Software receiver design for GNSS-R using multiple GNSS satellites as transmitters

Abstract

A novel global navigation satellite system-reflectometry (GNSS-R) software receiver and its preliminary experimental results are presented in this study. The antenna systems, the multi-channel radio-frequency front end, and the digital signal processing unit of this receiver are described in detail. With this developed software receiver, the signals in the Global Positioning System L1 band (GPS L1), BeiDou-2 B1, GLObal NAvigation Satellite System L1, and Galileo E1 bands can be tracked and used as the transmissions of GNSS-R to obtain more information about the scattering properties of ground objects. The preliminary experimental results show that various GNSS signals can be successfully acquired and tracked by this receiver. Furthermore, when it was applied to the soil moisture estimation with the ground-based GNSS-R technique, a relative measure error of 5.79 and 1.39% can be obtained with GPS L1 and BeiDou-2 B1 signals, respectively, by comparing the retrieval results with the measuring results provided by a moisture metre.

Keywords

• global positioning system
• signal processing
• moisture
• radio receivers
• satellite navigation
• software receiver design
• multiple gnss satellites
• novel global navigation satellite system-reflectometry software receiver
• antenna systems
• multichannel radio-frequency front end
• digital signal processing unit
• developed software receiver
• global positioning system l1 band
• gps l1
• beidou-2 b1
• global navigation satellite system l1
• galileo e1 bands
• gnss signals
• ground-based gnss-r technique