The world of software receivers for satellite navigation
The world of software receivers for satellite navigation
Samenvatting
Software-Defined Receivers (SDR) are radio receivers that contain as few hardware components as possible. In such a receiver, the signal processing block then starts as close as possible after the antenna, and is carried out with scripts running on a general-purpose processor contrary to traditional hardware radio receivers. The application of this concept to receivers for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals was initiated in the latter part of the nineties. Several implementations have been developed all over the world since, at a time where existing GNSS constellations are being modernised and new constellations being constructed. Software receivers not only offer several advantages in terms of processing compared to the traditional GNSS receivers architectures, they also find various and sometimes unexpected applications. This paper contributes with an update on the different GNSS software receivers, a couple of years after the first state of the art.