Electronic – GPS L5C Differential? Max Update Rate(bits/s|Hz)

accuracydifferentialgnssgpsinterference

The differential GPS chips use L1 and L2C to calculate the ionospheric interference.

With the new GPS satellites, the new band L5C is being deployed, and I am wondering about the following things:

  1. Will L1 and L5C be used as new type of differential ionospheric error correction? Could L1 use both L2C and L5C as a kind of double correction at the same time? (Would it even be necessary or make sense, or are they still testing this and I’m getting ahead of myself)

  2. Separately, could L1/L5 produce superior differentiation to L1/L2?

  3. I’ve been reading documentation and cannot seem to grasp what the new nav data rate for L5C signal is (per each SV). Is it still the same 50Hz of L1 and L2, or is it 25Hz, or is it 100Hz? Whats throwing me off is the following line: “The 50 bit/s data is coded in a rate 1/2 convolution coder

  4. What update rate do the SBAS SV’s transmit? Is it also 50Hz?

Best Answer

The L1/L5 frequency pair can be used to compensate for ionospheric delay much in the same way as L1/L2. The wider spacing of L1/L5 as compared to L1/L2 will not enhance accuracy significantly.

In theory, if using all of L1/L2/L5, second order ionospheric effects can be eliminated (see here). We will see if this gives superior correction when manufacturers adopt this (or a similar) method (I'm sceptic).

The quadrature part of L5 is used as a pilot and does not carry data modulation. A convolutional coder expands the net data rate of 50bit/s into 100 symbols/s (to shape the power spectral density of the signal in space). These are phase shift modulated onto the inphase part of L5. Net rate is 50bit/s.

WAAS and EGNOS send 250 net bits/s in 500 symbols/sec. The relevant documentation (MOPS DO-229) is behind paywalls, I cannot link it here.

BTW: The term "differential" does not apply here, it is used when signals from at least two different antennas contribute to the solution (either independent receivers or antenna arrays).

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