Re-scaling and adaptive stochastic resonance as a tool for weak GNSS signal acquisition

Weak global navigation satellite system（GNSS） signal acquisition has been a limitation for high sensitivity GPS receivers. This paper modifies the traditional acquisition algorithms and proposes a new weak GNSS signal acquisition method using re-scaling and adaptive stochastic resonance（SR）. The adoption of classical SR is limited to low-frequency and periodic signals. Given that GNSS signal frequency is high and that the periodic feature of the GNSS signal is affected by the Doppler frequency shift, classical SR methods cannot be directly used to acquire GNSS signals. Therefore, the re-scaling technique is used in our study to expand its usage to high-frequency signals and adaptive control technique is used to gradually determine the Doppler shift effect in GNSS signal buried in strong noises. The effectiveness of our proposed method was verified by the simulations on GPS L1 signals. The simulation results indicate that the new algorithm based on SR can reach-181 d BW sensitivity with a very short data length of 1 ms.

A block zero-padding method based on DCFT for L1 parameter estimations in weak signal and high dynamic environments

Weak L1 signal acquisition in a high dynamic environment primarily faces a challenge： the integration peak is neg- atively influenced by the possible bit sign reversal every 20 ms and the frequency error. The block accumulating semi-coherent integration of correlations （BASIC） is a state-of-the-art method, but calculating the inter-block conjugate products restricts BASIC in a low signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） acquisition. We propose a block zero-padding method based on a discrete chirp-Fourier transform （DCFT） for parameter estimations in weak signal and high dynamic environments. Compared with the conventional receiver architecture that uses closed-loop acquisition and tracking, it is more suitable for open-loop acquisition. The proposed method combines DCFT and block zero-padding. In this way, the post-correlation signal is coherently post-integrated with the bit sequence stripped off, and the high dynamic parameters are precisely estimated using the threshold set based on a false alarm probability. In addition, the detection performance of the proposed method is analyzed. Simulation results show that compared with the BASIC method, the proposed method can precisely detect the high dynamic parameters in lower SNR when the length of the received signal is fixed.

A type of collective detection scheme with improved pigeon-inspired optimization

Purpose-With increasing demand of localization service in challenging environments where Global Navigation Satellite Systems(GNSS)signalsare considerably weak,a powerful approach,the collective detection(CD),has been developed.However,traditional CD techniques are computationally intense due to the large clock bias search space.Therefore,the purpose of this paper is to develop a new scheme of CD with less computational burden,in order to accelerate the detection and location process.Design/methodology/approach-This paper proposes a new scheme of CD.It reformulates the problem ofGNSS signal detection as an optimization problem,and solves it with the aid of an improved Pigeon-Inspired Optimization(PIO).With the improved PIO algorithm adopted,the positioning algorithm arrives to evaluate only a part of the points in the search space,avoiding the problems of grid-search method which is universally adopted.Findings-Faced with the complex optimization problem,the improved PIO algorithm proves to have good performance.In the acquisition of simulated and real signals,the proposed scheme of CD with the improved PIO algorithm also have better efficiency,precision and stability than traditional CD algorithm.Besides,the improved PIO algorithm also proves to be a better candidate to be integrated into the proposed scheme than particle swarm optimization,differential evolution and PIO.Originality/value-The novelty associated with this paper is the proposition of the new scheme of CD and the improvement of PIO algorithm.Thus,this paper introduces another possibility to ameliorate the traditional CD.