Joint Code Acquisition and Doppler Frequency Shift Estimation for GPS Signals

The unavoidable Doppler frequency shift reduces the correlation peak for code acquisition in global positioning system (GPS). In contrast to conventional methods where the code phase and Doppler frequency shift are separately treated, this paper proposes a novel three-step scheme for joint code acquisition and Doppler estimation, whereby not only the Doppler effect on the correlation peak is removed, but also the reduced detection probability due to noise enhancement in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environments is avoided. The theoretical analysis shows that the proposed method has low complexity and fast acquisition speed. Computer simulations demonstrate that code acquisition with high detection probability and Doppler frequency shift estimation with high accuracy can be simultaneously achieved.