Test and Performance Analysis Methods of Low Earth Orbit GPS Receiver

The use of GPS receiver at outer space becomes common in low earth orbit. Recently most of satellites use GPS receiver as navigation solution for finding satellite position. However, the accuracy of navigation solution acquiring directly from GPS receiver is not enough in satellite application such as map generation. Post-processing concepts such as Precise Orbit Determination (POD) are recently applied to satellite data processing to improve satellite position accuracy. The POD uses raw measurement data instead of navigation solution of GPS receiver. The performance of raw measurement data depends on raw measurement data accuracy and tracking loop algorithm of GPS receiver. In this paper, a method for evaluating performance of raw measurement data is suggested. Test environment and procedure of the low earth orbit satellite acquiring for navigation solution of GPS receiver and navigation solution of POD are described. In addition, accuracy on navigation solution of GPS receiver, raw measurement data, and navigation solution of POD are analyzed. The proposed method can be applicable to general low earth orbit satellite.