Special Issue "Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Applications"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Chris Rizos
School of Surveying & Spatial Information Systems, the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Website: http://www.gmat.unsw.edu.au/snap/staff/chris_rizos.htm
E-Mail:
Interests: geodesy; GPS/GNSS technology and applications; navigation; precise positioning algorithms; continuously operating GPS/GNSS reference station infrastructure

All manuscripts should be submitted to remotesensing@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this Open Access journal is 300 CHF per accepted paper. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• GPS/GNSS technology
• applications
• navigation
• precise positioning

Type of paper: Article
Title: Simulink Based ‘Reconfigurable’ GPS Receiver Design
Author: Swarna Ravindra Babu
Affiliation: GPS Group, Advanced Technology Labs, Wipro Technologies Chennai, India; E-mail: s.ravi@UNSWAlumni.com; Ph: 91-94444 18181
Abstract: The evolution of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), although considered a boon to the application developers, particularly the mobile and safety-critical applications, is actually becoming a bane for system developers. Challenges galore… traditional systems with limited processing power no longer can support the evolving requirements. Most of the contemporary GPS receivers use ASIC chips to perform correlation operations – acquisition and tracking. However, these devices are ‘rigid’ in functionality and cannot accommodate new signals without a complete redesign, which leads to cost challenges. A paradigm shift is therefore needed in the development strategies to reduce the time-to-market of products. Not only the software, but also the ‘flexibility’ of the hardware to adapt is playing an important role in the new receiver designs. This paper describes a Simulink-based approach in designing a GNSS receiver. Simulink, being a graphical development tool, considerably reduces the design time by using the ‘pick-and-drop’ blocks. These blocks also enhance the understanding, debugging and analysis of the receiver with graphical features. Moreover, critical code and complex algorithms written in C and Matlab languages can be easily integrated with these blocks. The biggest advantage of this development approach is that these blocks can be easily converted into Xilinx or Altera blocksets using tools such as System Generator and DSP Builder, respectively. The final implementation, after thorough analysis for performance, can be compiled from this environment itself to generate the bitfile which can be ported onto a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). A Lyrtech development board comprising Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA, DSP and ARM processors is used to validate the proposed system. Real-time data will be used to evaluate the performance of the receiver and the results discussed. Detailed design procedures leading to the complete receiver design will also be presented.