The Explicit Tuning Investigation and Validation of a Full Kalman Filter-Based Tracking Loop in GNSS Receivers

Abstract

As the development of traditional scalar tracking loops, different additional enhancement techniques in a GNSS receiver are proposed to help improve the positioning service quality. Up to now, Kalman-based tracking loop has gained much attention due to its potential superiorities, it has been widely exploited and studied in different specific applications. But meanwhile, there is still a lack of the detailed exploration regarding the Kalman tuning and the fully in-depth analysis and validation. Based on our former related work, an improved mathematical expression of Kalman gain and proper tractable models are proposed to help the analysis of Kalman tuning. An explicit tuning rule is proposed step by step regarding every single parameter involved and the validation is carried out in real experiments by the comparison of different receivers with different configurations. The results verify the proposed tuning rule and advantages of KF-tracking with proper setting. Thanks to the accurate and reliable signal parameter estimation, it can dramatically relieve the burden of the following processing modules, like PVT, RTK and other similar algorithms.

Keywords

• GNSS
• tracking loop
• Kalman filter
• carrier-smoothing
• Kalman tuning