated for real-time
(single epoch) observations and dynamic platforms [43].
Another approach to resolving the wide-lane ambiguities,
appropriate to network positioning, is to apply a realistic
a priori stochastic constraint (a “pseudo” observation) on
the ionosphere term I ijas a function of the inter-station dis-
tance [110]. The introduction of modernized GPS signals
and other GNSS constellations requires additional treat-
ment [8].
Algorithms for ambiguity resolution have been the sub-
ject of numerous studies since the early 1980s [93], and
the reader is referred to Chapters 19 and 20 for the details.
One of the most successful approaches is the “least-squares
ambiguity decorrelation adjustment” (LAMBDA) method
that decorrelates the phase ambiguities to reduce the ambi-
guity search space bounding all possible integer candi-
dates [111].
Let us focus now on PPP. This method calculates “abso-
lute” positions at any location on the globe with respect to
the ITRF, which is accessible through the given satellite
clock parameters and precise ephemeris available through
the IGS [32, 33]. These parameters are estimated by the IGS
analysis centers through a separate network adjustment,
including orbit determination and estimation of EOP con-
strained to epoch-date ITRF coordinates of the IGS refer-
ence stations, and merged into a series of precise orbital
products (ultra-rapid, rapid, final). This information is then
available to PPP clients to individually position unknown
stations. The parameters estimated in the PPP inversion
j
are then the station’s position, zenith troposphere delays Z 1
at that location (i=1), the receiver clock parameter dti, and
the non-integer bias term N 1j + B1 − B j for each satellite j
(Eq. (28.11)). The ionosphere parameters I ij are eliminated
to first order by a linear combination of the L1 and L2 phase
observations (Eq. (28.6)). It is important that the physical
models (e.g. Earth tides, antenna phase center corrections)
used by the PPP client be consistent with those used in the
global network analysis.
There are several approaches to PPP with ambiguity res-
olution (PPP-AR) within a limited region, up to several
thousand kilometers in extent [34, 36, 37]. In one approach,
a regional network solution is performed to estimate
c28.3d 750
weighted averages of all Bj satellite bias terms
(Eq. (28.11)), called fractional cycle biases (FCBs; [112]),
which are then made available to the PPP client. The
receiver bias B1 can be eliminated by differencing the obser-
vation equations (Eq. (28.11)) between satellites. The FCBs
are then computed for each satellite j over the n reference
stations by
j
B = Σni= 1 B j i n 28 14
Increasing the number and distribution of stations in the
reference network will improve the reliability and accuracy
of the FCB estimates. Now that the integer-valued phase
j
ambiguities N i have been decoupled from the satellite
and receiver phase biases, ambiguity resolution for a single
station can then be attempted, first for the wide-lane ambi-
guities and then the remaining narrow-lane ambiguities.
This approach is well suited to earthquake monitoring by
relying on reference stations outside the expected area of
coseismic deformation (Section 28.3.5).
In practice, the inversion of Eq. (28.11) includes realistic
uncertainties assigned to a priori estimates of particular para-
meters, for example, to station positions to improve ambiguity
resolution or for GPS meteorology (see Chapter 30). Kalman
filters or similar extensions of the least-squares method may
be used to take into account temporal correlations. For exam-
ple, troposphere delays and receiver clock parameters may be
parameterized by piecewise continuous functions with
assumed stochastic processes, such as first-order Gauss–
Markov.
Besides the requirement for external real-time satellite
clock information and FCBs for ambiguity resolution, a
serious disadvantage of both PPP and PPP-AR methods,
in particular in real-time applications, is that they require
a convergence period until the epoch-by-epoch positions
stabilize, and possible re-initializations due to loss of data,
ionospheric disturbances, severe multipath, and so on. This
process can extend to 1-2 h for PPP and less time for PPP-
AR. In a real-time environment, for example in earthquake
early warning (Section 28.4.2), it is critical to minimize
re-initializations and repeated convergence periods. An
active area of research is reducing the convergence period
by taking advantage of multiple GNSS constellations, and
GPS modernization with a third carrier frequency [91, 113].
In Section 28.2.3, we introduced seismogeodesy, the opti-
mal combination of GPS and accelerometer data as a useful
method for real-time applications. In a “tightly coupled”
Kalman filter approach, the GPS observation equations
are extended to include accelerometer data so that the
inversion is performed at the observation level [112, 114].
The extended system of equations is then inverted to esti-
mate displacements and seismic velocities during strong
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 28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS 751

motion. In a “loosely coupled” Kalman filter approach,
first, GPS displacements are estimated, and then optimally
combined with seismic data [49].
28.2.5 GPS Daily Position Time Series
28.2.5.1 Introduction
GPS receiver manufacturers each provide a different pro-
prietary receiver-specific data format. Therefore, typically,
phase and pseudorange data are binned into 24-h files cor-
responding to a GPS day (00:00-24:00) and converted to the
internationally recognized RINEX (receiver independent
exchange) format. Likewise, real-time GPS data are mostly
streamed in universal Radio Technical Commission for
Maritime Services (RTCM) format (www.rtcm.org), for
example, version 3.1 – these are then translated and stored
in RINEX format. Many of the archived RINEX files for
GPS geodesy are freely available from global and regional
data centers under the auspices of the IGS and other geo-
detic organizations, such as UNAVCO. The typical
Noth Displacement (mm)
sampling and storage rate is 15 s for long-term crustal
motion studies. For GPS seismology, typically real-time
data are collected and archived at 1 sps (1 Hz). Data are
often buffered in the GPS receivers at higher rates (5–10
sps) – they are downloaded and archived when a significant
earthquake or other event occurs.
The cGPS data are analyzed using methods such as those
described in Section 28.2.2 to estimate daily position time
series, which are then modeled for tectonic or other signals
(Sections 28.3–28.5). Secular (interseismic) deformation
can be as large as 250 mm/yr at the fastest plate boundaries
[115], sudden coseismic motions can be as large as 10 m‚
and postseismic deformation can accumulate over years
to be greater than the coseismic magnitude, or even over
several decades for great earthquakes such as the 1964
Mw9.2 Alaska earthquake [116]. After modeling these
effects, the time series residuals may reveal transient sig-
nals (Section 24.3.8). Figure 28.6 shows a 22-year displace-
ment time series for three stations spanning the southern
San Andreas Fault System (SAFS) in Southern California,

RMS = 1.4 PIN1

40 1999 Mw7. Hector Mine
20 RMS = 2.4 2010 Mw7.2 El mayour-Cucapah
VNDP
0
–20 East velocity sigmas: RMS = 2.7 JPLM
~0.05 mm/yr
–40

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018
East Displacement (mm)

40
RMS = 2.0
20

0
RMS = 2.0 RMS = 1.5
–20 1994 Mw6.7 North velocity sigmas:
Northridge ~0.05 mm/yr
–40

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

100
Up Displacement (mm)

Up velocity sigmas:
50 ~0.2 mm/yr RMS = 6.4
0
–50
RMS = 4.6
–100
RMS = 4.9

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

Figure 28.6 Twenty-five-year GPS daily displacement time series. Stations JPLM, PIN1 and VNDP in southern California. Detrended
modeled time series revealing coseismic and postseismic deformation for the 1999 Mw M7.1 Hector Mine earthquake and the 2010 Mw7.2
El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake and an Mw5.7 aftershock. The large earthquakes caused significant coseismic motion at all cGPS stations in
southern California. Vertical lines denote modeled non-tectonic offsets, primarily related to antenna replacements. Time series are from
http://garner.ucsd.edu/pub/timeseries/measures/ats/WesternNorthAmerica/.

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 752 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

showing the effects of coseismic and postseismic deforma- H denotes the discrete Heaviside function,
tion for two large earthquakes, coseismic deformation due
to an aftershock of one of the events, and two unlike 0, t i − T k j < 0
H= 28 18
antenna changes. 1, t i − T k j ≥ 0

The coefficient a is the value at the initial epoch t0, and ti

28.2.5.2 Coordinates and Displacements
denotes the time elapsed from t0 in units of years. The linear
For most geodetic applications‚ GPS data are analyzed for
rate (slope) b represents the interseismic secular tectonic
daily (X, Y, Z) positions with respect to the ITRF. The coor-
motion, typically expressed in mm/yr. The coefficients c,
dinates are transformed into more intuitive and physically
d, e, and f denote the unmodeled annual and semi-annual
meaningful horizontal and vertical displacements (ΔN, ΔE,
variations present in GPS position time series. The magni-
ΔU) at epoch ti with respect to station positions (X0, Y0, Z0)
tudes g of ng jumps (offsets, steps, discontinuities) are due to
at an initial epoch t0, according to
coseismic deformation and/or non-coseismic changes at
ΔN i t i sinϕcosλ sinλsinϕ cosϕ epochs Tg. Most non-coseismic discontinuities are due to
the replacement of GPS antennas with different phase center
ΔE i t i = sinλ cosλ 0
characteristics. Possible nh changes in velocity are denoted
ΔU i t i cosλcosϕ cosϕsinλ sinϕ by new velocity values h at epochs Th. Coefficients k are for
X i ti X t0 nk postseismic deformation (Section 24.3.8) starting at
epochs Th and decaying exponentially with a time constant
Y i ti Y t0 28 15
τj. The “logarithmic” model is another parameterization
Zi ti Z0
associated with afterslip on the fault surface; the exponen-
tial model is associated with motion below the crust (man-
The relationship between “geodetic” coordinates (ϕ, λ, h),
tle) [118]. The logarithmic model is expressed as
(ellipsoidal latitude, longitude‚ and height) and spatial (X,
Y, Z) coordinates is nk t 1 − T kj
k j log 1 + H t i − T kj 28 19
j=1 τj
X η + h cos ϕ cos λ
and was applied, for example, to the 2004 Mw6.0 Parkfield,
Y = η + h cos ϕ sin λ ; η
California earthquake [119].
Z η 1 − e2 + h sin ϕ The event times T (g, h, k) can be determined from earth-
1 2
quake catalogs, site logs, automatic detection algo-
= a 1 − e2 sin 2 ϕ ; e2 = 2f − f 2 28 16 rithms [120], or by visual inspection. The postseismic decay
times τj are typically estimated separately by maximum
with semimajor axis a, inverse flattening (1/f), and ellipsoi- likelihood methods, so that estimation of the remaining
dal eccentricity e. The US Department of Defense WGS84 time series coefficients can be expressed as a linear inverse
system used for GPS is consistent within ±1 m with the problem
ITRF, which is internally consistent at the sub-centimeter
level. The WGS84 ellipsoidal parameters are semimajor axis y = Ax + ε; E ε = 0; D ε = σ 20 Cε 28 20
a = 6 378 137 and 1/f = 298.257 223 563. where A is the design matrix and x is the parameter vector,
T
28.2.5.3 Parameterization and Estimation x = abcdef ghk 28 21
Time series analysis can be performed component by com-
As before (Eq. (28.10)), E denotes statistical expectation,
ponent since the correlations between them are small [38,
D denotes statistical dispersion, Cε is the covariance matrix
117]. An individual component time series (ΔN, ΔE, or ΔU)
of observation errors, P= C ε− 1 is the weight matrix, and σ 20
at discrete epochs ti can be modeled by [85]
is an a priori variance factor. The observation equations can
y t i = a + bt i + csin 2πt i + dcos 2πt i + esin 4πti + fcos 4πt i + be solved by weighted least squares.
ng nh Examination of the post-fit residuals ε = y − Ax often
+ g j H ti − T gj + h j H ti − T hj ti + reveals common signatures within a geographical region
j=1 j=1
t i − T kj
(e.g. western United States), indicating a global source. Spa-
nk
1−
+ k je
τj
H t i − T kj + εi tiotemporal filtering of the residuals can be used to estimate
j=1 and remove the “common mode,” allowing for improved
28 17 discernment of tectonic signals. An early study suggested

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 28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS 753

a simple stacking procedure [121], a simple form of princi- In general, the power spectra of geophysical and
pal component analysis (PCA) [122]. atmospheric noise can be approximated by a power law
Using these approaches, daily displacement time series process [131]
of stations on the North America plate indicated spatial
k
coherence across a 2000 km scale with 95% of that within f
Px f = P0 28 22
the first 1000 km [123]. PCA analysis of time series f0
in Western North America in the period 1995–2017
based on a combined analysis by Jet Propulsion Labora- where f is the temporal frequency, k is the spectral index,
tory using the GIPSY analysis software and Scripps and P0 and f0 are normalizing constants. The value of k
Institution of Oceanography using the GAMIT software for physical processes may range from k = 0 to k = −3
reduces the root mean square (rms) of north, east and up [132]. Special cases of integral spectral indices include
post-fit residuals by about 20–50%, from about 1–2 mm white noise (k=0), flicker noise (k=−1), and random walk
to 0.5–1.0 mm for horizontal components and noise (k=−2). A good approximation of the noise ε in GPS
from about 3–5 mm to 2.5–4.5 mm in the vertical daily displacement time series has been found to be a com-
component [124]. bination of white noise and time-correlated (colored) noise
with an appropriate choice of k [133, 134]. Neglecting the
temporal correlations will result in underestimation of
28.2.5.4 Error Analysis the time series model terms. A more realistic covariance
Obtaining realistic estimates of model parameter uncer- matrix can be expressed by
tainties, for example‚ the velocity term, coefficient b in Cε t = α2WN I + β2k J k t 28 23
Eq. (28.21), is fundamental to identification, verification‚
and interpretation of physical signals. Often the magnitude For a white noise process, βk = 0 and with no colored
of the underlying physical process is small against a back- noise, the covariance matrix Cε(t) is a diagonal matrix with
ground signal, for example, a transient motion elements α2WN . The uncertainty in the weighted least-
(Section 28.3.8) that deviates from the empirical time series squares estimate (Eq. (28.18)) for the station velocity, coef-
model. The nature of the errors in daily displacement time ficient b in Eq. (28.17), is then [133]
series (Eq. (28.17)) is introduced into the weighted least-
α2WN 12 n − 1 12α2WN
squares process (Eqs. (28.17) and (28.18)) through the σb2 = ; for large n 28 24
covariance matrix Cε. T2 n n + 1 nT 2
Experience with long records of geodetic measurements
where n is the number of time series data points equally
including spirit leveling [125], trilateration (electronic dis-
spaced in time‚ and T is the total time span. For a random
tance measurement) [126, 127], and tiltmeters [128, 129]
walk process with a rise of f−2, the temporal component of
indicates significant temporal correlations (“colored”
the covariance matrix is
noise). Besides instrumental noise approximated by a white
noise process, time series analysis of these observations 1 1 1 … 1
indicate that the temporal errors resemble a random walk 1 2 2 … 2
process (sometimes called “red” noise or Brownian β 2
T 1 2 3 … 3
β22 J 2 t = 2 28 25
motion), primarily attributed to the instability of geodetic n−1
monuments caused by soil contraction, desiccation, or
weathering, for example, by expansive clays in near-surface 1 2 3 … n
rocks. Based on this earlier geodetic record, a permanent
and rigid monument was designed by the SCIGN project The contribution of the time-correlated component is
to minimize non-tectonic local surface deformation surprisingly simple [132]
(Figure 28.2). The monument consists of five deeply β2k
anchored drill-braced stainless steel rods, one vertical σb2 = 28 26
T
and four slanted (~10 m) rods, isolated from the surface
down to ~3 m [130]. The SCIGN monument (Figure 28.5) indicating that unlike the white noise case (Eq. (28.24)), it
has been adopted by other geophysical networks such as depends solely on the time interval T between the first and
UNAVCO’s Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO). Less last data points. However, power spectra of increasingly
expensive, and supposedly less stable mounts, include, long GPS displacement time series indicate that flicker
for example, shallow-braced monuments, rock pins, spike noise (sometimes referred to as “pink” noise) with a rise
mounts, masts, and building mounts. of f−1 may be more dominant. In this case [133],

c28.3d 753 15/12/2020 5:57:59 PM

 754 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
3 2
24 I − J 0
β21 J 1 t = β21 28 27
4 12
where element (i, k) of the symmetric matrix J0 of dimen-
sion n is
0; i = k
J0 = log k − i 28 28
+ 2; i < k
log 2
Note that here is no explicit reference to time or sampling
frequency as flicker noise is on the asymptotic boundary
between stationary and nonstationary processes and often
exhibits odd behavior. There is no simple analytic expres-
sion for σ b 2 for a flicker noise process. An approximate
expression is given by (Williams 2003b) [135]:
9β2k
σb2 , 28 29
16ΔT 2 n2 − 1
where ΔT is the sampling interval. Empirical formulas are
available for the contribution of the colored noise compo-
nent to station velocity uncertainty in the general case of
a fractal spectral index k (Williams 2003b) [135].
The variance coefficients α2WN and β2k in Eq. (28.23) can be
obtained through maximum likelihood estimation (MLE)
of the displacement time series residuals ε = y − Ax assum-
ing a certain power law [133, 135, 136]. With the increasing
amount of data and large matrix inversion required, meth-
ods have been presented to speed up the computations and
deal with missing data [137, 138]. The appropriate spectral
index k and its uncertainty can be obtained by linear least-
squares fitting (Eq. (28.18)) of the slope of the amplitude
spectrum of the modeled displacement time series residuals
[133]. Once the spectral index and white noise and colored
coefficients are determined, the proper covariance matrix
Cε(t) can be then be constructed for the weighted least-
squares inversion (Eq. (28.18)) and the uncertainties
obtained for all the time series model parameters. If only
the velocity uncertainties are of interest, a simpler and less
time-consuming approach is to apply an empirical formula
to properly scale the velocity uncertainties [135]. Other
schemes for estimating velocity uncertainties in the pres-
ence of colored noise approximate the more rigorous spec-
tral approaches described above when the displacement
time series are well behaved [137, 139].
Estimates of the most appropriate spectral indices and
the relative contribution of white noise and colored noise
components have been obtained by a growing number of
studies of daily displacement time series with longer and
longer time spans. The conclusions have provided a range
of results on the magnitude of the white noise and colored
noise coefficients and the most appropriate spectral index,
c28.3d 754
with or without spatial filtering (Eq. (28.25)) and under a
variety of geologic settings and monuments. Early results
with a time span of about a decade with spatial filtering
indicated that a white plus flicker noise assumption is pre-
ferred with white noise on the order of 0.5–1.0 mm in the
horizontal components and 3.0 mm in the vertical compo-
nent with flicker noise on the order of 2.0 mm/yr1/4 in the
horizontals and 7.0 mm/yr1/4 in the vertical [140]. With
non-filtered, globally distributed stations the noise coeffi-
cients (Eq. (28.23)) were about three times larger in the hor-
izontal components and five times larger in the vertical, for
both white noise and flicker noise components. The least
noisy results were related to two long-lived regional cGPS
networks designed for plate tectonic studies in the western
United States – the Basin and Range GPS Network
(BARGEN) and SCIGN, both using the SCIGN monument
(Figure 28.5). The BARGEN results were the least noisy,
which is thought to be due to the dry desert conditions.
Other monument types (e.g. building mounts, metal tri-
pods, rock pins, concrete slabs, concrete piers‚ and steel
towers) indicated larger white noise and colored noise com-
ponents, but with similar spectral values, k. A third net-
work, the US Pacific Northwest GPS Array (PANGA) had
larger colored noise amplitudes thought to be due to the
wetter climate and less stable monuments. Overall for this
study, station velocity uncertainties were on the order of
0.05–0.1 mm/yr in the horizontal components and
0.2–0.3 mm/yr in the vertical; the contribution of the flicker
noise was about 0.2 mm/yr1/4 for the horizontal compo-
nents and 0.7 mm/yr1/4 for the vertical. An analysis of spa-
tially filtered displacement time series of 256 stations from
the BARGEN and SCIGN projects indicated the lowest
white noise and flicker noise amplitudes‚ with the preferred
noise model being a combination of white noise and flicker
noise with a random walk noise component [141]; the
flicker noise component was considered to be due to the
GPS system itself (e.g. the receivers, satellites, local antenna
environment) and fell in the frequency band between the
higher frequencies (white noise) and the lower frequencies
(random walk noise).
The study of the error characteristics is an ongoing area of
investigation, for example, [117, 141, 142], as the number
and length of the available displacement time series grow
and the causes of temporal correlations are better under-
stood. The growing interest in detecting subtle transient
motions has also stressed the importance of better under-
standing errors in GPS displacement time series.
So, what can we conclude from these studies regarding
monumentation? The time series analyzed in the GPS
studies may not be long enough to reveal an underlying
random noise component‚ and so it is yet unclear if the
expensive SCIGN monument is essential for millimeter-level
15/12/2020 5:57:59 PM

positioning [140, 141, 143]. Ultimately, the overriding issue
for anchoring in many locales is the hydrology or freeze thaw
cycle over an area much larger than the footprint of the
anchor. The location of the GPS monument is an overriding
factor – sites in dry climates have less noise‚ while sites with
anthropogenic effects (e.g. oil extraction and groundwater
pumping) have the most noise.
28.2.5.5 Considerations and Complications
There are other numerous considerations and complica-
tions in time series analysis of daily station displacements.
Some time series span more than 25 years‚ and there are
thousands of cGPS stations (Figure 28.1). The parameteri-
zation is subjective and depends on the application. In
the last few years, the focus of many studies is to discover
and interpret transient deformation through analysis of the
residual displacement time series ε = y − Ax after known
effects have been modeled. For crustal deformation studies,
the time series parameters a (initial value), c-f (periodic
terms), and h (non-coseismic offsets) are considered “nui-
sance” parameters. One problem is distinguishing between
ng coseismic offsets and other offsets nh., primarily due to
changes in GPS instrumentation, in particular, antenna
and/or radome changes, receiver changes (though they
rarely cause significant offsets), and other unknown issues.
Here‚ the proper recording of metadata is critical. External
calibrations of different antenna and radome combinations
are not sufficient to eliminate offsets. When an antenna
fails‚ it is usually preceded by degraded performance that
is exhibited as an apparent wandering of the position or
noisier model-fit residuals, which further complicates the
analysis.
The tagging and timing of coseismic offsets requires spe-
cial treatment when modeling daily position time series.
Furthermore, quickly determining the stations affected
by an earthquake is critical in earthquake response, consid-
ering that large events can affect hundreds of cGPS stations.
If an earthquake occurs near mid-day, the question arises
whether to retain the data before or after the event, or
exclude it altogether and assign the offset time to the start
of the next day. Higher-resolution observations of coseismic
and short-term postseismic deformation obtained through
seismogeodesy, GPS seismology (Section 28.2.3), and
higher-rate GPS positioning are addressing this issue.
Although there are algorithms to automatically detect
non-coseismic offsets [120, 144], considerable manual
effort may still be required to detect all offsets and to min-
imize the number of false detections, which will increase
the parameter uncertainties, in particular, those of station
velocities. A recent study attempts to minimize the effects
on station velocities of offsets, as well as outliers and sea-
sonality, through an automatic median trend estimator
c28.3d 755
28.2 Geodetic-Quality GPS 755
[145]. Although useful for some applications and as the
number of cGPS stations increases, it can be problematic
in studies of the earthquake cycle, in particular‚ the estima-
tion of postseismic deformation for large earthquakes that
can affect stations thousands of kilometers from their epi-
centers, and in the case of irregular ground subsidence.
Seasonal effects in the displacement time series are mod-
eled by annual and semi-annual terms (coefficients c, d, e, f
in Eq. (28.21)). The presence of seasonal (periodic) effects
necessitates longer data spans to reliably extract the secular
velocities; velocity bias rapidly diminishes after ~4.5 years
[146]. Based on increasingly long-time series (>~10 years),
the effects of periodic signals on velocity estimates are less
than 0.2 mm/yr [147]. The possible sources of seasonal
effects were investigated and classified by three categories
[148]: (1) the gravitational attraction of the Sun and Moon,
including seasonal polar motion, Earth rotation variations,
and loading displacements due to solid Earth, ocean and
atmospheric tides, and pole tide loading; (2) hydrodynam-
ics and thermal effects including atmospheric pressure
loading, non-tidal sea surface fluctuations, anthropogenic
groundwater and mineral extraction, snow accumulation,
local thermal expansion, and seasonal changes in the
reflecting surface (soil moisture and vegetation) that pro-
duce multipath errors [149]; (3) effects specific to GPS anal-
ysis such as satellite orbital errors, choice of atmospheric
models including zenith delay mapping functions [150],
and the underlying reference frame. Joint contributions
from surface mass redistribution (atmosphere, ocean,
snow, and soil moisture) and the pole tide are the primary
causes for the observed annual vertical variations of site
positions with amplitudes of about 5 mm [148]. Non-tidal
atmospheric loading may also play a role [151], coupled
with hydrological effects. Tidal forces including Earth tides
and atmospheric pressure loading [152], most predominant
at semi-annual and annual periods and most pronounced
in the vertical direction, are accounted for by applying
physical models in the GPS phase and code analysis. Mis-
modeled tidal forces and undersampling with 24-h position
estimates can explain the annual and semi-annual signa-
tures in GPS heights with amplitudes up to the several mil-
limeter level, exhibiting long-period signals from 12 days to
one year [153, 154]. Mis-modeled Earth tide effects on esti-
mates of vertical positions may cause amplitudes of up to
0.4 mm for annual periods and 2 mm for semi-annual per-
iods, increasing as a function of latitude, and 2 mm in
zenith troposphere delay parameters with a dominant diur-
nal frequency [155].
Other complications in time series analysis include data
gaps when a station fails to collect data or collects poor-
quality data and the detection and rejection of outliers;
robust statistics (median, interquartile range) are useful
15/12/2020 5:57:59 PM
 756 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
to better distinguish outliers compared to the mean and
standard deviation [85]. A difficult problem is distinguish-
ing tectonic sources from anthropogenic effects, for exam-
ple, water, oil and mineral extraction, geothermal power
generation [156], and snow accumulation [157], which
appear as systematic features in the residual displacement
time series. Note that some of these effects may be consid-
ered signals for other applications [158, 159] (Section 28.6).
28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal
Deformation
28.3.1 Introduction
Tectonic geodesy seeks to measure and model crustal defor-
mation at local to global scales to better understand the
underlying physical processes of tectonic plate motion,
plate boundary deformation, earthquakes‚ and volcanoes.
Understanding these processes is critical to society’s efforts
to mitigate the detrimental effects of natural hazards on
civilian life and infrastructure. Two examples from a long
list of catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis in recent his-
tory make this point more tangible. The 26 December 2004
Mw9.3 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami
resulted in 250,000 casualties, the majority of them on
the nearby island of Sumatra, Indonesia, with tsunami
inundation heights of up to 30 m [160]. The 11 March
2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki (Great Japan) earthquake gener-
ated a tsunami with inundation heights as high as 40 m
resulting in over 18,000 casualties, with extensive and
long-term damage to infrastructure, in particular the
Fukushima nuclear facility, and the economic collapse of
the near-source coastline [161–164]. To put this into per-
spective, damage and death from a great earthquake on
the Cascadia megathrust in the US Northwest and Western
Canada and a subsequent tsunami, the last event was in
1700 [165, 166], is likely to be comparable to that of the
2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki event.
Crustal deformation of Earth’s crust is driven by the
motion of the tectonic plates. A simplified description of
plate boundary deformation is of a “crustal deformation
cycle” or “earthquake cycle” composed of three primary
phases. The interseismic phase is the period between earth-
quakes from tens to thousands of years, depending on the
particular tectonic setting, during which Earth’s crust
deforms at a steady rate. An earthquake disrupts this secu-
lar motion during the coseismic phase, lasting from tens of
seconds to no more than 10 min for great earthquakes such
as the 2014 Mw9.3 Sumatra-Andaman event. The coseismic
phase transitions into the postseismic phase as Earth
relaxes and returns to its steady-state motion. The
c28.3d 756
postseismic phase can extend to decades for great earth-
quakes [167]. GPS along with other space geodetic methods
provide direct measurements of surface displacements
related to these processes. Typical cGPS displacement time
series displaying the effects of three earthquakes in South-
ern California are shown in Figure 28.6. The period leading
up to an earthquake is referred to as the preseismic phase‚
but there is scant observational data to support an unusual
change in motion just prior to an event (Section 28.3.8.4).
The availability of precise GPS measurements is contri-
buting to a more nuanced view of crustal deformation. Plate
boundary zones consist of multiple faults and fault seg-
ments that do not experience earthquakes according to a
predictable pattern, and have complex geometries, patterns
of motion, and underlying crustal properties and processes.
Crustal deformation at subduction zones have recently
been described in terms of “super-cycles” consisting of very
large earthquakes interspersed with a sequence of smaller
earthquakes, taken together rupturing an entire mega-
thrust boundary, after which the process is repeated. These
include historical sequences on the Sunda megathrust
[168], the Chilean megathrust [169], the Ecuadorian sub-
duction zone [170], the Northeast Japan trench, the Hima-
layan thrust, and the Cascadia subduction zone [171].
However, the record of geodetic measurements of fault
motion to date is not long enough to measure a complete
cycle or super-cycle in any one location. Thus, tectonic geo-
detic studies are comparative in nature, looking at plate
boundaries at different stages of the cycle. These types of
studies indicate changes in the interseismic rates of motion
[118, 172]. GPS measurements have also revealed previ-
ously unknown transients (Section 28.3.8) such as episodic
tremor and slip (ETS) reflecting small motions on the fault
interface with an apparent regularity, first discovered
from cGPS observations at subduction zones in Japan
[173, 174].
28.3.2 History
The connection between earthquakes and faulting was first
inferred from repeated triangulation surveys exhibiting sur-
face deformation related to the 1872 Owens Valley earth-
quake [175] of magnitudes 7.4–7.9, the 1888 North
Canterbury, New Zealand earthquake [176] of magnitude
7.0–7.3, and the Great Nōbi earthquake in central Japan
of magnitude 8.0 [177]. The elastic rebound theory [178,
179] was developed based on the repeated triangulation
measurements across the great Sumatra fault in the late
1880s [180–182] and triangulation measurements of surface
offsets resulting from the 1906 magnitude ~7.9 San Fran-
cisco earthquake [183]. The theory postulates that there
is an earthquake loading cycle consisting of elastic strain
15/12/2020 5:57:59 PM

accumulation along an active geologic fault until the stress
on the fault exceeds the frictional resistance, leading to
an earthquake. Crustal strain is manifested in relative
changes in network size or shape, which can be geodetically
measured.
On a larger global scale, the hypothesis of continental
drift [184–186], discredited at the time by geologists,
required positions to change over time. Wegener wrote
that “I have no doubt that in the not too distant future
we will be successful in making a precise measurement
of the drift of North America relative to Europe.”
Although Wegener’s explanation was incorrect, the theory
of plate tectonics [187–189] required such motions and
gained wide acceptance in the 1960s. The first direct geo-
detic measurements of plate motion were made by the
NASA Crustal Dynamics Project (CDP) from yearly esti-
mates of the position of global tracking stations over about
a decade by LRS [190, 191] and VLBI [192]. These early
results showed generally good agreement, within the
uncertainties of the geodetic measurements, with the ~3
Myr geologic record of the motion of rigid plates [193–195].
Expensive and geographically sparse space geodetic mea-
surements of crustal deformation using VLBI and LRS
were supplemented and essentially replaced by dense rel-
atively inexpensive GPS networks starting in the mid-
1980s. GPS also replaced traditional terrestrial geodetic
techniques (triangulation and trilateration) because of
its distinct advantages; it can measure over long distances
without the requirement of line of sight between stations‚
and it yields three-dimensional positions and displace-
ments with respect to a global terrestrial reference frame.
GPS measurements of surface displacement now play a
dominant role in measuring crustal deformation from
the scale of a single geological fault to tectonic plates.
28.3.3 Continuous and Survey-Mode GPS
In this section, we describe the underlying observational
framework for GPS geodesy. In later sections‚ we show
how GPS displacements are used to model tectonic
processes.
GPS observations of plate boundary deformation begun
in the mid-1980s were limited to GPS “campaigns” or, as
referred to here, “survey-mode GPS” or “sGPS.” In the early
years, geodetic monuments in a network were surveyed,
typically for ~3 consecutive days, over a period of several
weeks. One or more monuments were occupied for the
duration of the survey (these early surveys were done in
network/relative positioning mode and so required local
reference stations), while mobile crews were deployed until
all the monuments were surveyed. This process was
c28.3d 757
28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 757
repeated, typically annually. The early surveys were limited
to several hours per day because of the limited GPS constel-
lation at the time, so that depending on the time of the year,
one could be surveying in the desert during the hottest day
of the summer or atop a mountain at night in the heart of
winter, with the satellite window shifting by ~3 h 56 min
per day according to Earth’s sidereal rotation and the
~12 h period of the satellites. The multiple day surveys were
typically scheduled at the same time of day for redundancy
and to minimize repeating noise such as multipath. The
first major efforts using sGPS for tectonic geodesy were
focused on crustal deformation measurements at plate
boundaries in California [197–199], Indonesia [200, 201],
the South Pacific [115], the Mediterranean [202, 203],
and the Andes [204]. Several of these projects included
monuments that had been surveyed up to a century earlier
by triangulation and/or trilateration [31, 182, 205, 206].
Figure 28.3 shows a sGPS survey station in the Imperial
Valley, Southern California, a tectonically active area with
frequent medium to large earthquakes [31, 207].
A representative list of sGPS projects can be found in
Table 28.2.
In the early 1990s, the first continuous GPS (cGPS) net-
work for monitoring crustal deformation, the Permanent
GPS Geodetic Array (PGGA) consisting of five stations,
was established on the North America/Pacific plate bound-
ary in Southern California [130]. With cGPS, instruments
are continuously deployed with a source of power and a
communications link to a central facility, and autono-
mously operated (Figure 28.2). The PGGA was the first
cGPS network to capture a significant earthquake and
measure coseismic displacements [210, 211]. This early
effort was extended into the Los Angeles Basin with the
Dense GPS Geodetic Array (DGGA), and expanded into
the 250-station SCIGN project [212, 213]. The funding for
this larger effort was spurred by loss of life (57 killed)
and considerable damage to infrastructure (up to $40 bil-
lion) in the San Fernando Valley during the 1994 Mw6.7
Northridge earthquake [214]. About half of the SCIGN sta-
tions and other cGPS networks in the western United States
(Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array – PANGA [215]; BAR-
GEN [216]; Eastern Basin and Range and Yellowstone
(EBRY) [217] were integrated in the PBO numbering about
1200 stations from Southern California to the Aleutian
Islands [218]. Other early efforts included the San Fran-
cisco Bay Area Regional Deformation Array (BARD)
[219], Western Canada Geodetic Array (WCDA) [220],
and a network in Long Valley to monitor volcanic deforma-
tion [221]. The cGPS method quickly spread to other plate
boundary zones (Table 28.2). Most notable is Japan’s
national cGPS network, GEONET, with ~1200 stations
[222]. Besides tectonic geodesy, these networks serve
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 758 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

Table 28.2 Representative list of crustal deformation measurements with GPS sorted by geographic region

Region Studies

Pacific /North America [198] [250, 251] [252, 253] [123] [167] [254] [255] 256] [216] [257] [258] [199] [197] [259] [238] [209] [231]
[208] [210]1
Nazca/South America [260] [261] [262] [263] [264] [265] [64] [204] [266, 267] [268, 269, 270]
South America/Scotia [271] [259]
Caribbean [272] [273] [274] [275]
India/Eurasia [276] [277] [278] [279] [280] [281] [282]
Africa/East African Rift [283] [284] [285]1 [286]1 [287]1 [288]
Mediterranean [289] [203] [290] [202] [291] [292] [293] [294] [295] [203] [288]
Pacific Basin [296] [297] [298]
Southeast Asia [299] [300] ([301] [302] [198] [303] [199] [306] [307] [308] [304, 182] [305] [201]
South Pacific [115] [309] [310] [311]
New Zealand [312] [313, 314] [315]
Australia/Sunda [316]
Japan [222]1 [317] [318] [319] [320] [321] [246]2 [322] [41] [244]2
Mexico and Central [323] [324] [325] [326] 1 [327, 328]
America
Greenland [329]1 [330]1
Antarctica [331] [332] [333]1
1
cGPS; 2GPS-A

multiple purposes, for example‚ to support precise survey-
ing, engineering and transportation applications [223], and
GPS meteorology [224].
Initially, cGPS networks recorded phase and pseudor-
ange measurements at a 15–30 s date rate. The data were
downloaded usually daily to a central facility. With
improvements in data communications and computing
power and to support new applications such as earthquake
and tsunami early warning systems (Section 28.24), many
stations have been converted to allow real-time transmis-
sion of data, typically sampled at 1 sps or greater and con-
tinuously transmitted with a latency of about 1 s to a central
server. Data transmission is performed in a variety of ways,
including dedicated radios and microwave towers, cell
modems, satellite dishes‚ and direct Internet connections.
Japan’s GEONET and a majority of the Western North
America cGPS stations have been converted to real-time
operations.
Although the number of cGPS stations has significantly
increased, sGPS surveys are still performed for tectonic GPS
applications. They are used for local transects across active
geologic faults to distinguish between locked and creeping
sections [225], often using kinematic and rapid static GPS
methods with repeated short occupation times [31, 39, 226].
GPS surveys have also been conducted in the epicentral
regions of large earthquakes to record coseismic
(Section 28.3.5) [227] and postseismic (Section 28.3.8.1)
motions [228], often in combination with InSAR measure-
ments [209, 229]. However, sGPS is often logistically complex
and manpower intensive, especially when expeditiously per-
formed after a significant seismic event.
28.3.4 Displacements and Velocities
The fundamental observation in GPS geodesy is displace-
ment, the change in position over time. In this section‚
we discuss secular motion (velocities) as a representation
of interseismic deformation, and the primary objective of
many sGPS and cGPS efforts. Figure 28.7 shows the veloci-
ties estimated at North Island, New Zealand, at the Pacific-
Australian plate margin, the area of the 2016 Mw7.8 Kai-
kōura earthquake. Besides plate boundary deformation,
horizontal station velocities at plate interiors are input to
global plate motion models and to the realization of ITRF
for space geodesy (Section 28.3.6). Early efforts focused
on horizontal motions because of the lesser precision of ver-
tical velocities. More recently the vertical motions are being
exploited, especially at subduction zones where significant
vertical tectonic deformation occurs.
One of the longest-studied and most intensely instrumen-
ted plate boundaries, the 800-mile SAFS in California, con-
sists of multiple mostly transform (strike-slip) faults on

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 28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 759

Pacific Plate

–38° North Island

Australian Plate
–40°

gh
ou
Tr
gi
n
ra
ku
Hi

–42°
172° 174° 176° 178° 180°

Figure 28.7 Oblique subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Australian Plate at the Hikurangi Margin, North Island New Zealand.
GPS velocities (black vectors) from sGPS campaigns between 1991 and 2003 are shown relative to the Pacific Plate. Red vectors
show estimated long-term convergence rates (mm/yr) at the Hikurangi trough. The GPS velocities in the eastern North Island show
that 50–60 mm/yr of convergence occurs offshore of the northeastern North Island with the rates decreasing to ~20 mm/yr in the southern
North Island. The southward decrease in offshore convergence rates is accompanied by an increase in upper plate shortening and
produces rapid clockwise tectonic rotation of the eastern North Island relative to the bounding Pacific and Australian Plates. The
margin-parallel component of Pacific/Australia relative plate motion is accommodated by a combination of strike-slip faulting and
clockwise rotation of the eastern North Island. The inset shows the location of the 2016 Mw7.8 Kaikoura earthquake. Source: Adapted
from Wallace et al. [196] and the references therein. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

land and offshore. The last major earthquake on the San
Andreas Fault itself was the 1906 Mw7.9-8.0 San Francisco
earthquake [232, 233]; the central portion of the SAF last
ruptured during the 1857 Mw7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake
[234]. The long recurrence time inferred from paleoseismic
observations [235, 236], the absence of significant rupture
on the southernmost segment of the fault for at least
250 years‚ and the interseismic strain that has accumulated
since then inferred from geologic and geodetic data suggest
that the southern segment of the SAF is primed for a large
earthquake [237], often referred to as the “Big One.”
A velocity map of the SAFS is shown in Figure 28.8
[238], including 1981 horizontal velocity vectors over the
period 1996–2010 compiled from numerous sGPS cam-
paigns and cGPS networks, as well as some early trilatera-
tion surveys.
Complicating these efforts are the effects of postseismic
deformation. There have been several large earthquakes
with significant postseismic motion affecting all Southern
California GPS stations: the 1992 Mw7.3 Landers, 1999
Mw7.3 Hector Mine‚ and 2010 Mw7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah
in northern Baja California, Mexico (Figure 28.6). Other
complications include non-secular deformation due to pri-
marily to anthropogenic sources (Section 28.6), including,
groundwater pumping and mineral extraction, aquifer
recharge and injection and withdrawal of fluids in hydro-
thermal power generation [156, 239, 240] that may bleed
into horizontal motions. These effects as well as episodic,
transient, seasonal‚ and other motions must be considered
in the estimation of velocity vectors.
The measurement of interseismic deformation and the
accumulation of strain over the earthquake cycle as indica-
tors of the buildup of stresses in the crust is an important
input for forecasting earthquake probabilities and the asso-
ciated seismic risks. However, geodetic observations (GPS
and InSAR) are not long enough to span a complete earth-
quake cycle. Therefore, tectonic geodetic studies have been
comparative in nature to form a coherent picture of the
underlying earthquake engine. GPS horizontal velocities
are shown in Figure 28.9 for three subduction zones at dif-
ferent phases of their cycles. Other types of data provide
complementary information over the longer term.

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 760 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

–1 –1 –1 –1
20 18 16 14

°
40
° ° ° °

38

36

34
10 + –1 mm/yr
–1
22
°

–1
24
°

km
°
40

0 100

Figure 28.8 Horizontal GPS-derived velocities for the San Andreas Fault System (SAFS) and the Imperial fault in Southern California
delineating the diffuse plate boundary between the North American and Pacific plates from sGPS and cGPS data. The velocities are
shown with respect to a North America plate pole of rotation [208], with half of the plate motion subtracted, and mapped in an
oblique Mercator projection. Stations furthest to the east of the boundary on the North America plate are moving to the southeast by about
25 mm/yr and those to the west of the boundary are moving to the northwest by up to the same amount with the maximum on the
Channel Islands (with small residual motions, ~1–2 mm/yr, with respect to the Pacific plate). Source: Adapted from Tong et al. [209].
Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

(a) (b) (c)

35° S 50° N
2010
GPS GPS
Model Model 1
20 ± 20 mm/yr 20 ± 2 mm/yr
15° N –1 1
m yr 10 –
BNKK 66 m yr
200 km mm
15

36
5

CPN 40° S
100 km
30

10° N
45° N Cascadia
5

PHKT
10
10

Chile 100 km
1

20

5° N
52 mm yr–1

Sumatra
5 45° S GPS
Model
1

18 mm yr–1 20 ± 2 mm/yr

90° E 95° E 100° E 75° W 70° W 125° W 120° W

Figure 28.9 Comparative study of three subduction zones at different stages of the earthquake cycle. GPS horizontal surface velocities
in red and model-predicted velocities in blue. (a) One-year averaged postseismic velocities at the Sumatra trench one year after the
Mw9.3 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake – all stations move seaward. Coseismic fault slip contours in meters. (b) At the Chile subduction
zone, four decades after the Mw9.5 earthquake of 1960 – coastal and inland stations show opposing motion. The northernmost areas
show landward interseismic motion before the 2010 M8.8 Maule earthquake, while inland stations show postseismic deformation
following the 1960 event. (c) At the Cascadia subduction zone. Three centuries after the Mw <9 earthquake of 1700 – all stations are
moving landward. Source: Adapted from Wang et al. [118]. Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature.

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 28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 761

Geological observations provide long-term secular rates
since the last geomagnetic reversal in the Pliocene, ~3
Myr. Paleoseismology, the trenching across active faults
and dating exposed material, documents the occurrence
and frequency of earthquakes in the last 1–2 Kyr [235,
236]. Other observations include paleogeodesy, determin-
ing coral uplift rates at subduction zones [166]; geomor-
phology [241]; and archeoseismology [242].
Station velocity measurements are being extended into
the oceans by means of seafloor positioning [3, 243, 244].
Referred to as GPS-Acoustics or GPS-A, the method is based
on a combination of acoustic measurements to network
transponders on the ocean bottom, which are referenced
to land and the ITRF through GPS observations on the
ocean surface (buoys, ships, wave gliders). GPS-A observa-
tions on the ocean floor offshore a subduction zone are
input to models of the underlying physical processes [41].
The most extensive GPS-A measurements have been made
at the Nankai Trough offshore of a densely populated
region of Japan with critical infrastructure and economic
importance and the location of devastating great mega-
thrust earthquakes. The GPS-A measurements are critical
in delineating the areas of greatest plate coupling (the
degree of fault locking – if a fault is locked it is considered
fully coupled; if it is slipping at the plate rate‚ then it is
considered decoupled or creeping), in order to predict the
extent and inundation levels of future tsunamis. GPS-A
observations in this region have documented 24 m of coseis-
mic displacements at a station directly above the rupture of
the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake [244, 245], an
order of magnitude greater than observed by land-based
GPS stations. These observations allow for more detailed
imaging and understanding of the earthquake rupture
process. The first estimates of interplate coupling were
obtained from 9 years of GPS-A measurements prior to
the 2011 event [246] with 6 ocean-bottom sensors; observa-
tions continued from a total of 15 sensors every 3–4 months
after the earthquake indicating velocities of about 3–5 cm/
yr [41]. GPS-A observations is the Cascadia subduction
zone, an area of significant seismic and tsunami risk, show
seafloor motions of about 5 cm/yr (Figure 28.10) [231].
However, based on GPS onshore velocities alone‚ it is diffi-
cult to distinguish between different models of interseismic
strain accumulation [228].
28.3.5 Observations of Coseismic Deformation
Coseismic deformation occurs during the sudden, rapid
release of stress caused by earthquake nucleation and
fault rupture. Its dynamic surface expression are elastic
waves observed by inertial instruments (seismometers,

10 30 50 70 90 110 km 10 30 50 70 90 110 km
50° 50°
A B C

48° 48°

46°
46°

44°
44°

42°
42°

40°
0.0 0.5 1.0 0.0 0.5 1.0
Locking Fraction Locking Fraction
40°
–130° –128° –126° –124° –122° –120° –128° –126° –124° –122° –120° –128° –126° –124° –122° –120°

Figure 28.10 Sensitivity of fault models based on GPS observations. (A) GPS velocities on the mainland and at two GPS-A stations at
the Cascadia subduction zone. Even with hundreds of GPS velocities on land, one cannot distinguish between two end-member models of a
mostly creeping shallow zone (B) and a mostly locked shallow zone (C). Two GPS-A stations (A-solid red squares) on the continental
slope are being measured annually to help distinguish between these models. Each model implies a different seismic hazard for this
region, which has not experienced a great megathrust earthquake since 1700 and is thought to be at the end of the interseismic phase
with the potential for a great earthquake [230, 231]. Source: Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, American
Geophysical Union.

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 762 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

accelerometers) and with less accuracy by GPS seismology 242° 243° 244°
(Section 28.2.3), which can typically last tens of seconds
but can be as long as 10 min for the largest earthquakes.
20 mm GOLD
The permanent (static) displacements (Figure 28.6) are Theoretical

30
observed by GPS and seismogeodesy. The surface observa- GPS
tions are used to image and model the earthquake source 95% confidence
in Earth’s crust to understand the underlying physical pro- 100
35° 35°
cesses and the complex relationship between accumulated
strain and stress release. The permanent surface displace-
ments are input to inversions for “static” source models pro-

30
viding the total accumulated slip on the fault plane

30
300

0
(Section 28.3.7).
The first coseismic displacements were measured by a 10

1000
0
handful of cGPS stations during the 1992 Mw7.3 Landers, JPLM
Southern California earthquake [210, 211]. These data were
34° 34°
used to estimate earthquake magnitude and fault slip para-

10
meters by applying a simple elastic half-space model
(Section 28.3.7). Once the fault parameters were esti-
PIN1
mated‚ a “forward model” fully described the coseismic sur-

face displacement field throughout the affected region
(Figure 28.11). The 1992 Landers event also highlighted
the added spatial resolution provided by InSAR
(Figure 28.11). With the proliferation of cGPS networks
across plate boundaries, the use of coseismic surface displa-
cements as input to earthquake source models has become
routine. Recent examples include models of the 2010
Mw7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah [336], the 2011 Mw9.0
Tohoku-oki [337], and the 2015 Mw8.3 2015 Mw8.3 Illapel,
Chile earthquakes [338].
Recovery of coseismic displacements with sGPS may be
problematic because it involves a quick logistical response,
which can be especially difficult in remote regions, and of
course requires a record of prior surveys. By the time data
are collected, there may have been additional motion from
postseismic deformation that would cause an overestimate
of the coseismic fault slip. Latency is also an issue with sat-
ellite-based InSAR measurements, which are dependent on
the orbit repeat cycle.
28.3.6 Tectonic Plate Motion
28.3.6.1 Theory
Earth’s lithosphere is broken up into more than 50 large
and small tectonic plates that are in relative motion
(Figure 28.12), which is responsible for large-scale natural
features such as continents, ocean basins, mountain ranges,
and volcanoes and natural disasters such as earthquakes,
tsunamis‚ and volcanic eruptions. There are three classes
of plate boundaries: (1) transform, or lateral – juxtaposing
continent-continent, or ocean-ocean crust, without creat-
ing new crust (passive boundaries) (Figure 28.8); (2) con-
vergent boundaries (subduction zones) – juxtaposing
30
33° 33°
SIO2
242° 243° 244°
Figure 28.11 Coseismic motion detected by cGPS and InSAR for
the 1992 Mw7.3 Landers earthquake, Southern California. Solid
arrows indicate surface horizontal displacements observed by four
stations of the Permanent GPS Geodetic Array (PGGA) [130]. Open
arrows show the corresponding displacements from a dislocation
model [247] (Section 28.3.7.3) consisting of seven linear fault
segments to describe the rupture geometry. The contour lines
show the modeled coseismic displacement field (in millimeters).
The heavy line denotes the surface trace of the fault rupture‚ and
the dashed line is the Mw6.5 Big Bear earthquake’s subsurface
trace. The earthquake occurred 3 h after the Landers event. The
superimposed ERS-1 InSAR image shows at least 20 phase fringes
representing about 560 mm in displacement in the line of sight to
the satellite [248]. Use of interferogram is courtesy of D.
Massonnet [249]. Source: Reproduced with permission of John
Wiley & Sons.
continent-continent, ocean-continent, ocean-ocean crust
(Figures 28.7, 28.10, 28.11); and (3) divergent boundaries
– at continental rifts and mid-ocean ridges, where new crust
is formed. Early global plate motion models were derived
from mid-ocean ridge spreading rates inferred from mag-
netic anomaly lineations at mid-ocean ridges, transform
fault azimuths, and earthquake slip vectors [339–343].
The magnetic anomaly data provide the time scale of plate
motion. The transform fault azimuths and the earthquake

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 28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 763

20° 40° 60° 80° 100° 120° 140° 160° 180° 160° 140° 120° 100° 80° 60° 40° 20°

Laptev
EU Sea

60°
60°

Persia- Alaska-
Yukon EU
Tibet- OK
Alps Burma
AM western
Aleutians
JF

40°
40°

AT Gorda-
NA
California- west central
AS YA ON Nevada Atlantic
PS

20°
20°

AR IN MA RI
Philip- AF
AF BU Rivera- PM CA
pines PA
BH Cocos CO
SU NB
MS CL GP ND

0°
0°

MN
BS SB New Hebrides-Fiji Peru
SO MO BR FT NI
TI WLSS NZ AP SA
NH

20°
20°

Ninety East- TO Puna-

Sumatra CR EA
AU Sierras
KE JZ Pampeanas

40°
40°

SW
AN SC

60°
60°

AN SL

20° 40° 60° 80° 100° 120° 140° 160° 180° 160° 140° 120° 100° 80° 60° 40° 20°

Figure 28.12 Tectonic plates. The 52 plates of plate model “PB2002” are shown with contrasting colors in a Mercator projection.
The model uses information from the scientific literature as well as interpreted boundaries from topography, volcanism, and/or seismicity,
taking into account relative plate velocities from magnetic anomalies, centroid moment tensor solutions (Section 28.4.2), and geodesy.
The 14 large plates (Africa, Antarctica, Arabia, Australia, Caribbean, Cocos, Eurasia, India, Juan de Fuca, Nazca, North America, Pacific,
Philippine Sea, and South America) are described by the NUVEL-1A poles of rotation [334]. The PB2002 model also includes 38 small
plates. The 13 cross-hatched areas are “orogens” in which an Eulerian plate model is not expected to be accurate [335]. Source:
Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

slip vectors delineate the direction of relative plate motion. rotation rate (ωij) (Figure 28.13). The velocity of a GPS point
Based on the last geomagnetic reversal in the Pliocene, on Earth’s surface at (θG, λG) is given by
“current” plate motions are representative values over
the last 3 Myrs. v ij = ωi,j × r G 28 30
Plate tectonic theory provides only an approximation of where
the motions of Earth’s lithosphere with the following
assumptions: (1) the plates are rigid spherical caps of uni- ωX ωij cos θP cos λP
form density and thickness presumably with no internal ωi j = ωY = ωij cos θP sin λP ; r G
anelastic deformation and no elastic strain accumulation ωZ ωij sin θP
P
along “narrow” plate boundaries; (2) a plate rotates about
an Euler pole (with respect to another plate or within an rX r cos θG cos λG
“absolute” reference frame) about an axis intersecting the = rY = r cos θG sin λG 28 31
spherical Earth’s surface and passing through its center rZ r sin θG
G
(Figure 28.13). Thus, there is only horizontal motion at
any point on Earth’s surface (Eq. (28.32)); and (3) the rates Converting from a geocentric Cartesian (X, Y, Z) to a
of rotation are constant over the last ~3 Myrs. local (N, E, U) system using Eq. (28.15) gives
According to Euler’s fixed point theorem‚ the relative
motion of plates i and j (say‚ North America and Pacific) vN ωr cos θP sin λG − λP
is described by a geocentric pole of rotation (an “Euler” vec- vL = vE = ωij r sin θP cos θG + cos θP sin θG cos λG − λP
tor) ωij defined as the intersection point on Earth’s surface vU 0
with surface spherical coordinates (θP, λP) and angular 28 32

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 764 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

Z U Z v12
N

E
Ellipsoid
P Surface Point
GPS point Sphere
Surface Topography ω12
h
r G ω12 Euler Vector
θp Euler Pole
θG
Y Y
ϕ
λP
λ
λG
Equator Equator

X X
Figure 28.13 Geodetic and plate motion coordinate systems. (Left) Global (X, Y, Z), geodetic (φ, λ, h), and local (N, E, U) coordinate systems.
(Right) Spherical coordinate system for plate tectonic motion. Source: Adapted from (www.earth.northwestern.edu/public/seth/B02/
lectures/Platetect/platemotion.pdf). Reproduced with permission of Northwestern University

The horizontal rate of motion (expressed in mm/yr) is then
π vN
=(vN2 + vE2)1/2, and the azimuth is α = − tan − 1 .
2 vE
Consider a third plate k; then the Euler pole for plates j
and k is additive and given by
ω j,k = ω i j + ωi k
Since the plates are in relative motion over the entire
Earth’s surface, there is no obvious underlying fixed refer-
ence frame. In order to define “absolute” plate motion‚
early models imposed a geometric condition that the plates
have no net rotation [344] or a physical condition based on
the fixed hot spot hypothesis [187, 345, 346]. The no-net-
rotation (NNR) model assumes a closure condition, that
the net rotation of the plate motions is zero. For example,
the absolute Euler pole for plate i can be expressed by
ωi,i = ωi j + ω j,k + ωk,i = 0
Over the entire Earth’s surface‚ this condition can be
expressed as [344]
r G × ωi,j × r G dA = 0
Since there are only a finite number of geodetic observa-
tions on Earth’s surface, the surface integration over the
infinitesimal surface area element dA can only be per-
formed over finite areas (www.earth.northwestern.edu/
public/seth/B02/lectures/Platetect/platemotion.pdf). Hot
spots are areas of increased magmatic activity and heat flow
due to upwelling of mantle material that are manifested by
an alignment of shield-type volcanoes on the seafloor indi-
cating the direction of relative motion of the overriding tec-
tonic plate. There are 20–30 hotspots (for example‚ under
the Hawaiian Islands), mostly beneath oceanic crust, and
distant from plate boundaries; hence, they are a convenient
tie to an absolute reference frame.
28.3.6.2 Geodetic Observations of Plate Motion
Significant refinements to plate motion models were made
28 33
as new data became available and older data were reinter-
preted. The widely adopted and last model independent of
geodetic data was the NUVEL-1 relative motion model
composed of 12 rigid plates [347]. The first space geodetic
measurements of plate motion were provided by RLS
[190, 191] and VLBI [192] within the stable interiors of
the Pacific and North America plates [193–195]. The
NNR-NUVEL-1A model, composed of 14 plates, applied
the NNR closure condition (Eq. (28.35)) [334]. This model
took into account changes in the geomagnetic reversal time
by applying a scaling factor to reduce the plate velocities by
28 34 about 5% based on VLBI and RLS measurements. Early
GPS-derived models used limited spans of GPS data from
sparse networks and generally agreed with earlier models
[348, 349]. As the global GPS network grew and combined
with other observations (earthquake slip vectors, shipboard
28 35 of bathymetry‚ and dense magnetic surveys of the mid-
ocean ridge system), discrepancies were discovered. For
example, the plate rotation rates have been steady since
3.16 Ma, but at rates significantly faster by several mm/yr
than predicted by NUVEL-1A [350]. The NNR MORVEL
plate motion model with 56 plates and about 98% of Earth’s
surface has differences in surface velocities up to ~5 mm/yr
compared to NNR-NUVEL1 [351].
The GEODVEL model [352] used space geodetic observa-
tions from GPS, VLBI, RLS, and DORIS (Doppler Orbito-
graphy and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite – a
French satellite system) to estimate the angular velocities

c28.3d 764 15/12/2020 5:58:03 PM


of 11 major plates. This model made provision for the veloc-
ity of Earth’s center, identified plate boundaries‚ and found
statistically significant differences with earlier relative plate
models (geodetic and neotectonic) for nearly all 36 angular
velocities investigated, with a median difference of 0.063/
Myr. Plate angular velocities differed significantly from
those averaged over the past ~3 Myr. Most significant is that
the different geodetic models agree better among them-
selves than they do with the geologic rates by about a factor
of two, from 0.019 to 0.147º/ Myr with a median of 0.063º/
Myr. These studies imply that there are significant differ-
ences between the geologic and geodetic plate rates.
Several tectonic plates lack sufficient geodetic coverage.
For example, there is only a single land mass on the Cocos
Plate (Isla del Coco); a limited number of GPS observations
indicate a convergence rate of 78 mm/yr with respect to the
neighboring Caribbean Plate [353]. Comparison with plate
motion models indicates that the island is on the rigid inte-
rior of the plate. There is no land mass on the critical Juan
de Fuca plate abutting the Pacific Northwest, and hence the
importance GPS-A for assessing tsunamigenic hazards. The
large Pacific plate has few suitable land masses and most on
deforming plate boundaries (e.g. New Zealand – Figure 28.7
and California – Figure 28.8). Eleven years of observations
on the Pacific, North America‚ and the Australia plates
showed that the Pacific and Australia data fit a rigid relative
plate model with a velocity rms of 0.4 mm/yr, and fit North
America and Pacific plate data with a velocity rms of
0.6 mm/yr [296]. The motion of Channel Islands differed
from Pacific plate motion by 4–5±1 mm/yr, and stations
in New Zealand indicated velocity discrepancies of 3
±1 mm/yr, indicating that the plate boundaries were wider
than previously believed.
GPS data collected over a 12-year period (1993–2005)
from 300 stations on the North America plate found
~0.8 mm/yr of residual horizontal deformation [354], indi-
cating a significant departure from the assumption of plate
rigidity. This discrepancy was attributed to global isostatic
adjustment (GIA) (Section 28.5.2) and not to tectonic defor-
mation even in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, which expe-
rienced a series of large intraplate earthquakes (according
to the US Geological Survey ~Mw7.2 to ~Mw8.1) in
1811–1812; this was confirmed by later studies of GIA in
North America [355]. Similarly, the interior of the Eurasian
plate was found to be rigid at the level of 0.6 mm/yr [356],
with deviations due mainly to GIA [357].
28.3.6.3 Realization of Global Terrestrial Reference
System
Early versions of the ITRF were related to the underlying
plate tectonic framework, specifically to the NNR-
NUVEL-1A model. With the global increase in the number,
c28.3d 765
28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 765
distribution, and density of geodetic stations and improved
precision, the directly observed geodetic velocities signifi-
cantly differed from the expected plate velocities over the
~3 Myr geological record. ITRF2000 was the first in
the ITRF series to be “free of any plate tectonic model.”
The geodetic network solutions were only loosely con-
strained to any underlying reference [358], but an NNR
condition (Eq. (28.35)) was imposed on the horizontal velo-
cities of the geodetic reference stations. Specifically, the
ITRF2000 rotation rate was defined to coincide with that
of the NNR-NUVEL-1A model based on minimizing the
three rotation rate parameters between ITRF2000 and
NNR-NUVEL-1A using a core set of 50 stations [28]. The
NNR GSRM-NN-2 model used over 5700 geodetic station
velocities and classified stations as within the rigid portion
of plates or at plate boundaries that can be several hundreds
of kilometers wide, for example‚ in parts of the SAFS in
Southern California extending into the Basin and Range
province in Nevada [359]. This study suggested that
ITRF2000 did not satisfy the NNR condition at the level
of about 3 mm/yr. The next version of ITRF, ITRF2005
[360], rather than using the velocity inputs from multiple
geodetic systems and multiple analysis sources, used their
daily position time series. ITRF2005 yielded absolute rota-
tion poles for 15 plates based on 152 core stations‚ an
increase from 6 plates and 49 stations for ITRF2000.
ITRF2005 was quickly replaced by ITRF2008 [95]. Its cor-
responding plate motion model decreased the number of
plates to 14 and increased the number of stations to 206 core
stations, which were far from the deforming plate bound-
aries, while avoiding stations in the plate interiors affected
by GIA [361].
The latest incarnation of ITRF, ITRF2014 [362], moves fur-
ther away from a tectonic plate motion model and considers
the nonlinear motions of hundreds of space geodetic core sta-
tions, including postseismic deformation (Section 28.3.8), and
seasonal effects (annual and semi-annual), parametrically
modeled from daily position time series (Section 28.2.5.3).
Note that the IGS defines an internal reference frame
(IGS14) consistent with ITRF. IGS14 corresponds to
ITRF2014 based on 113 global stations (Figure 28.1) whose
ITRF coordinates have been modified to take into account
changes in antenna calibration values from the previous
IGS08 definition (ftp://igs-rf.ensg.eu/pub/IGS14). It is not
surprising that seasonal effects have negligible effects on sta-
tion velocities since the time span of some of the time series
extend to decades. However, the effect of postseismic model-
ing can be significant. The frequent occurrence of large to
great earthquakes over the past 25 years can affect the posi-
tions and velocities of stations thousands of kilometers from
their epicentral regions. The immediate change in positions
of up to several meters for great earthquakes is due to
15/12/2020 5:58:03 PM
 766 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
permanent coseismic deformation, while changes in velocity
are due to postseismic deformation whose total affect over
time can approach the magnitude of the coseismic deforma-
tion for large earthquakes.
The ITRF2014/IGS14 approach can be generalized to
realize an internally consistent kinematic reference frame.
Here, the reference frame is defined by the true-of-date
coordinates of stations that make up a global polyhedron
[363], where the effects of the significant nonlinear motions
are continuously monitored and taken into account. For
example, two analysis centers, the Jet Propulsion Labora-
tory (JPL) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO),
using independent GPS software (GIPSY and GAMIT), esti-
mate loosely constrained station coordinates with their cor-
responding variance-covariance matrices. To reduce biases,
the two centers use equivalent metadata from the Scripps
Orbit and Permanent Center (SOPAC) archive [124]. This
process results in two sets of independent raw daily posi-
tion/displacement time series. To maintain long-term con-
sistency and robustness, each week the entire time series of
daily displacements from each center (now 25 years for the
oldest stations) are optimally combined to produce a
merged product (Figure 28.6). An updated model for the
combined time series is then used to generate a new set
of true-of-date coordinates for the next set of independent
analyses by both centers. This iterative process includes val-
idation of relevant metadata, automatic and manual quality
control for the individual time series, and identification of
instrumental offsets and significant earthquakes, including
coseismic and postseismic motions. The same frame is then
used to generate the next set of satellite orbits and EOPs
using the updated (modeled) true-of-date coordinates,
and so on. This approach does not depend on a static list
of stations, but can accommodate attrition of stations or
addition of new ones. By obtaining an optimal combination
of independent JPL and SIO daily solutions and fitting the
resulting time series for typical earthquake cycle signatures,
the residual time series can then be mined for transient
deformation (Section 28.3.8), including tectonic sources
such as ETS observed at subduction zones [364], and
non-tectonic effects resulting, for example, from hydrologic
and anthropogenic sources (Section 28.6) [148, 365].
28.3.7 Plate Boundary Deformation
In the previous section‚ we discussed deformation at the
scale of tectonic plates. Here we review deformation at plate
boundaries down to the level of individual geologic faults
and show how geodetic observations lead to an improved
understanding of the underlying physical processes.
Fundamental in transferring this knowledge into
improved seismic hazard mitigation is the modeling of
c28.3d 766
fault slip rates and assessing the accumulation of stress in
the crust over time. “Slip rate” refers to the relative motion
along the fault’s interface at depth, while GPS displace-
ments are measured at Earth’s surface. Modeling fault slip
(kinematics of slip) at depth with Earth’s crust from surface
geodetic displacements and then inferring stress or fault
properties (dynamics of slip) is not straightforward; it is a
complex problem [237] that is not fully understood. We will
limit the discussion to the kinematics of slip to the simplest
single fault plane model.
28.3.7.1 Elastic Rebound Theory
The connection between earthquakes and faulting was
known well before plate tectonic theory and modern geo-
detic methods (Section 28.3.2). The elastic rebound theory
[178, 179] was developed based on triangulation surveys
and visual inspection of surface deformation in California,
Japan‚ and New Zealand [175–177]. The theory postulates
that there is an earthquake loading cycle (“earthquake
cycle”) in which stress accumulates along an active geologic
fault embedded in an elastic medium. An earthquake
occurs when the shear stress exceeds the fault’s strength
(frictional resistance) with a sudden release of accumulated
stress, and so on, in a perpetual cycle.
The elastic rebound theory was first formulated in phys-
ical terms as a point dislocation in an infinite elastic half-
space [367, 368]. Dislocations, commonly used in material
science and in crystallography, are areas of defects in a
medium that are generated and move when a stress is
applied, resulting in displacement discontinuities. In this
view, the underlying plate motion in the “interseismic”
phase of the earthquake cycle imposes stress on the fault
interface causing a dislocation at depth D until the fault
fails instantaneously during an earthquake (the “coseis-
mic” phase) when its strength is exceeded.
Consider a model of a point dislocation in a locked vertical
strike-slip (transform) fault with two GPS stations at an
equal orthogonal distance x from the fault, with horizontal
velocities v in opposite directions (Figure 28.14). A locked
portion of a fault is an area on the fault surface that is not
slipping (creeping). Since the fault is locked and the crust
is elastic‚ there is zero displacement at the fault and
increased deformation away from the fault. The horizontal
interseismic velocity v of a GPS point is then given by
[11, 247]
v0 x
vy = tan − 1 ; v0 = s, 28 36
π D
where v0 is the relative plate motion below the locked por-
tion of the fault, equal to the fault slip rate s. The instanta-
neous coseismic deformation measured by GPS is the
15/12/2020 5:58:03 PM
 28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 767

(a) (b)
x
y 10
uy = (s/π) tan–1(D/x)
100
“Near-field”
x

displacement (m)
velocity (mm/yr)

50 ~2D 5
“Far-field” y

L it
0 s = v0(t-t0) Geodetic

ho
sp
Mark

he
–50 –5
Geologic Fault

re
–100 –10 vy = (s/π) tan–1(x/D)

–10 –8 –6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10
x/D

Figure 28.14 Elastic dislocation model for a locked vertical strike-slip fault. (a) Interseismic (blue line) and coseismic
(dashed line) horizontal surface deformation. The fault is locked (no slip) to a depth D, below which it is freely slipping at the plate
rate v0. (b) 3-D schematic of a strike-slip fault. Source: Adapted from Segall [5].

y } z = –D

0.5v0
ult

v
ism ic Fa
eis enic

–v
g
og

c
olo

mi
Ge

Geodetic
Se
As

-x 0.5v0
Mark x

Lithosphere
(Elastic)

Asthenosphere
(Viscoelastic)

Figure 28.15 Conceptual two-layer crustal deformation framework for faulting and tectonic plate motion. A geologic fault, a surface of
material discontinuity, is the boundary between two plates‚ and v0 is their relative plate motion. The fault is embedded in an elastic
lithosphere consisting of two layers, sitting atop a viscoelastic asthenosphere (“upper mantle”). Rocks in the top lithospheric layer have
brittle behavior and are interspersed with defects that will cause catastrophic failure, an earthquake, when subject to stress. Fault
“strength” is a measure of its resistance to stress, governed by frictional laws. This layer may be referred to as the “upper crust” or
“seismogenic zone,” where earthquakes nucleate. The lower layer exhibits ductile behavior where rocks will bend or flow primarily due to
increasing temperatures with depth. Plate motion is the motion of the lithosphere over the asthenosphere. Source: Adapted from
Scholz [366].

reverse of the total motion accumulated over the interseis- earthquake cycles. The width of deformation is controlled
mic period and is given by by the depth D, which is assumed not to change in time.
We define the “near-field” to be at a distance ~2D from
s D
uy = tan − 1 28 37 the fault, and the “far-field” to extend to the outer edge
π x
of deformation; the “intermediate field” is the transition
That is, interseismic deformation + coseismic deformation between the two. This simple representation of fault motion
= the relative plate motion, v0(t − t0), over repeated is referred to as a one-layer model. Figure 28.15 shows a

c28.3d 767 15/12/2020 5:58:03 PM

 768 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

two-layer model of an elastic lithosphere atop a viscoelastic
asthenosphere. Elastic dislocation theory can also be
applied to other tectonic environments, in particular a
thrust fault (subduction zone) [369].
Assuming then a fault depth D and given the observed
GPS velocities v on a transect orthogonal to the fault, one
could then estimate the interseismic slip rate s = v0, say‚
by least squares (Eq. (28.18)). In geophysics parlance, this
is called an inverse problem. Similarly, if the depth
D and v0 were known, then one could calculate the veloci-
ties at any distance x from the fault. This is called a for-
ward model.
Figure 28.16 displays 16 fault-orthogonal profiles [238] in
the Parkfield region of the San Andreas Fault in Central Cal-
ifornia. The interseismic velocity profiles for the two Cho-
lame-Carrizo segments (North and Central) in the
Parkfield region closely resemble an inverse tangent func-
tion (Eq. (28.36)), with a slip rate of 34.0 ± 2.0 mm/yr, assum-
ing a fault locking depth D of 12 km. It should be noted that
the Parkfield segment has experienced earthquakes of ~
Mw6 with a fairly regular recurrence interval of about
20 years (1857, 1881, 1901, 1922, 1934, and 1966). Based
on the historical record, suggesting a “characteristic”
earthquake, an extensive measurement campaign of geo-
detic observations (trilateration and GPS) and many other
geophysical sensors was initiated in 1985 by the US Geolog-
ical Survey called the Parkfield California Earthquake
Experiment (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/park-
field/index.php). According to the USGS, “if such character-
istic ruptures occur regularly, then the next quake would
have been due before 1993.” A magnitude 6.0 earthquake
did occur, but not until September 2004 [58]. Nevertheless,
the Parkfield experiment provided a wealth of data for crus-
tal deformation and seismic hazard research, including
extensive survey-mode GPS measurements and a real-time
high-rate (1 sps) cGPS network of 13 stations [47], tracking
continuously since July 2003.
28.3.7.2 Static Slip Models
Elastic dislocations are often used to model the coseismic,
postseismic‚ and interseismic phases of the crustal deforma-
tion/earthquake cycle from observed surface displacements.
In the context of coseismic deformation (Figure 28.18), a
“static” slip model describes the total slip on the fault plane
at the completion of earthquake rupture and after the static
(permanent) deformation of the stations has occurred. We

–1 –1 –1 –1
20 18 16
°

°
4°
°
°

° ° °
36

34
38
40

e
f d c

–1
22 b
°
a

p o

n m l k h g

–1 i
24 j
°

km
°
40

0 100

Cholame-Carrizo North (Profile h) Cholame-Carrizo Central (Profile g) Brawley (Profile a)

20 a
20 20
10
V(mm/yr)

10 10 0
Dipping

0 0 –10
RMS misfit (mm/yr) RMS misfit (mm/yr) RMS misfit (mm/yr)
1.49/1.53/1.55 1.72/1.68/2.14/0.96 –20 3.29/3.04/2.85
–10 –10
SAF SAF BSZ
300 400 500 300 400 500 500 600
distance (km)

Figure 28.16 Active geologic faults in California. (Top) The San Andreas Fault System and other geological faults overlaid on topography.
GPS stations are denoted by triangles. The numbered lines indicate fault transects. Three examples are shown below the map. Note that
the Cholame-Carrizo north transect near Parkfield most closely resembles an arctangent function with a velocity of about 32 mm/yr
(Figure 28.14). The Brawley transect in Southern California indicates a more complex tectonic environment including fault creep at the
Brawley-Seismic zone. Source: Adapted from Tong et al. [207]. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

c28.3d 768 15/12/2020 5:58:04 PM

 28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 769

described a simple case of a single strike-slip fault
(Figure 28.14), but deformation may occur in a complex
manner on multiple faults at a plate boundary, with different
source mechanisms and geometries.
An inversion model for estimating the parameter of finite
fault slip from surface geodetic observations can be written
as [370]
ds = Gx s + ε,
The vector ds denotes observed coseismic surface displa-
cements; xs is the vector of the source model parameters,
representing motions on the fault interface; and ε denotes
the observational error. The matrix G, called the Green’s
function [371], can be analytically calculated in an elastic
medium (see [372]). The inverse problem (Eq. (28.38))
can be solved by weighted least squares or through Bayes-
ian estimation. It should be noted that the inversion is non-
unique and ill-conditioned. This is typically ameliorated
through discretization of the dislocation fault plane(s) into
sub-faults and regularization, which requires that some
smoothness constraint be satisfied. These are inherently sub-
jective considerations‚ and significantly different earthquake
source models have been obtained by different studies for the
same event [373, 374]. Of course, this may impact the inter-
pretation of the underlying source processes [370]. Note that
once the parameter vector xs is estimated, Okada’s formula-
28 38
tion [366] can be used to determine coseismic displace-
ments at any point in the affected region (Figure 28.11).
Models of the interseismic phase of the crustal deforma-
tion cycle can also be formulated as an inverse problem
(Eq. (28.38)). Here the observations are geodetic measure-
ments of surface velocities b (Eq. (28.17); Figures 28.7–28.10),
and the parameters are long-term motions (slip) on the fault
surface. An example of a surface velocity field based on an
interseismic forward model is shown in Figure 28.17 for
the Sumatra subduction zone.

15°N Burma
plate
Bay of Bengal

1941 (Ms 7.7)

10°N
1881 (M ~7.9) Andaman
Sea 2002 (Mw 7.3)
2008 (Mw 7.4)
2004 (Mw 9.1)
Sunda
Indian Aceh
5°N plate
plate
Su
m

1935 (Mw 7.7)

at
ra
fa

2005 (Mw 8.6)

ul

500 km
t

0° 1861 (M ~8.5) Sumatra

1907 (M ~7.8) 2007 (Mw 8.4)
1797 (M ~8.4) 2007 (Mw 7.9)

1833 (M ~9.0)
50 mm/yr 2000 (Mw 7.9)
5°S
Su
n
da

Australian m
eg
500 km plate at
h ru
st

90°E 95°E 100°E 105°E

Figure 28.17 Interseismic forward model. The modeled GPS horizontal velocity field (gray arrows) in the region of the Sumatra
subduction zone with respect to the assumed Sunda plate, and large earthquakes from the 19th to 21st centuries. The velocity vectors are
at an angle of about 45º to the trench, indicating oblique subduction, which partitions the deformation into thrust faulting on the
subduction interface and right-lateral faulting on the Sumatra fault that runs the length of the island [368]. Notice that the velocity vectors
are rotated in the region between 0.5 S and 2 N from the trench to the Sumatra fault. This is an example of slip partitioning and
segmentation [375]. Source: Adapted from Prawirodirdjo et al. [375] and Shearer and Bürgmann [376] and the references therein.
Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

c28.3d 769 15/12/2020 5:58:04 PM

 770 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

500
(a) 500 cm, slip
400
Paso superior coseismic slip (cm) 300
fault
0 Borrego
PIAZ fault Pescadores Indiviso fault 200
PAZ fault
Depth (km)

–5
100
–10
–15 1 2 0
3 4
–20 5
40 6
7
20

0 50
N–S distance (km) 40
30
–20 20
10
0
–10
–40 –20 W–E distance (km)
–30
–40

(b) 30 cm, slip 20

15
Paso superior fault–normal contraction (cm)
fault
0 Borrego 10
PIAZ fault Pescadores
Indiviso fault
PAZ fault
–5
Depth (km)

5
–10
–15 1 0
2 3 4
–20 5
40 6
7
20

0 50
40
30
20
10
0
–10
–40 –20
–30
–40

Figure 28.18 Coseismic and postseismic fault slip models. Fault slip inversions for the 2010 Mw7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah, Mexico
earthquake using Okada’s formulation for rectangular dislocations in a homogeneous elastic half-space [366]. Inputs are GPS
displacements and InSAR. Top: Coseismic model. Bottom: Postseismic model. Source: Adapted from Gonzalez-Ortega et al. [336].
Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

Comparing the geodetically derived fault slip rate to the
long-term geologic rate is a first order and complex problem
in tectonic geodesy. The assumption is that the interseismic
deformation rate does not change over multiple earthquake
cycles. As discussed, inverting for fault slip rates from GPS-
derived surface velocities requires numerous assumptions,
including the variable depth and geometry of faulting, the
material and frictional properties of the lithosphere, and
the underlying properties of the crust and lower mantle.
Furthermore, faults may have both locked and creeping
sections of various degrees. For example, the Parkfield seg-
ment of the SAF is a transition zone between the northern
creeping zone (aseismic) and the southern locked
section (Figure 28.8). Although the SAF fault is often

c28.3d 770 15/12/2020 5:58:04 PM


considered the boundary between the North America and
Pacific plates, in reality the width of the plate boundary
can vary along strike from tens to hundreds of kilometers
(Figure 28.8), containing multiple faults of various mechan-
isms [208].
28.3.8 Transient Deformation
28.3.8.1 Postseismic Deformation
Up to this point, the crustal deformation/earthquake cycle
has been defined as long-term interseismic motion punctu-
ated by episodic coseismic motion. According to elastic dis-
location theory, coseismic motion is the inverse of
interseismic motion (Figure 28.14). In reality, coseismic
fault slip only accounts for a fraction of the long-term inter-
seismic slip accumulated since the previous earthquake,
indicating that the energy (moment) released during earth-
quake rupture is not sufficient to fully account for the total
accumulated energy. After coseismic rupture, GPS dis-
placement time series exhibit nonlinear signals, referred
to as postseismic deformation that resembles an exponen-
tial or logarithmic function (Eq. (28.17)). The postseismic
phase is a period of continued stress release as Earth’s lith-
osphere gradually returns to its steady-state motion. For
example, some GPS time series in Argentina are still show-
ing the postseismic effects of the great 1960 Mw9.5 Valdivia,
Chile earthquake [118]. As an example of a lesser-
magnitude earthquake, displacement time series are still
exhibiting significant postseismic motion at most cGPS sta-
tions in Southern California seven years after the 2010
Mw7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake in northern Baja
California, Mexico (Figure 28.6).
Postseismic deformation has been described by two basic
processes [366]: aseismic earthquake afterslip governed by
frictional properties of the crust [377–379] and viscoelastic
relaxation through coupling of the lithosphere to a viscous
asthenosphere, consisting of the lower crust (below the seis-
mogenic layer) and the upper mantle (Figure 28.15) [380].
Simply stated, afterslip on the fault occurs at or near seis-
mogenic depths and should be most evident at near-fault
stations. Viscoelastic relaxation occurs in the upper mantle,
and is most evident in very long-time series at distant sta-
tions, hundreds of kilometers or more from the rupture
zone [381, 382]. Afterslip is usually a short-term fault proc-
ess (days to months) that occurs downdip, updip, or within
the rupture plane and appears to decay logarithmically,
while viscoelastic relaxation is a long-term mantle process
(years) that appears to decay exponentially. Judiciously
chosen GPS stations in terms of distribution and number
may be sufficient to distinguish between viscoelastic relax-
ation and afterslip through the fault’s depth and sense of
c28.3d 771
28.3 Tectonic GPS and Crustal Deformation 771
slip [383]. Other postseismic processes include poroelastic
rebound, fault zone contraction [384], and relocking of
the plate/fault [385]. Poroelastic rebound is caused by pres-
sure gradients in fluid flow within the pores of crustal rocks
that occurs in the transition from coseismic to postseismic
motion [386]. It occurs at relatively short distances from
the fault.
Models of postseismic deformation using GPS and/or
InSAR observations often require several physical processes.
For example, a model of 5 months of horizontal postseismic
deformation after the primarily strike-slip 2010 Mw7.2 El
Mayor-Cucapah, Northern Baja California, Mexico earth-
quake using near-field GPS and InSAR observations
(Figure 28.18) includes a combination of afterslip, fault zone
contraction, and a possible minor contribution of poroelastic
rebound, while far-field data requires, most likely, viscoelas-
tic relaxation in the mantle [336]. Another study [264] of hor-
izontal and vertical postseismic motions across South
America uses 5 years of GPS observation after the 2010
Mw8.8 Maule, Chile megathrust earthquake as input to a
3D finite element model of viscoelastic relaxation.
Understanding postseismic deformation and other tran-
sients provides constraints on the mechanical properties
of fault zones, with important implications for seismic
hazards.
28.3.8.2 Slow Slip Events
Due to their slow slip rates, transients generate little to no
appreciable elastic wave energy and cannot be observed with
conventional seismic instruments. A transient can be
observed with GPS if its surface expression is above the
measurement noise. Postseismic deformation discussed ear-
lier is the most common source of transient motion. Other
important aseismic transients have been observed in GPS
residual time series after modeling the effects of interseismic,
coseismic‚ and postseismic motion (Section 28.2.5.2). The
profusion of cGPS measurements at plate boundaries has
revealed that slow slip events (SSEs) are a significant source
of strain release that need to be considered to better under-
stand the underlying mechanics at fault zones and when
assigning earthquake probabilities [387]. Aseismic slip
occurs episodically as SSEs superimposed on the interseis-
mic deformation rather than continuously, and is especially
pronounced at subduction zones (Figure 28.19).
SSEs were first recognized in GPS residual time series at
subduction zones in Japan [173] and Cascadia [174, 364,
388] and later detected at other locations the Guerrero seg-
ment of the Mexican subduction zone with a recurrence
interval of about 4 years [389, 390], in New Zealand
[391], Alaska [392], and Costa Rica [393]. SSEs have been
found to be accompanied by “tremor,” a very-long-duration
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 772 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

ALBH
10 slope = –7.75+0.05 mm/year; RMS = 1.77 mm
East Residuals (mm)

–5

–10
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Figure 28.19 Transient deformation detected in daily GPS residual displacements. Twenty-six-year daily residual GPS displacement
time series (east component) for GPS station ALBH (48.395 E, 123.490 W) on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada‚ off the
Cascadia subduction zone, indicating fairly regular 19 slow slip ETS events from early 1992 to late 2017. The red line is the parametric fit to
the daily time series (Section 28.2.5.3). The larger scatter in the early 1990s is primarily due to less precise satellite orbits and the
limited global GPS infrastructure at that time. The vertical lines denote when antenna changes were made, requiring the estimation of
non-coseismic offset parameters. Source: GPS Explorer Time Series Applet (http://geoexp01.ucsd.edu/gridsphere/gridsphere).
Reproduced with permission of Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center.

seismic signal with no clear wave arrivals consisting of very
small, low-frequency earthquakes [394]. The combination
of the two is referred to as ETS, and its properties and loca-
tions have been documented at six subduction zones [395].
Examination of the GPS displacement time series from the
Cascadia subduction zone continue to show the regular
occurrence of the SSEs at 13- to 16-month intervals with
up to 2 cm of slip at the fault interface over a period of 1
to 2 weeks. They appear in the GPS displacement time series
as reversals of motion, relative to the direction of plate con-
vergence, with an amplitude of 2–4 mm, small but clearly
recognizable (Figure 28.19). These signals are only several
times larger than the root-mean-square scatter of the resid-
ual time series (~1 mm in the horizontal components and
~3 mm in the vertical). Importantly, the deep slip signal
for the first event observed with the GPS network is equiva-
lent to an earthquake of moment magnitude 6.7 [174], and
thus is an important consideration for seismic hazards.
One SSE was observed underneath Oaxaca in Mexico that
was active until the onset of the 2012 Mw7.4 Ometepec
earthquake, and based on Coulomb stress calculations
(Section 28.3.7.2) possibly triggered the earthquake [396].
Similarly, it was speculated that the Mw7.3 Papanoa earth-
quake in April 2014 may have been triggered by a slow slip
event two months earlier that initiated in a region adjacent to
the earthquake’s hypocenter. Further, this study showed
that the plate interface in the Guerrero, Mexico area is highly
coupled between SSEs, and that most of the accumulated
stress is released aseismically during these events [397].
The implications of SSEs in the seismic cycle remain an open
and intriguing question, for example‚ as earthquake
precursors.
28.3.8.3 Preseismic Slip
The much-debated class of transient deformation is precur-
sory preseismic slip as possible predictors. A preseismic
phase of the earthquake cycle has been hypothesized for
geologic faults based on small variations in friction prior
to a slip event that were observed in laboratory rock experi-
ments [398]. Transient deformation was reported by GPS
observations at one station preceding an Mw7.6 aftershock
to the 2001 Mw8.4 Peru earthquake [399]. Ten credible
accounts of preseismic geodetic transients were noted,
but preseismic transients were not present for many more
large earthquakes [400].
Long-lived preseismic motions and SSEs may modulate
large earthquakes and reduce the probability of seismic
hazard, but are more in the realm of improved forecasting
and the basis for heightened or reduced alerts rather than
prediction, which still remains elusive. Two shallow transi-
ents were detected before the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-Oki,
Japan event that may have increased the shear stress along
the plate boundary [401]. Longer-term preseismic motion
was suggested in the decade preceding the 2011 Mw9.0
Tohoku-oki earthquake where GPS-derived strain was
decreasing; this was interpreted as a decrease in plate cou-
pling due to afterslip from intraplate events [402]. It has
since been suggested that observed accelerations at GPS
sites are best explained by a long-lived deep transient (pos-
sibly existing prior to 1996) that migrated updip in the dec-
ades before the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake [403]. It was
postulated that teleseismic waves from the 2010 Mw8.8
Maule, Chile earthquake triggered an ETS event in Guer-
rero [404]. Slow slip associated with intense foreshock
activity was also observed in the two weeks preceding the

c28.3d 772 15/12/2020 5:58:05 PM


2014 Mw8.1 Iquique earthquake [405], as well as an 8-
month slow slip event thought to lead to the nucleation
of the earthquake [406].
28.4 Natural Hazards Mitigation
28.4.1 Introduction
Precise GPS is playing a significant role in the study of nat-
ural and anthropogenic hazards and their effects on people,
infrastructure‚ and the environment. In this section, we dis-
cuss the application of GPS and complementary observa-
tions to early warning and rapid response systems for
mitigating the effects of natural hazards, including earth-
quakes, tsunamis‚ and volcanoes. In Sections 28.5 and
28.6, we discuss the monitoring of climate change and
the environment, respectively. In Chapter 32, it is shown
how raw GPS phase and range measurements are used
for tsunami warning by tracking ionospheric perturbations.
GPS meteorology for tracking extreme weather through
measurement of tropospheric delay is discussed in
Chapter 30.
In tsunamigenic earthquakes, coastal populations closest
to the earthquake source are, as expected, most vulnerable
to devastation. However, there exists no adequate early
warning system for these local events. This is where GPS
plays an increasingly important role. The 2011 Mw9.0
Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake and tsunami resulted in
15 894 deaths, 6152 injuries, 2562 missing people, and
severe damage to infrastructure [161–163], most notably
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster tsunami [407,
408]. Traditionally, monitoring of earthquakes and tsuna-
mis has relied on seismic networks for rapidly estimating
earthquake magnitude and slip, and tide gauges and
deep-ocean buoys for direct measurement of tsunami
waves. The underestimation of the magnitude of the 2011
Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake and the resulting
under-prediction of tsunami inundation in the presence
of the most extensively instrumented warning system in
the world demonstrated that additional observations are
necessary for robust local tsunami warning. Replay of the
recorded data from the 2011 Tohoku event and other large
subduction zone events has demonstrated that real-time
high-rate GPS and seismogeodesy provide rapid estimates
of magnitude and fault mechanism that remove any ambi-
guity about the maximum size of the earthquake. Informa-
tion from GPS, seismogeodesy (Section 28.2.3), and other
complementary data (near-shore GNSS buoys, ocean-
bottom pressure sensors‚ and tide gauges) provide more
accurate tsunami warnings and feed tsunami inundation
models, especially critical for the most vulnerable
c28.3d 773
28.4 Natural Hazards Mitigation 773
populations and infrastructure nearest the earthquake
source. Looking ahead, damage and death from a great
earthquake on the Cascadia megathrust and subsequent
tsunami (the last one was in 1700) [165, 409, 410] is likely
to be comparable to the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki event.
Earthquake and tsunami early warning is discussed in Sec-
tions 28.4.2 and 28.4.3, respectively.
Direct observations by GPS, InSAR, tilt and electronic
distance measurements (EDM), as well as seismic and grav-
ity recordings and measurements of gas emissions, indi-
cated significant precursory signals prior to the eruption
of the Merapi stratovolcano, central Java, Indonesia‚ in late
October 2010 [411]. Early warning by the Indonesian Cen-
ter of Volcanology and Geological Hazard led to the evac-
uation of more than a third of a million people that is
estimated to have saved 10 000–20 000 lives. Nevertheless,
there were still about 400 deaths. Volcano monitoring is dis-
cussed in Section 28.4.4.
28.4.2 Earthquake Warning and Rapid Response
Systems
Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are designed to
alert those in harm’s way of impending strong ground
motion, as soon as an earthquake is detected by a near-
source sensor network. The timeliness and effectiveness
of an alert is dependent on the travel time and intensity
of seismic waves; the distance of the sensors to the earth-
quake source; the ability to accurately estimate the earth-
quake’s epicenter, magnitude, affected area‚ and severity
of shaking; and the distance of the target population from
both the source and the sensor network. The first, fastest‚
and least destructive seismic wave is the primary (P-) wave
that emanates radially from the earthquake source and is
not sensed by humans. P-waves are compressional (longi-
tudinal) in nature and travel at about 7 km/s on the sur-
face. Following the P-waves are the more destructive
secondary (S-) waves, which are transverse; that is, they
travel perpendicular to the direction of propagation. P-
and S- waves are classified as body waves since they travel
through Earth. The S-wave velocity is about 60% of the P-
wave velocity. The body waves are followed by destructive
surface waves – Rayleigh and Love waves travel at about
90% of the velocity of the S-wave. EEW [412–414] takes
advantage of the relative velocities, order‚ and destructive-
ness of P- and S-waves and the ability to transmit data in
real time from a network of sensors to an analysis center,
in the original concept using seismic instruments
(Section 28.2.3). Early warning systems can also take
advantage of social media and crowdsourcing. For exam-
ple, Twitter and/or smartphone users who are experien-
cing seismic shaking (S-waves and surface waves) can
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 774 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

Automated P-wave arrival picks

BOM GLA WES

34'30'

34'00'
SAL

33'30'
SDR THM CTC

33'00'
MSC PLM

32'30'
Pd scaling, Mw: 7.55

32'00'
FMP SDD SND

Time since arrival at WES: 39.7s

31'30'
–118'30' –118'00' –117'30' –117'00' –116'30' –116'00' –115'30' –115'00' –114'30'

0 50 100 150
Time since Arrival at WES,s

Figure 28.20 Example of earthquake early warning. The 100 sps seismogeodetic displacement and velocity waveforms were analyzed
retrospectively in simulated real-time mode for the 2010 Mw7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake in northern Baja California, Mexico. On
the left are shown the velocity waveforms at 12 GPS/seismic stations sorted by increasing distance from the earthquake epicenter
(star with one-sigma error ellipse on the map). The continuous red vertical line denotes the current epoch. The preceding red lines indicate
when the P-wave was detected at each station. Once four stations have triggered, an estimate of the hypocenter can be made‚ and
the propagation of P- and S-waves can be determined as shown by the partial circles, with the S-wave trailing the P-wave. In this scenario,
the S-wave front arrived in the heavily populated regions of Riverside and Los Angeles Counties about 80–90 s after the earthquake
origin time. Shown here is one frame of a movie at 39.7 s. PGD magnitude scaling (EQ 28.39) provided an estimate of Mw7.55 with
an uncertainty of 0.3 magnitude units, 0.35 magnitude units larger than the final magnitude. Source: Reproduced with permission of
Dara Goldberg.

alert people further away from the earthquake epicenter
[415]. Today, as we describe in this section, the use of
GPS and seismogeodesy (Section 28.2.3) is considered an
essential component of EEW systems.
One approach to early warning is frontal detection,
which relies on a forward network of sensors that detect
S-waves and surface waves – GPS is well suited for this
type of system. The EEW system for Mexico City [416,
417] is based on coastal seismometers along the Guerrero
seismic gap several hundred kilometers to the southwest,
providing about 70 s of warning time. The value of this sys-
tem was demonstrated during the 19 September 2017
Mw7.1 Central Mexico earthquake that caused strong
shaking for about 20 s, resulting in significant casualties
(370 killed and thousands injured) and damage to build-
ings and other infrastructure.
Of course, populations nearer the source have less of a
warning; the S-wave velocity is ~4 km/s and every second
of delay leaves a “blind zone” whose radius increases by
~4 km. A more widely used approach with a smaller blind
zone is based on detection of the benign P-wave to predict
the time of arrival and intensity of the lagging and destruc-
tive S-wave and subsequent surface waves ([412];
Figure 28.20). The well-developed Japanese EEW system
uses this approach. The peak amplitude from the first 3 s
of the P-wave is used to estimate the magnitude, and then
intensity on a ten-degree intensity scale based on an Earth
structure model for the Japanese archipelago [418, 419].
During the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake, which
occurred about 100 km offshore Sendai, Japan, it took
about 90 s before the S-waves were felt in Tokyo,
~250 km from the source [83]. This is about the amount

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 28.4 Natural Hazards Mitigation 775

of time for a large earthquake originating on the southern log 10 PGD = A + BM w + CM w log 10 R 28 39
segment of the SAFS (Figure 28.8) to be felt in the Los
where A, B, and C are empirical coefficients based on
Angeles metropolitan area.
regression analysis of historical earthquakes, Mw is the
There are several P-wave detection metrics in use includ-
moment magnitude, and R is the hypocentral distance.
ing, as in Japan, the peak amplitude of the first 3–5 s (Pd),
When a new earthquake occurs‚ the observed PGD
the maximum period (τpmax ), and the predominant period
values at the affected network stations, the empirical coef-
(τc) [414]. Data from the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake,
ficients, and the R values obtained from the hypocenter
for example, indicate that these metrics have different sen-
estimate are used to iteratively estimate Mw as PGD values
sitivities depending on the length of the time window over
become available from each station. For the 2011 Mw9.0
which they are estimated [420]. Therefore, multiple EEW
Tohoku-oki earthquake‚ the PGD relationship could have
metrics are used to get a more robust warning that mini-
provided an accurate magnitude estimate within about
mizes false alarms [414]. The idea is that a warning can
90 s after earthquake onset time, before seismic shaking
be issued based on scaling relationships between the P-
ceased [65].
wave metric and magnitude, derived from a large historical
Once Mw is available, the next step is to estimate the fault
catalog of seismic events [421]. In Section 28.2.3, we dis-
slip mechanism (e.g. strike-slip or thrust) and geometry.
cussed the disadvantages of using only seismic instruments
A centroid moment tensor (CMT) solution represents the
for EEW, including magnitude saturation (Figure 28.4),
strength of an earthquake (seismic moment magnitude),
clipping of broadband instruments, biases introduced in
the style of faulting (normal, strike-slip‚ or thrust), orienta-
doubly integrating strong-motion accelerometer data to dis-
tion of the fault plane, and its centroid. Pictographically,
placements and, subsequently, the loss of the permanent
the moment tensor solution is represented by shading with
static displacement. GPS instruments have distinct advan-
different colors or patterns the compressional and exten-
tages for EEW. They do not clip even in the near field of the
sional quadrants of motion on a lower hemisphere stereo-
largest earthquake and are not affected by magnitude satu-
graphic projection, familiarly referred to as “beach balls”
ration [52, 56]. However, GPS seismology is not as sensitive
(Figure 28.21). The CMT solution consists of nine sets of
as seismic instruments and cannot detect P-waves. As dis-
pairs of vectors (couples) [423]. They are standard in seis-
cussed in Section 28.2.3, optimally combining GPS and
mology and are estimated from teleseismic waves (far from
accelerometer data (seismogeodesy) combines the advan-
the source). CMT catalogs are available for earthquakes of
tages of each system and eliminates their disadvantages
M > 5 [424]. A CMT solution is described by 10 parameters:
(Figure 28.4). It reduces biases in the double integration
the 6 independent elements of the symmetric moment ten-
of the accelerometer data to displacement, allows for P-
sor [425–427], its geographic location (centroid), and time
wave detection, increases the precision of displacements
of occurrence. The geographic location of the moment ten-
during shaking [42], and most importantly, preserves the
sor is the point of average moment release (centroid) and
static offset for further modeling of an event.
differs from the earthquake hypocenter (the point of initi-
The following describes one approach to EEW and rapid
ation of rupture).
response using a seismogeodetic network providing high-
Using the static (permanent) displacements allows for a
rate displacements and seismic velocities (Figure 28.20)
rapid CMT estimate most useful for local earthquake and
[88]. The first step is the detection of an event (“phase pick-
local tsunami early warning systems [428, 429]. The CMT
ing”) using standard seismology, such as an automated
is a point-source approximation. However, for great earth-
short-time average/long-time average (STA/LTA) method
quakes the fault rupture can be longer than 1000 km. For
[422], applied to the vertical component of the seismogeo-
example, the 2004 Mw9.3 Sumatra-Andaman megathrust
detic velocity, since the P-wave is more pronounced in this
earthquake ruptured a distance of >1,500 km and a width
direction. Once the earthquake has been located‚ an EEW
of ~150 km [430]; the rupture duration was close to 10 min
can be issued based on the predicted time of arrival of the S-
[431]. The point-source approximation resulted in a signif-
wave (Figure 28.20).
icant underestimate of the full seismic moment release and,
The next step is to derive an estimate of the earthquake’s
hence, the initial magnitude. A global CMT analysis using
magnitude as quickly as possible; location and magnitude
five-point sources to mimic a propagating slip pulse led to a
are the most critical parameters for issuing an initial local
more accurate estimate [432]. A more localized approach is
tsunami warning. Magnitude relationships have been
to define a series of linear point sources (Figure 28.21), fol-
developed based on the catalog of high-rate GPS- and seis-
lowed by a grid search for the optimum line azimuth and
mogeodetic-derived peak ground displacements (PGDs) of
spatial location and then averaging the individual moment
medium to great earthquakes [48, 65]. The PGD relation-
tensors over the line source. The final CMT solution is then
ship is expressed as

c28.3d 775 15/12/2020 5:58:06 PM

 776 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

located at the location of mean moment release [65]. An
important aspect of this approach is that no prior informa-
tion on the fault geometry is required. Since tsunamigenic
earthquakes generally (but not always) occur at subduction
zones, it is most probable that a thrust fault will generate a
local tsunami; the primary consideration is whether there is
significant seafloor uplift. The line-source CMT approach
was retrospectively demonstrated for the 2011 Mw9.0
Tohoku-oki earthquake with a rupture length of 340 km,
available within 2–3 min of the event, well before the arri-
val of the first tsunami waves about (30–60 min after earth-
quake onset time); it agreed well with the final global CMT
solution obtained from teleseismic data [65].
The next step is to derive a rapid finite fault slip model
(Section 28.3.7) from the same data that is used for the
CMT analysis (Figure 28.21). To begin [65], the fault that
is the closest one to the CMT line source can be extracted
from a catalog of faults, for example, the Slab 1.0 model,
a 3D model of global subduction zone geometries [433].
The slip model can then be used to generate maps of ground
motion and seismic intensity [434], and as input to a tsu-
nami model. As described in the next section, a finite source
model along with accurate topography and bathymetry can
be used to estimate the uplift of the seafloor, from which the
tsunami extent, inundation‚ and run-up can be modeled
before the first tsunami waves arrive at the coastline
[435]. Note that the described slip model (Figure 28.21) is
solely for rapid analysis. More refined models are computed
later, usually by numerous investigators for major earth-
quakes, as part of crustal deformation studies [66].

135˚ 140˚ 145˚

46˚
0848

GPS/Accelerometer station
fastCMT inversion node
fastCMT moment release
44˚
Direction of slip

fastCM GCMT
42˚
0 100 200
km

40˚
0 10 20 30
30
20
40
50
60

10

Slip(m)
0914/
38˚ MYG003

36˚

0 1.5 3
34˚ .0
x10 21Nm

32˚

Figure 28.21 Rapid line-source CMT solution and finite fault slip model for the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake. Green circles
represent the linear point sources. The fastCMT and global CMT solution (GCMT) beach balls are shown. The inset shows the moment
release from the line source as a function of distance along the fault. Shown along the fault interface with 10 km depth contours from the
Slab 1.0 model [433] is the fault slip model; the blue lines represent the direction of slip on the fault interface. The triangles indicate the
locations of the input collocated GPS/accelerometer stations. The two large triangles represent the fixed GPS station (0848, red) and the
GPS/accelerometer pair (0914/MYG003, blue). Source: Adapted from Melgar et al. [65]. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

c28.3d 776 15/12/2020 5:58:06 PM


28.4.3 Local Tsunami Warning
Current tsunami warning systems are focused on Earth’s
subduction zones and are well developed for ocean basin-
wide warnings. In the United States, the Pacific basin is
monitored by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS)
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii. The
west coast and the Alaska region are the responsibility of
the National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska. They
employ two basic methods. The direct method relies on
NOAA’s Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsuna-
mis (DART) GPS-equipped buoys with real-time satellite
links [436] tethered to deep-water (4000–6000 m) ocean-
bottom pressure sensors [437]. The pressure readings pro-
vide a measure of variations of the sea surface that are pro-
duced by tsunami waves. These readings are used to infer
the vertical motion of the seafloor (that caused the tsu-
nami), to model tsunami propagation and generate site-
specific warnings [438–440]. Since the DART buoys are
deployed in deep water‚ the warnings are not timely
enough for local tsunami warning and have been difficult
to maintain. The indirect and most reliable method is based
on measurement of teleseismic waves (20 to 0.003 Hz,
greater than 1000 km) by globally and regionally distribu-
ted broadband seismometers to locate the earthquake from
integrated displacements, and estimate its magnitude and
fault mechanism as a basis for tsunami alerts and more
refined tsunami models [441].
As discussed previously, seismic data have problems in the
near field of large earthquakes‚ so reliance of traditional seis-
mic instruments method is not suitable for timely local tsu-
nami warning. Real-time GPS networks are not affected by
these problems. Tsunami warning systems based on observed
static GPS displacements became a focus of research follow-
ing the 2004 Mw9.3 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and the
subsequent devastating tsunami (Table 28.3). An initial study
proposed using GPS observations from global stations for
Table 28.3 Tsunamigenic earthquakes observed by GPS and seismogeodesy
Year Name
2004 Sumatra-Andaman, Indonesia
2010 Maule, Chile
2010 Mentawai, Indonesia
2011 Tohoku-oki, Japan
2014 Iquique, Chile
2015 Illapel, Chile
2016 Kaikōura, New Zealand
2017 Chiapas, Mexico
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_tsunamis
c28.3d 777
28.4 Natural Hazards Mitigation 777
rapid magnitude and slip estimation for great earthquakes
as the basis for ocean basin-wide tsunami warnings [442].
Other studies focused on combining coastal near-source
GPS and open-ocean DART buoy observations to rapidly esti-
mate source energy and scale for tsunamis generated by
seismically induced seafloor uplift and coastal landsliding
[443, 444] . Related studies proposed coastal GPS networks
(“GPS Shields”) [445] to rapidly calculate fault dimensions
and average slip [446] as initial conditions for tsunami prop-
agation [447].
Japan has the world’s most advanced tsunami warning
systems operated by its Meteorological Authority (JMA).
The system gained impetus after the 1993 Mw7.8 Hok-
kaido-Nansei-oki earthquake; the subsequent tsunami
reached the nearby Okushiri Island in only 3 min and left
230 dead [448]. In their approach, tsunami propagation and
inundation scenarios are simulated for different earth-
quake scenarios and stored in a database. Then, when an
earthquake occurs‚ the most appropriate scenario is cho-
sen, based on the estimated earthquake parameters, to
guide the warning,
The key to robust local tsunami warning is to be able to rap-
idly estimate earthquake magnitude and the faulting mechan-
ism since not all large events in a subduction zone can be
assumed to rupture the megathrust. For example, the 2012
Mw8.6 event off Sumatra, Indonesia, was a predominantly
strike-slip event that did not generate a significant tsunami
[449]. As described in the previous section, magnitude scaling
relationships such as PGD can decrease the amount of time
required for magnitude estimation, before seismic shaking
is complete and before the coseismic static displacement is
revealed. Once the coseismic displacement is estimated, then
other methods are available such as the line-source CMT solu-
tion [65], further use of scaling relationships between magni-
tude and fault length and width [450] to initiate a rapid slip
inversion [451], and other rapid slip inversion methods using
real-time GPS static displacements [57, 447, 452, 453].
Mw Dead/Missing Max Tsunami Height (m)
9.3 230 000–280 000 15–30
8.8 525/25 1.3
7.7 408/303 3
9.0 15 894/2562 40.5
8.3 6 2.1
8.3 14/6 4.9
7.8 2 7
8.2 98 1.75
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 778 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
A recent retrospective real-time GPS analysis of four tsunami-
genic events in Japan and Chile summarizes how rapid mag-
nitude estimates can be used to generate timely estimates of
maximum expected tsunami amplitude [69].
The timeliness of GPS-based tsunami warnings available
from these rapid methods is important in issuing a general
evacuation warning for local populations. However, more
refined methods can provide additional and more accurate
information on tsunami propagation and arrival times, geo-
graphical extent, inundation distance‚ and height. These
approaches are based on inversion of some combination
of geodetic and seismic data to estimate a finite fault slip
model from which seafloor uplift is inferred. Using availa-
ble topography and bathymetric maps‚ a tsunami propaga-
tion model can then be produced to issue a warning for
coastal areas and islands adjacent to the earthquake rup-
ture zone. The accuracy of the tsunami model is dependent
on the source model [454] and can be assessed by compar-
ison with direct deep-ocean DART buoys and coastal post-
event field survey measurements [162]; the latter is most
relevant for local tsunami warning. Using land-based data
allows for an improved tsunami model without a significant
increase in latency [435]. However, the resolving power of
land-based data to the shallow fault slip responsible for
large uplift and tsunamis can be quite limited [447, 455].
Incorporating direct data from offshore GPS buoys (kine-
matic displacements), ocean-bottom pressure sensors
[456, 457], and tide gauges [458–460] as they become avail-
able can provide increased resolution and model accuracy
[435, 454, 461–464], but with increased latency; in many
cases‚ it can still provide sufficient time to issue a refined
tsunami prediction. A study of the resolution of the differ-
ent data used to model the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki event
shows that GPS displacement time series are most sensitive
to slip closest to the coast and almost completely insensitive
to slip close to the trench, while seismogeodetic velocities
are sensitive to slip anywhere on the fault. The tsunami
wave observations are most sensitive to slip near the trench.
Each data set, used independently‚ provides limited resol-
ving power, while the combination affords a substantial
improvement [455].
To this end, an extensive network of seafloor cables has
been installed in Japan to transfer seafloor data in real time
to the JMA; displacements of GPS buoys are transmitted by
satellite communications. Seafloor positioning by five
ocean-surface GPS buoys and sea-bottom acoustic transpon-
ders, fortuitously installed off the Tohoku coast between
2000 and 2004 above the 2011 hypocenter‚ showed seafloor
displacements up to 24 m in the horizontal and 3 m of ver-
tical uplift [244]. An acoustic transponder within 50 m of
the trench recorded 31±1 m of horizontal motion [465].
A submarine network for transmitting seafloor data,
c28.3d 778
S-net, has been established in the region of the 2011
Tohoku-oki event [466]. Japan also runs the Dense Ocean-
floor Network System for Earthquakes and Tsunamis
(DONET) to transfer real-time seafloor data through subma-
rine cables at the Nankai Trough, a major tectonic feature off
the Kii Peninsula and Shikoku Island (https://www.jamstec.
go.jp/donet/e/).
28.4.4 Volcano Monitoring
Geodetic methods play an important role in volcano moni-
toring. Unlike earthquakes, volcano monitoring may be able
to detect precursory signals from minutes to months prior to
an eruption as a basis for early warning and hazard mitiga-
tion. We mentioned earlier (Section 28.4.1) that precursory
signals were detected by GPS and other sensors prior to the
eruption of the Merapi stratovolcano in central Java, Indo-
nesia‚ in late October 2010 [411]. Although there were 400
deaths, early warnings issues by the Indonesian Center of
Volcanology and Geological Hazard led to an evacuation
of more than a third of a million people and is estimated
to have saved 10 000–20 000 lives. However, there are several
classes of instrumented volcanoes with different behaviors
and multiple underlying physical processes that have lacked
precursory signals. On the other hand, increased magmatic
activity does not always lead to eruptions, for example‚ at the
heavily instrumented Long Valley Caldera at Mammoth
Lakes, northern California [467]. As a reference, there are
several good reviews of volcano geodesy and seismology the-
ory, methods, and observations [4, 5, 468–471].
The introduction of cGPS has the advantage of providing
high-rate continuous observations of a volcano edifice and
its flanks, but establishing reliable real-time communication
links is not always reliable, nor practical. Other challenges to
GPS include inaccessibility and dangerous deployments,
obstruction of GPS signals due to the steep slopes of volcanic
cones, and loss of equipment during eruptions. As an exam-
ple, the Stromboli volcano, Aeolian Islands, Italy‚ is charac-
terized by persistent but moderate (Strombolian) explosive
activity within its shallow magma chambers, making instal-
lation of sensors hazardous. Landsliding is a serious problem
and can be tsunamigenic; an eruption in late December 2002
accompanied by a landslide on the volcano’s northwest
flank (Sciara del Fuoco) caused a tsunami at the southern
Italian coast. In April 2003, a paroxystic explosion episode
ejected basaltic rocks causing significant damage to its mon-
itoring networks. One of the GPS stations recorded and
transmitted data for only 90 s before being destroyed by lava;
the station had been installed only 9 days prior to the event
([472]; Figure 28.22). InSAR does not have these limitations
and provides high-spatial resolution of line-of-sight (LOS)
measurements of displacement, making it the preferred
15/12/2020 5:58:07 PM
 28.4 Natural Hazards Mitigation 779

GPS permanent station operating since 1997 N method for volcano monitoring. In particular, L-band mea-
New “sciaradat” GPS station surements are able to penetrate vegetation.
38.81° December 28th 2002 fissure
More than 110 volcanoes have been observed with
Outpoured lava flows
Slided area InSAR, while only about 40 volcanoes with GPS [470].
For example, the Cascadia subduction zone includes an
38.80°
arc of 10 volcanoes along the Cascade ranges in the western
United States. One of these, the Mount St. Helens stratovol-
cano, suffered a major explosive eruption in 1980 [473] with
38.79° accompanying loss of life (over 50 dead) and property. Con-
Tyrrhenian Sea tinued activity during 1981–1986 produced a new lava
str Italy
om Stromboli dome, and eruptions in 2004–2008 with a cumulative vol-
bo Aeolian
38.78° li Is Archipelago
lan ume of lava of nearly 100 million cubic meters [474]. Mon-
d
0 1 itoring of the volcano by sGPS and cGPS began in earnest in
km Sicily 0 50km 2000 (Figure 28.23). A swarm of small earthquakes in Sep-
15.19° 15.20° 15.21° 15.22° 15.23° 15.24° tember 2004 and a small eruption on October 1 provided
0.15
the impetus for the USGS Cascadia Volcano Observatory
Displacements (m)

SSBA station (relative to svin) N-S

0.1 E-W
and UNAVCO’s PBO to install additional cGPS stations;
0.05 today there are a total of 25 cGPS stations. Although many
0 GPS stations show significant velocities before 2004, there
–0.05 Date was no systematic premonitory pattern [475]. The
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 February ‘03 2004–2008 eruptions caused about 30 mm of widespread,
Figure 28.22 GPS real-time monitoring network of the Stromboli inward‚ and downward movement of the ground, which
volcano on Stromboli Island, Italy. Data plot: Ten-minute average reversed itself after the eruptions stopped (Figure 28.23).
values of 1 sps displacement time series of the SSBA station from GPS observations also reveal a steady background north-
the start of operations on 11 February 2003 until a lava flow northeastward movement of all stations at a rate of
destroyed it on 20 February. Data gaps are due to radio
communication outages. Source: Adapted from Mattia et al. [472]. 6 mm/yr that is related to the subduction of the Juan de
Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons. Fuca plate beneath the North American plate.

122°20' 122°15' 122°10' 122°05' 122°00' 122°20' 122°15' 122°10' 122°05' 122°00'
46°20'
WASHINGTON WASHINGTON

P702 P702
AREA AREA
OF MAP OF MAP
JRO1 JRO1

46°15'
TSTU TSTU
TGAU LOOW
LOOW TGAU
P693 TWIW
TWIW P695
P693
+ P695
TWRI P696
TWRI P696 P697
P699 P697 P699
NEBU NEBU
WGOT P690 WGOT
46°10' P698 LVCY P698 LVCY
P690
BIVO BIVO

VELOCITY SCALE
-10 MM/YEAR

VELOCITY SCALE P687

OBSERVED

P687
MODEL
KILOMETERS 10 MM/YEAR
MODEL

KILOMETERS
46°05' 0 5 10 OBSERVED
0 5 10

Figure 28.23 GPS velocities from Mount St. Helens stratovolcano monitoring network. Large-aperture cGPS network is operated by
the USGS Cascadia Volcano Observatory (CVO) and UNAVCO’s Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO). Shown are observed (with 95%
confidence error ellipsoids) and modeled averaged 2004–2005 velocities (left – horizontal velocities; right – vertical). The model consists
of a best-fitting, tilted point prolate spheroid (surface projection of center denoted by red plus sign in the left panel). Source:
Adapted from Lisowski et al. [475]. Reproduced with permission of U.S. Geological Survey.

c28.3d 779 15/12/2020 5:58:07 PM

 780 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

Dilatation 0
–2 0

Dis
–1

t
M

an
0

ce
8

OG
10

,k
6

m
4 PI
0 2 PE 20
0 10
10 20

ain
MOGI 5

µ Str
Depth, km

0
5
0
–1

Dis
Closed-pipe: M
0

tan
6.5 to 11 km deep 8

OG

ce
250 m radius 6 10

,k
4 PI

m
10 2 PE 20
Mogi/sphere: 0 10
9 km deep 10 20

ain
595 m radius PIPE 5

µ Str
0
FEEDER –20 –10 0 10 20
DIKE Distance, km

Figure 28.24 Modeling the volcano source. (Left) Example of two volcano deformation sources used to model surface geodetic
displacements and other data: (1) Mogi spherical source at 9 km and (2) a closed pipe extending from 6.5 to 11 km depth. The initial volume
of both sources is chosen to be 0.88 km3, and both volumes are assumed to increase by 0.018 km3. Note that the inversion model
parameters were chosen to approximate those inferred for the magma body that fed the 18 May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens;
eruptions with this increase in volume are quite common. (Right) Calculated dilatations caused by a volume change of 0.018 km3 in each
source. The uplift patterns produced by an inflating Mogi source and a closed pipe are very different in proximal areas (here within ~1/2
source depth) but not in distal areas. Thus, distinguishing between these two models requires distribution of cGPS stations in the proximal
areas, as well as the distal areas. Source: Adapted from Dzurisin [469]. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

There are a variety of physical models for underlying vol-
cano processes. Some of these include point/spherical
(“Mogi”) sources and closed pipes (Figure 28.24), ellipsoi-
dal chambers, and fault dislocations within homogeneous
and elastic media. Inversion of geodetic and other data
may require more complex models with viscoelastic rheol-
ogy (Figure 28.24) and inhomogeneous materials. In the
study of Mount St. Helens, the surface deformation was
consistent with a vertically elongated magma chamber,
modeled as a tilted prolate spheroid, with its center at a
depth of around 7 to 8 km and with a total cavity-volume
loss of about (16–24)×106 m3 [475].
Another example of volcano monitoring and implica-
tions for early warning is the moderately active Eyjafjalla-
jökull stratovolcano in Iceland [476]. Iceland is located on
the plate boundary between the North American and Eur-
asian plates with a relative spreading rate of 19.4 mm/yr.
The Eyjafjallajökull volcano is situated in a propagating rift
outside the main zone of plate spreading. Hundreds of peo-
ple were evacuated prior to an explosive eruption of the
summit beginning on 14 April 2010. There, after 18 years
of intermittent volcanic unrest and a 3-month period of
magmatic activity, GPS and InSAR observations recorded
rapid deformation of >5 mm/day in the month prior to
the first eruption. The summit eruption was preceded by
a flank eruption from 20 March to 12 April 2010. Deforma-
tion was rapid before the first flank eruption (0.5 mm per
day after 4 March) as determined by cGPS, but negligible
during the eruption (Figure 28.25). The authors of this
study concluded that “signs of volcanic unrest signals over
years to weeks may indicate reawakening of such volca-
noes, whereas immediate short-term eruption precursors
may be subtle and difficult to detect.”
28.5 Climate
28.5.1 Introduction
Climate change affects the livelihood of a large portion of
the world’s population and impacts natural environments.
Consequences include rising surface temperatures, conti-
nental ice melt, rising sea level, reduced water availability
for human and natural consumption, and increased fre-
quency of atmospheric and hydrological hazards, including
tropical cyclones, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, and
floods. Therefore, mitigating the degree and extent of cli-
mate change and forecasting trends are pressing issues
for reducing societal and environmental vulnerabilities.
Geodesy, in particular GPS, provides valuable observations

c28.3d 780 15/12/2020 5:58:09 PM

 28.5 Climate 781

(a) Longitude (ºW)

19.8 19.6 19.4 19.2 19.8 19.6 19.4 19.2
63.8 63.8
25 Sep. 2009 − 20 Mar. 2010 11–22 Apr. 2010

63.7 STEI/STE2 63.7

Latitude (ºN)

63.6 63.6
SKOG

THEY

LOS displacement LOS displacement

63.5 63.5
0.0 15.5 mm 5 km 0.0 15.5 mm 5 km

(b)
2010 2.5

4 March
80
STEI in N101°E direction
60 2
STEI STE2

Number of earthquakes x103

40
Displacement (mm)

20 1.5
THEY at N185°E direction
0

−20 1

Summit eruption
−40
Flank eruption

−60 0.5
SKOG at N121°E direction
−80

0
Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr.
Month in 2009 Month in 2010
Figure 28.25 Monitoring deformation of the Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland stratovolcano. Results from the magma intrusive period of
2009–2010 prior to two eruptive events in March to April 2010, with GPS, TerraSAR-X interferograms and seismic data. (a) Interferograms
are from descending satellite paths with black orthogonal arrows showing the satellite flight path and look direction. One color fringe
corresponds to line-of-sight (LOS) change of 15.5 mm (positive for increasing range, that is, motion of the ground away from the satellite).
Thick lines below indicate the time span of the interferograms. Triangles denote cGPS stations. Black dots show earthquake epicenters
over this time period. The red stars show the flank and summit event locations. The white denotes snow cover. (b) cGPS displacement time
series for stations THEY, SKOG, and collocated station STEI/STE2 labeled in upper left panel with one-sigma error bars, and offset for
clarity. Gray shading shows the cumulative number of earthquakes, and black shading the corresponding daily rate. (c) Model of
progressive sources of deformation in map view. (d) Schematic east–west cross section across the summit area, with sources plotted at
their best-fit depth (vertical exaggeration by a factor of 2). Gray shaded background indicates overlapping source depth uncertainties (95%
confidence). Source: Adapted from Sigmundsson et al. [476]. Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature.

c28.3d 781 15/12/2020 5:58:09 PM

 782 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
(c) 63.8
63.7
Latitude (ºN)
63.6
5 km
63.5
19.9 19.8 19.7 19.6 19.5 19.4 19.3 19.2 19.1
Longitude (°W)
Figure 28.25 (Continued)
on three climate change frontiers, continental ice melt, var-
iations in continental water storage, and sea level rise.
Observations of ice melt and water storage changes are
obtained as Earth’s crust deforms in response to cryo-
spheric (ice) and hydrologic (water) load changes. Monitor-
ing of glacier movements provides valuable information on
ice flow rates and flow dynamics. GPS observations are also
crucial for assessing sea level changes from tide gauge
records by estimating biases due to vertical land
movements.
28.5.2 Crustal Response to the Changing
Climate
Earth’s crust deforms in response to forces exerted on its sur-
face, mainly due to redistribution of atmospheric, oceanic,
hydrologic, and cryospheric masses, which are often termed
load changes. The changing climate affects the distribution
of both hydrological and cryospheric loads, resulting in
measurable displacements of Earth’s surface by precise
cGPS measurements. Earth’s response to load changes
depends on the time scale of the deformation. From a
mechanical view point, Earth can be approximated as a vis-
coelastic material with a characteristic Maxwell time of
roughly 1000 years [477]. Thus, short-term load changes
(<1000 yr) results in predominantly elastic (reversible)
deformation (Figures 28.26a, b), whereas long-term load
changes (>1000 yr) also induce permanent deformation,
manifested by viscous flow of the mantle (Figures 28.26c, d).
28.5.2.1 Immediate Response
Short-term load changes induce time-independent elastic
deformation. A short-term emplacement of a load, or an
c28.3d 782
(d)
(m)
2,000
0
Dike
–2,000
–4,000 source Sill 2
Sill 1
1994
–6,000
1999
5 km
19.9 19.8 19.7 19.6 19.5 19.4 19.3
Longitude (ºW)
increase in the load’s mass, results in an immediate subsid-
ence beneath and in the vicinity of the load (Figure 28.26a).
Complete or partial removal of the load results in an imme-
diate uplift of the previously subsided area (Figure 28.26b).
Very short-term load changes (orders of hours to days), due
to ocean tides or a passage of low or high atmospheric pres-
sure systems, induce small displacements of Earth’s sur-
face, on the order of a few millimeters [478]. Seasonal
hydrologic and cryospheric load changes result in periodic
displacement of Earth’s surface that can reach an ampli-
tude of several centimeters [479]. Multi-year hydrologic
and cryospheric load changes can be induced by continen-
tal ice melt [480], drought [481], and variability in seasonal
load from one year to another [482]. Examples of such load
changes are presented in Sections 28.5.3 and 28.5.4
28.5.2.2 Delayed Response
Long-term load changes (>1000 yr) induce delayed viscoe-
lastic deformation. The classic example of long-term delayed
response is the emplacement and removal of the late Pleis-
tocene ice sheets, which reached heights of several kilo-
meters in North America and Fennoscandia. A large ice
load displaces the crust downward beneath the load and
upward away from the load, along the peripheral bulge
(Figure 28.26c). These vertical movements induce a delayed
outward viscous mantle flow (Figure 28.26c). Removal of the
ice load induces uplift of the previously subsided area
beneath the load and subsidence of the peripheral bulge
(Figure 28.26d). However, both uplift and subsidence are
delayed, due to the slow inward mantle flow toward the sub-
sided region beneath the melted ice sheet. This process of
delayed uplift and subsidence is termed GIA and is well cap-
tured by precise well GPS measurements (Figure 28.27). The
15/12/2020 5:58:10 PM

“Small” load change - immediate (elastic) response
Ice/water
Subsidence
Uplift
Figure 28.26 Crustal response to loading and unloading of cryospheric (ice) or hydrologic (water) load changes. Small short-term load
changes result in immediate (predominantly elastic) (a) subsidence or (b) uplift. Long-term large load changes, as the emplacement or melt
of the late Pleistocene ice sheets, induce (c) outward viscous mantle flow and (d) inward mantle flow and delayed crustal uplift after ice
sheet melting. Panels (c) and (d) are courtesy of the Canadian Geodetic Survey, Natural Resources Canada. Source: Reproduced with
permission of Canadian Geodetic Survey.
analysis of vertical GPS velocities in North America reveals a
pronounced uplift signal in eastern and central Canada,
which was the center of a massive ice sheet that covered most
of North America during the last Ice Age [483]. The vertical
velocity field also shows the subsidence of the peripheral
bulge, south of the hinge line, roughly located along the
United States–Canada border (Figure 28.27). The residual
horizontal velocities reveal systematic outward crustal
movements of the area along the hinge line, reflecting the
release of flexural stresses that were absorbed during the for-
mation of the peripheral bulge (Figure 28.27).
28.5.3 Polar Ice Melt
The increased warming of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans
over the past century resulted in massive ice melt and sig-
nificant mass decrease in continental glaciers, the polar ice
sheet, and sea ice. Monitoring the rapid changes over the
vast polar regions requires the use of multiple measuring
techniques, including satellite altimetry, satellite gravity
(e.g. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment – GRACE),
and InSAR, as well as ground-based methods, including
GPS and ground-based InSAR. Integration between the
c28.3d 783
28.5 Climate 783
“Large” load change - delayed (viscous) response
PERIPHERAL
FORE-BULGE
ICE FLEXES UP
LOADED CRUST “SINKS”
MANTLE FLOWS OUTWARD
GLOBAL
SEA LEVEL
RISING CRUST COLLAPSING
REBOUNDING PERIPHERAL
FORE-BULGE
MANTLE FLOWS BACK
various measurements provides the most complete assess-
ment of current and recent changes in the polar regions.
GPS observations are crucial for determining both local
changes to individual glaciers, as well as integrated changes
occurring over larger sections of the ice sheets.
28.5.3.1 Mass Balance of Ice Sheets
According to the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change [484], the average rate of ice loss from gla-
ciers around the world was 226 ± 130 Gt yr−1 over the
period 1971 to 2009, and 275 ± 135 Gt yr−1 over the period
1993 to 2009. The rate of ice loss in the polar regions has
significantly accelerated since the turn of the 20th century.
The loss rates from the Greenland Ice Sheet were 34 ± 40 Gt
yr–1 over the period 1992 to 2001 and 215 ± 70 Gt yr–1 over
the period 2002 to 2011, and the rates from the Antarctic Ice
Sheet were 30 ± 66 Gt yr–1 over the period 1992 to 2001 and
147 ± 65 Gt yr–1 over the period 2002 to 2011 [484]. These
reported rates were obtained with large uncertainties,
because some of the monitoring techniques measure inte-
grated elevation (altimetry) or mass (gravity) changes,
which are induced by both GIA and present-day ice loss.
Assessing the present-day ice loss relies on good estimates
15/12/2020 5:58:10 PM
 784 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

Vertical Velocities Residual Velocities

6 4

8
6
2
10

–2

IGb00 1.5 mm/yr

0–1 5 mm/yr Rigid
+ ve GIA
Tect.
–ve Effect
Figure 28.27 GPS-detected crustal movements in North America, reflecting GIA response to the melt of the late Pleistocene ice sheets.
(Left) Vertical movements with highest uplift rates around Hudson Bay, and subsidence to the south. Green line shows the
“hinge line” separating uplift from subsidence. (Right) Residual horizontal movements after subtracting best-fit rigid plate rotation
model defined by sites shown with black arrows. Red vectors represent sites primarily affected by GIA. Blue vectors represent sites that
include effects of tectonics. Source: Adapted from Sella et al. [483]. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

of GIA [485]. GPS observations from polar regions are used
both for constraining the magnitude and spatial distribu-
tion of GIA [486] as well as for determining ice loss inde-
pendent of GIA-induced displacements [480, 487].
Greenland – Continuous GPS measurements along the
rocky margins of Greenland have detected high rates of
uplift (up to 30 mm/yr), reflecting crustal response to both
GIA and present-day ice melt [488, 489]. Several methods
were proposed for assessing the present-day component
of the uplift and determining ice mass balance at the vicin-
ity of measurement localities. Khan et al. (2010) [488]
removed the GIA component using the global ICE-5G
model and VM2 viscosity profile [490] to calculate the uplift
component due to present-day ice loss and found spreading
of ice mass loss into northwest Greenland. More recently,
Khan et al. (2016) [330] used multiple observation types,
including GPS, and detected that the northeast Greenland
ice stream is undergoing sustained dynamic thinning,
which is linked to regional warming, after more than a
quarter of a century of stability. Jiang, Dixon, and Wdo-
winski (2010) [480] noticed that long-time series in the
North Atlantic region contain an acceleration component,
which is independent of long-term GIA displacement, and
represents an acceleration in the rate of ice mass loss. Using
a simple elastic model, they estimated that western Green-
land’s ice loss has accelerated at an average rate of 8.7 ± 3.5
Gt yr−2 and the acceleration rate for southeastern Green-
land at a rate of 12.5 ± 5.5 Gt yr−2. Khan et al. (2016)
[330] used observations from the Greenland GPS network
(GNET) to directly measure GIA and estimate basin-wide
mass changes since the Last Glacial Maximum and surpris-
ingly found a large GIA uplift rate of 12 mm/yr in southeast
Greenland (Figure 28.28). van Dam et al. (2017) [491] used
GPS and gravity measurements to separate the viscoelastic
GIA component from the GPS-observed uplift rate and esti-
mated that the GIA component in their study area was
inconsistent with most previously reported GIA model
predictions.
Antarctica – GPS measurements from bedrock sites in
Antarctica are also used for estimating GIA models [492]
and ice mass balance. Bevis et al. (2009) [332] noticed that
the spatial pattern of vertical GPS velocities in West Antarc-
tica is variable and not consistent with available GIA mod-
els. They suggested that GIA estimates for Antarctica are
inaccurate and, most likely, affect the ice mass loss estimate
measured by other techniques such as GRACE. Martin-
Espanol et al. (2016) [493] used multiple data types, includ-
ing GPS, to estimate spatiotemporal mass balance trends

c28.3d 784 15/12/2020 5:58:11 PM

 28.5 Climate 785

90°W 80°W 70°W 60°W50°W40°W30°W 20°W10°W 0° 10°E

80°N

75°N
75°N

70°N
70°N

65°N
65°N

GIA rates GIA rates Uncertainties

(mm/yr) (mm/yr) (mm/yr)
10 10 3
60°N
60°N

–10 0
–10

50°W 40°W 30°W

Figure 28.28 GNET-based glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) model for Greenland. (A) Estimated global isostatic adjustment (GIA) vertical
displacement rates at GNET cGPS stations. Gray curves denote major drainage basins. (B) Interpolated GIA vertical displacement rates. (C)
Uncertainties of GIA vertical displacement rates. Source: Adapted from Khan et al. [330]. Reproduced with permission of AAAS.

for the Antarctic Ice Sheet for the period 2003–2013. They
revealed that Antarctica has been losing mass at a rate of
−84 ± 22 Gt yr−1, in which West Antarctica is the largest
contributor, mainly by high thinning rates of glaciers drain-
ing into the Amundsen Sea Embayment.
28.5.3.2 Glacier and Ice Sheet Flow
Ice mass loss of both glaciers and ice sheets occurs by surface
melt runoff, basal shear and runoff, dynamic thinning due to
the speedup of glacier flow, and calving in marine-terminus
glaciers. Monitoring glacier and ice sheet movements and
dynamics is conducted by both space-based and ground-
based techniques. The space-based techniques – satellite
altimetry and InSAR – provide high-spatial-resolution
observations over wide study areas [494]. Ground-based
techniques, including cGPS and seismic networks, provide
high-temporal-resolution observations, which are crucial
for understanding the kinematics and dynamics of glacier
flow and ice sheet thinning.
The quality and significance of GPS ice movement mea-
surements has increased over time. Early GPS episodic
measurements of the Jakobshavn Isbræ glacier in western
Greenland revealed no significant variations in seasonal
velocity rates, within the uncertainties of the geodetic mea-
surements [495]. However, cGPS measurements in the
same region detected significant seasonal variations in
velocity ranging from 35–40 cm d−1 (127.8–146.0 m yr−1)
in the summer to 27–28 cm d−1 (98.6–102.2 m yr−1) in
the winter [40]. The detected seasonal acceleration (sum-
mer) and deceleration (winter) coincides with period of sur-
face melting, suggesting a strong coupling between surface
conditions and ice sheet flow, which provide a mechanism
for explaining the dynamic response of ice sheets to climate
warming [40].
Continuous GPS has provided crucial observations for
understanding the role of meltwater and basal pressure
changes on glaciers and ice sheet movements. Bartholo-
maus, Anderson, and Anderson (2008) [497] monitored
the motion of the Kennicott Glacier, Alaska, and detected
velocity increase when englacial and subglacial water stor-
age increased and proposed that the acceleration occurred
due to an increase in basal pore pressure that promotes
basal motion. Das et al. (2008) [498] used GPS, increased
seismicity, transient acceleration, ice sheet uplift, and hor-
izontal displacements to monitor rapid (<2 h) drainage of a
large supraglacial lake down 980 m to the base of the ice
sheet, which was initiated by water-driven fracture propa-
gation. They suggested that the observed rapid drainage
and ice sheet response can provide a mechanism for
explaining the regional summer ice speedup of the Green-
land Ice Sheet. Some glacier and ice stream movements
occur discontinuously during slip events that generate ice-
quakes. The dynamics of such stick-slip motion of the
marine-terminus Whillans Ice Stream, Antarctica, was

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 786 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

(a) (b) (c)

Low-tide Event High-tide Event
Inter-event motion Inter-event motion

–500 –500

–550 –550

km
km
–600 –600

–650 –650

–700 –700

–750 –750
–350 –300 –250 –200 –150 –100 –350 –300 –250 –200 –150 –100
km km

0.05 0.1 0.21 0.51

(c) Displacement (m)
Low-tide cycle High-tide cycle

Ross sea Tide (m)

0.5
High-Tide
0 Slip Event
(Fig.2d)
Low-Tide
–0.5
Slip Event
(Fig.2b)
–1
321.8 321.9 322 322.1 322.2 322.3 322.4 322.5 322.6 322.7
Day of year, 2004

Figure 28.29 Study area of Whillans Ice Stream, located near the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica. (a) Yellow arrows mark the location and
annual velocity vectors of 22 cGPS stations. (b) Total displacement during low-tide inter-event preceding slip events of the ice stream. (c)
Same as (b) but during a high-tide event. (d) Tides of the Ross Sea during these two stick–slip cycles as measured by the vertical
component of motion at cGPS station W5C. Source: Adapted from Winberry et al. [496]. Reproduced with permission of Elsevier.

investigated using a cGPS network, revealing that slip
events are triggered pressure changes that occur during
high and low tide conditions [496, 499] (Figure 28.29).
Stick-slip motion and icequakes also characterize some
ice sheet movements in western Greenland, where the
stick-slip motion occurs in clusters during burst-like epi-
sodes that last days to weeks and correlate with subglacial
water pressure measured within nearby moulins (vertical
shafts in glaciers where water enter from the surface deep
into the glaciers) [500].
28.5.4 Crustal Response to Continental Water
Storage Changes
Freshwater supply is essential for the sustainability and
growth of both human society and the natural environ-
ments on continents. The availability of freshwater supply
depends on atmospheric and hydrological processes,
including rainfall, runoff, infiltration, and evaporation, as
well as on human diversion and/or consumption of both
surface water and groundwater reservoirs. Changes in the
amount and distribution of water stored on continents also
affect the hydrological mass, known as hydrological load,
acting on Earth’s solid surface and causing crustal deforma-
tion (Figures 28.37a, b). When the changes are large
enough, they can be detected by geodetic observations,
either due to gravitational changes, or measured displace-
ments of the surface.
28.5.4.1 Seasonal Changes
Seasonal variations in water storage on continents change
the hydrological loading and induce mainly vertical but
also horizontal movements of Earth’s solid surface. The lat-
eral scale of these movements varies according to the
dimension of the water reservoir. Blewitt et al. (2001)
[501] showed that seasonal positioning variations on the
order of 1–3 mm occur on a global scale and can be modeled
as the degree-one spherical harmonic response of an elastic
Earth to seasonal hydrological loading. Sub-continental
and large-scale regional seasonal changes in hydrological
loads, which are best detected by the GRACE mission or
calculated using the North American Land Data Assimila-
tion System (NLDAS) model [502], also induce seasonal
positioning changes of similar amplitude detected by GPS
observations (Figure 28.30; [503, 504]). Using an elastic
loading model, Argus, Fu, and Landerer (2014a) [505] cal-
culated that the seasonal hydrological load changes vary
from 60 cm in the Sierra Nevada, Klamath, and Southern
Cascade Mountains to about 10 cm east into the Great

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 28.5 Climate 787

LPF NLDAS GRACE

20

10
Vertical (mm)

–10

–20
2000 2005 2010 2015

Time (years)

Figure 28.30 Vertical daily position time series showing hydrological load changes. (Blue dots) Positions measured at the station
SMEL, located in western Utah, and its comparison with deformation induced by hydrological load changes. The red line presents a
low-pass-filter (LPF) fit to the data with 0.5-year cutoff; the black line denotes the expected displacements based on the North American
Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) model; and the cyan lines presents the expected displacements based on the GRACE
satellite observations. Source: Reproduced with permission of North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS).

Basin and west toward the Pacific coast. Seasonal hydrolog-
ical loading can also trigger seismic activity along active
faults, as is evident from higher frequency of earthquakes
occurring during stress conditions favoring rupture in
northern California [506].
28.5.4.2 Year-to-Year Variability
Although seasonal positioning changes are the dominant
signal in vertical positioning time series, they vary from
one year to another, reflecting annual variations in the
hydrological loads. The example presented in Figure 28.30
shows that the unusually rainy year of 2011 induced stronger
winter-spring subsidence than in previous or following
years. Wdowinski, Setti, and van Dam (2016) [482] found
that the yearly positioning deviation from a mean seasonal
pattern correlates with regional climate indices, according to
the Palmer Drought Severity Index [508].
28.5.4.3 Droughts
Consecutive reduction in precipitation, as occurred in the
western United States from 2012–2016, results in reduced
winter-spring subsidence, enhanced late summer uplift,
and an overall uplift trend (Figure 28.30). The large-scale
drought induced a regional-scale uplift of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains and other areas in the western United States
([481, 507, 509]; Figure 28.31). Borsa, Agnew, and Cayan
(2014) [481] calculated that the drought-induced median
uplift of 4 mm in the western United States during
2011–2014, which is equivalent to a 10 cm layer of water loss
and a total deficit of 240 Gt. The higher late summer uplift dur-
ing the drought years also has seismic hazard implications,
because it implies a reduced effective normal stress acting
on seismically active faults, including the San Andreas Fault,
which bring these faults closer to failure [509].
28.5.5 Sea Level Rise and Vertical Land
Movements
Sea level rise (SLR) threatens the livelihood of hundreds of
millions of people, roughly 10% of the world’s population,
who live in low-lying coastal areas [510]. In the United
States alone, 4.9 million people live in low-lying areas,
within 1.3 m of high tide, and are in high risk of coastal
flooding [511]. Over the 20th century, the global average
sea level rose by almost 20 cm, due to two main processes,
thermal expansion of ocean water and transfer of meltwater
stored as ice on land to oceans [512]. The global average
rate of SLR during the 20th century is estimated in the
range of 1.2–1.9 mm/yr, reflecting differences in data sub-
sets and methodologies used to constrain the rate
[513–516]. The global average rate of SLR has increased
since the 1990s to 2.4–3.2 mm/yr, as observed from both sat-
ellite altimetry and tide gauge records [507, 517]. With the
continuous heating of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans,
the sea level is projected to rise by 0.8–2 m by 2100 [512].
The large range of uncertainties of the projection reflects
poor constraints on some of the dominant processes affect-
ing SLR, mainly the rate of polar ice melt in Greenland and
Antarctica. GPS observations play an important role in
obtaining accurate sea level change measurements, as well
as accurate assessments of the increasing contribution of
polar ice melt (Section 28.5.3) to SLR.

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 788 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

(a) (b)
NA12 before 2011 NA12 after 2011
42 42 3

41 41
2
40 40

39 39
1
38 38
Latitude

Latitude
37 37 0

36 36
–1
35 35

34 34
–2

33 33

32 32 –3
–124 –122 –120 –118 –116 –114 –124 –122 –120 –118 –116 –114 mm/yr

Figure 28.31 GPS imaging analysis of vertical crustal movements in California and Nevada. (A) Mean vertical movements for the period
1996–2011. (B) Mean vertical movement for the period 2011–2016. The post-2011 high vertical rate was induced by a severe drought.
Regional scale uplift (red) was induced by the drought, whereas localized subsidence (blue) was induced by ground water extraction.
Movements are with respect to the North America-fixed, spatially filtered reference frame, NA12. Source: Adapted from Hammond et al.
[507]. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

28.5.5.1 Relative Sea Level Changes
Monitoring and understanding SLR require long measure-
ment records because sea level changes derived from short
records are strongly affected by tides, winds, ocean currents,
and other processes. The longest instrumental records of sea
level changes, some extending over 100 years, have been
obtained by tide gauge measurements acquired along many
of the world’s coastlines. However, tide gauges measure the
relative position of the ocean surface with respect to
land, which may be subjected to vertical movements
(Section 28.5.5.2). Consequently, sea level change assess-
ment based on tide gauge records can be contaminated by
vertical land movements, as shown in Figures 28.32a, d. In
order to estimate the rate of sea level changes from tide gauge
records, the contribution of vertical land movements should
be removed from the observations, either by models of ver-
tical movements (Figures 28.43b, e) or by observations
(Figures 28.43c, f ). Vertical GPS measurements acquired
in coastal areas provide the most reliable estimates of
vertical land movements [518]. The Système d’Observation
du Niveau des Eaux Littorales (SONEL) network
provides GPS-based vertical land movement assessment of
long coastal segments worldwide ([519]; http://www.sonel.
org/). The most accurate corrections for vertical land move-
ments can be obtained when tide gauges and GPS stations
are collocated [520].
28.5.5.2 Vertical Land Movements in Coastal Areas
Vertical land movements occur in response to both deep
and shallow deformation processes, including tectonics,
GIA (Section 28.5.2), sediment compaction, and groundwa-
ter extraction. When subsidence (negative vertical motion)
occurs in coastal areas, the combined effect of SLR and sub-
sidence results in higher rates of relative SLR and increased
coastal flooding hazards. In urban areas, high rates of rel-
ative SLR can increase flooding frequency, which can cause
significant disruption to daily life [521, 522]. In flat coastal
rural areas, land subsidence can result in land loss, as
occurs along the Louisiana coast.
GPS measurements of land subsidence in coastal areas pro-
vide the most accurate assessments for higher rates of relative
SLR and their implied flooding hazard. Continuous GPS data
acquired in the Mississippi Delta by a network of 36 stations
revealed that the southern part of the delta experience high
rates of subsidence (5–6 mm/yr), which is consistent with
the high rate of relative SLR (8–9 mm/yr) measured by local
tide gauge stations and explains the rapid loss of Louisiana
coastal wetlands in the area [523]. GPS measurements along
the US Atlantic coast revealed that GIA-induced subsidence
on the order of 1–2 mm/yr occurs along the mid-Atlantic
coast, from Massachusetts to Georgia [483, 524]. Higher
subsidence rates (2–3 mm/yr) occur between Virginia and
South Carolina due to excessive groundwater extraction

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 28.5 Climate 789

(a) (b) GIA-corrected (c) GPS-corrected

Tide gauge records tide gauge records tide gauge records
8000 8000
7800 Seattle +0.9 mm/yr +0.7 mm/yr 7800
northwestern America

+2.0 mm/yr
Annual MSL (mm) in

7600 7600
+0.3 mm/yr
Victoria +0.5 mm/yr
7400 +0.6 mm/yr 7400
7200 7200
Neah Bay –2.9 mm/yr +0.9 mm/yr
7000 –1.7 mm/yr 7000
6800 RMS RMS RMS 6800
1.9 mm/yr 2.0 mm/yr 0.3 mm/yr
6600 6600

(d) (e) (f)

8000 8000
Key West
+1.5 mm/yr +1.6 mm/yr
7800 +2.3 mm/yr 7800
Annual MSL (mm) in

Pensacola
7600 +1.1 mm/yr +1.0 mm/yr 7600
Gulf of Mexico

+2.2 mm/yr
7400 Grand lsle 7400
+9.1 mm/yr +8.0 mm/yr +1.1 mm/yr
7200 7200
+0.9 mm/yr
Galveston
7000 +6.4 mm/yr +5.4 mm/yr 7000
6800 RMS RMS RMS 6800
3.4 mm/yr 3.3 mm/yr 3.3 mm/yr
6600 6600
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Figure 28.32 Time series of annual mean sea-level values (a, d) from tide gauges; (b, e) tide gauges corrected for GIA using the ICE5G
(VM2) model predictions [483]; and (c, f ) GPS-corrected tide gauge records. The time series are displayed with arbitrary offsets for
presentation purposes (units are in mm). Source: Adapted from Woppelmann and Marcos [518]. Reproduced with permission of John
Wiley & Sons.

(a) (b)
years

1 18
Vertical rate (mm yr–1)

46° N
16
0 14
44° N
12
42° N –1 10
8
–2
40° N 6
–3 4
38° N 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 48
Atlantic ocean Latitude (deg.)
36° N (c)

34° N 1 GPS Holocene RSL ICE6G-VM5a

Vertical rate (mm yr–1)

32° N
0
30° N
km –1
28° N 0 500
–2
80° W 76° W 72° W 68° W 64° W
Vertical velocity (mm yr–1) –3
28 31 34 37 40 43 46 48
Latitude (deg.)
–3 –2 –1 0 1

Figure 28.33 GPS observed vertical surface movements along the US Atlantic coast determined in IGb08 reference frame. (a) Red line
shows the Fall Line, a boundary between compressible coastal plain sediments and incompressible bedrock of the Piedmont Province.
(b) Vertical movements as a function of latitude. (c) Comparison between GPS, geologic data, and GIA model ICE6G-VM5a vertical
rates. Source: Adapted from Karegar et al. [524]. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

c28.3d 789 15/12/2020 5:58:17 PM

 790 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
([524]; Figure 28.33). This area is also subjected to increased
coastal flooding frequency [521]. Combined GPS and InSAR
observations of the land surrounding the Venice Lagoon indi-
cate that the city of Venice subsides at a rate of 1–2 mm/yr,
whereas some sections of the lagoon subside at higher rates
of 3–4 mm/yr [525]. These results indicate that the relative
rate of SLR in Venice and its surroundings is higher than
the global mean and hence imposes higher flooding hazard
to the city, which is already subjected to frequent flooding
events, known as Acqua Alta.
28.5.5.3 Direct Measurements of Sea Level
GPS can also directly measure sea level changes using two
different techniques, GPS-buoy and GPS-interferometric
reflectometry (GPS-IR). GPS-buoy measurements of sea sur-
face height (SSH) have been conducted for more than two
decades for precise offshore tide and SSH monitoring often
for calibrating radar altimetry measurements [526–528]
and also for tsunami warning systems [529–532] (e.g. Falck
et al. 2010; Kato et al. 2005; Kato et al. 2000; Schone et al.
2011). The accuracy of the GPS-buoy measurements was
obtained by a comparison to nearby tide gauge observations,
which yielded an rms of 24 mm between the two measure-
ment types [527].
The SSH can also be measured by GPS-IR, which uses
multipath observations to detect ground property changes
in the vicinity of cGPS stations (within a radius of ~100
m) [533]. More details on this technique are provided in
Section 28.6.4. Larson, Lofgren, and Haas (2013) [533]
and Larson et al. (2013) [534] used GPS-IR to monitor
sea level changes using cGPS stations located near coast-
lines, typically on cliffs or piers. By comparing the GPS-
IR results with nearby tide gauge measurements, they esti-
mated the accuracy of the method to be 5–10 cm.
28.6 Environmental Monitoring
28.6.1 Introduction
The changing climate and large-scale human activities,
such as agricultural development, urbanization, and water
diversion, cause significant changes to Earth’s environ-
ment. These changes have damaged and/or altered fragile
environments, including wetlands, forests, grassland, and
coral reefs. They also have affected human habitat due to
changes in land surface use, water accessibility, and
increased exposure to natural hazards. In order to better
understand past environmental changes and project these
changes into the future, it is essential to monitor physical,
chemical, and biological parameters of various environ-
ments. In this section, we describe the use GPS technologies
c28.3d 790
and observations for environmental monitoring of mostly
physical parameters, but also of one biological parameter.
The section covers the use of GPS observations for monitor-
ing non-tectonic geological hazards, hydrological changes
in both groundwater and surface water, and surface mon-
itoring of soil moisture, snow depth, vegetation water con-
tent variations, and surface water level changes.
28.6.2 Non-Tectonic Geological Hazards
Geological hazards are ground-moving or shaking pro-
cesses that can cause loss of life or severe property damage.
The most destructive geological hazards are earthquakes
and volcano eruptions, which occur in response to tectonic
forces acting within or below the crust and are discussed in
Section 28.4. Non-tectonic geological hazards are ground-
moving phenomena occurring at shallow depths (typically
<1 km) in response to weakening processes of certain geo-
logical units and gravitational forces. The main hazard
types are landslides, sinkholes, and land subsidence. In this
section, we will discuss the application of GPS observations
for monitoring landslides and land subsidence. Due to the
large spatial variability of these shallow processes,
point GPS observations are often complemented by high-
spatial-resolution InSAR observations.
28.6.2.1 Landslides
A landslide is the movement of a rock mass down a slope. It
occurs due to the failure of weaker rocks at the base of the
landslide in response to the force of gravity. Some land-
slides move continuously at rates of a few centimeters/
day, such as the Slumgullion Landslide in western Colo-
rado (Figure 28.34; [535]). However, most landslides move
episodically, typically after heavy rain events, because rain-
water infiltrating along the base of the landslide can reduce
the friction along the sliding interface‚ resulting in down-
hill slip of the landslide. Landslides can also be triggered
by ground shaking induced by large earthquakes. Most slip
events displace the surface by a limited distance of several
centimeters to meters. But slip events can occasionally be
catastrophic‚ resulting in long-distance movements (hun-
dreds of meters to a few kilometers), especially in moun-
tainous areas and areas denuded by fires as in California.
Such events can impose high risk to people or property
located downhill of the landslide. Some of the most devas-
tating landslides that occurred in the past century resulted
in tens of thousands of deaths [536].
Monitoring landslides is essential for understanding both
their kinematics and dynamics, and forecasting cata-
strophic slip events that most likely are triggered by heavy
rain or earthquakes. Over the past two decades, GPS obser-
vations have been used to detect landslide movements with
15/12/2020 5:58:18 PM
 28.6 Environmental Monitoring 791

2.0
1 cm/day - GPS
1 cm/day - UAVSAR 1.8
Slope Direction
1.6

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0

Figure 28.34 InSAR and GPS observed velocity field of the Slumgullion landslide in western Colorado. The three-color panels show
the magnitude of the horizontal velocity derived from Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) observations in
(top) April, (middle) May, and (bottom) July 2012. Pixels with estimated errors greater than 5 mm/day are masked and not shown.
Orange and white arrows mark the horizontal velocities derived from GPS and UAVSAR observations, respectively. Source: Adapted
from Delbridge et al. [535]. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons.

centimeter to millimeter levels of accuracy, typically by
using a base station in a stable location near the landslide
[537, 538]. First-generation measurements relied on epi-
sodic real-time kinematic (RTK) measurements, or short-
term continuous deployments [537–539]. However, as the
cost of GPS equipment has decreased, some landslides
are being monitored by cGPS measurements [540, 541].
The high temporal resolution of continuous measurements
provides valuable information on slip events, which is
essential for understanding the slip dynamics [542].
Often‚ the point GPS measurements are complemented
by high-spatial-resolution InSAR observations (e.g. [535,
543]). Recent technological improvements allow the
deployment of a denser array of GPS receivers using a wire-
less network of low-cost GPS instruments [544].
28.6.2.2 Land Subsidence
Land subsidence is a gradual loss of surface elevation,
which occurs in response to both natural and anthropo-
genic processes. Natural causes for land subsidence include
sediment compaction, which typically occurs in delta or
drained lake environments, and delayed response to the
melting of late Pleistocene ice sheets (GIA). Anthropogenic
causes for subsidence include withdrawal of fluids in the
subsurface (groundwater, petroleum, geothermal); wetland
drainage, which exposes surface peat or organic soil to oxi-
dation; and subterranean mining. The slow rate of land
subsidence (<40 cm/yr) does not pose a threat to human
life. However, its accumulated effect can be hazardous in
low-lying coastal areas (Section 28.5.5.2), urban areas,
and along transportation corridors.
Land subsidence has been observed in many urban areas
including Mexico City and 16 other cities in Mexico [545],
Jakarta and 8 other cities in Indonesia [546], Los Angeles
[547], Houston [548], Shanghai [549], and many other
urban areas. The subsidence occurs in response to
increased rate of groundwater withdrawal due to popula-
tion growth and increased water demand in many urban
areas. High subsidence rates (>10 cm/yr) accumulated over
decades can cause significant damage to buildings and
infrastructure. One such example is Mexico City, home to
about 21 million residents, which is built on unconsoli-
dated lake sediments and subjected to subsidence rates of
up to 36 cm/yr ([545, 550]; Figure 28.35). Differential sub-
sidence in Mexico City has caused structural damage to his-
torical buildings, such as the main Cathedral, residential
buildings, as well as to roads and the Metro system [550,
551]. Another example is Jakarta, home to 27 million resi-
dents, which is built on unconsolidated river beds near the
coast and subjected to subsidence rate of up to 18 cm/yr

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 792 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

99.4°W 99.2°W 99.0°W 98.8°W 98.6°W 98.4°W

20.2°N

20.2°N
a
Vertical velocities
(mm/yr)
20.0°N

20.0°N
20
200
19.8°N

19.8°N
0 0

–200 –20
slope = –171.6±1.2 slope = 5.8±1.8
19.6°N

19.6°N
500
20
19.4°N

19.4°N
0 0

slope = –223.2±4.2 –20

slope = 1.7±6.0
19.2°N

19.2°N
–500
500
50
19.0°N

19.0°N
Legend 0 0
EKF Deformation Rate
Ancient Lake Boundary
CPGS Station –50
–500 slope = –274.1±1.6 slope = –0.6±1.1
99.4°W 99.2°W 99.0°W 98.8°W 98.6°W 98.4°W

Figure 28.35 InSAR and GPS observed subsidence in Mexico City. The color map presents InSAR-observed subsidence rate derived
from Envisat data acquired during 2002–2010. Red dots mark the location of cGPS stations. The GPS time series calculated in
ITRF2000 show high subsidence rates within the deforming area and limited vertical movements in stable areas (blue background).
Source: Adapted from Osmanoglu et al. [550].

[546, 552]. The accumulated subsidence and increased sea
level have significantly increased flooding frequency in
coastal neighborhoods [546].
Geodetic monitoring of land subsidence is best conducted
nowadays with GPS and InSAR, in which GPS observations
are used to validate and calibrate the high-spatial-resolution
InSAR observations. The high differential subsidence in
Mexico City was validated by cGPS measurements, which
also indicated a limited seasonal subsidence pattern, most
likely due to lack of aquifer recharge [550] (Figure 28.35).
GPS observations were also used by Bock et al. (2012)
[525] to calibrate InSAR observations by introducing a
regional tilt to the InSAR-calculated velocities in their study
of the Venice Lagoon subsidence. Bürgmann et al. (2006)
[553] used GPS observations combined with dislocation
model results to remove horizontal velocity components
from InSAR LOS observations. Their residual velocity field
represented the vertical motion due to land subsidence and
other processes.
hydrological cycle. Typically, hydrological monitoring pro-
vides high-temporal-resolution measurements at a limited
number of observation points, which are useful for charac-
terizing temporal changes. However, the spatial resolution
of these measurements is rather limited. Some gaps in
hydrological monitoring can be filled by geodetic observa-
tions, which can be indicative of hydrological processes.
Small but measurable surface changes, as measured by
GPS and InSAR, often reflect crustal and surface deforma-
tion in response to changes in terrestrial water storage
(TWS) or due to aquifer system deformation. In addition,
precise gravity measurements acquired from space (e.g.
GRACE) or on the ground are also indicative of changes
in TWS or groundwater level. The use of GPS and other geo-
detic techniques for monitoring TWS changes is described
in Section 28.5.4. In this section, we focus on the use of GPS
observations for monitoring groundwater and surface-
water changes.

28.6.3 Hydrological Monitoring
One of the major challenges of the 21st century is securing
freshwater supply for the increasing world population as
well as for preserving natural ecosystems. Direct hydrolog-
ical observations, such as surface water and groundwater
level measurements, provide important but partial infor-
mation of water storage and fluxes characterizing the
28.6.3.1 Groundwater
Aquifers are commonly used to store and supply water for
both human consumption and agricultural use. Over the
past century, many aquifers have been subjected to massive
groundwater extraction, sometimes depletion, due to an
increasing water demand by the world’s growing popula-
tion and increasing need for agricultural products. A
by-product of groundwater extraction is surface

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deformation, which occurs in response to the following
three main processes: sediment compaction, poroelastic
deformation of the aquifer system, and crustal response
to unloading of the extracted water mass. Land subsidence
occurring in urban areas can result in severe damage to
buildings and infrastructure, as described in
Section 28.6.2.2. Land subsidence can also be used to infer
the characteristics of the aquifer systems, as the deforma-
tion occurs by hydrological processes.
GPS and InSAR observations have been widely used to
characterize land subsidence induced by groundwater
extraction and to infer aquifer system deformation. GPS
observations have the advantage of measuring both vertical
and horizontal surface movements, whereas InSAR obser-
vations have a much higher spatial coverage, but measure-
ments are in the LOS between the satellite and the surface
[554]. GPS networks for monitoring land subsidence
induced by groundwater extraction were established in sev-
eral known subsiding areas, including Antelope Valley,
California [555], Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tucson basin,
Arizona [556], Houston-Galveston area, Texas [557], Las
Vegas, Nevada [558], Lower Coachella Valley, California
[559], and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California
[560]. These networks revealed the pattern and magnitude
of land subsidence as well as their changes over time. For
example, the GPS network in the Houston-Galveston area
revealed that the area of maximum subsidence is located in
the northwestern section of the network and has migrated
northward after 2007, mainly due to changes in water
extraction management [561] (Figure 28.36).
GPS and InSAR observations were also used to constrain
aquifer system deformation models and infer aquifer prop-
erties. Aquifer system deformation can be complex, due to
the combined effect of inelastic and elastic deformation
processes. Consequently, aquifer system deformation has
been studied using various model types, or combined mod-
els. Some of the models used for characterizing aquifer sys-
tem deformation are aquitard drainage (inelastic),
poroelasticity, nonlinear poroelasticity, and poroviscosity
models [240]. Both aquitard drainage and poroelastic mod-
els estimate important hydrological properties of the aqui-
fer system, including hydrologic conductivity, storability,
and skeletal specific storage coefficient. Miller, Shirzaei,
and Argus (2017) [562] used InSAR and GPS observations
acquired in the Tucson area, Arizona, to constrain an aqui-
fer deformation model and estimate the average elastic and
inelastic skeletal storage coefficients as 3.78 × 10−3 and 6.01
× 10−3, respectively. These two coefficients represent the
amount of water per unit volume of a saturated formation
that is stored or expelled from storage due to the compress-
ibility of the aquifer skeleton and pore water per unit
change in the hydrologic head (a specific measurement of
c28.3d 793
28.6 Environmental Monitoring 793
liquid pressure above a geodetic datum). However locally
estimated coefficient values vary significantly within a large
range, from 10−6 to 10−2. Similar studies characterizing
aquifer system deformation in other areas, such as the
Santa Clara Valley, California, obtained similar range of
skeletal storage coefficients [563].
28.6.3.2 Surface Water
As precise GPS measurements are mostly acquired on land,
the contribution of GPS observations to monitor surface
water is rather limited. Nevertheless, some innovative stud-
ies used GPS-buoy measurements for monitoring surface
water level in rivers. The best example is the study of Cheng
et al. (2009) [564], who used a GPS-equipped boat and a
GPS buoy to measure the water level along Rio Branco,
which is a tributary of the Amazon River. The GPS mea-
surements revealed a river stage gradient of 5.75 ±
0.48 cm/km, which is higher than previously estimated.
Apel et al. (2012) [565] deployed GPS buoys in two locations
along the Mekong Delta, measured the feasibility of precise
GPS-buoy measurements to measure the river stage, and
found that the mean absolute error was less than 2 cm.
Additional GPS-derived measurements of surface level
changes have been obtained using GPS-IR measurements
(Section 28.6.4.5).
28.6.4 Surface Monitoring with GPS
Interferometric Reflectometry (GPS-IR)
GPS interferometric reflectometry (GPS-IR) is a relatively
new remote sensing technique that uses GPS multipath
measurements to estimate three environmental para-
meters: near-surface soil moisture, snow depth, and vegeta-
tion water content variations. The method calculates the
interference between direct and reflected GPS observations
acquired by continuously operating GPS stations. GPS-IR is
sensitive to surface changes occurring within ~30 m radius
of the GPS antenna and hence its footprint is roughly 1000
m2, which is an intermediate spatial scale between in situ
measurements (<1 m2) and space-based remote sensing
observations (>100 km2). Consequently, GPS-IR observa-
tions can serve as a very useful tool for calibrating environ-
mental observations acquired by various space-based
satellite missions. Another application of GPS-IR is contin-
uous monitoring of sea or lake level changes, which can be
measured by cGPS stations located in a vertical slant view
of water bodies.
28.6.4.1 GPS Interferometric Reflectometry
The GPS-IR technique, which relies on multipath observa-
tions, is a quintessential example of the widely used expres-
sion “your noise is my signal.” In most GPS measurements,
15/12/2020 5:58:20 PM
 794 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment

(a)
96°0’W 95°50’W 95°40’W 95°30’W 95°20’W 95°10’W 95°0’W 94°50’W
N
30°10’N

30°10’N
GPS Stations

CORS
30°0’N

PAM

30°0’N
Faults
Salt Dome
Counties
GPS Rate (1994-2010)
29°50’N

(mm\yr)

29°50’N
–41 - –25
–25 - –20
–20 - –15
29°40’N

–15 - –10

29°40’N
–10 - –8
–8 - –5
–5 - –3
–3 - –2
29°30’N

–2. - –0.8

29°30’N
–0.8 - –1.0

0 3 6 12 18
km
1:542,808
29°20’N

29°20’N
96°0’W 95°50’W 95°40’W 95°30’W 95°20’W 95°10’W 95°0’W 94°50’W

(b) 96°0’W 95°50’W 95°40’W 95°30’W 95°20’W 95°10’W 95°0’W 94°50’W N

30°10’N

30°10’N

GPS Stations

CORS
30°0’N

PAM
30°0’N

Faults
Salt Dome
Counties
GPS Rate (2007-2011)
29°50’N

29°50’N

(mm\yr)

–25 - –20
–20 - –15
29°40’N

–15 - –10
29°40’N

–10 - –8
–8 - –5
–5 - –3
–3 - 0
29°30’N

0- 1
29°30’N

>1

0 3 6 12 18
km
1:542,808
29°20’N

29°20’N

96°0’W 95°50’W 95°40’W 95°30’W 95°20’W 95°10’W 95°0’W 94°50’W

Figure 28.36 Interpolated (Kriging) GPS-derived vertical surface movements in the greater Houston area (a) For the years 1994–2010;
(b) 2007–2011. The results show subsidence in the northwest and uplift in the southeast. The subsidence was induced mainly by
groundwater extraction, and the observed uplift is attributed to an uplift of a salt dome. The observed changes in the subsidence rate and
pattern between the two periods, mainly northern migration of the subsiding area, were induced by changes in ground extraction
management. Source: Adapted from Khan et al. [561]. Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature.

c28.3d 794 15/12/2020 5:58:20 PM

 28.6 Environmental Monitoring 795

multipath is a source of noise that degrades the accuracy of
calculated positions. It arises from the interference, in the
GPS antenna, between signals arriving directly from the
satellite with scattered signals from the ground or nearby
objects. Consequently, most GPS antenna manufacturers
design antennas that suppress multipath signals. Neverthe-
less, some multipath signals still reach the antenna and
interfere with the direct signal, especially when the direct
signal arrives from satellites during low elevation geometry.
To further suppress multipath errors, most position calcu-
lations typically exclude low elevation data (< 10 ) in their
solutions.
The GPS-IR technique uses the multipath signal to mon-
itor changes in the scattering characteristics of the ground
surface surrounding the antenna of a cGPS station. The
interference between the direct and reflected signals
depends on the reflection geometry and the surface scatter-
ing characteristics. For the simple case of a planar, horizon-
tal ground reflection environment, the reflection geometry
depends solely on the satellite elevation angle and the
height of the antenna phase center above the reflector
(Figure 28.37a). The direct signals travel along a straight
line between the GPS satellite and the antenna (blue sinus-
oidal line), whereas the reflected signal travels a longer dis-
tance, as it bounces from the ground toward the antenna
(red line). Although the direct signal is much stronger,
some of the reflected signal reaches the antenna, interferes
with the direct signal, and causes constructive, neutral, or
destructive interference patterns (inset in Figure 28.37a).
The expected interference pattern from horizontal, planar
ground reflection with a constant frequency can be
described as follows [566]:
4πH
SNR = A e sin sin e + ϕ 28 40
λ
where SNR is the measured signal-to-noise ratio (dB), A is
the is the signal amplitude, H is the antenna’s phase center
height above the reflecting surface, ϕ is the phase, and λ is
the GPS signal wavelength (19 and 24 cm for L1 and L2,
respectively). For a known reflection geometry, the
observed interference pattern changes reflect mainly varia-
tions in the scattering characteristics of the ground surface

(a) (b)
First fresnel zone: one satellite
GPS signals transmitted 5
7
at 1.5 and 1.2 GHz 10
2.5
15
meters
al

0 20
ign

25
ts

–2.5
c
re

Elevation
Di

–5 angels
0 10 20 30 40
meters
(c)
All fresnel zones-western U.S.
50

25
GPS antenna height, 2.5 m

meters

–25

Reflected signal
e e –50
–50 –25 0 25 50
Planar surface meters

Figure 28.37 Principles of GPS-IR. (a) Multipath geometry for a GPS antenna surrounded by a horizontal scattering surface. The antenna
measures the interference between the direct (blue) and reflected (red) signals. Interference examples are shown in the center of the
figure. The satellite elevation angle in marked by e. (b) Calculated Fresnel zone for a single satellite track with satellite elevation angles of
7 , 10 , 15 , 20 , and 25 . Antenna location is marked by the black square‚ and its height is assumed to be 1.8 m. (c) Map view of GPS-IR
footprint for northern hemisphere, mid-latitude locations. Source: Adapted from Larson [566]. Reproduced with permission of John
Wiley & Sons.

c28.3d 795 15/12/2020 5:58:21 PM

 796 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
surrounding the GPS antenna. For typical GPS sites, GPS-
IR is sensitive to surface changes occurring within a radius
of about 30 m around the antenna. Interference pattern
changes are most easily detected from data acquired below
angles of 25 elevation angle (Figure 28.37b). However, the
method cannot detect surface changes within a ~60
section north of the antenna in the northern hemisphere,
or south of the antenna in the southern hemisphere,
because of the 55 inclination of GPS satellite orbits
(Figure 28.37c). At the poles, it is possible to detect reflected
signals at all azimuths.
Measured SNR changes result from changes in the reflec-
tion geometry and/or surface scattering characteristics. The
reflection geometry can be determined by two parameters,
the elevation angle (e) and phase center height (H)
(Figure 28.37a) (Eq. (28.40)), whereas the surface scattering
characteristics affect both the amplitude (A) and phase (ϕ)
of the measured sinusoidal SNR signal (Eq. (28.40)). For
known reflection geometries, the amplitude and phase of
the observed SNR can be estimated using a least-squares
approach. Amplitude changes are sensitive to changes in
surface roughness and correlate well with changes in veg-
etation water content [567]. Phase changes are sensitive to
changes in surface dielectric properties and correlate well
with the volumetric soil moisture in the top 5 cm of soil
[568]. When the reflection geometry changes, as in the case
of snow accumulation on the ground around the antenna,
the phase center of the reflector height (H) can be estimated
using periodograms of the reflected data. In summary,
interference patterns observed by GPS-IR can be translated
to changes in three parameters – amplitude, phase, and
phase center height – which are used for estimating surface
changes in soil moisture, vegetation water content, and
snow height, respectively. More detailed discussions on
scattering models of various surfaces, the GPS-IR signal
parameters estimation methods, as well as the surface
changes information retrieval methods are discussed in
detail in Chapter 34.
28.6.4.2 Soil Moisture
Soil moisture is an important hydrological parameter repre-
senting the amount of water (per volume) held in the spaces
between soil particles, which serve as the main water source
for vegetation. Thus, intermediate or high levels of soil mois-
ture are essential for vegetation growth. Soil moisture is also
important parameter in determining the absorption capabil-
ity of the soil to rainwater, onset of runoff, and ability to fore-
cast flood events. Because soil moisture varies in both space
and time, it is hard to provide good estimates of this param-
eter. In situ measurements typically provide high temporal
point measurements, whereas space-based remote sensing
observation provides periodic measurements integrated over
c28.3d 796
wide areas. GPS-IR provides high temporal and intermediate
spatial scale observations (footprint of ~1000 m2), which is a
very useful scale for calibrating space-based soil moisture
satellite observations.
GPS-IR soil moisture estimates are based on least-squares
estimates of phase changes in the multipath pattern ϕ
(Eq. (28.40)). These phase estimates are converted to the
volumetric soil moisture using an electromagnetic forward
model [557, 569]. The capability of GPS-IR to monitor soil
moisture was tested using arrays of in situ soil moisture
probes, which found that GPS-IR well represents soil mois-
ture changes in the upper 5 cm of the soil [569, 570]
(Figure 28.38a). The comparison between GPS-IR and in
situ observations indicates that GPS-IR estimates can infer,
in great temporal detail, soil moisture changes during and
following rain events.
28.6.4.3 Snow Depth
Snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) are other
important hydrological parameters indicative of the
amount of water stored as snow in cold climate regions.
GPS-IR snow depth estimates can be obtained because
snow accumulation beneath and around a GPS antenna
changes the phase center height above the reflecting sur-
face H (Eq. (28.40)). Higher accumulation of snow reduces
the phase center height above the surface, which can be
detected by the multipath pattern changes. Systematic stud-
ies comparing the GPS-IR snow depth estimated with in
situ measurements reveal a very good agreement between
the two measurement types, within 5 cm differences
[571–573]. The example presented in Figure 28.38b shows
a very good agreement between GPS-IR and manual snow
depth measurements in Niwot Ridge, Colorado [566], as
well as the good temporal resolution of the GPS-IR tech-
nique in monitoring temporal variations of snow depth.
Hydrologists prefer SWE over snow depth measure-
ments. The GPS-IR snow depth results can be converted
to SWE using snow density measurements [573]. Compar-
isons between in situ measurements and these GPS-IR SWE
products show an accuracy of about 2 cm.
28.6.4.4 Vegetation Growth
Remotely sensed vegetation growth parameters are typi-
cally obtained from spaceborne optical multi-spectral
observations, which reflect vegetation health conditions
over wide areas. One such vegetation growth parameter
is the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI),
which measures plant “greenness” or photosynthetic activ-
ity; it is widely used for assessing vegetation health, mainly
in response to water or nutrient stresses. Due to low tempo-
ral resolution of space-based observations, vegetation
15/12/2020 5:58:22 PM
 28.6 Environmental Monitoring 797

(a) Volumetric Soil Moisture

0.5
Soil Moisture (cm3 cm–3)

CS616 probe GPS Theta probe

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
Jan Jul Jan Jul Jan
2012 2012 2013 2013 2014

(b) Snow Depth

2.15 GPS
Manual
Snow depth (m)

1.5

0.5

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Year

(c) GPS Vegetation Index

0.2 GPS Wheatland, WY

NDVI
0.15 0.4

0.1
0.3
0.05

0 0.2
560 Cumulative Precip.
mm

280
0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Figure 28.38 Environmental applications of GPS-IR. (a) Comparison between soil moisture measured by GPS-IR (black dots) and in
situ probes installed at 2.5 cm depth within 250 m of the GPS antenna (blue line, which represents the average value). Other soil moisture
measurements are derived from theta probe surveys (yellow dots). (b) Comparison between snow depth measured by GPS-IR (blue)
and episodic in situ measurements (red) at the Niwot Ridge, Colorado. (c) Top: GPS-derived vegetation water content index compared
with 16-day Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data. Bottom:
Cumulative precipitation calculated by the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). Source: Adapted from Larson [566];
Larson and Small [567]; Chew et al. [569]. Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature and John Wiley & Sons.

growth parameters, as NDVI, are obtained with a temporal
resolution of weeks to months. In addition, optical remote
sensing observations are affected by cloud cover, which fur-
ther reduces the temporal resolution of space-based vegeta-
tion growth parameters.
GPS-IR provides an independent estimate of vegetation
growth parameters with high temporal resolution of one
day. In some cases, vegetation growth can be based on
amplitude changes in the multipath SNR pattern A(e)
(Eq. (28.40)) [574]. Another method for measuring
vegetation growth with GPS-IR is based on the pseudor-
ange multipath observable [575, 576]. A systematic compar-
ison between the GPS-IR vegetation growth index and
NDVI shows a very good agreement between the two obser-
vation types, suggesting that the GPS-IR index is well suited
to monitor vegetation health conditions [576, 577]
(Figure 28.38c). Furthermore, the significantly higher tem-
poral resolution of the GPS-IR vegetation growth index
reveals temporal details that cannot be obtained from the
NDVI time series.

c28.3d 797 15/12/2020 5:58:22 PM

 798 28 GNSS Geodesy in Geophysics, Natural Hazards, Climate‚ and the Environment
28.6.4.5 Water Level Changes
A fourth application of GPS-IR is detection and monitoring
of water level changes, which can be obtained by analyzing
data acquired by GPS stations located less than ~100 m
from water bodies. The most direct usage of this application
is for monitoring relative sea level change, as induced
by tides and ocean currents. These water levels are
intrinsically defined in a terrestrial reference frame
(Section 8.3.6). The method can also be applied to monitor
water level changes in freshwater bodies, such as lakes
or reservoirs. Similar to the snow depth detection
(Section 28.6.4.3), the multipath SNR signal can be used
to detect height changes between the antenna’s phase cen-
ter and the reflecting surface. In the snow depth case, the
height change in the reflection surface is assumed to be
from all directions, whereas in the case of water level mon-
itoring, the multipath information is obtained from the
section that is in slant view of the water body. Comparison
between tide gauge records and GPS-IR estimates of sea
level changes reveals that the accuracy of a single GPS-IR
measurement is in the range of 5–10 cm [533, 159], but
an assessment of continuous GPS measurements provides
sub-centimeter agreement in tidal coefficients [578].
Although GPS-IR sea level observations will not replace
tide gauge measurements, they can be very useful in areas
with a large component of vertical land movement, since a
single GPS instrument can measure both relative sea level
changes using the multipath SNR changes and vertical land
movements using the direct GPS signal [527]. They might
also become the tide gauge of choice in difficult operational
environments such as the polar regions.
28.7 Conclusions
We have reviewed in this chapter the significant (if not rev-
olutionary) impact of GPS geodesy, over the last 25 years, on
the study of the solid Earth, natural hazards, climate‚ and the
environment. There are a growing number of employment
opportunities as Earth science departments are hiring new
faculty with an interest in GPS geodesy. The field is attracting
new geophysics students, in particular women, who enjoy
the combination of field and laboratory work. This interest
is apparent, for example, in the annual conference of the
American Geophysical Union in Geodesy, Seismology, Tec-
tonophysics, Natural Hazards and Hydrology sections. In the
United States, funding for geodetic research is primarily
through NASA and the National Science Foundation. An
issue, at least in the United States, is the limited number
of groups with young talent who are working on the
c28.3d 798
technical aspects of GPS modernization and GNSS, includ-
ing software development; most of that activity is occurring
in Europe and East Asia although it continues at the JPL and
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is offset by
organizations such as UNAVCO and the IGS that provide
technical services including fieldwork support, GPS network
operations, data analysis and archiving, workshops, advo-
cacy‚ and outreach. The regional and global infrastructure
for GPS geodesy is impressive with over 10,000 cGPS sta-
tions, with a growing number that provide high-rate data
in real time. Finally, we have stressed how GPS geodesy
has significantly contributed to a deeper understanding of
our planet, efficient use of natural resources‚ and improved
safety and quality of life.
Acknowledgments
We thank our colleagues at SOPAC, Peng Fang, Maria Tur-
ingan‚ and Anne Sullivan‚ for their contributions. Emilie
Klein provided useful comments. Figures and photos were
generously provided by John Beavan, Michael Bevis, Peter
Bird, David Chadwell, Clara Chew, Brent Delbridge, Dan
Dzurisin, Yuri Fialko, Dara Goldberg, Bill Hammond,
Makan Karegar, Abbas Khan, Suhab Khan, Kristine Lar-
son, Michael Lisowski, Dieder Massonet, Mario Mattia,
Diego Melgar, D. Glen Offield, Batu Osmanoğlu, Linette
Prawirodirdjo, David Sandwell, James Savage, Gina
Schmalzle, Christopher Scholz, Paul Segall, Giovanni Sella,
Peter Shearer, Freysteinn Sigmundson, Lina Su, Xiaopeng
Tong, Laura Wallace, Kelin Wang, Paul Winberry‚ and Guy
Wöppelmann. Funding support for the first author was pro-
vided by US government agencies including the NASA
grants NNX14AQ53G, NNX12AH55G, NNX12AK24G,
NNX14AT33G, NNX17AD99G, NNX16AM04A, the
National Science Foundation (NSF) grants EAR-1252186
(EarthScope) and EAR-1252187, and the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) grant
NA10OAR4320156 (CIMEC). Funding support for the sec-
ond author was provided by NASA grants NNX12AK23G,
NNX12AQ08G, and 80NSSC17K0098 and NSF grants
EAR-1417126, EAR-1620617‚ and EAR-1713420. We thank
Sharona Benami and Sandra Coiffman for their inspiration.
This chapter is dedicated to Robert W. King (MIT), Haim
Papo and Leslie Stoch (Technion, Israel Institute of Tech-
nology), and Richard J. O’Connell (Harvard University),
who passed away in 2016. Finally, we thank the editor,
Y.T. Jade Morton, for her support in making this manu-
script a reality.
15/12/2020 5:58:23 PM

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