Method and system for applying Viterbi type PSK demodulation for optimum correlation of GPS signals

1. A method of improving sensitivity in the demodulation of a received signal by a receiver over an arbitrary measurement time epoch, said method comprising the steps of:

correlating said received signal with a local replica of pseudo noise code in a coherent fashion creating a correlation signal; and

utilizing a Viterbi phase state keying trellis demodulation with a variable resolution of phase states over 0 to 360° to demodulate a radio frequency phase trajectory of said correlation signal throughout the measurement time epoch for improving sensitivity in the demodulation of a received signal, including:

breaking the measurement time epoch into time intervals; and

creating a trellis of evenly distributed phase state nodes at each time interval, said creating step comprising;

defining possible state transitions from each phase state node;

creating state transition paths between phase state nodes in one time interval and phase state nodes in another time interval, wherein said creating state transition paths is performed based on a known phase slew rate limitation of said receiver; and

assigning a transition probability to each state transition path, wherein the possible state transitions and the probability of the state transition paths are assigned to reflect properties of said receiver.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received signal is a global positioning system (GPS) coarse/acquisition L1 signal generated by a space vehicle (SV).

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received signal is a global positioning system (GPS) coarse/acquisition L1 signal generated by a space vehicle (SV).

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received signal is a code-division multiple access (CDMA) pilot signal.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said step of utilizing a Viterbi phase state keying trellis demodulation further comprises:

creating a likelihood metric for each trellis path based on a measured phase of the received signal and the probability for the path.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the likelihood metric is created based on an approximation of a probability distribution function of the phase of said correlation signal.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the approximation is to model the probability distribution function of the phase as a periodic gaussian pulse on top of a constant function.

8. The method of claim 5 , wherein the phase of the received signal has a random process, and the likelihood metric is created based on an approximation of the random process of the phase of the received signal.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the approximation is the modeling of the phase random process as a first order Markov.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein said receiver is a mobile receiver.

11. A receiver for improving the sensitivity in the demodulation of a received signal, said receiver comprising:

an antenna for receiving the signal;

downconverter for downconverting the received signal, producing a downconverted signal;

an analog to digital converter to convert the downconverted signal to a digital signal;

despreader for despreading and coherently correlating the digital signal to a known signal, creating a despread signal; and

a processor for applying a Viterbi algorithm to a trellis of evenly distributed phase state nodes created for the despread signal, the processor:

breaks the despread signal into time intervals;

creates the trellis of evenly distributed phase state nodes at each time interval by:

defining a plurality of phase states representing the phases evenly quantized over 0 to 360 degrees;

defining possible state transitions from and to each phase state node;

creating paths between phase state nodes in one time interval and phase state nodes in another time interval according to said possible state transitions;

assigning a transition probability to each path; and

creating a likelihood metric for each path based on a measured phase of said despread signal and the transition probability for the path, the measured phase of the despread signal having a random process approximated by a Markov process; and

utilizes the Viterbi algorithm on said trellis to perform a maximum likelihood estimation of a phase trajectory of the despread signal with said quantized resolution of phase states over 0 to 360° throughout the time interval.

12. The receiver of claim 11 , wherein the Markov process is a first order Markov process.

13. The receiver of claim 11 , wherein the received signal is a global positioning system coarse/acquisition (C/A) L1 signal generated by a space vehicle (SV).

14. The receiver of claim 11 , wherein the received signal is a CDMA pilot signal.

15. The receiver of claim 11 , wherein the receiver is a mobile receiver.

16. The receiver of claim 11 , wherein the known signal is a GPS C/A L1 signal.

17. The receiver of claim 16 , wherein the possible state transitions and the probability of the paths are assigned to reflect properties of said receiver.

18. The receiver of claim 17 , wherein the possible state transitions for each node are based on a known phase slew rate limitation of said receiver.

19. The receiver of claim 13 , wherein the possible state transitions for each node are based on a known phase slew rate limitation of said receiver.

20. The receiver of claim 11 , wherein the likelihood metric is created based on an approximation of a probability distribution function of the phase of said despread signal.

21. The receiver of claim 20 , wherein said approximation is to model the probability distribution function of the phase as a periodic gaussian pulse on top of a constant function.

22. A wireless mobile device comprising the receiver of claim 11 .