Author

Fred P. Baier

Date of Award

12-1997

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Stewart L. DeVilbiss, PhD

Abstract

The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) is currently used in many applications requiring precise positioning data. Improving the precise positioning information requires the removal of errors that perturb the received signals. The errors introduced by multiple propagation channels, termed multipath, are not easily removed. These channels are caused by reflective surfaces near the receiver. As such, multipath is uncorrelated between receivers and, thus, cannot be removed through differencing techniques. This thesis investigates a GPS code tracking loop design which uses maximum likelihood (ML) estimation to determine amplitude and phase information of the multipath signal which are used to adjust code tracking to account for multipath effects. Analysis of the operations that govern this design for the case of a single reflection shows that it has no steady state tracking error. Results of simulations indicate that the code tracking loop, in conjunction with the MLE, mitigate the effects of multipath and improves code tracking performance over the narrow correlator NCDLL for most scenarios analyzed. Overall results of simulations indicate that the implementation of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) in conjunction with the code tracking loop has the potential to enhance code tracking performance over that offered by the narrow correlator NCDLL in a GPS environment.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GE-ENG-97D-18

DTIC Accession Number

ADA336672

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