BeiDou GNSS Receiver Design and Implementation on Arm Cortex A-9 Processor (Zynq SoC)

Abstract

A satellite navigation system capable of providing autonomous geo-spatial positioning with global coverage can be termed as a Global Navigation Satellite System. Over the years, many countries have tried to build their own GNSSs. GPS is the world’s leading system GNSS developed by the United States of America, currently composed of 31 satellites providing world-wide coverage since the mid-2000s. BeiDou GNSS is a constellation of 37 MEO and GEO satellites currently being developed by the People’s Republic of China as a third alternative to the GPS and GLONASS. This constellation provides positioning service covering entire Asian / Pacific Region and is scheduled to provide global coverage by 2020. As of now, most of Pakistan’s military equipment utilizes the GPS, but due to our strong ties with the Chinese government and high coverage of the Asian / Pacific region, the trend is now shifting towards BeiDou. This project aims to develop open source algorithms for the simulation of BeiDou GNSS receivers and their implementation on Zynq SoC. The design of these receivers consists of three major components: Acquisition, Tracking and Position Calculation (Navigation). The Acquisition and Tracking of satellite signals involve DSP tasks like FIR filters, FFTs, correlations, etc. to locate the satellites and their signal strengths. The Position Calculation component involves the extraction of orbital parameters by decoding the satellite signals. These parameters are then subjected to mathematical computations in accordance with the ICDs.