Research and development on satellite positioning and navigation in China

Abstract

With the development of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), the amount of related research is growing rapidly in China. A lot of accomplishments have been achieved in all branches of the satellite navigation field, especially motivated by the BeiDou Program. In this paper, the current status, technologies and developments in satellite positioning and navigation in China are introduced. Firstly, an overview and update of the BeiDou Program is presented, known as the three-step development strategy for different services. Then signal design for the BeiDou system is discussed, including the generation of pseudo-random noise (PRN) codes for currently available signal B1, and the investigation of a new signal modulation scheme for interoperability at open frequency B1C. The B1C signal should comply to Multiplexed Binary Offset Carrier (MBOC) constrains, and a modulation called Quadrature Multiplexed BOC (QMBOC) is presented, which is equivalent to time-multiplexed BOC (TMBOC) for GPS and composite BOC (CBOC) for Galileo, while overcomes the drawback of CBOC. Besides, the inter and intra system compatibility is discussed, based on the effective C/N0 proposed by International Telecommunication Union (ITU). After that, receiver technologies in challenging environments are introduced, such as weak signal acquisition and assisted GNSS (A-GNSS). Moreover, a method of ambiguity mitigation for adaptive digital beam forming (ADBF) in large spacing antenna arrays is proposed, by which interference suppression is available. Furthermore, cutting edge technologies are brought in, including seamless navigation for indoor and outdoor, and collaborative navigation. After all, GNSS applications in China for industry and daily life are shown, as well as the market prospection. Copyright © 2012 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.