Method and apparatus for improved L2 performance in dual frequency semi-codeless GPS receivers
This invention relates to improving the signal-to-noise ratio of semi-codeless tracking by presenting a method and apparatus which employs an optimal W-code timing pattern, and/or provides signal-to-noise gain by adding L1 and L2 W-code bit timing estimate signals before combining the L1 W-code estimate signal with the L2 W-code estimate signal.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/157,298 filed Oct. 1, 1999.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThis invention relates to the acquisition and tracking of signals transmitted in accordance with the Global Positioning System (“GPS”), and in particular, using information from the GPS signal transmitted in the frequency band about 1575.42 Megahertz (MHz) (“L1”) to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (“SNR”) for acquiring and tracking the GPS signal transmitted in the frequency band about 1227.6 MHz (“L2”).
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONTracking the GPS L2 signal plays a significant role in high-end GPS receivers and especially for civilian applications such as machine control and survey equipment. The GPS L2 signal, like the GPS L1 signal, contains-three or more separate components: (1) a carrier signal (such as a 1227.6 MHz sinusoidal waveform); (2) a code signal; and (3) a data signal. The code signal is combined (modulated) with the carrier signal so that each GPS signal source, for example a satellite, can be distinguished from each other according to the particular code employed by that GPS source. The data signal contains the information which allows a GPS receiver to calculate its location, for example, the location of the transmitting GPS source.
The GPS L1 signal can include both a coarse/acquisition (“C/A-code”) code and a precision (“P-code”) code. However, since the early 1990s, the GPS satellites have been transmitting both the C/A-code and an encrypted form of the P-code called the “Y-code”. The Y-code is generated by encrypting the P-code with another code called the “W-code”. The W-code is secret and is not available for civilian use. Unlike the GPS L1 signal, the GPS L2 signal only includes one code, which since the early 1990s has been the Y-code. Because the W-code is unknown, the Y-code cannot be tracked by conventional procedures in a civilian GPS receiver. However, because the Y-code is formed from the P-code, in combination with the W-code, sufficient information about the Y-code can be ascertained by a GPS receiver to augment the GPS receiver's ability to track GPS signals. This type of tracking is termed “semi-codeless” because at least the contribution of the P-code to the Y-code signal is known even if the W-code contribution is unknown.
A number of semi-codeless tracking techniques have been developed, see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,431 to Keegan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,170 to Lorenz et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,606 to Lennen, U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,416 to Lennen, U.S. Pat. No. 5,663,733 to Lennen, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,984 to Lennen. Each of these patents and any other documents referred to in this specification are hereby incorporated into this application by the respective reference.
However, none of these references apply known information about the timing pattern of the W-code.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONOne aspect of this invention is to improve the performance of semi-codeless L2 tracking in GPS receivers by using exact knowledge of the W-code timing information.
Another aspect of this invention is to combine estimates of the W-code component signals from the GPS L1 signal and the GPS L2 signal, and in particular, by adding the W-code estimate signals together before multiplying the result by the W-code estimate signal(s) for the GPS L2 signal.
These novel techniques improve signal-to-noise ratio when tracking the GPS L2 signal, which in turn leads to improved code and carrier measurement capability, as confirmed by experiments observing GPS satellites with a high gain antenna in addition to analysis and simulation of GPS receiver designs.
One object of this invention is to provide an apparatus for tracking signals having: (1) a first tracker for tracking a first component of a first signal and for generating a first estimate signal from a second component of the first signal; and (2) a second tracker for tracking a first component of a second signal according to the first estimate signal; such that the second component of the first signal has the same pattern as the first component of the second signal. This invention further provides for: (a) the pattern to be a known pattern combined with an unknown pattern; and/or (b) the timing information about the unknown pattern to be known.
Another object of the invention is for the first tracker to generate: (1) a timing signal in accordance with the timing information for improving the accuracy of the first estimate signal; and/or (2) a first local component signal in accordance with the known pattern and to combine the local component signal with a version of the first signal to generate the first estimate signal.
An additional object of this invention is to have the second tracker: (1) generate a second local component signal in accordance with the known pattern and combine the second local component signal with at least one version of the second signal to generate at least one second estimate signal; (2) generate a timing signal in accordance with the timing information for improving the accuracy of the at least one second estimate signal; (3) combine the first estimate signal with the at least one second estimate signal to provide a tracking signal for tracking the first component of the second signal; (4) combine the first estimate signal with at least one second estimate signal to generate a combined estimate signal; (5) combine the first estimate signal with the at least one second estimate signal when the second tracker has not locked to the first component of the second signal; and/or (6) combine the combined estimate signal with the at least one second estimate signal when the second tracker has locked to the first component of the second signal.
Another object of this invention provides for: (1) the first signal to be a GPS L1 signal; (2) the second signal to be a GPS L2 signal; (3) the first component of the GPS L1 signal to be a C/A-code component; (4) the second component of the GPS L1 signal to be a Y-code component; (5) the first component of the GPS L2 signal to be a Y-code component; (6) the known pattern to be a GPS P-code; and/or (7) the unknown pattern to be a GPS W-code.
A further object of this invention is to provide a method for tracking signals having the steps of: (1) locking to a first component of a first signal; (2) aligning a local version of a second component of the first signal with the first component of the first signal; (3) aligning a local version of a first component of a second signal with the first component of the first signal; (4) generating a first estimate signal from a version of the first signal and the local version of the second component; and/or (5) applying the first estimate signal for locking to a first component of the second signal; wherein the second component of the first signal and the first component of the second signal have the same pattern.
An additional object of this invention is to provide a method for tracking signals having the steps of: (1) locking to a first component of a first signal; (2) aligning a local version of a second component of the first signal with the first component of the first signal; (3) aligning a local version of a first component of a second signal with the first component of the first signal; (4) generating a first estimate signal from a version of the first signal and the local version of the second component; (5) generating a second estimate signal from a version of the second signal and a local version of the first component of the second signal; (6) combining the second estimate signal and the first estimate signal to generate a combined estimate signal; and/or (7) selectively applying either the first estimate signal or the combined estimate signal for locking to a first component of the second signal; wherein the second component of the first signal and the first component of the second signal have the same pattern. Further, this invention provides that the step of selectively applying further includes the steps of: (1) selecting the first estimate signal for application if the local version of the first component of the second component has not been locked; and/or (2) selecting the combined estimate signal for application if the local version of the first component of the second component has been locked.
A further object of this invention is to provide a method of semi-codeless tracking for a GPS receiver having the steps of: (1) receiving a GPS L1 signal and generating at least a quadrature baseband version of the GPS L1 signal; (2) receiving a GPS L2 signal and generating baseband versions of the GPS L2 signal; (3) multiplying the quadrature baseband version of the GPS L1 signal with a locally generated version of a P-code used to generate the Y-code component of both the GPS L1 and L2 signals to generate a first estimate signal related to the W-code used with the P-code to generate the Y-code component; (4) multiplying the in-phase baseband version of the GPS L2 signal with a locally generated version of the P-code to generate a second estimate signal related to the W-code used with the P-code to generate the Y-code component; (5) adding the first W-code estimate signal to the second W-code estimate signal to generate a combined W-code estimate signal; (6) applying the first W-code estimate signal to generate tracking signals for tracking when the GPS receiver has not locked to the GPS L2 signal; and/or (7) applying the second W-code estimate signal to generate tracking signals for tracking when the GPS receiver has locked to the GPS L2 signal.
Also, an object of this invention is to provide a method of semi-codeless tracking for a GPS receiver having the steps of: (1) receiving a GPS L1 signal and generating at least a quadrature baseband version of the GPS L1 signal; (2) receiving a GPS L2 signal and generating baseband versions of the GPS L2 signal; (3) multiplying the quadrature baseband version of the GPS L1 signal with a locally generated version of a P-code used to generate the Y-code component of both the GPS L1 and L2 signals to generate a first wide-band estimate signal related to the W-code used with the P-code to generate the Y-code component; (4) integrating the first wide-band estimate signal based on known timing information of the Y-code to generate a first narrow-band W-code estimate signal; (5) multiplying the in-phase baseband version of the GPS L2 signal with a locally generated version of the P-code to generate a second wide-band estimate signal related to the W-code used with the P-code to generate the Y-code component; (6) integrating the second wide-band estimate signal based on known timing information of the Y-code to generate a second narrow-band W-code estimate signal; (7) adding the first narrow-band W-code estimate signal to the second narrow-band W-code estimate signal to generate a combined W-code estimate signal; (8) applying the first narrow-band W-code estimate signal to generate tracking signals for tracking when the GPS receiver has not locked to the GPS L2 signal; and/or (9) applying the second narrow-band W-code estimate signal to generate tracking signals for tracking when the GPS receiver has locked to the GPS L2 signal.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description accompanying the claims and attached figures.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In operation, the antenna 16 receives the GPS L1 and L2 signals transmitted from GPS satellites and other GPS sources. The antenna 16 outputs a corresponding antenna signal 18 which is filtered and amplified by filter/low-noise-amplifier (LNA) 20. The resulting filtered signal 22 is then translated (downconverted and digitized) by a radio frequency (RF) module 24 to generate intermediate frequency signals 26. Thus, for example, the GPS L1 signal is frequency translated to 420 kilohertz (kHz) and the GPS L2 signal is translated to 2.6 MHz. These intermediate frequency signals 26 are multi-bit, downconverted, digitized and sampled versions of the GPS signals, and include: (1) an in-phase version of the GPS L1 signal (IL1) 27; (2) a 90 degree out-of-phase (quadrature) version of the GPS L1 signal (QL1) 29; (3) an in-phase version of the GPS L2 signal (IL2) 31; and (4) a 90 degree out-of-phase (quadrature) version of the GPS L2 signal (QL2) 33.
The frequency synthesizer 28 generates at least two signals 30, 32 from one or more local oscillators. In particular, the frequency synthesizer 28 outputs two local oscillator signals (LO1) 30 at 1400 MHz and (LO2) 32 at 175 MHz which are input to the radio frequency module 24 and are used for the frequency translation. In addition, the frequency synthesizer 28 outputs two clock signals, sclk 34 and msec 36. Sample clock signal 34 operates at 25 MHz and is used, in addition to the channel processors 12, internally by the radio frequency module 24 to digitally sample the filtered signal 22, after the filtered signal is downconverted, to generate the intermediate frequency signals 26. The millisecond clock signal 36 operates at 1 kHz and is used to time measurements in the channel processors 12. The frequency synthesizer 28 is driven by a master oscillator signal 38 of 10 MHz which is generated by a master oscillator 40. Thus, all the frequency signals and clocks employed by the GPS receiver 10 for frequency translation and measurements are derived from the same fundamental source, master oscillator 40.
Because a single channel processor 12 is typically assigned to operate on GPS signals emanating from a single GPS source, as shown in
Each channel processor 12 interacts with a microprocessor system 14 such that the microprocessor system 14 can control operation of each channel processor including such functions, among others, as closing the code and carrier tracking loops, reading correlator values, and updating code and carrier numerically controlled oscillators (NCOs). From information obtained from the channel processors 12, the microprocessor system 14 outputs position, velocity and time solutions to a user, or alternatively, provides raw code and carrier phase measurements. While a user will generally receive the outputs from the microprocessor system 14 on a display, the outputs of the microprocessor system can also be received by another microprocessor system or other device for additional processing or to perform other functions, such as, for example, controlling an automated vehicle.
Because both the L1 tracker 52 and L2 tracker 54 are clocked synchronously from the sample clock signal 34, the digital trackers 52, 54 are fully synchronous with each other. This, synchronicity allows the microprocessor system 14 to place the L1 tracker 52 and L2 tracker 54 into an exact known state using control signals 58 relative to the sample clock signal 34 and the millisecond clock signal 36.
The baseband signals, IBB and QBB, which still retain the C/A-code and Y-code information, are then processed in a code mixer 66. The code mixer 66 mixes each of the baseband signals, IBB and QBB with a locally generated C/A-code replica signal 68 of the C/A-code. Each baseband signal, IBB and QBB, is also mixed with time delayed versions of the replica signal 68. Typically, one time delayed version is early, one is punctual, and one is late with respect to the corresponding position in the C/A-code component of the respective baseband signal, IBB and QBB. In this way, the code mixer 66 generates six separate in-phase and quadrature signals, IE, IP, IL, QE, QP, QL, collectively, (IEPL) 71 and (QEPL) 73. These signals 71, 73 are integrated in the correlators 72, across a period of time determined by a C/A-code epoch signal 74. The C/A-code epoch signal 74 marks the intervals when a particular register, (the G1 register (not shown)), used to generate the C/A-code contains all ones. The microprocessor system 14 reads these signals, IEPL and QEPL, at regular intervals determined by the C/A-code epoch signal 74, and processes the read information to determine, among other functions, the position of the GPS receiver 10.
The code mixer 66 is provided with the C/A-code replica signal 68 from a C/A-code generator 70. The C/A-code generator 70 is driven by a C/A-code chipping rate signal 76. The C/A-code chipping rate, that is, the rate at which the bits (often called “code bits” or “chips”) of the C/A-code are transmitted by a GPS source, is 1.023 MHz. The C/A-code chipping rate signal 76 is generated by a divider 78 which divides a nominal P-code chipping rate signal (NCLK) 80 by 10. The P-code chipping rate is the rate at which bits of the P-code are transmitted by a GPS source which is set at 10.23 MHz. The nominal P-code chipping rate signal 80 is generated by a code numerically controlled oscillator (code NCO) 75. In addition to the C/A-code generator 70, the L1 tracker 52 includes a P-code generator 82.
In one embodiment of the invention, the operation and interaction of the complex mixer 62, carrier NCO 64, code mixer 66, C/A-code generator 70, divider 78, code NCO 75, correlators 72, and P-code generator 82 are conventional, see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,606 to Lennen, and “GPS Interface Control Document ICD-GPS-200”, published by Rockwell International Corporation, Satellite Systems Division, Revision B-PR, Jul. 3, 1991. Thus, conventional techniques can be used with the invention to acquire GPS signals from GPS sources.
Once a GPS signal is acquired, and the GPS receiver 10 is tracking the C/A-code component of the GPS L1 signal, that is, the punctual signal IP is aligned (or almost aligned) with the C/A-code component of the GPS L1 signal, a key aspect of the invention can be activated. As discussed above, the Y-code transmitted from the source is substantially unknown, and thus, cannot be replicated in a civilian GPS receiver to facilitate full Y-code tracking of that component in the GPS L2 signal. Therefore, in this embodiment of the invention, the Y-code component of the GPS L1 signal is used to provide a W-code estimate which replaces an exact locally generated replica of the Y-code which would conventionally be generated to track the Y-code component of the GPS L2 signal.
To implement this concept in one embodiment of the invention, as discussed below, L1 and L2 W-code estimate signals are essentially multiplied together. However, this multiplication is affected by noise.
The intermediate frequency signals, IL1, QL1, IL2, QL2, contain versions of the components of the GPS signals in addition to noise which arises from both the GPS source and the travel of the GPS signals to the GPS receiver 10. The amount of noise in the intermediate frequency signals 26 is determined by both the signals' bandwidth and the pre-digitized bandwidth. For a sampling rate of 25 MHz, the pre-digitizing bandwidth is 12.5 MHz (which satisfies the Nyquist sampling theorem, that is the minimum bandwidth to maintain the information in the signal). This pre-digitizing bandwidth is maintained for the baseband signals, IBB and QBB, and subsequently the wide-band L1 W-code estimate signal 88. Both the L1 and L2 W-code estimate signals are substantially below the noise in the 12.5 MHz bandwidth, for example, the signal-to-noise ratio in a 12.5 MHz bandwidth is −25 decibels (dB). Thus, multiplying such noisy signals together leads to an output with substantially increased noise. In one embodiment of the invention, a 12.5 MHz bandwidth is the wide-band bandwidth, and a 500 kHz bandwidth is the narrow-band bandwidth.
This optimal processing in one embodiment of the invention involves two techniques. The first technique is to ensure that integration of the multiplied result is performed between the exact W-code bit edges. The second technique is to add the L2 W-code estimate signal to the L1 W-code estimate signal before multiplying by the L2 W-code estimate signal for certain operations of the GPS receiver 10.
More specifically, when the GPS receiver 10 is tracking the C/A-code component of the GPS L1 signal using the in-phase baseband signal IBB, as opposed to the quadrature baseband signal QBB, the in-phase baseband signal contains most, if not all, of the C/A-code component signal power. This concentration of the signal power occurs because the action of the C/A-code carrier tracking loop (typically, controlled by software operating in the microprocessor system 14) drives the carrier NCO 64 to minimize the C/A-code power in the quadrature baseband signal QBB, thereby maximizing the C/A-code power in the in-phase baseband signal IBB.
Because GPS sources transmit the C/A-code component in phase quadrature with respect to the Y-code (or P-code) component on respective carrier components which are also in phase quadrature with respect to each other, minimizing the C/A-code component signal power in the quadrature baseband signal QBB also maximizes the Y-code component signal power in the quadrature baseband signal, QBB. For this reason, according to one embodiment of the invention, only the quadrature baseband signal QBB need be processed for the semi-codeless tracking of the GPS L2 signal.
As shown in
To implement the first technique of integrating the multiplied L1 and L2 Y-code estimate signals between the edges of the respective W-code bit, one embodiment of the invention includes a process for determining the precise location in time of each W-code bit edge. This process is illustrated in
The W-code timing pattern 100 as observed is the same for all GPS sources.
The information regarding the W-code timing pattern 100 does not reveal anything about the underlying W-code bits, which remain unknown. Therefore, the anti-spoofing capability of the Y-code is not defeated by knowing the W-code timing pattern 100. However, this knowledge of exact W-code timing pattern 100 allows for optimal integration across each unknown W-code bit.
The multiplexer 238 output is selectable by the microprocessor system 14 from two inputs, the W-code estimate signal 96 from the L1 tracker 52 and the combined W-code estimate signal 246 which is generated by adding the W-code estimate signal 96 from the L1 tracker 52 and the narrow-band W-code in-phase punctual signal 171, which is the W-code estimate signal for the GPS L2 signal. These W-code estimate signals 96, 171 represent the best estimates of the W-code component for the GPS L1 and L2 signals, respectively. When searching for L2 signal power or when not locked to the L2 carrier, the microprocessor system 14 selects the W-code estimate signal 96 for output from multiplexer 238, since the W-code estimate signal 171 from the L2 tracker 171 is not yet accurate. However, once the local version of the L2 carrier signal is phase locked with the GPS L2 signal's carrier, the combined W-code estimate signal 246 provides the best estimate of the W-code contribution to the GPS L2 signal.
GPS sources nominally transmit the L2 Y-code (or P-code) component 3 dB weaker than the L1 Y-code (or P-code) component. Therefore, the nominal gain from using both techniques is typically about +1.7 dB 254. However, because GPS L2 signal semi-codeless tracking is performed at substantially weaker signal-to-noise ratios than full code tracking, the signal-to-noise ratio gain provided by this invention becomes significant in augmenting both tracking ability and measurements.
The combined W-code estimate signal 246 provides an advantage primarily if the noise in the narrow-band W-code integrated signals 170 is uncorrelated with the combined W-code estimate signal 246. Because the W-code estimate signal 171 from the L2 tracker 54 is input to multiplier 232 and is also part of the combined W-code estimate signal, the noise is somewhat correlated. Accordingly, multiplier 232 uses the W-code estimate signal 171 from the L2 tracker 54 instead of the combined W-code estimate signal 246.
The microprocessor system 14 reads the correlators 176 to track the GPS L2 signal. For example, the in-phase early-minus-late signal (IE-L) 185 is used by the code tracking loop after it has been accumulated in the correlators 176 as the estimate of the code phase error and the quadrature punctual signal (QP) 183 is driven to zero as a function of closing the carrier tracking loop.
Once this tracking is achieved, the GPS receiver 10 is “locked” to the L1 C/A-code and sufficient information is now available for the second step 320, that is, setting up the P-code generator 82. One conventional way to set up the P-code generator 82 employs conventional Z-count decoding, see for example, the reference ICD-GPS-200, above. Once set up, the locally generated P-code replica signal 86 is then substantially aligned in time with the L1 C/A-code and Y-code components of the GPS L1 signal and the Y-code component power from the GPS L1 signal appears primarily in quadrature baseband signal QBB. This results in the W-code estimate signal 96 providing an estimate of the W-code component signal power. Also, at this step 320, the H period generator 92 has been synchronized with the W-code component of the GPS L1 signal because the H period generator 92 has been reset by the C/A epoch signal 74 when the GPS receiver 10 became locked to the C/A-code component of the GPS L1 signal in step 310. Thus, the W-code estimate signal 96 is providing an optimal estimate of the L1 W-code component.
The next step 330, sets up the carrier NCO 154 of the L2 tracker 54 with an accurate frequency extracted from the L1 carrier tracking loop. As shown in some conventional GPS receivers, the L1 carrier frequency is first scaled by the relative carrier frequencies, that is, L1 carrier frequency/L2 carrier frequency, and is applied to the carrier NCO 154 in the L2 tracker 54. While an error is introduced due to the different effect of the ionospheric path on the two frequencies, this “carrier aiding” is advantageous (a narrower bandwidth for the L2 tracking loop can be used) until the L2 carrier loop has determined most of its dynamic requirements and can properly track the L2 carrier frequency by itself.
The next step 340, synchronizes the code NCO 164 and P-code generator 160 of the L2 tracker 54 with the code NCO 75 and P-code generator 82 of the L1 tracker 52, respectively. Because the microprocessor system 14 already knows the state of the code NCO 75 and P-code generator 82 of the L1 tracker 52, this process only involves copying the state of the L1 tracker 52 elements to the corresponding L2 tracker 54 elements.
The next step 350 is to set up multiplexer 238 to output the W-code estimate signal 96 from the L1 tracker 52. This selection ensures an optimal signal-to-noise ratio during the L2 power search step 360, that is, before the L2 carrier loop has been phase locked.
If GPS L2 signal power is not detected, that is, the sum of the squares of the in-phase and quadrature signals (IP) 181 and (QP) 183 does not pass a predetermined threshold, in step 365, the code NCO 164 is phase shifted by 0.5 P-code bits and power is rechecked. When power is found, in step 370, the L2 code and carrier tracking loops are closed by the microprocessor system 14. Once the carrier tracking loop for the GPS L2 signal is closed and locked, step 380, multiplexer 238 is controlled by the microprocessor system 14 to output the combined W-code estimate signal 246, step 390.
In order to determine whether the L2 carrier tracking loop is locked for step 390, the microprocessor system 14 uses the carrier phase error.
This invention allows for any number of bits to be used to represent the signals in the GPS receiver. For example, in one embodiment of the invention, because the intermediate frequency signals, IL1 and QL1, are quantized and sampled at a sampling rate of 25 MHz, the quantization dictates the number of binary bits used to represent each sample. Once such conventional quantization scheme uses 1-bit quantization, while others use 2-bit quantization. However, while multi-bit quantization is beneficial in reducing quantization loss, decreasing loss in the signal-to-noise ratio, and in improving jamming immunity, in most GPS receiver designs, the number of bits used tends to increase (“fan out”) as the signals are processed. For example, if the intermediate frequency signals, IL1 and QL1 are 2-bit quantized, and the replica carrier signals 67, 69 are 2-bit quantized, then the baseband signal IBB and QBB should be 3-bit numbers. Thus, the number of bits for representing the signals are determined by other factors in a GPS receiver design than required for the invention.
While this invention has been described with respect to a particular GPS receiver design, it should be understood that other GPS receiver designs can employ this invention, for example, a GPS receiver in which the intermediate frequency translation is performed after the code mixer.
Thus, it is apparent that in accordance with the present invention an apparatus and method that fully satisfies the objectives, aims, and advantages is set forth above. While the invention has been described in conjunct ion with specific embodiments and examples, it is evident that many alternatives, modifications, permutations, and variations will become apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the foregoing description. Accordingly, it is intended that the present invention embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variations as fall within the scope of the appended claims.
Claims
1-16. (canceled)
17: An apparatus for tracking remotely generated signals comprising:
- a first tracker for tracking a first component of a first remotely generated signal and including a W-code signal generator responsive to a second component of the first signal for locally generating a first W-code signal from a second component of the first signal; and
- a second tracker for tracking a first component of a second remotely generated signal according to the first W-code signal; wherein
- the second component of the first signal has the same pattern as the first component of the second signal.
18: An apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the pattern comprises:
- a known pattern combined with an unknown pattern.
19: An apparatus according to claim 18, wherein timing information about the unknown pattern is known.
20: An apparatus for tracking remotely generated signals comprising:
- a first tracker for tracking a first component of a first remotely generated signal and including a W-code signal generator responsive to a second component of the first signal for locally generating a first W-code signal from a second component of the first signal; and
- a second tracker for tracking a first component of a second remotely generated signal according to the first W-code signal; wherein
- the second component of the first signal has the same pattern as the first component of the second signal;
- the pattern comprises a known pattern combined with an unknown pattern;
- timing information about the unknown pattern is known; and
- the first tracker generates a timing signal in accordance with the timing information for improving the accuracy of the first W-code signal.
21: An apparatus for tracking signals comprising:
- a first tracker for tracking a first component of a first signal and for generating a first estimate signal from a second component of the first signal; and
- a second tracker for tracking a first component of a second signal according to the first estimate signal; wherein
- the second component of the first signal has the same pattern as the first component of the second signal;
- the pattern comprises a known pattern combined with an unknown pattern;
- the first signal is a GPS LI signal;
- the second signal is a GPS L2 signal;
- the first component of the GPS LI signal is a C/A-code component;
- the second component of the GPS LI signal is a Y-code component;
- the first component of the GPS L2-signal is a Y-code component;
- the known pattern is a GPS P-code;
- the unknown pattern is a GPS W-code.
22: An apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the W-code has a plurality of bit edges, further comprising means for determining the precise location in time of each of said bit edges.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 27, 2005
Publication Date: Oct 4, 2007
Inventor: Gary Lennen (Cupertino, CA)
Application Number: 11/237,837
International Classification: H04B 1/00 (20060101);