Image: ACSER
The University of New South Wales has developed an advanced GNSS receiver that can receive signals from GPS and Galileo satellites across multiple frequencies. The Australian Space Agency provided funding for the project via the International Space Investment initiative.
The receiver may play a key part in the future for Australian space missions.
Professor Andrew Dempster, director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research (ACSER), led the development of the receiver and notes that it is an upgrade of Kea, a receiver made in Australia and New Zealand.
“The idea was to take that work (on Kea) and upgrade it for this multi-frequency, multi-system solution,” Professor Dempster said. “We needed to scale up the performance of many of the components on the boards – in particular, where the digital processors and hardware live.”
ACSER aims to have the receiver support upcoming satellite missions. The receiver can provide precise positioning, timing and velocity information. It enables satellites to produce higher quality images from space with better pointing.