Fundamentals and Overview of GNSS Receivers

This chapter provides an overview of the fundamentals of receiver technology, its development history, and current trends. It provides an overview of the anatomy of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver. The functionalities and interrelationships among the various components are described. The chapter discusses signal generation and transmission. Signal models at the satellite transmission and receiver antennas are presented. The chapter focuses on RF front‐end (RFFE) functionalities, components, performance metrics, and architecture. The signal model at the RFFE is covered. The chapter is devoted to the correlation operation output model and correlation at hardware and software levels. It provides a quick overview of a receiver channel control state machine without dwelling on the details of the state machine implementations. The chapter also discusses the generation and relationship among the various timing bases in a GNSS receiver.