GALANT - Architecture Design and First Results of A Novel Galileo Navigation Receiver Demonstrator With Array Antennas

Abstract

For safety critical applications of satellite navigation, an accurate and robust positioning is essential. In many fields of application like aviation, rail and maritime, radio interference and multipath signals can cause serious and not acceptable performance degradations, which require dedicated countermeasures and the revision of the whole receiver signal processing chain. Therefore, the Institute of Communications and Navigation of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has started an initiative to develop a Safety-of-Life (SoL) receiver demonstrator for the Galileo satellite navigation system. The aim of this project is to perform the necessary pre-development research as well as to develop, build and demonstrate an integrated SoL receiver system, which is robust against interference and multipath effects. Since array antennas with digital beamforming offer a very high potential for suppression of interference and multipath signals, the integration of an array antenna has been included in the receiver design from the early beginning of the project. Some of the most challenging tasks to achieve this goal include: - Development of optimized antenna elements and arrays - Design of a robust frontend suitable for multi constellation multi frequency reception with multiple antenna elements - Development and analysis of powerful interference detection and mitigation techniques enhanced for Galileo