The MBOC Modulation: The Final Touch to the Galileo Frequency and Signal Plan

Jose-Angel Avila-Rodriguez, Guenter W. Hein, Stefan Wallner, Jean-Luc Issler, Lionel Ries, Laurent Lestarquit, Antoine de Latour, Jeremie Godet, Frederic Bastide, Tony Pratt, John Owen

Abstract:	The way to the signals Galileo has today as baseline has been tedious and long, but has followed a logic from the start. From the very beginning, one of the main challenges that Galileo set to itself was to offer three wide band signals, satisfying at the same time the requirements of mass market and pushing the potential performance of the navigation signals to its natural limits. The historical Agreement [1] on the Promotion, Provision, and Use of Galileo and GPS Satellite-Based Navigation Systems and Related Applications between the US and the EC, signed in 2004, where both parties agreed on working together, had impacted the initially planned signals but has intensified the cooperation on interoperability and compatibility issues between Galileo and GPS for the maximum benefit of users worldwide. The final touch to the Galileo signal plan was achieved in 2006 when the Working group on GPS and Galileo compatibility and interoperability, under the auspices of the Agreement, finally concluded [2] on the great interest of a new modulation for the common signal Modulation in the E1/L1 frequency, namely the Multiplex Binary Offset Carrier, or MBOC for short ([3], [4]). This was pursuant to efforts mainly driven by the European side and fully recognized by the US representatives. Galileo has thus accomplished the original objective of providing three wide band signals for the civilian GNSS community. This paper will try to shed some light in the long process that has led to the signal baseline we have today. Special care will be put in describing all the modulations of the final Galileo Signal Plan. After many years of intensive work on the European side, the final Galileo Signal Plan is presented and analyzed.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2007) September 25 - 28, 2007 Fort Worth Convention Center Fort Worth, TX
Pages:	1515 - 1529
Cite this article:	Updated citation: Published in NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation
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