Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Date of Original Version

1-2013

Abstract

One of the new features of modern GNSS signals is that they generally have a pilot component and data component. A unique aspect of the GPS L1C signal is that it has an unequal power split between the pilot and data components. Various papers have pro- posed channel combining techniques to acquire modern GNSS signals using both components. In this paper, the optimal detector for GPS L1C acquisition over multiple code periods without knowledge of the navigation data or overlay code phase is derived. A variation of semi-coherent integration technique (non- coherently combining the 10 msec coherent combinations) that accounts for the unequal power split be- tween the data and pilot components is proposed. Single trial detection and false alarm probabilities are used to compare performance of this semi-coherent integration with unequal power compensation to the optimal detector as well as to noncoherent combining and single channel acquisition on the pilot component only. Simulation results show that the semi-coherent integration with unequal power compensation slightly outperforms both the semi-coherent integration detector without compensating for unequal power and the noncoherent combining detector.

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