Optimal Global Navigation Satellite System pulse blanking in the presence of signal quantisation

Pulsed interference can severely degrade the performance of a GNSS receiver. For this reason, several mitigation techniques have been developed for reducing the impact of disturbing signals. Among the different pulsed interference mitigation techniques, pulse blanking (PB) has received particular attention due to its simplicity and effectiveness. In this study, the performance of PB is assessed in the presence of signal conditioning and the impact of front–end parameters, such as the number of bits used for quantisation and the gain of the automatic gain control (AGC), is analysed. The theoretical analysis is supported by Monte Carlo simulations and experimental results, which show that signal conditioning plays a fundamental role in the design of interference mitigation techniques.