Analysis of GNSS Beamforming and Angle of Arrival Estimation in Multipath Environments

M.H. Keshvadi, A. Broumandan, G. Lachapelle

Abstract:	In the past decade the use of antenna arrays has been used by researchers to enhance signal detection and parameter estimation performance. A primary use of such system would be to estimate the Angle of Arrival (AoA) of incoming signals. Another possible application of antenna arrays for wireless navigation, which is called beamforming, is to mitigate multipath and other RF interferences through adjusting the beam towards the desired signal direction and also steering the nulls of the array towards the interfering signals. To reduce the hardware complexity of real physical arrays, virtual arrays can be synthesized by moving a fewer number of antennas and capturing and combining the signals promptly. The focus of this paper is to investigate the performance of a synthetic Uniform Circular Array (UCA) and associated processing methods under mild to harsh multipath environments. The first goal of the paper is to estimate the AoA of the incoming GNSS signals in various multipath conditions to characterize the incoming signals Angle Spread (AS). Furthermore, the performance of beamforming via array gain will be assessed to explore the advantages and limitations of beamforming in such conditions. Such information can be used in context aware software receivers to enhance position estimation performance by altering the navigation strategy in multipath conditions.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2011 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 24 - 26, 2011 Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	427 - 435
Cite this article:	Keshvadi, M.H., Broumandan, A., Lachapelle, G., "Analysis of GNSS Beamforming and Angle of Arrival Estimation in Multipath Environments," Proceedings of the 2011 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 2011, pp. 427-435.
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In