Fused Low-Earth-Orbit GNSS

Abstract

Traditional Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) immunity to interference may be approaching a practical performance ceiling. Greater gains are possible outside traditional GNSS orbits and spectrum. GNSS from low Earth orbit (LEO) has long been viewed as promising but expensive, requiring large constellations for rapid navigation solutions. The recent emergence of commercial broadband LEO mega-constellations invites study on dual-purposing these for both communications -- their primary mission -- and a secondary positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) service. Operating at shorter wavelengths than traditional GNSS, these constellations would permit highly directive, relatively compact receiver antennas. PNT-specific on-orbit resources would not be required: the transmitters, antennas, clocks, and spectrum of the hosting broadband network would suffice for PNT. Non-cooperative use of LEO signals for PNT is an option, but cooperation with the constellation operator ("fusion" with its communications mission) eases the burden of tracking a dense, low-altitude constellation from the ground and enables a receiver to produce single-epoch stand-alone PNT solutions. This paper proposes such a cooperative concept, termed fused LEO GNSS. Viability hinges on opportunity cost, or the burden a secondary PNT mission imposes on the communications constellation operator. This is assessed in terms of time-space-bandwidth product and energy budget. It is shown that a near-instantaneous-fix PNT service over $\pm60$° latitude (covering 99.8% of the world's population) with positioning performance superior to traditional GNSS pseudoranging would cost less than 1.6% of downlink capacity for the largest of the new constellations, SpaceX's Starlink. This allocation is comparable to adding one user consuming 5.7 Mbps of broadband service to each cell.