Method and device for obtaining attitude under interference by a GPS receiver equipped with an array antenna

• US 20020169578A1
• Filed: 02/01/2001
• Published: 11/14/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yang, Chun
• Original Assignee: Yang, Chun
• Inventors: Yang, Chun
• Granted Patent: US 6,598,009 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/152
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/21 Interference related issues ; Issues related to cross-correlation, spoofing or other methods of denial of service
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/30 code related G01S19/246 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/47 the supplementary measurement being an inertial measurement, e.g. tightly coupled inertial
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/36 the separate antennas having differently-oriented directivity characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0247 Determining attitude
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/26 varying the relative phase or relative amplitude of energisation between two or more active radiating elements; varying the distribution of energy across a radiating aperture H01Q3/12, H01Q3/22, H01Q3/24 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/2605 Array of radiating elements provided with a feedback control over the element weights, e.g. adaptive arrays
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/30 varying the relative phase between the radiating elements of an array H01Q3/2605, H01Q3/2658, H01Q3/2682, H01Q3/44 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04K 2203/32 including a particular configuration of antennas
• CPC Class Codes: H04K 3/228 Elimination in the received signal of jamming or of data corrupted by jamming interference suppression in receivers H04B1/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04K 3/90 related to allowing or preventing navigation or positioning, e.g. GPS

Abstract

A GPS receiver can be made capable of determining its own attitude under even jamming conditions by augmenting it with an array antenna and the a novel signal processing system. The augmented signal processing system comprises a cascaded parallel architecture inserted between the array antenna and the GPS receiver. A blind adaptive nulling processor is cascaded ahead of the GPS receiver so that the GPS receiver can operate on the jamming-suppressed signals in a normal manner. A monopulse angular measurement unit in series with an attitude determination unit interacts in parallel with the blind adaptive nulling processor and the GPS receiver. Constrained beamforming adaptive monopulse is used to simultaneously place nulls in both the sum and difference beams toward jammers while maintaining the monopulse ratio for accurate angular measurement. In this way, the array antenna equipped GPS receiver is capable of providing rotational information in addition to regular time and translation information.

Claims

1. A system for determining attitude relative a predefined coordinate frame using signals received from global positioning system satellites, said system comprising:

an array antenna containing a plurality of antenna elements, wherein each of said antenna elements receives signals from the global positioning system satellites;

a GPS receiver coupled to said array antenna for determining the longitude, latitude and altitude of said array antenna from the received signals;

an angular measurement circuit coupled to said array antenna and said GPS receiver for determining the angles of arrival of the signals received by the array antenna; and

an attitude determination circuit for determining the attitude of the array antenna, relative the predefined coordinate frame, from the angles of the signals received.

2. The system according to claim 1, further including a nulling processor disposed between said array antenna and said GPS receiver for suppressing received signals other than said signals from the global positioning system satellites.

3. The system according to claim 1, further including a radio frequency front end circuit disposed between said array antenna and said GPS receiver for converting said signals into corresponding digital signals.

4. The system according to claim 2, wherein said nulling processor includes filters that implement beamforming and place nulls toward interference sources detected by said array antenna.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein said filters in said nulling processor further include a multiplexer for weighting signals received by said array antenna.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the angular measurement circuit is a beamforming adaptive monopulse processor that contains a pre-processor, an angular error generator and an angle locked loop and calculates measured angular offsets for the received signals.

7. The system according to claim 6, wherein said pre-processor is coupled to said GPS receiver, wherein said pre-processor removes Doppler frequency shift, spreading code chip and navigation data bit from said signals, prior to said signals being received by said angular error generator.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the attitude determination circuit includes a Kalman filter that receives the angular offsets from said angular measurement circuit and calculates the attitude of the array antenna relative the predefined coordinate frame.

9. A method of determining the attitude of an antenna array relative a predetermined coordinate frame using signals from global positioning system satellites, said method comprising the steps of:

providing an array antenna that contains a plurality of antenna elements;

detecting the signals from the global positioning system satellites with the array antenna;

calculating the angles of arrival of the signals received by the array antenna; and

calculating an attitude for the array antenna from the angles of arrival of the GPS signals.

10. The method according to claim 9, further including the step of suppressing signals received by the array antenna other than the signals from the global positioning system satellites.

11. The method according to claim 9, further including the step of converting the signals received by the array antenna into corresponding digital signals.

12. The method according to claim 9, further including the step of reducing the signals from a first carrier frequency to a lower intermediate frequency.

13. The method according to claim 9, wherein said step of detecting the signals includes coupling a GPS receiver to the array antenna, wherein said GPS receiver determines longitude, latitude and altitude of the array antenna from the signals.

14. The method according to claim 9, further including the step of providing an adaptive nulling processor between the GPS receiver and the array antenna for suppressing signals received by said array antenna other than the signals from the global positioning system satellites.

15. The method according to claim 9, further including the steps of detecting interference signals with said antenna array and calculating a point of origin for said interference signals.

16. The method according to claim 9, wherein said step of calculating the angles of arrival of the signals includes preprocessing digital signals to remove modulation and producing an angular measurement corresponding to each of said signals.

17. The method according to claim 9, wherein said step of calculating an attitude for the array antenna includes the substeps of:

determining the location of the array antenna from the GPS receiver;

reading the location of the global positioning system satellites from the GPS signals;

calculating line of sight vectors between said array antenna and the global positioning system satellites utilizing the location of the array antenna and location of the global positioning system satellites;

calculating a three axis vectors corresponding to the GPS signals; and

calculating attitude utilizing the three axis vectors converted from angles of arrival of GPS signals and line of site vectors between said array antenna and the global positioning system satellites.

18. A method of determining attitude from GPS signals received in the presence of interference signals, said method comprising the steps of:

providing an array antenna for receiving the GPS signals and the interference signals, wherein said antenna array contains multiple antenna elements;

spatially filtering signals received by said array antenna, thereby suppressing the interference signals and producing less corrupted signals;

utilizing a GPS receiver to determine a location for the array antenna using the less corrupted signals;

producing a baseband carrier signal for each antenna element corresponding to each received GPS signal;

calculating angles of arrival for each GPS signal using each baseband carrier signal; and

calculating attitude utilizing angles of arrival from global positioning system satellites.