Galileo Synthetic Meta-Signals: Performance and Limitations

Daniele Borio, Ciro Gioia

Abstract: Global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) broadcast several signals on different frequencies, which can be combined to enhance receiver processing and positioning performance. A possible approach to fully exploit GNSS capabilities is to combine multi-frequency measurements in order to reconstruct the observations that one would obtain by adopting complex multifrequency receiver algorithms designed for GNSS meta-signals. A meta-signal is obtained when components from different frequencies are considered and processed as a single entity. The meta-signal reconstruction approach is further developed and it is shown that meta-signal high-accuracy pseudoranges are obtained by correcting subcarrier measurements by an integer number of subcarrier wavelengths. This integer number of subcarrier cycles is estimated by rounding a code-carrier linear combination, which is strictly related to the Hatch Wübbena Melbourne (HMW) combination. The measurement reconstruction approach is used to investigate the performance and limitations of the different meta-signal combinations obtained using Galileo signals. While significant improvements are obtained when signal components from close frequencies are selected, the reconstruction approach becomes unreliable for large frequency separations. In this respect, jumps and discontinuities are observed in the position domain. Experimental analysis shows the potential and limitations of the meta-signal paradigm and confirms that the frequency separation between side-band components is a major limiting factor for this type of approach.
Published in: Proceedings of the 36th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2023)
September 11 - 15, 2023
Hyatt Regency Denver
Denver, Colorado
Pages: 763 - 777
Cite this article: Borio, Daniele, Gioia, Ciro, "Galileo Synthetic Meta-Signals: Performance and Limitations," Proceedings of the 36th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2023), Denver, Colorado, September 2023, pp. 763-777. https://doi.org/10.33012/2023.19353
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