Combined GPS L1C/A and L2C signal acquisition architectures leveraging differential combination

The GPS modernization program offers a new civil signal on the L2 band, which, together with the legacy L1 C/A signal, spurs the development of dual-frequency receivers for civil applications. This paper proposes a complete combined acquisition architecture dedicated to these receivers. The architecture fully utilizes the capacity of both signal channels as well as the advantages of differential signal processing. High detection sensitivity, finer parameter estimation, built-in bit synchronization mechanism, and acquisition-to-tracking transient time reduction are the advantages of the proposed architecture with respect to others in the literature.