NovAtel's Galileo Test Receiver

Neil Gerein, Michael Olynik, Michael Clayton, Jonathan Auld and Tony Murfin

Abstract:	The Galileo System Test Bed Version 2 (GSTB-V2) test satellites are scheduled to be launched shortly. In preparation of this highly anticipated event, NovAtel, sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), has been developing a Galileo Test Receiver (GTR). Under the first phase of this development, NovAtel designed a single frequency transmitter/receiver pair to evaluate Galileo BOC(1,1) performance. In October 2004 NovAtel was awarded a second contract by the CSA to extend this work to an L1/E5a dual frequency GTR. The GTR includes a new FPGA based L1/E5a receiver card. This new receiver card is integrated into a modified version of NovAtel’s WAAS GUS Type 1 ground reference receiver. The highly modular nature of the GTR will allow other frequencies and services to be added to the unit in the future. To support testing and evaluation prior to a Galileo signal-in-space, a single channel L1/E5a Galileo transmitter has also been developed. The L1/E5a transmitter is based on an existing L1/L5 Signal Generator design. The final deliverable system is suitable for both in-lab demonstrations and signal-in-space testing purposes. The overall architecture of the GTR will be discussed. An overview of the FPGA based dual-frequency receiver card will be given. The modular nature of the GTR, possible with the integrated backplane, will be presented. The initial laboratory performance results of the GTR will also be presented, and possible future work will be detailed.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2005) September 13 - 16, 2005 Long Beach Convention Center Long Beach, CA
Pages:	1871 - 1877
Cite this article:	Gerein, Neil, Olynik, Michael, Clayton, Michael, Auld, Jonathan, Murfin, Tony, "NovAtel's Galileo Test Receiver," Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2005), Long Beach, CA, September 2005, pp. 1871-1877.
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