Interferer performance dependency on analog-digital-conversion of GNSS-class signals in GPS receivers

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are introduced in a variety of new applications. While commercial receivers where expected to operate in a low-interference environment in the past, this has changed significantly due to the emergence of positioning applications in mobile phones, where very strong blocking signals cannot be circumvented. This poses many challenges to GNSS receivers. This work focuses on the analog-digital-conversion in the GNSS-signal-path. First the different quantization effects are presented and their impact on GNSS signals is estimated based on simulations. This leads to the foremost importance of signal degradation through blocking signals for low-bit analog-digital-converters (ADCs). This effect is afterwards verified using a state-of-the-art GPS receiver and the performance enhancement for higher-bit ADCs is quantified.