Navigation Enabler for Single Satellite Vehicle

摘要

All previous pre-launch verification of a GNSS satellite vehicle(SV) involving actual receivers is limited to static, tracking-only tests due to the receiver's inability to form a Position, Velocity and Time (PVT) solution while the SV is still on the ground. These tests are considered inadequate in revealing any issues that manifest only when PVT solutions can be formed in a dynamic environment. Additionally, with the growing number of new GNSS systems being developed and new ranging signals being introduced into existing systems, it is of great interest to the GNSS community to verify the interoperability between receivers and a full constellation of SVs in space while the SV is still in the development stage, as it can be cost prohibitive and sometimes impossible to fix any implementation issues post-launch. Navigation Enabler for Single SV(NESS)1 is a novel process invented to address this need by producing a virtual constellation of GNSS signals with which receivers can navigate in real-time, using actual signals(s) transmitted by a single SV (or equivalent engineering model) under laboratory test conditions. By leveraging a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) RF recording and playback system, NESS processes and combines multiple RF recording segments from a single SV into a new recording which appears exactly as a multitude of signals from an entire constellation in space. A PVT solution can then be obtained when this new recording is played back in real time to an ordinary receiver.