METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COLLECTING SUBFRAMES OF SATELLITE NAVIGATION DATA

• US 20080165057A1
• Filed: 01/05/2007
• Published: 07/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MediaTek, Inc.
• Original Assignee: MediaTek, Inc.
• Inventors: Chen, Kun-tso, Huang, Kung-shuan, Li, Kuan-i
• Granted Patent: US 7,636,060 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 342/357.15
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/24 Acquisition or tracking or demodulation of signals transmitted by the system synchronisation aspects of direct sequence spread spectrum modulation H04B1/7073
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/08 by repeating transmission, e.g. Verdan system H04L1/1858 and H04L1/189 take precedence

Abstract

A method and apparatus for collecting subframes of navigation data of satellites are disclosed. In the method of the present invention, the subframe is divided into several sub-units, each sub-units includes one or more words. When a receiver receives a subframe with a subframe ID, the respective required sub-units of the subframe are checked. A dummy sub-unit is not necessary to be considered. Valid ones of the required sub-units are collected. If not all the required sub-units of the subframe have been collected, the absent sub-units are to be collected when the next subframe with the same subframe ID is received. Some protection schemes can be applied to raise the reliability of such sub-unit collection. Especially when the signal is weak or unstable, the present invention may significantly improve the TTFF (Time To First Fix) performance of the receiver.

Claims

1. A method for collecting subframes of navigation data of a satellite, the method comprising steps of:

receiving a subframe consisting of words, the words being divided into a plurality of sub-units;

checking if the respective sub-units are valid;

collecting required sub-units from the valid sub-units;

determining if required sub-units of the subframe are collected; and

waiting for the subframe repetitively transmitted the next time if not all the required sub-units of the subframe have been collected to collect sub-units still absent.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each sub-unit consists of at least one word.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of checking a TLM (telemetry) word of the subframe after the receiving step, if the TLM is not valid, the subframe is discarded and no sub-units will be collected from the subframe.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of determining if the received subframe is a subframe carrying ephemeris data.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising determining if all of the subframes carrying a set of ephemeris data are collected.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein a subframe ID of the subframe is checked to see whether the subframe is a subframe carrying ephemeris data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the subframe is deemed as collected if the required sub-units of the subframe have been collected.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if an update occurs in the navigation data, and abandoning old sub-units which have been collected when an update has occurred.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein 10D (Issue of Data) information is checked to determine whether an update has occurred.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the checking step comprises firstly checking TLM word and HOW word of the subframe, if both the TLM and HOW words are correct, then the other portions of the subframe are subjected to checking, otherwise the subframe is discarded and no sub-units will be collected from the subframe.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein reserved words are omitted from checking.

12. An apparatus for collecting subframes of navigation data of a satellite, each subframe consisting of words, the words being divided into sub-units, the apparatus comprising:

a navigation database for storing subframes of the navigation data;

a subframe collection database; and

a processor checking a subframe, determining if the subframe is one of subframes to be subjected to sub-unit collection, passing the subframe to the navigation database if it is not to be subjected to sub-unit collection, determining if respective sub-units of a subframe to be subjected to sub-unit collection are valid and storing the valid sub-units of the subframe into the subframe collection database,

wherein after the subframe collection database has collected all required sub-units of one of the subframes, said one of the subframes is transmitted to update the navigation database.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the subframes subjected to sub-unit collection are transmitted together to update the navigation database after all required sub-units of these subframes are collected.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein a reserved sub-unit of the subframe is not considered as a required sub-unit.

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processor checks if an update occurs in the navigation data, and indicate to abandon old sub-units which have been collected in the subframe collection database when an update has occurred.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the processor checks 10D (Issue of Data) information of the subframe to determine whether an update has occurred.

17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processor checks a subframe ID of the subframe to determine whether it is to be subjected to sub-unit collection.

18. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processor determines the subframe is a subframe to be subjected to sub-unit collection if the subframe carries ephemeris data.

19. The apparatus of claim 12, the processor discards and collects no sub-unit from the subframe if not both TLM and HOW words of the subframe are correct.

20. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the sub-unit comprises at least one word.

21. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processor comprises:

a frame synchronizer checking to determine if the subframe is one of subframes to be subjected to sub-unit collection, and passing the subframe to the navigation database if it is not to be subjected to sub-unit collection; and

a decision device receiving the subframe to be subjected to sub-unit collection from the frame synchronizer, determining if the respective sub-units of the subframe are valid and storing the valid sub-units of the subframe into the subframe collection database.