Positioning via GEO communication satellites’ signals of opportunity

Inherent vulnerabilities seriously weaken global navigation satellite system service capability, particularly in hostile environments where electronic jamming, blocking, and deception can occur. A new positioning technique is proposed that is based on navigation via signals of opportunity using communication satellites as a supplement and backup for GNSS. Based on the principle of very long baseline interferometry, the proposed technique observes communication satellites passively without demodulated satellite signals, realises time delay measurements, and then completes target positioning. In the positioning principle of this technique, the signal receiving scheme is formulated, and then the received signal model is established. We improved the signal processing scheme of very long baseline interferometry measurement technology, researched the time delay measurement estimation algorithm, and then analysed and verified the measurement performance using simulations. Finally, this approach was tested using geostationary Earth orbit communication satellites, for which the measured delay was obtained to verify the positioning performance. The results show that the positioning accuracy of the proposed technique is <20 m, verifying the feasibility and positioning performance of this approach.