Abstract
The concept of assisted global positioning system (A-GPS) has successfully facilitated receiver operations in signal-challenged environments and enhanced GPS receiver performance in terms of time-to-first-fix. A-GPS provides known coarse position, time references, satellite navigation parameters, and other supporting data from alternative sources using terrestrial networks. Other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as the European Galileo, the Russian GLONASS, the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, and Chinese BeiDou, are currently experiencing an evolution that will increase the number of visible satellites, receiver sensitivity, and positioning geometries. At the same time, assistance operation for GPS should be extended to support all available satellite constellations in an A-GNSS setting. Terrestrial channels for A-GNSS deliver random timing delays, which may impact time-sensitive GNSS performance and operations. We provide a methodology for A-GNSS network delay modeling that is applicable to various simulation environments. We first describe a testbed for delay measurements in communication networks supporting A-GNSS operation for both US GPS and Russian GLONASS systems, which employs standardized Secure User Plane Location 3.0 in two modes, Mobile Station-based (MS-based) and MS-assisted, for assistance communications. We also present a statistical modeling approach and propose an A-GNSS network delay channel model (AGNDCM), which characterizes delays through a statistical mixture distribution representation, for A-GNSS-enabled devices. Using several metrics, we show that the AGNDCM significantly outperforms conventional delay modeling techniques. Representative A-GNSS network delays are collected for various communication environments, including LAN, WLAN, third-generation mobile telecommunication, and fourth-generation long-term evolution. The AGNDCM will provide developers with the accurate network delay models required to realistically simulate the impact of delays to A-GNSS receiver performance.
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Acknowledgments
This research was performed while Grant Huang was appointed as a research associate by the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Additionally, the authors would like to thank OSS Nokalva, Inc., for software supports.
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The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government.
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Electronic Supplement: Complete set of experimental and modeled statistical distributions of assistance delivery delays in selected networks and representative distances (DOCX 3299 kb)
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Huang, G., Miller, M.M. & Akopian, D. Inference of network delays for SUPL 3.0-based assisted GNSS. GPS Solut 21, 651–661 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-016-0549-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-016-0549-6