Efficient GNSS Signal Acquisition with Massive Parallel Algorithms using GPUs

T. Pany, B. Riedl, J. Winkel

Abstract:	This paper describes our implementation efforts when porting the SX navigation software receiver (NSR) acquisition code from the central processing unit (CPU) to a graphics processing unit (GPU). GPUs are known to provide immense processing power in highly parallel environment. We could achieve with an NVIDIA GTX 480 graphics card a number of 19 million equivalent correlators when acquiring GPS C/A code signals. This virtually allows us to search all GPS C/A PRNs in realtime in parallel on a dense Doppler (62.5 Hz) and code phase (0.25 chip) grid covering +/- 5.8 kHz. A cold start acquisition sensitivity of 19 dBHz and a warm start sensitivity of 15 dBHz is the consequence. At this sensitivity levels, interference effects become important and need to be accounted for. The algorithms are part of the free software receiver version downloadable at http://www.ifen.com.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2010) September 21 - 24, 2010 Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon Portland, OR
Pages:	1889 - 1895
Cite this article:	Pany, T., Riedl, B., Winkel, J., "Efficient GNSS Signal Acquisition with Massive Parallel Algorithms using GPUs," Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2010), Portland, OR, September 2010, pp. 1889-1895.
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