Advanced receiver technology for existing and future satellite navigation systems

Satellite navigation is growing in importance for civil applications. Nowad ays, there are two systems operational, GPS of the USA and GLONASS operated by Russia. In addition, augmentations of these systems and future new syst ems are planned, in order to increase the reliability and accuracy of satel lite navigation systems. In order to benefit from these future improvements of satellite navigation systems there is a need for advanced receiver developments which are able t o enhance the receiver performance needed in many applications. For example , in the landmobile area the reception of the satellite signal will be stro ngly influenced by environmental conditions whilst high precision often is needed in the measurement of data. Thus some aspects of these technologies with respect to concepts and techni ques for receiver development with a high level of digitalization and recei ver autonomous reduction of errors will be described in this paper. Also th e effects of an implementation of additional sensors will be discussed whic h may increase the accuracy and integrity of the navigation system. Furthermore it will be shown, that the efficiency of the satellite signal r eception can be improved using antennas with special characteristics leadin g to an enhanced availability of the signals. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.