Performance Assessment of Galileo Ranging Signals Transmitted by GSTB-V2 Satellites

A. Simsky, J-M. Sleewaegen, M. Hollreiser, M. Crisci

Abstract:	The ranging signals of Galileo, the new European global satellite navigation system, are using advanced code modulation schemes, which are expected to provide significant improvement of the tracking and multipath performance as compared to current GPS. These expectations can now be verified with the launch of GIOVE-A, the first of the two GSTB-V2 satellites. In this paper we present the first performance analysis of the GIOVE-A measurements, collected with the use of Septentrio’s GETR receiver, specifically developed for the reception of GSTB-V2 signals. This paper presents information on signal power, tracking noise and multipath performance of GIOVE-A ranging signals. The main conclusion is: tracking/multipath performance of all the foreseen Galileo code modulations is significantly better than for existing GPS codes. In agreement with theory, wide-band Galileo codes, which use advanced BOC modulations, show exceptional multipath rejection, especially with respect to the longrange multipath, that is practically eliminated by L1A, E6A and E5AltBOC modulations, the latter being the most remarkable because it brings exceptional multipath performance to open-service users. It is shown that the Galileo signals with lower amplitudes of multipath errors exhibit weaker elevation dependence of multipath noise. For the high-performance E5AltBOC, the total reduction of multipath compared to GPS-CA is, according to our observations, by a factor of about 5. Multi-frequency signals of GIOVE-A present a unique opportunity to experiment with multi-frequency combinations of observables which are not available with today’s dual-frequency GPS. In particular, triple-frequency combinations of observables can be used for the assessment of phase multipath and also have a number of other uses. Occurrences of false locks on side correlation peaks in L1BC BOC(1,1) code are also discussed.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2006) September 26 - 29, 2006 Fort Worth Convention Center Fort Worth, TX
Pages:	1547 - 1559
Cite this article:	Simsky, A., Sleewaegen, J-M., Hollreiser, M., Crisci, M., "Performance Assessment of Galileo Ranging Signals Transmitted by GSTB-V2 Satellites," Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2006), Fort Worth, TX, September 2006, pp. 1547-1559.
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