7.2 Second Converter to 10.7 MHz IF
7.2.1 Mixer and VCXO Removes Doppler Offset
There are of course much smaller filters available that are precut for the GPS frequency. These filters are usually a ceramic resonator type or SAW filters. The filter presented were allows the reader to make this filter themselves.
7.1.3 First Mixer, 46 MHz IF and Filter, IF Power Splitter
Figure7.3shows the first mixer and first IF bandpass filter. The mixer is a double-balanced diode mixer, level 7 type. These mixers are available from many manufactures and have decent performance for the task at hand. The output of the mixer is bandpassed with a double-tuned filter tuned to 46 MHz, the first IF frequency. The 46 Mhz filter has a BW of approximately 5 Mhz and an insertion loss of approximately 3 dB. This filter suppresses the image frequency for the subsequent second IF stage.
After the bandpass filter, the signal is split by a signal splitter. The result is that the 46 MHz IF is split two ways enabling a two-channel receiver. The split is of the –3 dB type. The splitters can be made by a few bifilar turns on a ferrite bead or small commercially available Balun transformers can be used.
At the 46 MHz, the signal bandwidth needs are unchanged at approximately 1–3 MHz. The down-conversion process does not effect the C/A code or data modulation, they are intact at this point. What is affected is the Doppler information on the carrier. The Doppler information is corrupted by any errors in the frequency of LO1 are translated onto the carrier now 46 MHz IF. If LO1 were perfect than the 46 MHz IF would have a perfect translation of the Doppler information to this new carrier frequency. In other words, a Doppler offset magnitude of5 kHz exists
@ 1,575.42 MHz would also exist here @ 46 MHz.
0.01uF 1UH 0.01UF 0.01uF
1UH
0.01uF
+20dBMMICAMP 1575.42MHz INPUT TOK#K4434DZTOK#K4434DZ VCC
28PF
2PF 28PF
46MHzOUTCH.1 46MHzOUTCH.2
46MHzBPF,~5MHZBW TWOWAYPOWERSPLIT
T U P N I O L T S 1 z H M 2 4 . 9 2 5 1
R LI
MCL-ADE5 Fig.7.3Firstconversion,firstIFbandpass,AMP,andpowersplit
7.2 Second Converter to 10.7 MHz IF 109
35.4MHZ VCXO 0.01uF 10UH 470-1000pF 0.01uF
10UH
MMICAMP,+22dB 0.01UF 22PF22PF
A1 B2
3 8
5
D N G
D N G 6
7
0.01UF VCC
10.7MHz 10.7MHz 10K
0.01uF DITHEREDC/ACODE
10UH 42IF22242IF222 VCC1 23
A MM74HC864 56
B MM74HC86
10K
10K 47UF
DOPPLERSCAN/TRAKVOLTAGE 10.7MHzBPF CORRELATED2NDIFOUT
RFSPDTSWITCH2POLEXTALFILTERSPLITW/180DEG.PHASESHIFT
CH.X46MHzIFINPUTRL I
0.01uF 35.3MHz MCLADE-1
43OHM
TTLOUT
Vtune BIPHASEMODULATOR Fig.7.4Secondconversion,secondLO,andcorellator
110 7 Functional Implementation of a GPS Receiver
7.2.2 10.7 MHz BPF and Amp
Once the signal leaves the second mixer, it has most of its Doppler stripped off, but it still has C/A Code and Data modulation on it. A bandpass filter follows the second mixer to select the lower sideband from mixer output and to suppress any other unwanted mixer products. Our signal at this point is still a wide band signal at the second mixer output. The 10.7 MHz bandpass filter must be wide enough to pass the C/A code modulated signal without significant distortion. A two-pole L/C filter is used for this filter with a 3 dB bandwidth of about 1 MHz.
An amplifier follows the 10.7 MHz filter providing about 20 dB of gain. Putting the amplifier after the BPF is done so as to minimize its exposure to undesired signals present at the second mixer output. This is an off-the-shelf MMIC amplifier with 50 ohm impedance on the input and output. The amplifier also severs as an isolation element. The following stage is the Correlator. It is good to have isolation from the correlation process, as it is rich in frequency content.
7.2.3 10.7 MHz Correlator with Crystal Filter
This is where the received signal gets the C/A code “striped off.” A simple switch based BPSK modulator is used, see Appendix C. The modulator is fed the receivers replica of the C/A code for the particular SV the that is to be tracked. If the replica code is correctly aligned in time with the received C/A Code the BPSK modulator will “undo” the C/A code modulation on the received signal. Once this is correctly done and the C/A Code dynamically tracked, we have a narrow-band signal with only 50 Hz Data Modulation remaining.
The bandwidth after correlation is approximately 100 Hz. But the 10.7 MHz crystal filter following the BPSK modulator has a bandwidth of 1 kHz. As explained above, this is necessary as we have Doppler uncertainty until the Doppler tracker
“locks” onto the correlated signal. By having a bandwidth of 1 kHz we can reduce our Doppler search time yet still have high enough SNR’s for the C/A code acquisition and track loop to do its job and lock on to the C/A code from the SV.
The two-pole crystal filter following the Correlator has an out-of-band suppres-sion of about 30 dB maximum. This is not very much. But at this point in the processing, we have quite a bit of rejection outside about 5 MHz window about the carrier. This is from “upstream” bandpass filtering. The modest rejection is good enough as it turns out. The crystal filter needs to see about 50 ohms in and out. That explains the 50 ohm resistor to ground (see Fig.7.5) on the output of the filter. The input to the SA615 circuit is high impedance. With the terminating 50-ohm resistor and a couple of capacitors a reasonable match to SA615 is obtained.
7.2 Second Converter to 10.7 MHz IF 111
100K
0.01uF 0.01uF0.01uF 100K
0 28 1
1
3 19 17 16 1
D N G
5 14 12 1
I S S R 7
E T U M 5
C C V 6
1 1
2 3 4
E T U M O I D U A 8
O I D U A 9
0 1
O L
IFAMPLIMITER PHILIPSSA615 15uH
430 0.01uF 0.01uF0.01uF0.01uF
0.01uF 56PF
10PF
100 330 51
IO10.7MHzCERAMICFILTER 430VEE3 2
7 6
8LM360 45 0.01uF
430 VCC
1K
10.7IFLIMITER 2200uF
F P 0 0 2 2 QUADXTAL 10.7MHZ
FROMXTALFILTER,10.7MHzIF RSSIOUTPUT,TODITHERDEMOD.3 21
8 A LM358 4DETECTEDSIG,TOCORR.DET1&DET2
RSSIBUFFERAMP
QUADDET.OUT,50HzDATAPULSES
10.7MHZOUT,TOFREQCNTER
LOGAMP/DETECTOR/QUADDEMOD 5 67
B LM358 QUADDEMODBUFFERAMPVCC
VCC 10.7MHZ Fig.7.5LogAMP,RSSIDET.,limiterandquaddetector
112 7 Functional Implementation of a GPS Receiver
7.3 10.7 IF Processing Using SA615
Now that our signal is correlated and is a narrow band, we are ready to enter the last phase of the Analog signal processing. Figure7.5shows the how the SA615 is used to provide Amplification, Limiting, FM detection, and RSSI level demodu-lation all at 10.7 MHz.