GNSS Receiver Design and Analysis

One of the most important factors in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver design is determining what application the receiver is going to be used in. An aviation receiver used for safety of live applications has very different requirements compared with a geodetic surveying receiver or a low-cost consumer-grade receiver used in a mobile cell phone. Although there are many variations in GNSS receiver design, all receivers must perform certain basic functions. The main GNSS receiver functions include receiver radio frequency front end, frequency down-conversion and if amplification and analog-to-digital conversion and automatic gain control. When a GNSS receiver is turned on, a sequence of operations must ensue before information in a GNSS signal can be accessed and used to provide a user solution. After carrier, code, and data clock synchronization, the navigation data decoding can be performed to extract the navigation information encoded onto the GNSS broadcast.