Kinematic Performance Analysis of Joint Vector Architecture Based Carrier Phase Tracking

A joint vector phase locked loop (VPLL) method is introduced and its characteristics under kinematic mode are explored. The joint VPLL uses a common loop based on extended Kalman filter (EKF) to estimate the dynamics experienced by satellite signals and individual loops to track the dynamics experienced only by signal of individual satellite. The carrier phase prediction performance of the joint VPLL method is first analyzed under kinematic mode using a land vehicle. The test results show that, when one satellite is blocked, the joint VPLL can predict the carrier phase of the blocked satellite for at least 15 seconds before the phase prediction error exceeds a quarter-cycle which is the pull-in range of two-quadrant arctangent discriminator. A conventional prediction strategy is then implemented based on standard receivers and compared to the joint VPLL. The results show that the performance of the joint VPLL is much better than the conventional strategy. The sensitivity performance of the joint VPLL under kinematic mode is also analyzed and the field test results show that the sensitivity of the carrier phase tracking based on the joint VPLL can be improved by about 4 dB compared to the scalar tracking.