Experimental Analysis of GPS L2C Signal Quality under Various Observational Conditions

Abstract

To appropriately handle the GPS L2C signal for the future development of positioning algorithms, this contribution has endeavoured to figure out its features by computing some quality measures of all the modernised satellites (i.e., twenty-three as of January 2022) and comparing them with those of the C/A and P2(Y) code. A series of quality analyses have been carried out to GPS measurements at twenty-four continuously operating reference stations (CORS) equipped with eight receiver models. In addition, experimental data acquired by a combination of high-end and cost-effective receivers have been intensively assessed to characterise the relative signal quality of the L2C to the legacy codes. The observational conditions considered in this study include different multipath environments and receiver dynamics. The results of the analyses, in general, indicate that the quality of the L2C-derived measurements is equivalent to the legacy civilian code (i.e., C/A) but superior to the encrypted military signal (P2(Y)). Hence, it is expected that the new civilian GPS signal enhances the positioning performance of dual-frequency measurements with both high-end and cost-effective receivers.