GPS receiver

• Grant number: 00/13452-7
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: April 01, 2001
• End date: December 31, 2004
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Aerospace Engineering - Aerospace Systems
• Principal Investigator: Marco Antonio Chamon
• Grantee: Marco Antonio Chamon
• Company: Navcon Navegação e Controle Indústria e Comércio Ltda
• City: São José dos Campos

Abstract

The enormous growth in the application of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) is generating the need for the mastery of this technology, not only for applications, but also for the adaptation of the project of receptors for specific needs. This need has become greater in view of the progress in the area of low cost inertia sensors, leading to a growth in the use of integrated GPS/ Inertia systems. Today this is an area of major development in positioning systems in every developed country, and even in some emerging countries. The company, in collaboration with researchers from the National Institute for Space Research, Inpe, is attempting to follow this trend, through carrying out a project developed within the ambit of PIPE named Integrated GPS/Inertia Platform, now in its final phase. As a natural follow-on, the project now proposes to look into the development of GPS receptors based on available chips sets. The objective is, through the mastery of the project’s techniques, to eliminate restrictions imposed in the use of the receptors in applications of greater altitude and speed, such as space, as well as to permit an improvement in the use of the techniques of integration with inertia sensors and others. The restrictions mentioned previously are not found in the chip set used for the receiver, but in the software firmware which determines the dynamic of the tracking coverage of the satellite signals and, therefore, the capacity to track a vehicle with greater velocity and acceleration, and in the application software which determines the vehicle’s coordinates. This software can be altered once the algorithms involved are mastered. The possibility of using a GPS receiver with several aerials, or several GPS receivers for the determination of altitude received a great boost recently when it became possible to obtain greater precision from the systems using low cost inert sensors, through their operative calibration. In a project developed by the previously mentioned company, this last option was used. By means of access to the design of the receiver, consideration of the second option becomes a possibility, particularly for space applications, in which the reduction in weight and energy used is more important than cost. (AU)