Multi-complex attributes analysis for optimum GPS baseband receiver tracking channels selection

The Global Positioning System (GPS) passed a long way of development, starting from an advanced specialized tool, to a general purpose gadget used every day in our life. There are numerous presences of GPS in new technologies, applications and consumer products especially in Smartphone's and tablets. In GPS receiver design, power consumption and localization accuracy act as critical factors that affect the GPS receiver system outcome. Theoretically, increasing the Number of Required Tracking Channels (NRTC) in the GPS baseband receiver will increase the design complexity and size. Hence, the power consumption would significantly increase. Furthermore, to improve the location accuracy of a position, more satellites should be acquired and tracked by the receiver. This requires higher number of tracking channels in the receiver. Thus, optimizing the number of tracking channels to balance the conflict among performance parameters is a difficult and challenging task. The objective of this study is to highlight the need for an effective strategy to balance the tradeoff between conflicted GPS design parameters. A conceptual framework is proposed for determining the optimum GPS baseband receiver tracking channels in terms of power consumption and localization accuracy. Nine different operation modes of GPS receiver are evaluated by each design parameters, namely, power consumption, localization accuracy, and time with no position available for static and dynamic positioning. Multi-criteria analysis is a good strategy to visualize the trade-off between GPS design parameters, and to provide a dynamic power consumption planning.