Abstract: | Precise and reliable navigation is getting more and more important in daily life – especially with respect to novel safety of life related applications which rise stringent requirements on navigation systems. The modernization of existing satellite navigation systems like GPS, GLONASS and the construction of new systems such as Galileo or COMPASS are a result of this trend and need. In order to guarantee a reliable and accurate positioning with modernized, new and even existing GNSSs, it is essential to analyze and verify the performance of those navigation systems. This implies a detailed quality assessment of all system components and especially of the quality of the signals in space (SIS) provided by the GNSSs. For getting accurate verification results it is essential to calibrate the measurement setup including antenna and RF components very accurately. The paper presents the developments needed for setting up a high-performance antenna and measurement setup for navigation signal verification and analysis as well as the problems and solutions which are coming up in the case of accurate calibration. The accurate calibration of such a measurement setup including a high gain antenna with a remaining cumulated calibration error of smaller than 1dB – aim of the setup is to reach in maximum 0.7dB calibration error – and pointing errors below 0.1° is a very challenging task which requires powerful calibration procedures and techniques. Simple state-of-the-art solutions do not allow achieving this goal. Therefore, suitable calibration methods and means are developed and tested by using well known signals from GPS and EGNOS satellites or solar stars. The novel powerful calibration procedures are discussed and obtained results are studied. The second part of the paper deals with high accuracy GNSS signal measurements and analysis where a special focus is laid on Galileo, GPS and Compass. Suitable analysis methods and measures are derived, introduced and a detailed analysis of exemplary GNSS signals is given. Different representations of the signal like spectra, time-domain representations, correlation functions, and IQ-diagrams are used as a basis for analyzing the measurement data and for evaluating the signal quality. |
Published in: |
Proceedings of the 2009 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 26 - 28, 2009 Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel Anaheim, CA |
Pages: | 289 - 300 |
Cite this article: | Thoelert, S., Erker, S., Meurer, M., "GNSS Signal Verification with a High Gain Antenna-Calibration Strategies and High Quality Signal Assessment," Proceedings of the 2009 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Anaheim, CA, January 2009, pp. 289-300. |
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