SSV visibility evaluation based on different GPS transmitting antenna characteristics

Abstract

Global Positioning System (GPS) is widely used not only in terrestrial scenarios for positioning, navigation and timing applications, but also in various space scenarios, like orbit determination of satellites and space station in recent years. As the visibility analysis of GPS satellites would be a critical issue to be solved in the Space Service Volume (SSV) receiver preliminary design, this parameter should be analyzed considering not only power limitation, but also GPS transmitting antenna characteristics. In this work, one analysis structure is proposed to assess the visibilities in different conditions, like various altitudes and different GPS antenna patterns. Different GPS transmitting antenna characteristics are set up and simulated. Simulation results demonstrate obvious visibility differences under different supposed antenna characteristics and orbit altitudes. This phenomenon encourages us to design or adjust GPS transmitting antenna characteristics to provide better GPS visibility for specific space application.