What is the GPS?

Orbiting navigational satellites

Transmit position and time data
Handheld receivers calculate
latitude
longitude
altitude
velocity
Developed by Department of Defense

History of the GPS1969Defense

Navigation Satellite System (DNSS)
formed
1973NAVSTAR Global Positioning
System developed
1978first 4 satellites
launched Delta rocket
launch

199324th satellite launched; initial

operational capability
1995full operational capability
May 2000Military accuracy available
to all users

Components of the System

Space segment
24 satellite vehicles
Six orbital planes
Inclined 55o with respect to
equator
Orbits separated by 60o

20,200 km elevation above

Earth
Orbital period of 11 hr 55
min
Five to eight satellites
visible from any point on
Earth

Components of the System

User segment

GPS antennas & receiver/processors

Position
Velocity
Precise timing
Used by

Aircraft
Ground vehicles
Ships
Individuals

The control segment comprises of 5 stations.

They measure the distances of the overhead
satellites every 1.5 seconds and send the
corrected data to Master control.
Here the satellite orbit, clock performance and
health of the satellite are determined and
determines whether repositioning is required.
This information is sent to the three uplink
stations

 Satellite ranging
Satellite locations
Satellite to user distance
Need four satellites to determine
position

Distance measurement
Radio signal traveling at speed of light
Measure time from satellite to user

Low-tech simulation

How does GPS work?

Pseudo-Random
Code
Complex signal
Unique to each
satellite
All satellites use
same frequency
Amplified by
information theory
Economical

How does GPS work?

Distance to a satellite is determined by measuring how
long a radio signal takes to reach us from that satellite.
To make the measurement we assume that both the
satellite and our receiver are generating the same
pseudo-random codes at exactly the same time.
By comparing how late the satellite's pseudo-random
code appears compared to our receiver's code, we
determine how long it took to reach us.
Multiply that travel time by the speed of light and you've
got distance.
High-tech simulation

GPS
Grand
Junction
Transmitter
Radon in Boulder

When Radons GPS receiver gets the signal, he

compares the time on the signal with the time on his
clock.
Time Difference (in seconds) * 2.99792458 10eters/second =
Distance (in meters)

So, a GPS signal tells you how far you are from the
transmitter.

Satellite location

Satellite location

 We can locate our position on the surface of a

sphere

Position is
calculated from
distance
measurement
Mathematically
we need four
satellites but
three are
sufficient by
rejecting the
ridiculous answer

 Given 2 satellites

 We can locate our position on the intersection of 2 spheres (a

circle)

 Given 3 satellites

 We can locate our position on the intersection of 3 spheres (2

points)

 Given 4 satellites

 We can locate our position on the intersection of 4 spheres

(1 point)

 The point should be located on the earths surface

 The precise location is determined

You know where the transmitters are.

GPS signals also transmit the satellite
locations.
Everyone has good clocks.
The GPS satellites have very good clocks.
A GPS user can use a 4th signal to piggyback onto the GPS satellite clocks.
And you can tell the transmitters apart.
For real problems, we use the intersection
of three spheres, not three circles

It compares that signal with all the

known codes (there are currently 37).
The receiver determines which satellite it
is.
It decodes the timing information,
multiplies by the speed of light to find
the radius of the sphere.
Once it has done that for 3 satellites, it
can determine the location.

Distance to a satellite is determined by

measuring how long a radio signal
takes to reach us from the satellite
Assuming the satellite and receiver
clocks are sync. The delay of the code
in the receiver multiplied by the speed
of light gives us the distance

Each satellite has a different code.

They use codes! Binary codes

For example, here are the first 1000 numbers of the code
for satellite 1

00101100101001100111111011000000100010100111000011100100100010000100010101100011
11011101011001111010111111001001100110100011100010010001011000101101110000
00110110010001000101101000101001000000011111000110001011111011111100110111001011
01111000111111010100101000010101001110000110100111011000111101111100001111111111
01001001001001100111010101111100001000101101001111110000100110111100111000110110
10110110101000010110100101000101001000111001110001010010111010111010101000001011
01110011011001101000000000001110111011000110110101010110110001110001100110011111
01011111001110101010000011111100100101000000111010001111011010010110110000010010
01001100001101100001111011101110001101110110100111001000110101010000110110100101
11001011111111101100011100000011011100011000000100000000100000110101000101011110
11000111011010001100101011111001111010000000110111100110011101011110000011110110
01000100101011100000000100001010101001111101100111011011111100101111000100110101

This is the code for satellite 6

10011110111010001001101111111110111100101101111011001101111101010100011111011000
11000100110011010000100000101111111000010000110101101011101011010011000001101000
01100010101011001000100100000110000011110000111010000011100100111011000000010110
01111000100101010111110101001111001011111011001010001011100001001110000111110111
01011101011011001111001001101011100100011011011111011001101011100001110101110001
10001111000001000111011011100010000011010011001001110000100010111000100100011011
11100011101010100110000000011001111001110101000010010001110010101010011100101101
11110011111110011010011101100111011001010010100110010101110111001110001101111001
10000010100011110011011110110011110100110111010011100110101010110100000101110001
11000111010110001111000100101001110101011000011000100011001010111001100001111100
00011111000100100011010001010001010010010001100001100100000110001100010100001101
10010110100110011000101101110011110010001010010100011110011101100001111101100101

If the clocks are perfect sync the

satellite range will intersect at a single
point.
But if imperfect the four satellite will
not intersect at the same point.
The receiver looks for a common
correction that will make all the
satellite intersect at the same point

First we need to learn how GPS

creates these codes
Then we need to come up with a way
to quickly tell the codes apart.

You use binary addition rules.

0+0=0
1+0=1
0+1=1
1+1=10 (but only use the last bit, 0)
GPS uses shift registers.
The more shift registers you have, the
more complicated you can make your code.

Resulting in
Register1 Register2 Register3
1
1
1
0

Code
1

Next 0+1=1
Register1 Register2 Register3
1
1
1
0
1
1
1

Code
1
1

Here is an example with 3 shift registers

Register1 Register2 Register3
1
1
1

Code
-

Start with all 1s in your shift registers

Add Register 1 and Register 3
For this example, 1+1 =10 ==> 0
The answer 0 goes into Register 1 and
everything shifts to the right.

After 2N -1 steps (N is the number of registers),

the code repeats
Register1 Register2 Register3
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
1
0
1
1
1

Code
1
1
1
0
1
0
0

For 3 shift registers, the code repeats after 7 steps.

Light travels at 299,792,458 m/s only in

a vacuum
Ionospheric effects: ionizing radiation
Tropospheric effects: water vapor
Light is bent or reflected/refracted

Receiver clock errors, mostly corrected

by software in receiver
Satellite clock errors
Satellite time stamp errors
Time stamp errors are not correctable
SV timing & clocks are constantly
monitored and corrected

Natural & artificial features can

intercept signals
Mountains, valleys, hills, buildings, tree
canopies, etc.

Applications

Military

Navigation

Target tracking

Search and Rescue

Civilian

Allsport GPS

GPS Tuner

Automobile

Surveying

Bluetooth gph