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
Recommended Citation
Baier, Fred P., "A GPS Code Tracking Receiver Design for Multipath Mitigation Using Maximum Likelihood Estimation" (1997). Theses and Dissertations. 5573.
https://scholar.afit.edu/etd/5573