September 1, 2017 Conference paper Open Access

A Cloud Optical Access Network for Virtualized GNSS Receivers

Fernández-Prades, Carles; Pomar, C.; Arribas Javier; Fàbrega, Josep Maria; Vilà-Valls, Jordi; Svaluto-Moreolo, Michela; Casellas, Ramon; Martínez, Ricardo; Navarro, Mònica; Vílchez, F.Javier; Muñoz, Raül; Vilalta, Ricard; Nadal, Laia; Mayoral, Arturo

This paper presents a novel system architecture and describes a proof-of-concept for a virtualized GNSS receiver. The main idea consists of moving apart the GNSS antenna from the baseband processing, thus allowing for a number of new applications and services based on GNSS signal products. After contextualizing this concept into a major trend followed by the IT industry and the academia in the latter years, the paper provides a snapshot on the latest industry trends and describes a vibrant ecosystem of open source projects and tools, which make possible the actual (and rapid) deployment of virtual services over software-defined optical networks that allow for the continuous transmission of GNSS signals from the antenna to a remote baseband processor.
After providing a brief description of the main concepts and building blocks of the presented architecture, and identifying the fundamental technological bottlenecks, we present a proof-of-concept implemented with actual commercial–off–the–shelf hardware components, providing evidences of the system feasibility and releasing different versions of a free and open source
software-defined, virtual GNSS receiver.