GNSS Software Defined Radio: History, Current Developments, and Standardization Efforts

Dennis Akos, Javier Arribas, M. Zahidul H. Bhuiyan, Pau Closas, Fabio Dovis, Ignacio Fernandez-Hernandez, Carles Fernández–Prades, Sanjeev Gunawardena, Todd Humphreys, Zaher M. Kassas, José A. López Salcedo, Mario Nicola, Thomas Pany, Mark L. Psiaki, Alexander Rügamer, Young-Jin Song, Jong-Hoon Won

Abstract: Taking the work conducted by the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Software Defined Radio (SDR) working group during the last decade as a seed, this contribution summarizes for the first time the history of GNSS SDR development. It highlights selected SDR implementations and achievements that are available to the public or influenced the general SDR development. The relation to the standardization process of Intermediate Frequency (IF) sample data and metadata is discussed, and a recent update of the Institute of Navigation (ION) SDR standard is recapitulated. The work focuses on GNSS SDR implementations on general purpose processors and leaves aside developments conducted on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) platforms. Data collection systems (i.e., front-ends) have always been of paramount importance for GNSS SDRs and are thus partly covered in this work. The work represents the knowledge of the authors but is not meant as a complete description of SDR history. Part of the authors plan to coordinate a more extensive work on this topic in the near future.
Published in: Proceedings of the 35th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2022)
September 19 - 23, 2022
Hyatt Regency Denver
Denver, Colorado
Pages: 3180 - 3209
Cite this article: Updated citation: Published in NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation
Full Paper: ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit
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