Using diversity of satellite channels for navigation systems

Current global navigation systems like the United States' GPS (Global Positioning System) or its Russian counterpart GLONASS (Global Orbiting Navigation Satellite System) are based on direct sequence (DS)-spread-spectrum technology. Nevertheless, these systems do not use multipath reception to increase navigational accuracy, but treat the reflected paths as interference that has to be avoided. This paper investigates how far superposition of several received signal paths effects the capacity of a receiver for both satellite communications and navigation. Some astonishing results were obtained after employing a RAKE receiver. For the performed simulations, a receiver model close to hardware realization was implemented.