METHOD OF ESTIMATING THE

CARRIER PHASE GENERATION

ERROR BY GNSS SIMULATORS

Presented By:
Aakriti Lamichhane
Aditya Kushwaha

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Introduction
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is a general term for a system that provides navigation and
other services to users worldwide. Each GNSS employs a constellation of satellites, which broadcasts
signals that are processed by GNSS receivers to determine location, speed, and time for users anywhere in
the world.

A GNSS simulator provides an effective and efficient

means to test GNSS receivers and the systems that rely
on them. A GNSS simulator emulates the environment
of a GNSS receiver on a dynamic platform by modelling
vehicle and satellite motion, signal characteristics,
atmospheric and other effects, causing the receiver to
actually navigate according to the parameters of the
test scenario.

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Carrier Signal (Carrier Wave) is an alternating
electromagnetic signal with a steady frequency upon which
information is superimposed by some form of modulation.
Carrier Phase measurement is measure of the difference
between the carrier signal generated by the receiver’s
internal oscillator and the carrier signal from the satellite.
The GNSS simulators are planned for the navigation of radio
signal generation with the purpose of development,
debugging and receiver’s calibration. Receiver’s calibration
is important to pseudorange generation and affects
pseudorange change rate. Pseudorange error is assessed by
code pseudorange and carrier phase.
The carrier phase generation error is estimated by direct
calculation (has certain error value) or by the help of
reference receiver(has uncertain error value). The phase
measurement error is obtained by the sum of bias and
random components. The absolute measurement error
cannot be determined for GNSS simulators as the carrier
frequency are not bounded to the time scale.

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Problem Statement
• GNSS signals are not strictly harmonic so, measuring the phase
difference of such signals is a complex technical problem.
• The existing methods for measuring the phase shift angle between two
navigation signals in the L frequency range are based either on the use
of equally accurate reference phase reference receivers or on
measurements of signal delays using oscillograms.

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Objectives
• To estimate the carrier phase generation error.
• To calibrate the receiver using a signal simulator.
• To measure the phase difference absolute value between the carrier signal and pure reference
sinusoidal signal of the same frequency as the carrier.
• To find new methods which make it possible to determine the phase difference with an accuracy of
several periods of the frequency of the carrier oscillation due to the need to carry out commutation
in the measuring circuit or insufficient resolution of the measuring equipment.

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Methodology

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1) The navigation signal may be represented by in-phase and quadrature components of the carrier
(QPSK-modulation):

where I(t) and Q(t) is a real and imaginary parts of the QPSK signal complex envelope.

2) The pure sinusoidal signal is in the same time scale as navigation signal and it has identical amplitude
and zero initial phase, and can be described in complex form:

where Aref is the reference signal amplitude that can be found by the expression:

where N is the number of measurements.

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3) The phase difference between the model and digital navigation signal is calculated by the following
equation:

4) Having N measurements, the standard deviation of the carrier-phase generation GNSS simulators
instrumental error can be calculated with the next formula:

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Fig: Navigation signal phase modulation compared to the
pure sinusoidal signal

Fig: Phase difference between the model and navigational

signal 9
5) Method Validation
• Validation process is conducted to confirm the characteristics declared by the manufacturer.
• Oscilloscope, GNSS simulator and frequency rubidium are used to carry out the validation process.
• Oscillator receives the samples on the positive edge of simulator.
• To reduce the phase measurement noise, simulator and oscilloscope are synchronized.
• Measurement time scale is tied to the reference signal simulator output.

Fig: Connection for measurement of phase scale

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 Result
• A new method has been developed for measuring the phase difference of the carriers of the
navigation signals generated by GNSS-simulator, which, in contrast to the currently used oscillogram
method, is based on the use of a multichannel high-frequency analogue-to-digital conversion to
measure the parameters of the GNSS-simulator.
• The carrier-phase generation GNSS simulators error is a most importance to receiver calibration.
• The considered method allows us to estimate the simulator carrier phase quality. Low phase noise
features stability of time parameters and high signal quality.
• The method allows estimating the in-phase and quadrature QPSK-signal components orthogonality.
• The proposed method had validation and showed the simplicity of its practical implementation
despite the limitation.

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Challenges
• The systematic component of phase measurements is difficult to identify because of circuit
Phase-Frequency Characteristics (PFC) unevenness from digital-analog conversion output of a
simulator to analog-digital conversion output of a phase measuring instrument.

• A PFC unevenness leads to group-delay time unevenness, which determinate a bias component
of the carrier-phase measurement error.

• The absolute measurement error of the carrier-phase generation simulator devoid of physical
meaning and cannot be determined for GNSS simulators in which the carrier frequency is not
tied to a time scale.

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Future Research Improvements
• For development of method different limitations are taken into consideration, in future we can
extend the limits of consideration.

• The boundaries of the systematic error of the phase difference measurement method can be
calculated and taken into consideration.

• The component of the error due to the measurement of the phase difference with the
oscilloscope by indirect method can be calculated and taken into consideration.

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Thank
You
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