초록 ▼

The spaceborne Global Positioning System receiver provides navigational solutions and is designed for use in low Earth orbit. The spaceborne GPS receiver can determine the orbital position of a spacecraft using any of the satellites within the GPS constellation. It is a multiple processor system inc

The spaceborne Global Positioning System receiver provides navigational solutions and is designed for use in low Earth orbit. The spaceborne GPS receiver can determine the orbital position of a spacecraft using any of the satellites within the GPS constellation. It is a multiple processor system incorporating redundancy by using a microcontroller to handle the closure of tracking loops for acquired GPS satellites, while a separate microprocessor computes the spacecraft navigational solution and handles other tasks within the receiver. The spaceborne GPS receiver can use either microcontroller or the microprocessor to close the satellite tracking loops. The use of microcontroller provides better tracking performance of acquired GPS satellites. The spaceborne GPS receiver utilizes up to seven separate GPS boards, with each board including its own set of correlators, down-converters and front-end components. The spaceborne GPS receiver also includes telemetry and time-marking circuitry. The spaceborne GPS receiver communicates with other spacecraft systems through a variety of interfaces and can be software-configured to support several different mission profiles.

대표청구항 ▼

[What is claimed is:] [1.]at least one antenna for capturing the global positioning signals from global positioning system satellites;at least one GPS board for correlation and tracking of the captured global positioning signals, including:a microcontroller; anda memory, wherein executable code is s

[What is claimed is:] [1.]at least one antenna for capturing the global positioning signals from global positioning system satellites;at least one GPS board for correlation and tracking of the captured global positioning signals, including:a microcontroller; anda memory, wherein executable code is stored on said memory and said memory is accessible by said microcontroller;a processor for controlling said at least one GPS board, wherein said processor selects which of the captured global positioning signals to track, and further calculates positional information from the global positioning signals; anda motherboard to facilitate connections between said processor, said at least one GPS board and said at least one antenna.