Design and implementation of a dual-antenna GPS receiver

Abstract

In the Global Position System (GPS) technology, the GPS receiver (GPSR) has to receive the satellite signal to locate its position in a 3D space. For the GPS applications where the GPSR carrier (vehicle) is rotating, the signal-receiving-path could be temporally blocked by the attitude of the vehicle. And, once the GPSR loses track of the signal, it takes at least 6 seconds for the GPSR to resume its positioning task. This paper proposes a novel dual-antenna GPSR system (hardware architecture and algorithms) that can solve the intermittent signal problem when the vehicle is rotating and continuing on its positioning task. Current experimental results indicate that the proposed GPSR design can successfully output its position when the vehicle is rotating at 7.5 rpm. At 22 rpm, some satellite signals remain on-lock but some do not, depending on the strength of receiving signals.