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Observer-Based Synchronization for Perturbed GPS Satellite Orbits

GPS

He-Sheng Wang and Hao-Yu Wang1

National Taiwan Ocean University1
1
1
Abstract
In this paper, we proposed a control-theoretic method to produce the predicted ephemeris parameters that are
to be used in a GPS receiver to derive the positions and velocities of GPS satellites. Specifically, the perturbed orbit determination problem is recast as a master-slave synchronization problem, and is then solved by
an observer-based method. In comparison with the usual numerical method, which needs to integrate the orbit parameters over certain time interval and hence the parameter error will increase along with time of prediction, the proposed method has the advantage that the satellite position error would not accumulate.
Therefore, GPS receiver within a mobile device is able to use the derived parameters to propagate orbit position and velocity information for a relatively longer period with the required accuracy for user position
computation. This paper also reviews some of recent patents in this field, with special focus on the GPS
ephemeris extension and its applications in the assisted GPS as well as indoor navigation.
Keywords: Observer; Synchronization; GPS; Ephemeris Extension.

that did not consider in the original system design

have now introduced extra difficulties in modern
day's navigation devices. In some cases, the mass
market consumer expects an even more complete
and rewarding experience of getting located anywhere and almost instantaneously. The Global Positioning System (GPS) technology originally was not
designed to meet this goal. The reason that the user

1. Introduction
Personal Navigation Device (PND) has become one
of the daily consumer electronic products. With the
help of satellite navigation systems (such as GPS),
an off-the-shelf PND may provide meter-level positioning accuracy in a timely manner. As the field of
applications getting broader, many different aspects
1

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cannot obtain a fix position (in cold-start situation)

instantaneously is mainly due to the very low data
rate (50 bps) of the satellite signal, since, in order to
determine the position of the satellite, the user
needs to retrieve the navigation message via the
satellites downlink. On the other hand, the power
of the GPS signal is extremely low at the receiving
end; this makes GPS receiver almost inconceivable
(actually, it is impossible for traditional GPS device)
to function properly in an indoor environment.
Many manufacturers have proposed different means
to reach this ultimate goal by augmenting the data
at the mobile device. Some recent patents also addressed those problems. See, for examples,
[2][6][8][15][15].

worst of the three approaches. All three methods

can be implemented together to give the best available extended ephemeris for different instances and
for each specific mobile device.
In this paper, we proposed a control-theoretic
method to produce the predicted ephemeris parameters that are to be used in a GPS receiver to derive
the positions and velocities of GPS satellites. Specifically, the perturbed orbit determination problem
is recast as a master-slave synchronization problem,
and is then solved by an observer-based method. In
comparison with the usual numerical method,
which needs to integrate the orbit parameters over
certain time interval and hence the parameter error
will increase along with time of prediction, the
proposed method has the advantage that the satellite
position error would not accumulate. Therefore,
GPS receiver within a mobile device is able to use
the derived parameters to propagate orbit position
and velocity information for a relatively longer period with the required accuracy for user position
computation. This paper also reviews some of recent patents in this field, with special focus on the
GPS ephemeris extension and its applications in the
assisted GPS as well as indoor navigation.

The GPS control segment derives the predicted

ephemeris (having position error within a few meters), beyond the next 4hours (the position error
then grows exponentially after 4 hours), and the
ground stations upload this data to the satellites; and
then the each satellite broadcasts a fresh 4-hour
ephemeris every 2 hours. Nevertheless, there is no
way to get access to this data other than to wait until the satellite broadcasts it. Hence, for the occasionally connected mobile GPS device, there is a
need for some available source of future ephemeris,
if the user demands an instantaneous position fix.
This concept is now called ephemeris extension in
international standards [1][1].

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in

Section 2, the standard GPS positioning theory is
reviewed briefly; in Section 3, we will describe the
method of averaging and show how to use the
method to solve a perturbed satellite orbital equations; in Section 4, some of the experimental results
will be shown to demonstrate the proposed method;
and finally in Section 5, some concluding remarks
will be provided.

Recently, there are a number of papers and patents

devoting to the ephemeris extension problem
[2][4][7][10][11][13][14]. They may be divided
mainly into three different categories: (1) using data
from a reference network; (2) using data from reference network as well as the broadcast ephemeris;
and (3) using only the broadcast ephemeris. The
first method of generating extension ephemeris is to
use a worldwide reference network to observe all
the satellites through their complete orbits. Then
this information is projected into the future to predict the satellite orbit. The second method is similar
to the first one, except that ephemeris is computed
for a relatively longer period, for example, it may
be up to 1 month into the future; and then, follow
after 1 week, this ephemeris will become inaccurate,
but if ephemeris broadcast is received by the mobile
device during that week, it can then be used to update the ephemeris information, and in this way the
accuracy of the predicted ephemeris can be extended for another week, and so on, for up to 1 month.
The third method is to generate the extension
ephemeris only from the broadcast ephemeris collected at the mobile device. The accuracy is the

2. Standard GPS Overview

GPS is a satellite-based navigation system consisting of a network of 24 satellites placed into six
mid-earth orbits. GPS satellites circle around the
earth twice a day in a precise orbit and transmit
signal modulated by navigation message to the users on the ground. The basic idea of GPS positioning is that users then consider this information and
use multi-lateration to calculate the GPS receivers
exact solution. Essentially, after receiving the satellite signal information, GPS user is able to construct
the basic pseudorange measurement equation as
follows:

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( k ) (t ) r (t , t )
c[ tu (t ) t ( k ) (t )]
I

(k )

(t ) T

(k )

(t )

(k )

eris beyond the next 4 hours, and the ground stations upload this data to the satellites. This set of
data consists of six Keplerian elements as well as a
few correction terms. There is no way to get access
to this information other than to wait until the
ground station updates it. On the other hand, in order to compute the satellite position in an accurate
manner, the full set of ephemeris data must be obtained from the satellite signal, which, in a rate of
50 bps, usually takes at least 30 seconds of
non-interrupting reception. For todays mobile GPS
device, it may have times that the receiver would
not be able to have continuous reception of the
navigation message due to signal blockage in an
urban canyon environment. Furthermore, even if the
mobile device can continuously track the GPS signal, most of the users still expect to have a fix position within seconds. In view of these, there is a need
for some available source of future ephemeris that
can be retrieved in a timely manner and has a relatively long expired time.

(1)

(t )

where k = 1, 2,, K is the number of satellites in

view; r(k)(t, t) is the actual distance between the
receiver at signal reception time t and the satellite at
signal transmission time t; (x(k), y(k), z(k)) is the kth
satellites coordinate; (xu, yu, zu) is the users position coordinate; c is the speed of light;tu(t) and
t(k)(t) are the receiver and satellite clock offsets,
respectively, relative to GPS time; I(k)(t) and T(k)(t)
are the ionospheric and tropospheric propagation
delays, respectively; ( k ) (t ) accounts for modeling
errors and unmodeled effects (such as thermal noise
and multipath). Because of the offsets and propagation delays, the ranges to GPS satellites measured
by a receiver are called pseudoranges. Users would
correct each measured pseudorange for the known
errors parameter values in the navigation message
from the satellite. The main corrections available to
a civil user are satellite clock offset, ionospheric
delay using the parameter values for the Klobuchar
model, and the software model accounting for the
tropospheric delays. Denote by c( k ) the pseudorange obtained after accounting for various offset
and error terms, we rewrite (1) for the corrected
pseudorange measurement as follows:

c( k ) r ( k ) c tu ( k )

3. Observer-Based Synchronization
Perturbed satellite orbit equation in a 3D space can
be written as follows:

x4

x5
x1

x
x

6
2

x3 x1 p ( x , x , x )
1
1
2
3

r3
x4

x5 x32 p2 ( x1 , x2 , x3 )
r

x6

x3
3 p3 ( x1 , x2 , x3 )
r

(2)

where ( k ) denotes the combined effect of the residual errors. Here in Equation (2), for simplicity,
we have dropped explicit reference to time. Equation (2) has four unknowns, namely the users position (xu, yu, zu) and the clock biastu. Hence, if we
have at least four pseudorange measurements,
Equation (2) can be linearized and then solved by
least-squares method to obtain the users coordinate.
This procedure can be found in many advanced
GPS textbooks (see e.g. [12]); here we have only
emphasized on how the satellite ephemeris is used
in Equation (2). To solve the corrected pseudorange
equation, the satellites position (x(k), y(k), z(k)) is assumed to be known. For traditional GPS receiver,
the satellites position can be computed using the
broadcast ephemeris downloaded from the GPS
navigation message. The ephemeris broadcast from
the satellites themselves is valid only for 2 to 4
hours. The GPS control segment has future ephem-

(3)

where r := (x1, x2, x3) and v := (x4, x5, x6) are the
three-dimensional position and velocity coordinates,
respectively, of the satellite; is the gravitational
constant of the earth; r x12 x22 x32 ; and p1, p2,
p3 are the functions of the perturbation forces along
the x1-, x2-, x3-axes, respectively. Equation (3) is
usually called the master system. The magnitude p
of the vector p = (p1, p2, p3) is usually small compared to the primary gravitational acceleration a0 =

/r2. An exception is atmospheric drag which, at an

altitude of about 100 km, is large enough to deorbit
3

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(5)

a satellite. The other effects depend on the altitude

to various extents. At 1000 km altitude, their dis-

If Equation (5) is asymptotically stable, then e(t)

will tend to zero as t approaches infinity. In this
case, the slave system is said to be synchronized
with the master system. This can be done by suitably choosing the control input u(t). In the following
section, we will give an example to illustrate the
idea and show some simulation results.

turbing accelerations are:

pearths oblateness 10-2a0
plunar gravity psolar gravity 10-7a0
psolar radiation 10-9a0

4. Simulation Results
In order to clarify the idea, here we consider on the
perturbed acceleration incurred by the earths oblateness. Other perturbations can be treated in a
similar manner. Let be the perturbation of the
gravitational potential due to the earths oblateness.
The rotationally symmetric perturbation (r, ) is
given by the infinite series:

The next step is to design an observer-based slave

system synchronizing with the master system. The
idea of synchronization is to design a controller so
that the output of the slave system can follow the
output of the master system asymptotically as time
passing by (For a detailed treatment, see [17][18]).
To this end, we consider the following slave system:

y4

y5
u1
y1

y6
y
u2
2
y
1
y3 3 g1 ( y1 , y2 , y3 ) u3

u4
y4
y
2
y5 3 g 2 ( y1 , y2 , y3 ) u5


u6
y6
y
3
3 g3 ( y1 , y2 , y3 )

R
( r, ) J k Pk (cos )
r k 2 r

(6)

where is the polar angle measured from the positive x3-axis to the radial; Jk are the zonal harmonics
of the planet; R is its equatorial radius; and Pk are
the Legendre polynomials. For the earth, the first
few terms of zonal harmonics and Legendre polynomials are given as follows:

(4)

J 2 0.00108263,

J 3 2.33936 103 J 2

J 4 1.49601 103 J 2 , J 5 0.20995 103 J 2

where (y1, y2, y3, y4, y5, y6) is the state vector of the

J 6 0.49941 103 J 2 , J 7 0.32547 103 J 2

slave system; y12 y22 y32 ; g(y1, y2, y3) :=

(g1(y1, y2, y3), g2(y1, y2, y3), g3(y1, y2, y3)) is the
to-be-determined nonlinear function variable of the
slave system; and u := (u1, u2, u3, u4, u5, u6) is the
control input. Assume that r and define the
tracking error vector as e(t) = y(t) x(t). The equation for the error dynamics can be written as follows:

1
1
P2 ( x ) (3x 2 1), P3 ( x ) (5 x 3 3x )
2
2
1
P4 ( x ) (35 x 4 30 x 2 3),
8
1
P5 ( x ) (63x 5 70 x 3 15 x )
8
1
P6 ( x ) (231x 6 315 x 4 105 x 2 5),
16
1
P7 ( x ) (429 x 7 693x 5 315 x 3 35 x )
16

e4

e5
u1
e1

e6
e
u2
2
e
1
e3 3 g1 ( y1 , y2 , y3 ) p1 ( x1 , x2 , x3 ) u3

u4
e4
e
2
e5 3 g 2 ( y1 , y2 , y3 ) p2 ( x1 , x2 , x3 ) u5


u6
e6
e
3
3 g3 ( y1 , y2 , y3 ) p3 ( x1 , x2 , x3 )

Since J2 is by far the largest zonal harmonics, we

shall in the interest of simplicity focus only on its
contribution to the gravitational perturbation,
thereby ignoring other terms in (6). In this case, the
perturbed gravitational potential becomes:

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J R
( r, ) 2 (3cos2 1).
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1
0

0
e(t )
0
0

(7)

The perturbing acceleration is the negative of the

gradient of ,

x
1

x2

x3

By the chain rule, after derivation, Equation (8) can

be expressed in the rectangular coordinate as follows:

(9)

0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0

0
e(t ) v( t )
0
0

(11)

Table 1. Root-Mean-Squared (RMS) Errors for

Proposed Method
X direction
Y direction
Z direction

Plugging Equation (9) into (3) and applying the idea

described in the previous section, we then choose a
control law in the following form:

u1
0
u
2 3 J 2 R2
u3 e1 3
2 r4

u
4 3 J R2
2
u5 e2 3
2 r4

u6
3 J 2 R2
e3 3
2 r4

0
0
1
0
0
0

where v(t) = (v1(t), v2(t), v3(t), v4(t), v5(t), v6(t)).

Equation (11) can be rendered asymptotically stable
by standard state-feedback control method or by the
optimal and robust control design method. Results
of the simulation are shown in Figures 1 to 3 with
different sets of eigenvalues. One can easily see that
the orbit propagation error is reduced when the
synchronization technique is employed. For the
matter of comparison, we also use the averaged
method to solve the perturbed orbit equation. For
the details of the averaged method, see, for example,
[19]. Table 1 and 2 summarize the mean position
errors for the proposed and averaged methods, respectively.

(8)

x1 x32

5 2 1

r r
2
2

3 J 2 R x2 x3
5 2 1
p
4
2 r
r r

2
x3 5 x3 3

r r 2

0
1
0
0
0
0

v1
v
2
x1 x32
5 1 v3
r r2
(10)
v4
2

x2 x3
5 1 v5
r r2
v
6
2

x3 x3
5 3
r r2

Day 1
133.31

Day 2
300.02

Day 3
336.46

Day 4
354.61

Day 5
393.48

38.43

121.61

146.31

186.61

295.13

121.64

365.94

373.17

388.59

392.39

Table 2. RMS Errors for Averaged Method

X direction
Y direction
Z direction

Day 1
179.13

Day 2
667.09

Day 3
1215.05

Day 4
1721.83

Day 5
2090.35

174.65

528.23

811.96

976.36

1020.03

267.75

834.91

1381.15

1795.64

2004.65

5. Conclusions
In this paper, we present an observer-based
method to solve synchronization problem of the
perturbed satellite orbital differential equations. WE
expect the result may then be used to derive a set of
parameters that can be used to extend the termination time of GPS ephemeris. In the present paper,
we have only considered the perturbing forces induced by the non-uniformity of the earth and the
third-body gravitational attraction. It is expected
that the propagated position accuracy can be improved if other perturbations, such as tidal effect,

Here the function g is chosen to be zero. Upon substituting (10) into (5), the error dynamics is reduced
to a linear system:

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solar radiation pressure, etc., are also included in

the perturbed equations.

U.S. Patent 6,542,820, June 6, 2001.

[11] P. Mattos, Hotstart Every Time Compute
the Ephemeris on the Mobile,Proceedings of
ION GNSS Meeting, Savannah, GA, September 16-19, 2008.
[12] P. Misra and P. Enge, Global Positioning System: Signals, Measurements, and Performance,
2nd Ed. MA: Ganga-Jamuna Press, 2006.
[13] F. van Diggelen, Method and Apparatus for
Navigation Using Instantaneous Doppler
Measurements from Satellites, U.S. Patent
7,133,772, July 11, 2003.
[14] F. van Diggelen, C. Abraham, and J. LaMance,
Method and Apparatus for Generating and
Distributing Satellite Tracking Information in
a Compact Format, U.S. Patent 6,651,000,
July 25, 2001.
[15] Chi-Shin Wang, ZongdeQiu, ShridharaKudrethaya, and Jun Mo, An Unassisted Indoor GPS Receiver, European Patent Specification, EP 1979760B1, October 15, 2008.
[16] J. Xu, Y. Vasavada, M. Parr, C. Ravishankar, A.
Noerpel, and J.-H. Jong, Method and System
for Acquiring Ephemeris Information, U.S.
Patent 2012/0146849 A1, June 14, 2012.
[17] H. Nijmeijer and I. M. Y. Mareels, An Observer Look at Synchronization, IEEE Trans.
on Automatic Control, Vol. 44, No. 10, pp.
882-890, 1997
[18] L. M. Pecora and T. L. Carroll, Synchronization in Chaotic Systems, Physics Review
Letters, Vo. 64, pp. 821-824, 1990.
[19] D. A. Vallado, Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications, Third Edition, Space
Technology Library, 2007.

Acknowledgement
The work was supported by Ministry of Science and
Technology, R. O. C. under Grant MOST
102-2221-E-019-014

References
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Group GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network; Location Services (LCS); Mobile Station (MS) Serving Mobile Location Centre (SMLC) Radio
Resource LCS Protocol (RRLP) (Release 7),
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Group GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network; Location Services (LCS); Base Station System Application Part LCS Extension (BSSAP-LE) (Release 7), 2008.
[3] C. Abraham, F. van Diggelen, and J. LaMance,
Method and Apparatus for Distributing Satellite
Tracking Information, U.S. Patent 6,560,534,
June 19, 2001.
[4] C.-M. Chen, Orbit Determination Using Average Method, M. S. Dissertation, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan, 2011.
[5] E. Derbez, G. Roy-Machabee, and D. Cayer,
Autonomous Orbit Propagation System and
Method, U.S. Patent 2012/0127031 A1, May 24,
2012.
[6] J. A. DiLellio, E. Carolipio, J.-S. Wu Chien, and
K. Ghassaei, Global Positioning System Accuracy Enhancement, U.S. Patent 7,969,352 B2,
June 28, 2011.
[7] J. R. Dockemeyer, Jr. and L. J. Fruit, Method
for Ephemeris Assisted Global Positioning, U.
S. Patent 7,609,203 B2, October 27, 2009.
[8] L. Garin, S. Venkatraman, and P. Gupta, A
Novel
Ephemeris
Extension
Compaction/Decompaction Method,Proceedings of the
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Figure 1. Simulation Result (Eigenvalues: -1, -2, -3,

-4, -5, -6)
6

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Figure 2. Simulation Result (Eigenvalues: -7, -8, -9,

-10, -11, -12)

Figure 3. Simulation Result (Eigenvalues: -15, -16,

-17, -18, -19, -20)