Hierarchical code acquisition for dual band GNSS receivers

This paper tackles the problem of fast acquisition for dual band GNSS receiver. In particular, a novel technique is proposed based on the exploitation of the hierarchical structure of the Galileo E1 and E5 Open Service signals. The new procedure is based on the information exchange between the acquisition blocks of the two bands, and on the reduction of the uncertainty region in one band when the signal in the other one is already acquired. Numerical evaluation shows that the proposed method allows to achieve good performance in terms of Mean Acquisition Time with respect to classical stand alone acquisition while guaranteeing at the same time a significant complexity reduction.