The MBOC Modulation: The Final Touch to the Galileo Frequency and Signal Plan

ABSTRACT: The road to the signals Galileo has today as a baseline has been tedious and long, but has followed a logic from the start. From the very beginning, one of the main challenges that Galileo set for itself was to offer three wide band signals, satisfying the requirements of mass market and pushing the potential performance to its natural limits. The historical Agreement of 2004 between the US and the EC impacted the initially planned signals but has intensified the cooperation between Galileo and GPS. The final touch to the Galileo signal plan was achieved in 2006 when the Working Group on GPS and Galileo Compatibility and Interoperability finally agreed upon the great interest in a new modulation for the E1/L1 frequency, namely the Multiplex Binary Offset Carrier. Galileo has thus accomplished the original objective of providing three wide band signals for the civilian GNSS community.