Model download
  

   -
 Land mobile channel  
   -
 Aeronautical channel  

 

Contact
  

   -
 Dr. Andreas Lehner  

   -
 Dr. Alexander Steingass  

 

Links
  

   -
 Joanneum Research  

   -
 Universidade de Vigo
  

   -
 European Space Agency
 

 

   

  

 
Last Update:
12. March 2013
  

 
Author:
Andreas Lehner
  

 
  		 


Satellite Navigation Multipath Channel Models

New

MIMO Satellite Channel Model

Coming soon ...

Land Mobile Channel Model:

Standardized in ITU-R P.681-7 (10/09) "Propagation data required for the design of Earth-space land mobile telecommunication systems"

In autumn 2002 the German Aerospace Center (DLR) carried out a high resolution measurement campaign to investigate the land mobile satellite navigation multipath channel. High bandwidth navigation systems like GALILEO are strongly disturbed by reflections from structures close to the receiver. To model these effects a very high time resolution is required. Especially for the BOC (Binary Offset Carrier) signal structures the delays of echoes have to be known in ns accuracy. Approaches of the past to describe the multipath effects have resolutions of 50 ns, which is not satisfying for high precision positioning. For the measurements a Zeppelin simulated the satellite transmitting a signal down to a measurement van equipped with the receiver and various sensors. During the campaign more than 60 measurements, each lasting for about 15 minutes, were taken in several urban, suburban and rural scenarios for car and pedestrian applications.

The following publications describe the measurement campaign, the data analysis and the modeling of the land mobile channel:

  • Steingaß, A., Lehner, A.: Measuring GALILEO´s multipath channel. European Navigation Conference ENC-GNSS 2003, Graz, Austria, April 22-25, 2003 File öffnen

  • Steingaß, A., Lehner, A.: Measurement of the Navigation Multipath Channel - A Statistical Analysis. Institute of Navigation Conference ION GNSS 2004, Long Beach, USA, September 21-24, 2004 File öffnen

  • Lehner, A., Steingaß, A.: A novel channel model for land mobile satellite navigation. Institute of Navigation Conference ION GNSS 2005, Long Beach, USA, September 13-16, 2005 File öffnen

  • Lehner, A., Steingaß, A., Schubert, F.: A Location and Movement Dependent GNSS Multipath Error Model for Pedestrian Applications. ATTI Journal dell'Istituto Italiano di Navigazione (189), pp. 108-119, ISSN 1120-6977, Italien Institute of Navigation I.I.N., Rome, Italy, 2009 File öffnen

One critical scenario for navigation applications is the urban environment with the often shadowed or blocked direct path signal and many reflecting objects. Measurements took place in the centre of Munich, Germany. From this data a novel model was derived taking deterministic effects and statistical distrubtions from the measurement into account. Using the same model structure, suburban environments can be simulated by using appropriate scenery parameters and the statistics gained from the measurements in Fürstenfeldbruck, a small town near Munich. A Matlab implementation of this model for non-commercial research and scientific purposes is available here:

-> get the model <-

Aeronautical Channel Model:

Standardized in ITU-R P.682-2 (02/07) "Propagation data required for the design of Earth-space aeronautical mobile telecommunication systems" 

Along with the development of GALILEO it became necessary to improve the knowledge about the aeronautical channel. Power, delay and bandwidth of reflections at aircraft structures are not modelled accurate enough for the new GNSS signal structures. For that reason the European Space Agency ESA commissioned a contract about a measurement campaign in 2002 to a research consortium: JOANNEUM RESEARCH - Austria, UNIVERSITY OF VIGO - Spain and the German Aerospace Center DLR. Only reflections which arrive shorter than the chip duration mainly contribute to the positioning error of a navigation receiver. This nature of the system made it necessary to measure the channel with an extremely high bandwidth of 100 MHz, which results in a time resolution of 20 ns, enhanced down to 1 ns by using a super-resolution algorithm.

The following publication describes the measurement campaign, the data analysis and the modeling of the aeronautical channel:

  • Alexander Steingaß, Andreas Lehner, F. Pérez-Fontán, Erwin Kubista, M.J. Martín, Bertram Arbesser-Rastburg, "The High Resolution Aeronautical Multipath Navigation Channel", ION NTM 2004, San Diego, USA, January 26-28, 2004 Get file

The most critical scenario for aeronautical applications is the "final approach", the last 3 minutes prior to landing. From the measurements we derived a model for this situation. Reflections at the aircraft structure and ground reflections are modelled for two different jet planes, a VFW 614 and an Airbus A-340. Measurements took place at Thalerhof airport in Graz, Austria. A Matlab implementation of this model is available here:

-> get the model <-

In case of any questions please contact:

Dr. Alexander Steingaß, phone: +49 8153 28 2864, email: alexander.steingass@dlr.de
Dr. Andreas Lehner, phone: +49 8153 28 2804, email: andreas.lehner@dlr.de