Abstract
With GPS being the primary navigation system, Loran use is in steep decline. However, according to the final report of vulnerability assessment of the transportation infrastructure relying on the global positioning system prepared by the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, there are current attempts to enhance and re-popularize Loran as a GPS backup system through the characteristic of the ground based low frequency navigation system. To advance the Loran system such as Loran-C modernization and eLoran development, research is definitely needed in the field of Loran-C receiver signal processing as well as Loran-C signal design and the technology of a receiver. We have developed a set of Matlab tools, which implement a software Loran-C receiver that performs the receiver's position determination through the following procedure. The procedure consists of receiving the Loran-C signal, cycle selection, calculation of the TDOA and range, and receiver's position determination through the Least Square Method. We experiences the effect of an incorrect cycle selection and various error factors (ECD, ASF, sky wave, CRI, etc.) from the result of the Loran-C signal processing. It is apparent that researches which focus on the elimination and mitigation of various error factors need to be investigated on a software Loran-C receiver. These aspects will be explored in further work through the method such as PLL and Kalman filtering.
