Ch 39. Navigation with Dedicated Metropolitan Beacon Systems

Subbu Meiyappan, Arun Raghupathy, and Ganesh Pattabiraman

Overview

This chapter discusses the Metropolitan Beacon System (MBS), which belongs to the class of terrestrial beacon broadcast systems. We first discuss similarities and differences between MBS and GNSS systems. Following that, we summarize the signal design considerations in a terrestrial system MBS including signal spectrum considerations, near-far problem and cross correlation, multipath mitigation, synchronization to UTC timescale. Next, we discuss implementation considerations in an MBS receiver (including acquisition, tracking, ranging and trilateration), how GNSS receiver baseband processing can be re-used for MBS as well as how an assisted mode similar to GNSS can be developed for MBS. Then, we discuss application of MBS for distribution of UTC time and frequency. Finally, we show results from real world tests for timing and 3-D positioning applications.

Chapter Table of Contents:

  • 39.1: Metropolitan Beacon System(MBS)

    • 39.1.1: System Description

    • 39.1.2: Signal Description

    • 39.1.3: Comparison of MBS Signal with GNSS Signals

    • 39.1.4: Receiver Architecture

    • 39.1.5: Assisted Mode of MBS

    • 39.1.6: MBS System For Time and Frequency Synchronization

    • 39.1.7: Standardization (3GPP, OMA) and MBS Call Flows

    • 39.1.8: Performance Results

    • 39.1.9: Conclusion

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Figure 39.22 Shows the result of an altitude test from a hotel in the San Francisco Bay Area. The truth position is shown in dashed red lines and the MBS estimated altitude is shown in black. The results show altitude estimates within a floor throughout this test.

Figure 39.23 Shows a sample result from an outdoor drive test in a small campus-wide MBS network. The black path shows the position truth path and the blue path colors show the estimated position from MBS. In this test, position estimates are computed using the MBS beacon measurements only. The results show that the 2-D error was less that 10m a majority of the time.