Gain Pattern Reconstruction of GPS Satellite Antennas Using a Global Receiver Network

Gerardo Allende-Alba, Steffen Thoelert, and Stefano Caizzone

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	For GNSS signal power monitoring systems, the characterization of satellite antennas plays an important role. Recently, gain pattern reconstructions of Galileo satellite antennas have been obtained using single-station observations. However, due to the characteristics of GPS orbits, such an approach is less suitable for GPS satellite antennas. This study introduces a methodology for multi-station satellite antenna gain pattern reconstruction. To overcome the unavailability of receiver antenna gain patterns at the employed stations, a dedicated algorithm is introduced that uses an antenna at a base station to remotely characterize the antennas in network stations. Obtained reconstructions of L1 antenna gain patterns of selected GPS satellites show a consistency at the 0.3–0.4 dB level (95%) with data provided by the manufacturer and better than 0.3 dB (95%) with ground-based observations using a high-gain antenna. The introduced methodology may be employed in the establishment of permanent multi-constellation GNSS signal power monitoring systems.
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Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 69, Number 3
Cite this article:	Citation Tools https://doi.org/10.33012/navi.530
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