METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COLLECTING SUBFRAMES OF SATELLITE NAVIGATION DATA
A method and apparatus for collecting subframes of navigation data of satellites are disclosed. In the method of the present invention, the subframe is divided into several sub-units, each sub-units includes one or more words. When a receiver receives a subframe with a subframe ID, the respective required sub-units of the subframe are checked. A dummy sub-unit is not necessary to be considered. Valid ones of the required sub-units are collected. If not all the required sub-units of the subframe have been collected, the absent sub-units are to be collected when the next subframe with the same subframe ID is received. Some protection schemes can be applied to raise the reliability of such sub-unit collection. Especially when the signal is weak or unstable, the present invention may significantly improve the TTFF (Time To First Fix) performance of the receiver.
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The present application is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/620,303, filed on Jan. 5, 2007, which is incorporated herein by reference.
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present application relates to time-to-first-fix (TTFF) reduction in satellite communication, more particularly, to a novel method for collecting subframes of satellite navigation data. By using this method, TTFF performance can be improved. The present invention also relates to a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver implementing the subframe collection method.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONSatellite positioning has been widely used in various applications. In satellite positioning systems such as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), a cold start state means that no information such as receiver position, observation time, satellite navigation information (e.g. almanac or ephemeris) are available.
For a GNSS (e.g. GPS) receiver, sensitivity is a major performance criterion. TTFF (Time to First Fix) under the cold start state is a representative standard for receiver sensitivity. To fix a three dimensional position, at least four satellites are required. The TTFF depends on time to acquire satellite signals of at least four visible satellites and time to download required ephemeris by demodulating the navigation data of the satellites. When the received signal power is efficiently strong, it takes a few seconds to acquire the satellite signals and about 27 seconds to obtain the required ephemeris. If the signal power is weak, the time to acquire the satellite signals and the time to download the ephemeris are both extended. No matter the signal power is strong or weak, it is apparent that the time to obtain the ephemeris is a dominant factor of TTFF.
The satellite navigation data are transmitted in pages. Five subframes make a page (or a frame). Each subframe requires 6 seconds to transmit. Accordingly, to transmit a page, 30 seconds are required. Each subframe contains ten words, which will be further described in detail later.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a subframe collecting method. By using the subframe collecting method, the time to collect required data such as ephemeris can be significantly reduced, and thereby TTFF performance can be improved. For example, the present invention is of advantageous for twinkle receiving. When a vehicle carrying a receiver passes by a tree or tall building, signal fading may occur temporarily. The subframe collection method can facilitate the receiver to rapidly collect required data in a shorter period of time.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a subframe collecting apparatus. The subframe collecting apparatus implements the subframe collecting method to collect ephemeris in a shorter period of time.
In the subframe collecting method of the present invention, a subframe of navigation data is divided into smaller sub-units. Each sub-unit is checked and collected if it is correct. After all sub-units containing the required information of a specific subframe are collected, the collection of this specific subframe is completed.
The subframe collecting apparatus in accordance with the present invention executes the subframe collecting method above. When a subframe consisting of a plurality of sub-units is received, the subframe collecting apparatus in accordance with the present invention checks each sub-unit of the subframe and collects the sub-unit if it is correct. If all sub-units containing the required information of the subframe are collected, the collection of this specific subframe is completed.
The present invention will be described in detail as follows.
Collection of ephemeris is done by collecting correct Subframes 1 to 3 of navigation data. As mentioned, a subframe consists of 10 words. Word error rate (WER) is directly related to signal intensity.
10 words error rate=1−(1−r)10=0.3352
5 words error rate=1−(1−r)5=0.1846
2 words error rate=1−(1−r)2=0.0.784
where 1 word error rate=r=0.04
The present invention provides a novel method to collect necessary subframes of the navigation data. In the subframe collecting method of the present invention, each subframe is partitioned into smaller sub-units. Each sub-unit consists of 5 words, 2 words or even only 1 word. The receiver checks if a sub-unit is correct. If the sub-unit is correct (i.e. error-free), then it is stored in a buffer. After all the words of Subframes 1-3 have been respectively collected, the collection of Subframes 1 to 3 is completed. Nevertheless, some words of the subframes are reserved and contain no information. Then collection for such reserved words can be omitted. In addition, information contained in some specific words is common information which is also transmitted in navigation data of other satellites. If the information has been obtained, then the word containing the same information is not necessary to be collected.
As described, the navigation data are transmitted in a form of pages. Five subframes make a page. Each subframe consists of ten words. Each word contains 6 parity bits. The first two words of all the subframes are the telemetry (TLM) word and hand over word (HOW).
As mentioned, the subframe collecting apparatus executes some protective checking schemes to each incoming subframe. The frame synchronizer 202 checks the TLM word (Word 1) and HOW word (Word 2) of this subframe. The TLM word contains preamble information. If the TLM word is erroneous, then the whole subframe is discarded. That is, no word of this subframe will be collected. The HOW (Word 2) contains subframe ID, which indicates this subframe is which one of subframes SF1 to SF5. In the present embodiment, if the subframe is SF4 or SF5, the collection thereof is executed by subframe as prior art. When the subframe is SF4 or SF5, the frame synchronizer 202 checks parity of each word of the subframe, and pass it to the navigation database 205 if all words of the subframe are valid. If the subframe is determined as one of SF1 to SF3 by checking subframe ID in HOW word, the subframe is passed to the decision device 203. Normally, the sequence of the subframes passed to the decision device 203 will be SF1, SF2, SF3, SF1, SF2 . . . , the rest can be deduced accordingly. If the subframe IDs appear as SF1, SF2, SF2 . . . , for example, it means that there is an error. If TLM word and HOW word of the subframe are both valid, then the other words of this subframe can be collected. The other words are checked by parity checking, for example. The correct words are collected, while the erroneous words are not collected. As described, for the same set of data, IODC in Subframe 1 and IODE in Subframes 2 and 3 must match. If not, it means an update of the navigation data has occurred. At this time, the collected words which have been stored in the subframe collection database 204 should be cleared, and the valid words of the current subframe are collected and stored into the subframe collection database 204. Furthermore, each subframe may have some reserved words. There is no information in these reserved words. For example, Words 4 to 6 of Subframe 1 are reserved and have no information carried therein. Accordingly, it is not necessary to check the validity of Words 4 to 6 of SF1.
By using the present invention, the time to collect ephemeris can be significantly reduced. Therefore, the TTFF performance of the receiver can be improved, especially in weak signal or twinkle receiving (signal not stable) situation.
While the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated and described in detail, various modifications and alterations can be made by persons skilled in this art. The embodiment of the present invention is therefore described in an illustrative but not restrictive sense. It is intended that the present invention should not be limited to the particular forms as illustrated, and that all modifications and alterations which maintain the spirit and realm of the present invention are within the scope as defined in the appended claims.
Claims
1. A method for receiving subframes of navigation data of a satellite, and said subframes including a plurality of sub-units, the method comprising steps of:
- receiving GNSS signals with subframes of navigation data;
- checking if the sub-units of respective subframes are valid; and
- collecting at least one required sub-units to obtain navigation data.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein each sub-unit comprises one word.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein each sub-unit comprises a plurality of words.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of checking a sub-unit comprising a TLM (telemetry) word of a subframe after the receiving step, if the TLM is not valid, the subframe is discarded and no sub-units will be collected from the subframe.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if all required subframes have been collected.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if an update occurs in the navigation data, and abandoning old sub-units which have been collected when an update has occurred.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein IOD (Issue of Data) information is checked to determine whether an update has occurred.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the checking step comprises firstly checking the sub-units comprising a TLM word and the sub-unit comprising a HOW word of the subframe, if both the TLM and HOW words are valid, then the other sub-units of the subframe are subjected to checking, otherwise the subframe is discarded and no sub-units will be collected from the subframe.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein a sub-unit comprising reserved words is not considered as a required sub-unit.
10. An apparatus for receiving subframes of navigation data of a satellite, and said subframes including a plurality of sub-units, the apparatus comprising:
- a decision device receiving the sub-units and check if the respective sub-units are valid; and
- a subframe collecting database collecting at least one required sub-unit.
11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the subframes subjected to sub-unit collection are transmitted together to update the navigation database after all required sub-units of these subframes are collected.
12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein a sub-unit comprising reserved words is not considered as a required sub-unit.
13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the decision device checks if an update occurs in the navigation data, and indicate to abandon old sub-units which have been collected in the subframe collection database when an update has occurred.
14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the decision device checks IOD (Issue of Data) information of the subframe to determine whether an update has occurred.
15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the decision device discards and collects no sub-unit from a subframe if the sub-units comprising TLM and HOW words of the subframe are not valid.
16. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein each sub-unit comprises one word.
17. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein each sub-unit comprises a plurality of words.
18. A method for receiving subframes of navigation data of a satellite, and said subframes including a plurality of sub-units, the method comprising steps of:
- receiving the sub-units;
- checking if the respective sub-units are valid; and
- collecting at least one required sub-units to obtain navigation data.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 3, 2009
Publication Date: Feb 25, 2010
Applicant: MEDIATEK Inc. (Hsin-Chu- City)
Inventors: Kuan-i Li (Kaohsiung City), Kung-shuan Huang (Siansi Township), Kun-tso Chen (Fang-Yuan Hsiang)
Application Number: 12/611,361
International Classification: G01S 19/27 (20100101);