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Enhancing the Kea Space Capable GPS Receiver

Presented by:

Eamonn Glennon

E. Glennon

    UNSW, Embedded GNSS

 

R. Jeffresen

    UNSW

 

K. von Hofe

    previously UNSW, now RAAF

 

K. Parkinson

    General Dynamics Corp

 

M. Rohrbach

    UNSW

 

A. G. Dempster

    UNSW 

The Kea GPS receiver was the second Australian and New Zealand based GPS receiver to successfully navigate in orbit, with the UNSW Sydney developed Namuru V32R3 being the first. Designed and developed in 2015 by Embedded GNSS Pty Ltd and New Zealand based General Dynamics Corp, the Kea receiver was an improvement over the previous generation Namuru V32 in terms of size, manufacturability and power consumption. The Kea hardware has since been used for several projects and missions but being a single frequency L1 only receiver, it lacked features necessary for applications of interest to us. UNSW Sydney in partnership with Embedded GNSS Pty Ltd, Seaskip Pty Ltd and General Dynamics were successful in gaining funding from the Australian Space Agency to enhance and modernise the Kea GPS receiver. Desired enhancements include adding support for Galileo E1 and GPS L5, as well as making the receiver capable of being used for dual frequency remote sensing and navigation. Since being awarded the grant, we have been working on porting our existing firmware over to a new processor and RF front end, adding new capabilities to the GNSS FPGA correlators and GNSS firmware, as well as redesigning the hardware platform. This presentation provides an update on our progress, as well as describing some of the difficulties experienced in developing a GNSS receiver during a global pandemic.

Category:

GNSS and applications

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