Processing Cost of Doppler Search in GNSS Signal Acquisition

To acquire a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signal, the receiver must determine the Doppler offset experienced by the signal. The time and resources consumed in the Doppler search contribute to the cost and efficiency of the receiver, which is - fundamentally dependent on signal processing techniques adapted for the search. In this article, we address the cost of signal processing for a Doppler search in GNSS signal acquisition. We describe the standard signal processing approaches of the Doppler search and present a signal averaging technique for reducing the processing cost. We select the modernized global positioning system (GPS) L2C signal to facilitate conceptual discussions and to produce experimental validations.