International Journal of Navigation and Observation 
Volume 2008 (2008), Article ID 246703, 14 pages
doi:10.1155/2008/246703
Research Article

Design of Short Synchronization Codes for Use in Future GNSS System

Surendran K. Shanmugam,1 Cécile Mongrédien,1 John Nielsen,2 and Gérard Lachapelle1

 1Department of Geomatics Engineering, University of Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada
2Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada
Received 4 August 2007; Accepted 7 February 2008

Recommended by Olivier Julien

Abstract

The prolific growth in civilian GNSS market initiated the modernization of GPS and the GLONASS systems in addition to the potential deployment of Galileo and Compass GNSS system. The modernization efforts include numerous signal structure innovations to ensure better performances over legacy GNSS system. The adoption of secondary short synchronization codes is one among these innovations that play an important role in spectral separation, bit synchronization, and narrowband interference protection. In this paper, we present a short synchronization code design based on the optimization of judiciously selected performance criteria. The new synchronization codes were obtained for lengths up to 30 bits through exhaustive search and are characterized by optimal periodic correlation. More importantly, the presence of better synchronization codes over standardized GPS and Galileo codes corroborates the benefits and the need for short synchronization code design.