Acquisition Performance Comparison of New Generation of GNSS BOC-modulated Signals

The number of transmitted GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) signals has significantly increased with the introduction of new GPS signals (Block III) and the ongoing deployment of the European Galileo and the Chinese BeiDou BDS systems. To satisfy compatibility and interoperability requirements between global navigation satellite systems and also provide higher position accuracy and availability, the GNSS signal design evolves and one major contribution is the use of the modulation Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) on different forms [1]. From the signal processing point of view, a well-known advantage of this modulation, compared to Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulation is the tracking performance improvement [2]. However, in a GNSS receiver, the first signal processing step is the acquisition. The output of the acquisition is a rough estimation of the incoming signal parameters (code delay and Doppler frequency) so it is a critical step and the following steps depend on its success. So it is legitimate to question the acquisition performance of the new BOCmodulated GNSS signals and compare them.