Modernized GPS civilian signals have two general improvements over their legacy counterparts: a dataless acquisition aid and forward error correction (FEC) coding of the NAV message. It uses forward error correction (FEC) provided by a rate 1/2 convolutional code, so while the navigation message is 25-bit/s, a 50-bit/s signal is transmitted. The interface to the User Segment ( GPS receivers) is described in the Interface Control Documents (ICD). The format of civilian signals is described in the Interface Specification (IS) which is a subset of the ICD.

Satellites are uniquely identified by a serial number called space vehicle number (SVN) which does not change during its lifetime. In addition, all operating satellites are numbered with a space vehicle identifier (SV ID) and pseudorandom noise number (PRN number) which uniquely identifies the ranging codes that a satellite uses. There is a fixed one-to-one correspondence between SV identifiers and PRN numbers described in the interface specification. [4] Unlike SVNs, the SV ID/PRN number of a satellite may be changed (also changing the ranging codes it uses). At any point in time, any SV ID/PRN number is in use by at most a single satellite. A single SV ID/PRN number may have been used by several satellites at different points in time and a single satellite may have used different SV ID/PRN numbers at different points in time. The current SVNs and PRN numbers for the GPS constellation may be found at NAVCEN.

In each subframe, each hand-over word (HOW) contains the most significant 17 bits of the TOW count corresponding to the start of the next following subframe. [14] Note that the 2 least significant bits can be safely omitted because one HOW occurs in the navigation message every 6 seconds, which is equal to the resolution of the truncated TOW count thereof. Equivalently, the truncated TOW count is the time duration since the last GPS week start/end to the beginning of the next frame in units of 6 seconds. CM is modulated with the CNAV Navigation Message (see below), whereas CL does not contain any modulated data and is called a dataless sequence. The long, dataless sequence provides for approximately 24dB greater correlation (~250 times stronger) than L1 C/A-code. An immediate effect of having two civilian frequencies being transmitted is the civilian receivers can now directly measure the ionospheric error in the same way as dual frequency P(Y)-code receivers. However, users utilizing the L2C signal alone, can expect 65% more position uncertainty due to ionospheric error than with the L1 signal alone. [28] Military (M-code) [ edit ] Pre-operational signal with message set "unhealthy" until sufficient monitoring capability established Besides redundancy and increased resistance to jamming, a critical benefit of having two frequencies transmitted from one satellite is the ability to measure directly, and therefore remove, the ionospheric delay error for that satellite. Without such a measurement, a GPS receiver must use a generic model or receive ionospheric corrections from another source (such as the Wide Area Augmentation System or WAAS). Advances in the technology used on both the GPS satellites and the GPS receivers has made ionospheric delay the largest remaining source of error in the signal. A receiver capable of performing this measurement can be significantly more accurate and is typically referred to as a dual frequency receiver.

GPS signals are broadcast by Global Positioning System satellites to enable satellite navigation. Receivers on or near the Earth's surface can determine location, time, and velocity using this information. The GPS satellite constellation is operated by the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS) of Space Delta 8, United States Space Force. Satellite data is updated typically every 24 hours, with up to 60 days data loaded in case there is a disruption in the ability to make updates regularly. Typically the updates contain new ephemerides, with new almanacs uploaded less frequently. The Control Segment guarantees that during normal operations a new almanac will be uploaded at least every 6 days.CNAV messages begin and end at start/end of GPS week plus an integer multiple of 12 seconds. [26] Specifically, the beginning of the first bit (with convolution encoding already applied) to contain information about a message matches the aforesaid synchronization. CNAV messages begin with an 8-bit preamble which is a fixed bit pattern and whose purpose is to enable the receiver to detect the beginning of a message. The modulation method is binary offset carrier, using a 10.23MHz subcarrier against the 5.115MHz code. This signal will have an overall bandwidth of approximately 24MHz, with significantly separated sideband lobes. The sidebands can be used to improve signal reception. Since the FEC encoded bit stream runs at 2 times the rate than the non FEC encoded bit as already described, then t = ⌊ t ′ 2 ⌋ {\displaystyle t=\left\lfloor {\tfrac {t'}{2}}\right\rfloor } . FEC encoding is performed independently of navigation message boundaries; [27] this follows from the above equations. The delay for PRN numbers 34 and 37 is the same; therefore their C/A codes are identical and are not transmitted at the same time [5] (it may make one or both of those signals unusable due to mutual interference depending on the relative power levels received on each GPS receiver). An interesting side effect of having each satellite transmit four separate signals is that the MNAV can potentially transmit four different data channels, offering increased data bandwidth.

GPS time is expressed with a resolution of 1.5 seconds as a week number and a time of week count (TOW). [13] Its zero point (week 0, TOW 0) is defined to be 1980-01-06T00:00Z. The TOW count is a value ranging from 0 to 403,199 whose meaning is the number of 1.5 second periods elapsed since the beginning of the GPS week. Expressing TOW count thus requires 19 bits (2 19=524,288). GPS time is a continuous time scale in that it does not include leap seconds; therefore the start/end of GPS weeks may differ from that of the corresponding UTC day by an integer number of seconds. The P-code is a PRN sequence much longer than the C/A code: 6.187104x10 12 chips. Even though the P-code chip rate (10.23 Mchip/s) is ten times that of the C/A code, it repeats only once per week, eliminating range ambiguity. It was assumed that receivers could not directly acquire such a long and fast code so they would first "bootstrap" themselves with the C/A code to acquire the spacecraft ephemerides, produce an approximate time and position fix, and then acquire the P-code to refine the fix. Unlike the C/A code, L2C contains two distinct PRN code sequences to provide ranging information; the civil-moderate code (called CM), and the civil-long length code (called CL). The CM code is 10,230 chips long, repeating every 20 ms. The CL code is 767,250 chips long, repeating every 1,500 ms. Each signal is transmitted at 511,500 chips per second ( chip/s); however, they are multiplexed together to form a 1,023,000-chip/s signal. General features [ edit ] A visual example of the GPS constellation in motion with the Earth rotating. Notice how the number of satellites in view from a given point on the Earth's surface, in this example at 45°N, changes with time.A and B are maximal length LFSRs. The modulo operations correspond to resets. Note that both are reset each millisecond (synchronized with C/A code epochs). In addition, the extra modulo operation in the description of A is due to the fact it is reset 1 cycle before its natural period (which is 8,191) so that the next repetition becomes offset by 1 cycle with respect to B [32] (otherwise, since both sequences would repeat, I5 and Q5 would repeat within any 1ms period as well, degrading correlation characteristics). An ephemeris is valid for only four hours; an almanac is valid with little dilution of precision for up to two weeks. [7] The receiver uses the almanac to acquire a set of satellites based on stored time and location. As each satellite is acquired, its ephemeris is decoded so the satellite can be used for navigation. The original GPS design contains two ranging codes: the coarse/acquisition (C/A) code, which is freely available to the public, and the restricted precision (P) code, usually reserved for military applications. C/A i is the code with PRN number i. A is the output of the first LFSR whose generator polynomial is x → x 10 + x 3 + 1, and initial state is 1111111111 2. B is the output of the second LFSR whose generator polynomial is x → x 10 + x 9 + x 8 + x 6 + x 3 + x 2 + 1 and initial state is also 1111111111 2. D i is a delay (by an integer number of periods) specific to each PRN number i; it is designated in the GPS interface specification. [4] ⊕ is exclusive or.