Universal channel for location tracking system

• US 9,702,979 B1
• Filed: 08/03/2012
• Issued: 07/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Inventors: Joseph, Angelo J., Wahab, Sami R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gregory, Bernarr
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mull, Fred H
• Application Number:
  US13/565,870
• Time in Patent Office: 1,803 Days
• 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 19/24 Acquisition or tracking or demodulation of signals transmitted by the system synchronisation aspects of direct sequence spread spectrum modulation H04B1/7073
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/256 relating to timing, e.g. time of week, code phase, timing offset
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/28 Satellite selection
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/29 carrier including Doppler, related G01S19/246 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/31 Acquisition or tracking of other signals for positioning
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/32 Multimode operation in a single same satellite system, e.g. GPS L1/L2
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/33 Multimode operation in different systems which transmit time stamped messages, e.g. GPS/GLONASS
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/46 the supplementary measurement being of a radio-wave signal type

Abstract

The disclosure is directed to a universal tracking system configured for tracking a plurality of supported sources and/or signal types. The universal tracking system may include an acquisition module configured to execute a serial or parallel search to detect visible signals. The universal tracking system may include at least one universal channel capable of extracting tracking data from a plurality of supported signal types. The universal channel may include complex correlators configured to correlate digital samples associated with one or more ranging signals utilizing primary, sub-carrier, and/or secondary codes. The universal channel may be configured to determine tracking data associated with at least one ranging signal of the plurality of supported signal types. The universal tracking system may further include a navigation processor configured to determine location utilizing tracking data received from one or more universal channels.

Claims

1. A system for determining location by utilizing tracking data associated with at least three ranging signals of a plurality of supported signal types, comprising:

a front-end receiver configured to receive ranging signals from a plurality of sources, the front-end receiver further configured to convert the ranging signals into digital samples;

an acquisition module implemented as hardware configured to acquire digital samples of at least three ranging signals of the ranging signals received by the front-end receiver, the acquisition module further configured to detect signal visibility of the at least three ranging signals, the acquisition module comprising at least one processor, wherein the acquisition module is further configured to utilize stored bit-packed sample versions of pre-computed frequency carrier data, wherein the acquisition module is further configured to convert each of the at least three ranging signals into digital samples at a desired baseband frequency by mixing associated bit-packed sample versions by utilizing multi-byte exclusive-OR operations;

a plurality of universal channels, each channel including;

carrier generator hardware configured to receive digital samples of a particular ranging signal of the at least three ranging signals of a plurality of supported signal types, the carrier generator further configured to downconvert one or more signals associated with the received digital samples, the carrier generator hardware comprising an oscillator;

at least one correlator of a plurality of correlators configured to receive the one or more downconverted signals, the at least one correlator further configured to correlate the one or more downcoverted signals with code generator outputs; and

a tracking module comprising a processor, the tracking module configured to determine tracking data associated with the particular ranging signal of the at least three ranging signals by utilizing information associated with the correlated signals; and

a navigation processor configured to determine a location by utilizing tracking data collected from each of the plurality of universal channels.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of supported signal types includes different types of satellite signals.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the plurality of supported signal types includes signals from at least one of GPS, GBAS, SBAS, Galileo, Glonass, Compass satellites.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the plurality of supported signal types includes at least two of GPS L1 C/A, GPS L5, SBAS L1 C/A, Galileo E1, Galileo E5a, Galileo E5b, Glonass L1, Compass L1, Compass E5a, or Compass E5b signals.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein a first channel of the plurality of universal channels is configured to aid determination of tracking data associated with a first ranging signal by utilizing tracking data associated with a second ranging signal.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the first ranging signal and the second ranging signal are each associated with a different signal type.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the first ranging signal and the second ranging signal are associated with a same satellite type.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein a second channel of the plurality of universal channels is configured to provide tracking data associated with the second ranging signal to the first channel.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the acquisition module is further configured to execute a hybrid search to determine signal visibility values for each of the at least three ranging signals, the hybrid search including a serial search of code correlations and parallel search of frequency bins.