Dynamically Reconfigurable Software Defined Radio for GNSS Applications

Abstract : Historically, the military has used special purpose Global Positioning System (GPS) radios for radio navigation. This has the disadvantage of locking users into fixed technology solutions designed to meet a fixed set of requirements. Software Defined Radios (SDR) have the advantage of being able to easily adapt to provide new capabilities using current generation technology. Continued improvements in SDR technology are enabling their use for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) applications that require small form factor, low-power designs. This has the added benefit of allowing the signal processing algorithms for future GPS signals to be included in the GNSS SDR design without changing or modifying the hardware of the GPS receiver. This paper describes a GNSS SDR reconfigurable architecture that leverages the flexibility of a SDR to re-use resources for processing the different GPS signals. The paper also discusses the benefits of this GNSS SDR approach for military and civil users compared with conventional special purpose GNSS receiver solutions.