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Motivation
Applications
Satellite-based positioning systems
Basic principle
Error sources
Error mitigation
GNSS receiver operation
Summary

- Bibliography:
Nel Samama, ’Global Positioning- Technologies and Performance’, Wiley & Sons
book.
K. Borre, D. Akos, N. Bertelsen & al. ” A software-defined GPS and Galileo
receiver- Single Frequency approach”, Birkhäuser Boston Ed., 2007.

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With satellite-based positioning we can acquire:
global coverage (with some limitations, for example
indoors)
good accuracy
Integrity, especially if several Global Navigation Satellite
Systems (GNSS) are used together.

Inexpensive satellite navigation receivers:

Magellan (980588-01) handheld GPS receiver at about 30 EUR,
a Garmin NUVI215 GPS receiver with UK and Ireland maps at
about 100 EUR
According to the available maps inside the GPS receiver, price
can reach few hundred EUR (e.g., TomTom GO750 with
navigation routes currently at about 300 EUR)

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transportation (air, land, maritime),
surveying and mapping,
agriculture,
telecommunications,
natural resources exploration,
commercial, etc.

The current global market of applications and services of

positioning systems is estimated to about few billion US
dollars (according to the estimation source) and it is
expected to grow significantly in the future. According
to http://www.gpspls.com/, the revenue for GPS
chipsets is expected to grow at an average annual
growth rate of 11 %”

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School Bus Tracking: enable school officials
to continuously know the location of all buses,
route them more efficiently, monitor speeding
and cut costs.
Snow Plow Tracking: keep track of the location
of plows and record the areas which have been
serviced.
GPS-Equipped Bus Routes: the city of
Edinburgh, Scotland has a "Bus-tracker" system
that tracks the location of city buses. When an
emergency or crime occurs the bus location is
immediately available. In addition the bus
transmits its location and speed and this
information is used to display estimated time
of arrivals at street-side bus stops.
GPS-Equipped Taxi Cabs: when a call for a cab
comes in, the dispatcher can use a GPS tracking
system to locate the cab nearest to the pick-
up.

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Surveying: the technique and science of accurately
determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional
space position of points and the distances and
angles between them.
Cost
Usability
Accuracy

Mapping: Cartography

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Tractor Guidance: Farmers can plow their fields with a
recording GPS system. Then, the tractor can then be
programmed to follow the same route for cultivating,
fertilizing, pest control and harvesting.
Tracking Livestock: The location of valuable animals on a
large farm can be monitored by GPS transmitters attached to
the animals collar

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They can be summarized into 5 broad categories:

Location = determining a basic position (e.g.,

emergency calls)
Navigation = getting from one location to another
(e.g., car navigation)
Tracking = monitoring the movement of people
and things (e.g., fleet management)
Mapping = creating maps of the world
Timing = bringing precise timing to the world

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 TRIP PLANNING & SAFETY
GAMES/INFOTAINMENT

SEARCH & RESCUE

MOBILE ROBOT PERSONAL NAVIGATION FLEET TRACKING PERSONAL ASSISTANCE

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Autonomous
Lawn Mower

GPS digital compass

(99.99$ in Amazon)

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Navstar Global Positioning (GPS)
Military controlled
Development started in early 70s
Fully operational
Under modernization process

EU GPS market share US GPS market share

Source: http://gpsmagazine.com/2008/05/ (data from 2007)

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GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS)
Russian Space Forces
Back in full operation soon
Galileo
Joint effort: European Space Agency & EU Commission
Up and running by 2019?
Interoperable with GPS
Better (?)
BeiDou (COMPASS)
China's ongoing self-development
Planned to be operational in 2020

Lets see where satellites are now…

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Frequency bands
L-bands for GPS
E-bands for Galileo
GPS Signals
Coarse/Acquisition (C/A) (fc=1.023 MHz)
P(Y) (fc=10.23 MHz)
Galileo Signals
Open Service (OS), Commercial Service (CS), SoL
(Safety of Life), Public Regulated Service (PRS)

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 FDMA (current Russian satellite navigation system) or CDMA
technology (all the other satellite navigation systems).
FDMA= Frequency Division Multiple Access
CDMA = Code Division Multiple Access

Sat1 Sat2 Sat3 Sat4 Sat5 Sat6

code

code

freq

time

freq
time

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Triangulation technique
If at least 3 satellites are available
then, their positions can be found
(ephemeris data)
and the distance between the receiver
and each satellite can be computed
(how?).
Knowledge of the satellite positions
and the their distances from the user
is all what is needed to find the
position of the user (xu,yu,zu).

Is the (xu,yu,zu) position we see in the screen of our GPS receiver?

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The C/A code has chip rate: 1.023MHz

We need to find what is the propagation time

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A.Yes
B.No 2
3
1
4
C.Depends

1 = 23222 km (0.0774 s)
2 = 20200 km (0.0673 s)
3 = 24556 km (0.0819 s)
4 = 21635 km (0.0721 s)

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 Accuracy,
Cost

Atomic clock: ± 1 second in 1 million years

Price: $$$

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Ionosphere
50-1000 km above the earth
Affects both pseudo-range and carrier phase
measurements
The transmitted signal hits the free electrons and
its speed is reduced.
The ionospheric delay is frequency-dependent

Total Electron Content (TEC) depends on latitude of

the receiver, season, time of day, solar activity, etc.

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Troposphere
Caused by the signal refraction in the electrically
non-ionized atmospheric layer
Tropospheric delay is a function of the satellite
elevation angle and the altitude of the receiver
Depends on atmospheric pressure, temperature,
and water vapor pressure
Unlike ionospheric effects, tropospheric ones do
not depend on the signal’s frequency

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Signal multipath: This occurs when the GNSS signal is
reflected off objects such as tall buildings or large rock
surfaces before it reaches the receiver. This increases the
travel time of the signal, thereby causing errors (similar with
cellular systems).

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Non Line-Of-Sight (NLOS): obstruction of the LOS wave due to
thick obstacles (e.g., wave propagation indoors or in urban
canyons with tall buildings).

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Receiver clock errors: a receiver's built-in
clock is not as accurate as the atomic clocks
on-board the satellites. Therefore, it may
have very slight timing errors.

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Orbital errors: also known as ephemeris
errors, these are inaccuracies of the satellite's
reported location.
Number of satellites visible: the more
satellites a GPS receiver can see, the better
the accuracy (we need at least 4).

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 Geometrical distribution of satellites: the geometry of
satellites influences the position accuracy (see plot
below)
Other sources: intentional jamming of the satellite
signals, atmospheric effects that may degrade the
satellite signal quality, etc.

(a) Poor and (b) good

constellation geometries
smaller intersection area =>
better precision

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Source Potential error size
Satellite clock model clock modeling error: 2 m (rms)
Satellite ephemeris Component of the ephemeris prediction error
prediction along the line of sight: 2 m (rms)
Ionospheric delay Delay in zenith direction 2-10 m,
depending upon user latitude, time of the day
and solar activity

Tropospheric delay Delay in zenith direction at sea level 2.3-2.5

m; lower at higher altitudes
Multipath In a “clean” environment:
Code: 0.5-1 m
Carrier: 0.5-1 cm
Receiver noise Code: 0.25-0.5 m (rms)
Carrier phase: 1-2 mm (rms)

•From the book: Understanding GPS: Principles and Applications

by Elliott D. Kaplan and Christopher Hegarty
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Advanced baseband processing (e.g.,
multipath reduction schemes and NLOS
detection and mitigation schemes): more will
be discussed later in this course
Processing at navigation layer, when
combining several measurements
Usage of troposperic & ionospheric models

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Differential GPS (DGPS)
To cancel out common errors (e.g., clock, atmospheric,
ephemeris)
The position of GPS receiver is needed (reference station)
The reference station estimates the errors and transmits
them to the other GPS receiver
Relative positioning
The reference station broadcasts its time-tagged
measurements of pseudoranges
The other GPS receiver estimates its position relative to
the reference receiver
Dual frequency receivers

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 Basic operations shown in the following block
diagram
Sat 1
Sat 2
Sat 3
01011... fD, ...
Sat 4
Navigation unit
Baseband
(computation of
processing
Front-end and position,
(acquisition,
ADC velocity and
tracking, data
time: PVT
extraction
solution)
(x,y,z; t)

Sat =Satellite Coordinates

conversion ->map
position

Hervanta,
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Tietotalo
Antenna
Bandpass filter
Signal amplification
Down-conversion
Bandpass filter
Analogue-to-digital converter

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Captures the satellite signals (e.g. in L bands
for GPS and E bands for Galileo)
Antenna types
Quad helix
Patch antenna (most popular)
Helices
Microstrip (patch antenna is a special case of this)
Planar or choke rings (multipath resistance)

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Remove the interference in RF and IF bands
Select the desired RF or IF frequencies
Typical bandwidths in IF
4 MHz for mass-market receivers
20-24 MHz for professional applications

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Two rx architectures (most common)
Direct conversion
Conversion directly to baseband, no IF stages
Not commercially available (under research
investigation)
Super-heterodyne
Down-conversion from RF to IF (usually very low)

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Acquisition
Identify all the visible to the user satellites
Produce coarse estimates for the frequency and the
code phase
Different search methods:
Serial
Parallel
Hybrid

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Tracking
Fine estimate of the code and carrier
“Keep estimating precisely”
Navigation bit extraction
Bit synchronization: determine the start/stop of
each bit
Frame synchronization: determine the start/stop of
the navigation data frames
Data decoding: extract the necessary parameters
from the transmitted bits

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 Satellite-based positioning offers global
coverage with high accuracy
During the last 3 decades there has been a
tremendous development of satellite-based
products and applications
One of the main challenges is the provision of
position information to indoor users
There is still plenty of space for improvement

Our group’s web-page:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/tlt/pos/
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Examples of GPS/GNSS applications
How is the position calculated based on
pseudoranges?
Which are the most common sources of
errors in satellite-based positioning ?
Basic block diagram of a GNSS receiver (with
basic explanations about the functionality of
each block)

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