A flexible implementation of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver for on-board satellite navigation

In this paper, we present the implementation of the acquisition algorithm of a versatile Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver for satellite applications. For versatility purpose, the choice of the receiver algorithms has been motivated by 1) their capability to fulfill the application requirements with a moderate complexity, 2) their capability of being factorized in a small set of elementary modules that can be configured and combined in various ways in order to process both GPS and Galileo current and future signals. These algorithms have been specified using SystemC, a modeling language that can be common to hardware and software flow. The use of a virtual platform for simulation allows us to identify bottleneck of the architecture and to propose algorithm modification to solve them.

1. INTRODUCTION

This paper presents the current status of a project aiming to construct a flexible Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver to be placed on board in a satellite. This receiver should be flexible in order to cope several types of GNSS signals (GPS, Galileo as well as future signal). It should also be able to give a position solution for different type of satellite mission (Low, Medium, Geostationary Earth Orbiter), each mission having different characteristics in term of Doppler excursion, range of SNR, mean duration of visibility of a GNSS satellite.