METHOD FOR UNAMBIGUOUS DETECTION OF OVERALL PHASE DIFFERENCE USING INTERFERENCE MEASUREMENTS FOR DETECTION OF CHARACTERISTICS OF ANGULAR ORIENTATION OF OBJECTS USING SIGNALS OF SATELLITE RADIO NAVIGATION SYSTEM Russian patent published in 1998 - IPC

FIELD: radio navigation, in particular, medium-altitude satellite radio navigation global positioning systems. SUBSTANCE: method involves receiving of signals from visible satellites with known position with respect to object by means of two antennas of interferometer, measuring for each satellite an interference phase difference ϕ₁, where i is satellite number, i=1,2,..., m; storing this phase difference, using measured phase differences ϕ₁ for M>m satellites in order to generate all combinations of overall phase differences ϕ₁= n₁+ϕ₁, where n is integer values of phase cycles in range of -l/λ to +l/λ,, where l is interferometer base length , λ is satellite system signal wavelength. Then method involves selection of combinations which match phase interference measurements for remaining (m-M) satellites, generation of all combinations of overall phase differences V_ijk using signals from M= 3 satellites which numbers i, j, k conform to condition of maximal size of parallelepiped Vijk of unit vectors for these satellites. Selection involves preliminary generation of combinations φ_l,φ_j,φ_k, which conform to condition , where Qij, Qjk, Qki are scalar products of corresponding unit vectors of satellites, T1 is threshold value which is proportional to variance of phase measurements (in case of relative position detection, when precise base length is unknown, T1 is increased by value which is proportional to variance of base length). Then measured phase samples ϕ_t,, where t are numbers of remaining satellites are used for generation of combination of overall phase differences φ_l,φ_j,φ_k,φ_t...m, for all t which conform to condition , where is absolute value of difference between value given by equation n_t+Δn = -ϕ_t+[Ф_iV_tjk+Ф_jV_itk+Ф_kV_ijt]/V_ijk, and this value rounded to nearest integer nt which belongs to overall phase difference Ф_t= n_t+ϕ_t. EFFECT: elimination of ambiguity in interference measurements by reliable determination of actual value of overall phase difference in order to measure characteristics of angular orientation of objects using signals of satellite global positioning system. 4 dwg