A novel signal acquisition method for GPS dual-frequency L1 C/A and L2C receivers

Together with the 30-year-old signal L1 C/A, the new signal L2C, offered by the modernized GPS program, assures a future for civil GPS dual-frequency receivers which propose a better performance than the current single-frequency ones. This paper introduces a novel combined acquisition method dedicated to the GPS dual-frequency L1 C/A and L2C receivers. The method exploits the capacity of both the signal channels as well as the advantages of differential signal processing. High detection sensitivity at a reasonable complexity is the main advantage of the proposed method with respect to others in literature.