Direction-of-Arrival and Doppler-Based Positioning with Starlink and OneWeb LEO Satellites

Paul El-Kouba, Sharbel Kozhaya, Zaher M. Kassas

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	This paper demonstrates for the first time in the literature receiver positioning with Starlink and OneWeb low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites using direction-of-arrival (DOA) and Doppler measurements. First, the paper presents a model that is adequate to describe received signals from highly dynamic LEO satellites and discusses a receiver design that extracts Doppler and DOA measurements. The receiver entails two main engines: the first uses blind signal processing techniques to estimate repetitive sequences present in LEO satellites signals and use them to track their Doppler shift, whereas the second uses power-based technique to infer DOA measurements from overhead satellites. Second, the paper develops three stationary receiver poisoning frameworks using an unscented Kalman filter (UKF). The first employs Doppler measurements only, the second employs DOA measurements, and the third uses both Doppler and DOA measurements. Third, the paper presents simulation results that studies the effect of using erroneous satellite ephemerides on Doppler- and DOA-based positioning. Finally, the paper presents experimental results showing successful opportunistic positioning of a stationary receiver with 4 Starlink and 4 OneWeb LEO satellites using Doppler and DOA measurements. Starting from an initial receiver position error of 3 km, results showed a final two-dimensional (2D) position error of 94 m using Doppler positioning, 23 m using DOA positioning, and 44 m using joint Doppler and DOA measurements. The paper shows that DOA-based positioning is less sensitive to model mismatch induced by erroneous ephemerides sources compared to Doppler-based positioning.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 38th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2025) September 8 - 12, 2025 Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor Baltimore, Maryland
Pages:	2360 - 2369
Cite this article:	El-Kouba, Paul, Kozhaya, Sharbel, Kassas, Zaher M., "Direction-of-Arrival and Doppler-Based Positioning with Starlink and OneWeb LEO Satellites," Proceedings of the 38th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2025), Baltimore, Maryland, September 2025, pp. 2360-2369. https://doi.org/10.33012/2025.20327
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