{"id":13255,"date":"2023-10-09T10:58:19","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T13:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/?p=13255"},"modified":"2023-10-09T10:58:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T13:58:19","slug":"entra-leo-en-la-etapa-gnss-navegacion-con-satelites-starlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/?p=13255","title":{"rendered":"Entra LEO en la etapa GNSS, navegaci\u00f3n con sat\u00e9lites Starlink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Estamos asistiendo a un renacimiento del espacio. Se espera que decenas de miles de sat\u00e9lites de \u00f3rbita terrestre baja (LEO) de banda ancha sean lanzados a finales de esta d\u00e9cada. Estas megaconstelaciones planificadas de sat\u00e9lites LEO, junto con las constelaciones existentes, inundar\u00e1n la Tierra con una pl\u00e9tora de se\u00f1ales de oportunidad, diversas en frecuencia y direcci\u00f3n. Estas se\u00f1ales podr\u00edan explotarse para la navegaci\u00f3n en el caso inevitable de que las se\u00f1ales GNSS no est\u00e9n disponibles (por ejemplo, en ca\u00f1ones urbanos profundos, bajo un follaje denso, durante interferencias no intencionales e interferencias intencionales) o no sean confiables (por ejemplo, ataques de suplantaci\u00f3n de identidad no maliciosos).<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div id=\"_idContainer005\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\n<p class=\"_deck-for-feature\"><span class=\"CharOverride-6\"><em>We are witnessing a space renaissance. Tens of thousands of broadband low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are expected to be launched by the end of this decade. These planned megaconstellations of LEO satellites along with existing constellations will shower the Earth with a plethora of signals of opportunity, diverse in frequency and direction. These signals could be exploited for navigation in the inevitable event that GNSS signals become unavailable (e.g., in deep urban canyons, under dense foliage, during unintentional interference, and intentional jamming) or untrustworthy (e.g., undermalicious spoofing attacks).<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"_idContainer006\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\n<div id=\"_idContainer006\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\n<p class=\"_author-name\"><strong>ZAHER (ZAK) M. KASSAS,<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>MOHAMMAD NEINAVAIE,<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>JOE KHALIFE, NADIM KHAIRALLAH,<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>JAMIL HAIDAR-AHMAD,<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>SHARBEL KOZHAYA AND ZEINAB SHADRAM<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_author-affiliation\"><strong>AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS PERCEPTION, INTELLIGENCE AND NAVIGATION (ASPIN) LABORATORY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"body-txt-1-no-indent-flush-drop-cap\"><span class=\"_idGenDropcap-1\">T<\/span><span class=\"CharOverride-7\">h<\/span><span class=\"CharOverride-8\">e ambitious and glorified image of an Earth connected through a web woven from low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites is taking the world by storm, promising high-resolution images; remote sensing; and global, high-availability, high-bandwidth and low-latency Internet. Many corporations, such as Orbcomm, Globalstar, and Iridium, made haste in securing their position in space as LEO constellations were born. With the recent developments in satellite technology, reduction in launch costs and commercialization of LEO megaconstellations, LEO satellites\u2019 popularity is soaring. Major technology giants such as SpaceX, Amazon<\/span><span class=\"CharOverride-8\">\u00a0and OneWeb rush to enter this field by launching and scheduling the launch of thousands of satellites for Internet connectivity and communication purposes<\/span>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13257\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13257\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13257\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.01.47-PM-768x571-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"571\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.01.47-PM-768x571-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.01.47-PM-768x571-1-300x223.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13257\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 1: Some existing and future LEO satellite constellations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The promise of utilizing LEO satellites for navigation has been the subject of recent studies [1]\u2013[4].<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">While some studies call for tailoring the transmission protocol to support navigation capabilities [5], other studies propose to exploit the transmitted signals for navigation in an opportunistic fashion [6]. The former studies allow for simpler receiver architectures and navigation algorithms. However, they require significant investment in satellite infrastructure and spectrum allocation, the cost of which private companies; such as OneWeb, SpaceX, Amazon, among others; which are planning to aggregately launch tens of thousands of satellites into LEO (see\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 1<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Table 1<\/span>) may not be willing to pay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">Moreover, if the aforementioned companies agree to that additional cost, there will be no guarantees that they would not charge for \u201cextra navigation services.\u201d As such, exploiting LEO satellite signals opportunistically for navigation becomes the more viable approach. This article studies opportunistic navigation with the Starlink megaconstellation of LEO satellites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">To address the limitations and vulnerabilities of GNSS, opportunistic navigation has received significant attention over the past decade or so. Opportunistic navigation is a paradigm that relies on exploiting ambient radio signal of opportunity (SOPs) for positioning and timing [7]. Besides LEO satellite signals, other SOPs include AM\/FM radio, digital television, WiFi, and cellular, with the latter showing the promise of a submeter-accurate navigation on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) [8] and meter-level navigation on ground vehicles [9],[10].<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">LEO satellites possess desirable attributes for navigation. First, LEO satellites are around twenty times closer to Earth compared to GNSS satellites that reside in medium-Earth orbit (MEO), making LEO satellites\u2019 received signals significantly more powerful than GNSS (more than 30 dB). Second, LEO satellites orbit the Earth at much faster rates compared to GNSS satellites, making LEO satellites\u2019 Doppler measurements attractive to exploit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">Third, LEO megaconstellations will shower Earth with signals diverse in frequency, improving robustness to interference and cyberattacks. Fourth, LEO satellites will provide virtually a blanket cover around the globe, yielding low geometric dilution of precision (GDOP), which in turn gives more precise position estimates. These are not ungrounded promises. As of mid-2021, SpaceX has launched over 1,600 Starlink satellites into LEO, with the total being projected to be up to 42,000 satellites, 12,000 of which are already approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\"><span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 2<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 3<\/span>\u00a0show a heat map of the number of currently visible versus future Starlink LEO satellites, respectively, above an elevation mask of 5 degrees.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 4<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 5<\/span>\u00a0present heat maps of the position dilution of precision (PDOP) for the current versus future Starlink constellation, respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">However, there is no such thing as a free lunch. A multitude of challenges must be addressed to be able to exploit LEO satellite signals in an opportunistic fashion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">First, since LEO satellites are not designed for navigation purposes, they do not necessarily transmit their satellites\u2019 ephemerides, and in occasions that they do, we might not have access to such data as non-subscribers. The position and velocity of a satellite can be parametrized by its Keplerian elements. These elements, along with some other information about a satellite\u2019s states, can be found in two-line element (TLE) files, which are tracked and publicly published on a daily basis by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) [11]. However, utilizing these elements in determining the satellites\u2019 orbits introduces errors on the order of kilometers, as these elements are dynamic and deviate due to several sources of perturbing forces, which include atmospheric drag, the Earth\u2019s oblateness causing a non-uniform gravitational field, solar radiation pressure, and other sources of gravitational forces (e.g., the Sun and the Moon) [12]. Furthermore, with Starlink satellites orbiting at very low altitudes, the effect of these forces is amplified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">Second, unlike GNSS satellites, LEO satellites are not necessarily equipped with atomic clocks, nor they are as tightly synchronized. The stability of LEO satellites\u2019 clocks and their synchronicity are unknown. In contrast to GNSS, where the satelites\u2019 clock errors are periodically transmitted to the receiver in the navigation message, such information is unavailable to the receiver.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">Finally, LEO satellites are owned and operated by private entities, which adopt proprietary transmission protocols; making their signals \u201cmysterious\u201d for non-subscribers. As such, to exploit these signals, we need to build specialized receivers that are capable of extracting navigation observables.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13258\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.30-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"764\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.30-PM.png 764w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.30-PM-300x168.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 764px) 100vw, 764px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13259 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.21.57-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"764\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.21.57-PM.jpg 764w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.21.57-PM-300x198.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 764px) 100vw, 764px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13260\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.03-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"488\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.03-PM.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.03-PM-300x191.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13261\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.08-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"758\" height=\"484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.08-PM.jpg 758w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.08-PM-300x192.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 758px) 100vw, 758px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13262\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.14-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"764\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.14-PM.jpg 764w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.14-PM-300x189.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 764px) 100vw, 764px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Navigation with Starlink Satellites<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">Here, we present two approaches to exploit unknown Starlink signals for navigation. The first approach relies on the single or multiple carrier signals transmitted by Starlink satellites. An adaptive Kalman filter (KF)-based phase-locked loop (PLL) algorithm is used in the first approach to extract carrier phase observables from received satellite signals. In the second approach, Starlink signals are acquired and tracked without assuming any prior knowledge on the signal. This approach considers a more generic model for the transmitted synchronization signals to provide Dopplernavigation observables.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13263\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.37-PM-768x680-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"680\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.37-PM-768x680-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.37-PM-768x680-1-300x266.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13264\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.47-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"764\" height=\"550\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.47-PM.jpg 764w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.22.47-PM-300x216.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 764px) 100vw, 764px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13265\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.01-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"762\" height=\"634\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.01-PM.png 762w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.01-PM-300x250.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 762px) 100vw, 762px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\"><strong><span class=\"CharOverride-10\">Extracting Carrier-Phase Observables<\/span><\/strong>. (Approach 1) A look at the magnitude of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the Starlink downlink signal at 11.325 GHz carrier frequency and sampling rate of 2.5 MHz shows nine peaks (<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 6a<\/span>).\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 6b<\/span>\u00a0demonstrates the Waterfall plot of the FFT over an 80-second interval.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The peaks are uniformly separated by approximately 44 kHz and vary in amplitude over time. One approach to extract navigation observables from Starlink signals is to consider the peaks as carriers and develop a softwaredefined radio (SDR) to acquire and track them to generate beat carrier phase measurements. Since the receiver does not know the position of the tracked peak relative to the center frequency of the signal, a Doppler ambiguity is present, and it is accounted for in the navigation filter used to generate the position solution. The continuous-time model of the beat carrier phase is a function of<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-7\">\u2022 the true range between the LEO satellite and the receiver,<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-7\">\u2022 the time-varying difference between the receiver\u2019s and LEO satellite\u2019s clock bias, and<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-7\">\u2022 the beat carrier frequency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The clock bias is assumed to have an initial value and a constant drift. An adaptive KF-based algorithm tracks the beat carrier phase. The KF-based tracking operates similarly to Costas loops, except that the loop filter is replaced with a KF, where the measurement noise variance is varied adaptively. More details are discussed in [13].<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\"><span class=\"CharOverride-10\"><strong>Estimating the Synchronization Signal<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0(Approach 2) In most communication systems, a periodic signal is transmitted for synchronization purposes, e.g., spreading codes in 3G code division multiple access (CDMA) and primary synchronization signal (PSS) in 4G LTE and 5G. Unlike data, the synchronization signals are periodic. One can model the Starlink downlink signal as an unknown periodic signal. The detection of unknown periodic signals in the presence of noise and interference falls into the paradigm of matched subspace detectors, which has been studied in the detection literature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The second approach consists of two main stages: acquisition and tracking. In the acquisition stage, an estimate of the parameters of the synchronization signal and its period, denoted by\u00a0<span class=\"CharOverride-9\">L<\/span>, along with an initial estimate of the Doppler frequency\u00a0<span class=\"CharOverride-9\">f<\/span><span class=\"CharOverride-11\">D<\/span>\u00a0is produced. The acquisition stage is modeled as a binary hypothesis testing problem as:<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">Solving the detection problem produces a likelihood function which involves a two-dimensional search over the Doppler frequency and period.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure\u00a07<\/span>\u00a0demonstrates the likelihood in terms of Doppler frequency and the period for Starlink downlink signals in the acquisition stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">After producing these initial estimates in the acquisition stage, the estimated Doppler frequency is tracked using a Doppler tracking algorithm. To capture the high dynamics of Starlink LEO satellites, a linear chirp model is considered. More precisely, it is assumed that during the coherent processing interval (CPI), the Doppler is a linear function of time. An FFT-based chirp parameter tracking is used to track the chirp parameters which are the Doppler frequency and Doppler rate.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 8<\/span>\u00a0demonstrates the tracked Doppler frequencies and Doppler rates of six Starlink satellites transmitting at 11.325 GHz versus those predicted from TLE files. The estimated Doppler frequencies have a constant bias compared to those predicted from TLE. This bias is present because the exact carrier frequency of the transmitted signals is unknown. This constant bias is estimated in the navigation filter. More details are discussed in [14].<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13266\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.13-PM-768x691-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"691\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.13-PM-768x691-1.png 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.13-PM-768x691-1-300x270.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.23-PM-768x556-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"556\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.23-PM-768x556-1.png 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.23-PM-768x556-1-300x217.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13268\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.31-PM-768x480-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.31-PM-768x480-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.31-PM-768x480-1-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13269\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.37-PM-1024x196-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.37-PM-1024x196-1.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.37-PM-1024x196-1-300x57.png 300w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.37-PM-1024x196-1-768x147.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Starlink LEO Ephemerides Error<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">One source of error to consider when navigating with LEO satellite signals arises from imperfect knowledge of the LEO satellites\u2019 ephemerides. This is due to time-varying Keplerian elements caused by several perturbing accelerations acting on the satellite. Mean Keplerian elements and perturbing acceleration parameters are contained in publicly available TLE files. The information in these files may be used to initialize simplified general perturbations (SGP) models, which propagate LEO satellite\u2019s orbit. SGP propagators (e.g., SGP4 [15]) are optimized for speed by replacing complicated perturbing acceleration models that require numerical integrations with analytical expressions to propagate a satellite posi-tion from an epoch time to a specified future time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The tradeoff is in satellite position accuracy: the SGP4 propagator has around 3 km in position error at epoch and the propagated orbit will continue to deviate from the true one until the TLE files are updated the following day.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 9<\/span>\u00a0shows the breakdown of the position error of three Starlink satellites in the radial, along-track and cross-track frame. The errors are generated by propagating Starlink satellites using SGP4 and comparing to a \u201cground truth,\u201d generated by the High Precision Orbit Propagator (HPOP), which was initialized using the state vector published by Starlink.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 9<\/span>\u00a0shows that most of the error reside along the track. More details are discussed in [16],[17].<\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Positioning with Starlink Carrier Phase and Doppler Measurements<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">This section presents the first stationary positioning results with Starlink signals. A National Instruments (NI) universal software radio peripheral (USRP) 2945R was equipped with two consumer-grade antennas and low-noise block (LNB) downconverters to receive Starlink signals in the Ku-band from two different angles. An octo-clock was used to synchronize the USRP clocks and the downconverters. The sampling rate was set to 2.5 MHz and the carrier frequency was set to 11.325 GHz, which is one of the Starlink downlink frequencies.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 10<\/span>\u00a0shows the hardware setup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">A weighted nonlinear least-squares (WNLS) estimator was used to estimate the receiver\u2019s position using the six detected Starlink satellites. To account for ephemeris errors, the TLE epoch time for each Starlink satellite was shifted in time to minimize the error residuals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The receiver\u2019s position was initialized as the centroid of all Starlink satellite positions, projected onto the surface of the Earth, yielding an initial position error of 179 km. The clock biases and drifts were initialized to zero.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The environment layout and the positioning results are shown in\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 11<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Table 2,<\/span>\u00a0respectively. The 3\u2013D position error was found to be 33.5 m and 22.9 m for Approach 1 and 2, respectively. Upon equipping the receiver with an altimeter (to know its attitude) the 2\u2013D position error was reduced to 7.7 m and 10 m for Approach 1 and Approach 2, respectively. More details are discussed in [13],[14].<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13270\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.57-PM-768x624-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.57-PM-768x624-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.23.57-PM-768x624-1-300x244.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13271\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.04-PM-768x505-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.04-PM-768x505-1.png 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.04-PM-768x505-1-300x197.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13272\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.11-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"626\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.11-PM.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.11-PM-300x245.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13273\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.22-PM-768x521-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"521\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.22-PM-768x521-1.png 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.22-PM-768x521-1-300x204.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Differential Doppler Positioning<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">A common approach to compensate for ephemeris errors, ionospheric and troposheric delays, clock errors, and other common model errors is to employ a differential framework, composed of a base and a rover. In differential Doppler positioning, the rover estimates its states by subtracting its Doppler measurements to Starlink satellites from Doppler measurements to the same satellites made by a base receiver with known position. This leads to fewer unknown terms that need to be estimated and to reducing the effect of common mode errors. More details are discussed in [18].<\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Experimental Results with Starlink Differential Doppler Measurements<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">This section presents experimental results of positioning with differential Doppler measurements from Starlink LEO satellites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">A stationary scenario is considered in which the base was equipped with an Ettus E312 USRP with a consumer-grade antenna and LNB downconverter to receive Starlink signals in the Ku- band, and the rover was equipped with USRP 2974 with the same downconverter. The Octoclocks were used to synchronize between the USRPs\u2019 clocks and the downconverters at the base and at the rover. The sampling rate was set to 2.5 MHz, and the carrier frequency was set to 11.325 GHz. Over the course of the experiment, the receivers on-board the base and the rover were listening to 3 Starlink satellites: Starlink 44740, 48295, and 47728. The satellites were visible for 320 seconds.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 12<\/span>shows the likelihood as a function of the Doppler frequency and period of Starlink downlink signals. The CPI was set to be 200 times the period. It can be seen that three Starlink LEO satellites were detected in the acquisition stage.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 13<\/span>\u00a0shows the measured differential Doppler for the three satellites. The spike in the estimated differential Doppler is due to channel outage and burst error, which is common in satellite communications.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">The distance between the base and the rover was 1.004 km. The rover\u2019s initial estimate was approximately 200 km away from its true position. Upon employing the differential Doppler positioning framework, the 3\u2013D position error was found to be 33.4 m, while the 2\u2013D position error was 5.6 m.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 14<\/span>\u00a0shows the positions of the base and the rover as well as the rover\u2019s initial estimate and its final 3\u2013D and 2\u2013D estimates.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13274\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.35-PM-768x520-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.35-PM-768x520-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.35-PM-768x520-1-300x203.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13275\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.42-PM-768x246-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"246\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.42-PM-768x246-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.42-PM-768x246-1-300x96.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Simultaneous LEO Satellite Tracking and Ground Vehicle Navigation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">Whether navigating on water, over land or in air, most vehicles traditionally rely on a GNSS-aided inertial navigation system (INS). This GNSS\/INS integration\u2014which can be loose, tight, or deep\u2014provides a navigation solution that benefits from both the short-term accuracy of the INS and the long-term stability of GNSS [19]. LEO satellites\u2019 signals could be opportunistically exploited as an INS aiding source, thus serving as a complement or even an alternative to GNSS signals. GNSS satellites are equipped with highly stable atomic clocks, are synchronized across the network, and they transmit their ephemeris data and clock errors to the user in their navigation message. In contrast, LEO satellites are not designed for navigation purposes. As such, their on-board clocks are not necessarily of atomic standards nor as tightly synchronized. Moreover, LEO satellites typically do not openly transmit their ephemeris and clock error data in their proprietary signals. To remedy these challenges, the simultaneous tracking and navigation (STAN) framework was proposed, in which the navigating vehicle\u2019s states are simultaneously estimated with the states of the LEO satellites [2],[20]. STAN employs an extended Kalman filter (EKF) to aid the vehicle\u2019s INS with navigation observables (e.g., carrier phase and Doppler), extracted from LEO satellites\u2019 signals in a tightly coupled fashion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\"><span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 15<\/span>\u00a0shows a block diagram of the STAN framework. The navigating vehicle\u2019s statevector\u00a0<span class=\"CharOverride-9\">x<\/span><span class=\"CharOverride-11\">v<\/span>\u00a0estimated in the STAN framework are the vehicle\u2019s body frame orientation with respect to the Earth-centered Earth-fixed (ECEF) reference frame, the vehicle\u2019s 3-D position and velocity in the ECEF frame, and the gyroscope and accelerometer biases, namely:<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-9\">\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-10\">The\u00a0<span class=\"CharOverride-9\">m<\/span>th LEO satellite\u2019s state vector\u00a0<span class=\"CharOverride-9\">x<\/span><span class=\"CharOverride-11\">LEOm<\/span>\u00a0consists of its 3-D position and velocity expressed in the Earth-centered inertial (ECI) reference frame as well as the relative clock bias and clock drift between the receiver and the\u00a0<span class=\"CharOverride-9\">m<\/span>th LEO satellite, i.e.,<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-11\">\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">The state vector estimated in the STAN EKF is formed by augmenting the vehicles\u2019 states with each LEO satellite\u2019s states to get<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-12\">\n<p class=\"_Ahead\">Experimental Results: Ground Vehicle Navigation with Starlink and Orbcomm LEO Satellites<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">This section presents experimental results demonstrating the performance of ground vehicle navigation with 3 Starlink and 2 Orbcomm LEO satellites via the STAN framework. The vehicle was driven along the CA-55 freeway in California, USA, for 4.15 km in 150 seconds. The vehicle was equipped with a Septentrio AsteRx-I V integrated GNSS-INS system, a VectorNav VN-100 microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS) tactical-grade inertial measurement unit (IMU), two LNBs connected to a USRP-2794 to sample Starlink satellites signals at 11.325 GHz, and a VHF antenna connected to an Ettus E312 USRP to sample Orbcomm signals at 137-138 MHz as shown in\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 16<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-5\">During the first 80 seconds, GNSS signals were available but were fictitiously cut off for the last 70 seconds of the experiment, during which the vehicle traveled for 1.82 km. The GNSS-INS navigation solution drifted to a 3-D position root mean squared error (RMSE) of 118.5 m from the actual trajectory while the STAN LEO-aided INS yielded a 3-D position RMSE of 21.6 m.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 17<\/span>\u00a0illustrates the true and estimated trajectories and\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Table 3<\/span>\u00a0summarizes the navigation results.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13276\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.49-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.49-PM.png 500w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.49-PM-300x182.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13277\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.54-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"502\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.54-PM.png 502w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.24.54-PM-300x180.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 502px) 100vw, 502px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Simulation Results: A Glimpse to the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">This section presents simulation results demonstrating the achievable opportunistic navigation performance with the future Starlink megasconstellation upon launching its 12,000 LEO satellites that are approved by the FCC. A fixed-wing UAV was equipped with a tactical-grade IMU, an oven-controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO), and GNSS and Starlink LEO receivers. The Starlink receiver produced Doppler measurements to visible Starlink satellites. The Starlink satellites were equipped with chip-scale atomic clocks (CSACs). The Doppler measurement noise variances ranged between 500\u20131,500 Hz2 , which were varied based on the predicted carrier-to-noise ratio, as calculated based on the satellites\u2019 elevation angle. The simulated UAV compares in performance to a small private plane with a cruise speed of roughly 50 m\/s. The UAV flew over Irvine, California, USA for a 300-second trajectory covering 15.43 km. The trajectory consisted of a straight climbing segment, followed by a figure-eight pattern, and then a final descent into a straight segment. The UAV, initially at 1 km altitude, climbed to an altitude of 1.5 km, where it began executing rolling and yawing maneuvers before descending back down to 1 km in the straight segment. The Starlink satellite states were initialized using TLE files and the trajectories of the 74 Starlink LEO satellites used to navigate the UAV are shown in\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 18<\/span>\u00a0(the trajectories are colored in red when the satellites are outside the 20\u00b0 elevation mask and in green when they are visible to the UAV). GNSS was available for the first 60 s of the flight and STAN with Starlink satellites was performed without GNSS for the last 240 s of the trajectory.\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Figure 18<\/span>\u00a0illustrates the simulation results and\u00a0<span class=\"_figure-flash\" lang=\"fi-FI\">Table 4<\/span>\u00a0summarizes the navigation results.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13278\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.25.02-PM-768x709-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"709\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.25.02-PM-768x709-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-15-at-12.25.02-PM-768x709-1-300x277.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_Ahead\"><strong>Acknowledgment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"_body-indent ParaOverride-6\">This work was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Grant N00014-16-1-2305, in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant 1929965, in part by U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) under Grant 69A3552047138 for the CARMEN University Transportation Center (UTC), and in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under the Young Investigator Program (YIP) Grant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Fuente:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/insidegnss.com\/enter-leo-on-the-gnss-stage-navigation-with-starlink-satellites\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>https:\/\/insidegnss.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Estamos asistiendo a un renacimiento del espacio. Se espera que decenas de miles de sat\u00e9lites de \u00f3rbita terrestre baja (LEO) de banda ancha sean lanzados&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13279,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13255\/revisions\/13279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}