Reacquiring satellite signals quickly

• US 8,289,205 B2
• Filed: 09/07/2011
• Issued: 10/16/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Waters, Deric W., Roh, June Chul, Rao, Sandeep
• Primary Examiner(s): Phan, Dao
• Application Number:
  US13/227,108
• Publication Number:
  US 20110316740A1
• Time in Patent Office: 405 Days
• Field of Search: 342/357.2, 342/357.25, 342/357.63, 342/357.71, 342/357.76, 701/213, 701/215, 701/468
• US Class Current: 342/357.63
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/05 providing aiding data
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/235 Calibration of receiver components
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/246 involving long acquisition integration times, extended snapshots of signals or methods specifically directed towards weak signal acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/254 relating to Doppler shift of satellite signals
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/26 involving a sensor measurement for aiding acquisition or tracking

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention provide a method of reacquiring satellite signals quickly. A pseudorange of at least one satellite is estimated. A user'"'"'s position is also estimated. Then a signal from at one or more satellites may be received. By detecting when the user is stationary, the Doppler frequency estimation can be corrected or the SNR can be boosted more both of which lead to improved performance. The embodiments allow a GNSS receiver to process signals in when the signal level would otherwise be too low—for example indoors. The embodiments can improve performance when one or more satellites are temporarily blocked but one or more satellites are still being tracked.

Claims

1. A method for reacquiring satellite signals quickly, said method comprising:

estimating a pseudorange of at least one satellite using a position estimate from a co-located position estimator using ultra wideband (UWB) signals;

estimating a user position; and

receiving a signal from at least one satellite.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating a user position comprising using a last known position of said user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating a user position comprising using a last known position if a maximum displacement as calculated from a plurality of sensor measurements is below a threshold.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating a pseudorange of said at least one satellite comprising using coarse position estimate from an aiding source.