GPS signals are broadcast by Global Positioning System satellites to enable satellite navigation. Receivers on or near the Earth's surface can determine location, time, and velocity using this information. The GPS satellite constellation is operated by the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS) of Space Delta 8, United States Space Force. GPS time is expressed with a resolution of 1.5 seconds as a week number and a time of week count (TOW). [13] Its zero point (week 0, TOW 0) is defined to be 1980-01-06T00:00Z. The TOW count is a value ranging from 0 to 403,199 whose meaning is the number of 1.5 second periods elapsed since the beginning of the GPS week. Expressing TOW count thus requires 19 bits (2 19=524,288). GPS time is a continuous time scale in that it does not include leap seconds; therefore the start/end of GPS weeks may differ from that of the corresponding UTC day by an integer number of seconds. The C/A code is transmitted on the L1 frequency as a 1.023MHz signal using a bi-phase shift keying ( BPSK) modulation technique. The P(Y)-code is transmitted on both the L1 and L2 frequencies as a 10.23MHz signal using the same BPSK modulation, however the P(Y)-code carrier is in quadrature with the C/A carrier (meaning it is 90° out of phase).

Unlike the C/A code, L2C contains two distinct PRN code sequences to provide ranging information; the civil-moderate code (called CM), and the civil-long length code (called CL). The CM code is 10,230 chips long, repeating every 20 ms. The CL code is 767,250 chips long, repeating every 1,500 ms. Each signal is transmitted at 511,500 chips per second ( chip/s); however, they are multiplexed together to form a 1,023,000-chip/s signal. GPS signals include ranging signals, used to measure the distance to the satellite, and navigation messages. The navigation messages include ephemeris data, used in trilateration to calculate the position of each satellite in orbit, and information about the time and status of the entire satellite constellation, called the almanac.The modulation method is binary offset carrier, using a 10.23MHz subcarrier against the 5.115MHz code. This signal will have an overall bandwidth of approximately 24MHz, with significantly separated sideband lobes. The sidebands can be used to improve signal reception. Whereas the C/A PRNs are unique for each satellite, each satellite transmits a different segment of a master P-code sequence approximately 2.35x10 14 chips long (235,000,000,000,000 chips). Each satellite repeatedly transmits its assigned segment of the master code, restarting every Sunday at 00:00:00 GPS time. (The GPS epoch was Sunday January 6, 1980 at 00:00:00 UTC, but GPS does not follow UTC leap seconds. So GPS time is ahead of UTC by an integer number of seconds.) An interesting side effect of having each satellite transmit four separate signals is that the MNAV can potentially transmit four different data channels, offering increased data bandwidth. General features [ edit ] A visual example of the GPS constellation in motion with the Earth rotating. Notice how the number of satellites in view from a given point on the Earth's surface, in this example at 45°N, changes with time.

The second advancement is to use forward error correction (FEC) coding on the NAV message itself. Due to the relatively slow transmission rate of NAV data (usually 50 bits per second), small interruptions can have potentially large impacts. Therefore, FEC on the NAV message is a significant improvement in overall signal robustness. For the ranging codes and navigation message to travel from the satellite to the receiver, they must be modulated onto a carrier wave. In the case of the original GPS design, two frequencies are utilized; one at 1575.42 MHz (10.23MHz × 154) called L1; and a second at 1227.60MHz (10.23MHz × 120), called L2. Satellites are uniquely identified by a serial number called space vehicle number (SVN) which does not change during its lifetime. In addition, all operating satellites are numbered with a space vehicle identifier (SV ID) and pseudorandom noise number (PRN number) which uniquely identifies the ranging codes that a satellite uses. There is a fixed one-to-one correspondence between SV identifiers and PRN numbers described in the interface specification. [4] Unlike SVNs, the SV ID/PRN number of a satellite may be changed (also changing the ranging codes it uses). At any point in time, any SV ID/PRN number is in use by at most a single satellite. A single SV ID/PRN number may have been used by several satellites at different points in time and a single satellite may have used different SV ID/PRN numbers at different points in time. The current SVNs and PRN numbers for the GPS constellation may be found at NAVCEN. In each subframe, each hand-over word (HOW) contains the most significant 17 bits of the TOW count corresponding to the start of the next following subframe. [14] Note that the 2 least significant bits can be safely omitted because one HOW occurs in the navigation message every 6 seconds, which is equal to the resolution of the truncated TOW count thereof. Equivalently, the truncated TOW count is the time duration since the last GPS week start/end to the beginning of the next frame in units of 6 seconds.

Modernized GPS civilian signals have two general improvements over their legacy counterparts: a dataless acquisition aid and forward error correction (FEC) coding of the NAV message. A dataless acquisition aid is an additional signal, called a pilot carrier in some cases, broadcast alongside the data signal. This dataless signal is designed to be easier to acquire than the data encoded and, upon successful acquisition, can be used to acquire the data signal. This technique improves acquisition of the GPS signal and boosts power levels at the correlator. Since the FEC encoded bit stream runs at 2 times the rate than the non FEC encoded bit as already described, then t = ⌊ t ′ 2 ⌋ {\displaystyle t=\left\lfloor {\tfrac {t'}{2}}\right\rfloor } . FEC encoding is performed independently of navigation message boundaries; [27] this follows from the above equations.

The P-code is a PRN sequence much longer than the C/A code: 6.187104x10 12 chips. Even though the P-code chip rate (10.23 Mchip/s) is ten times that of the C/A code, it repeats only once per week, eliminating range ambiguity. It was assumed that receivers could not directly acquire such a long and fast code so they would first "bootstrap" themselves with the C/A code to acquire the spacecraft ephemerides, produce an approximate time and position fix, and then acquire the P-code to refine the fix. The M-code is transmitted in the same L1 and L2 frequencies already in use by the previous military code, the P(Y)-code. The new signal is shaped to place most of its energy at the edges (away from the existing P(Y) and C/A carriers). It does not work at every satellite, and M-code was switched off for SVN62/PRN25 on 05 April 2011. [29]The arguments of the functions therein are the number of bits or chips since their epochs, starting at 0. The epoch of the LFSRs is the point at which they are at the initial state; and for the overall C/A codes it is the start of any UTC second plus any integer number of milliseconds. The output of LFSRs at negative arguments is defined consistent with the period which is 1,023 chips (this provision is necessary because B may have a negative argument using the above equation). Having reached full operational capability on July 17, 1995 [20] the GPS system had completed its original design goals. However, additional advances in technology and new demands on the existing system led to the effort to "modernize" the GPS system. Announcements from the Vice President and the White House in 1998 heralded the beginning of these changes and in 2000, the U.S. Congress reaffirmed the effort, referred to as GPS III. The interface to the User Segment ( GPS receivers) is described in the Interface Control Documents (ICD). The format of civilian signals is described in the Interface Specification (IS) which is a subset of the ICD.

The project involves new ground stations and new satellites, with additional navigation signals for both civilian and military users, and aims to improve the accuracy and availability for all users. A goal of 2013 was established with incentives offered to the contractors if they can complete it by 2011. The GPS satellites (called space vehicles in the GPS interface specification documents) transmit simultaneously several ranging codes and navigation data using binary phase-shift keying (BPSK). An immediate effect of having two civilian frequencies being transmitted is the civilian receivers can now directly measure the ionospheric error in the same way as dual frequency P(Y)-code receivers. However, users utilizing the L2C signal alone, can expect 65% more position uncertainty due to ionospheric error than with the L1 signal alone. [28] Military (M-code) [ edit ] C/A i is the code with PRN number i. A is the output of the first LFSR whose generator polynomial is x → x 10 + x 3 + 1, and initial state is 1111111111 2. B is the output of the second LFSR whose generator polynomial is x → x 10 + x 9 + x 8 + x 6 + x 3 + x 2 + 1 and initial state is also 1111111111 2. D i is a delay (by an integer number of periods) specific to each PRN number i; it is designated in the GPS interface specification. [4] ⊕ is exclusive or. L1C is a civilian-use signal, to be broadcast on the L1 frequency (1575.42MHz), which contains the C/A signal used by all current GPS users. The L1C signals will be broadcast from GPS III and later satellites, the first of which was launched in December 2018. [1] As of January2021 [update], L1C signals are not yet broadcast, and only four operational satellites are capable of broadcasting them. L1C is expected on 24 GPS satellites in the late 2020s. [1]The original GPS design contains two ranging codes: the coarse/acquisition (C/A) code, which is freely available to the public, and the restricted precision (P) code, usually reserved for military applications. A and B are maximal length LFSRs. The modulo operations correspond to resets. Note that both are reset each millisecond (synchronized with C/A code epochs). In addition, the extra modulo operation in the description of A is due to the fact it is reset 1 cycle before its natural period (which is 8,191) so that the next repetition becomes offset by 1 cycle with respect to B [32] (otherwise, since both sequences would repeat, I5 and Q5 would repeat within any 1ms period as well, degrading correlation characteristics).