ION Software-Defined Radio Metadata Standard Final Report

The ION GNSS SDR Metadata Standard describes the formatting and other essential PNT-related parameters of sampled data
streams and files. This allows processors to seamlessly consume such data without the need to input these parameters manually.
The technical development phase of the initial version of the standard has now been deemed complete and is currently
undergoing the last remaining procedural steps towards adoption as a formal standard by the Institute of Navigation. This paper
reports on the activities of the working group since September 2018 and summarizes the final products of the standard. It also
reports on examples of early adoption by academic, research, and open source SDR projects. This includes an example where,
as intended, capabilities covered in the standard have been expanded to describe custom data embedded within sampled data
streams. Also included is an example where the standard is used to describe non-GNSS data. Several examples of commercial
adoption are also documented in this paper. The standard website (sdr.ion.org) includes a repository containing SDR files of
various topologies and formats. The working group is currently in the process of providing the satnav observables for these
datasets using well-known SDRs in order to serve as a reference for those working to adopt the standard products into their
own software projects. This paper also includes results from this effort.