Advanced Multi-Receiver Vector Tracking for Positioning a Land Vehicle

The novel Multi-Receiver Vector Tracking (MRVT) architecture for the joint tracking of multiple GPS receivers, presented in our prior work [1], is improved upon in this followup paper. Improvements include an augmented software platform, Python Software Defined Radio (Python SDR), which has, among its many enhancements, a variable coherent integration interval with navigation bit wipe-off. Dynamic process noise covariance matrix, attitude aiding and additional sub-sample timing synchronization between individual receivers. The main concept behind MRVT is still the same. The reduction in the overall search space, from the state vector of each individual receiver to a single reference state vector and attitude of the rigid body comprising the multi-receiver network, offers increased information redundancy which brings about increased accuracy, reliability and robustness to signal attenuation and multipath. In this paper, we begin by detailing the MRVT concept and implementation, followed by demonstrating with our experiments the enhanced performance of Advanced MRVT by showing increased accuracy in positions, altitudes, baselines and timing with respect to conventional vector tracking.