Basic concept of GPS Basic Concepts of GPS are as follows: GPS is a passive lime-ranging system in which the time

taken for a signal to travel between a satellite and the receiver is measured. This transit time is then easily related to the distance between the satellite and the receiver by the velocity of light. The three-dimensional position of the receiver (x, y and z) can be calculated if the absolute transit time and hence distance from three satellites, at known positions is measured. In practice, the measurement of absolute transit time is not possible in a passive system; hence it is necessary to measure the transit time relative to a local time reference at the receiver. This local time reference will be offset from GPS time by an unknown amount and is known as the receiver clock offset. The product of the velocity of light and the transit time relative to the receiver clock is known as the pseudorange. As the receiver clock offset is common to all transit-time measurements, by taking a total of four pseudorange measurements between four GPS satellites and the receiver it becomes possible to solve for the position (x, y and z) and the receiver clock offset. Thus, this simple concept has the capability of both allowing the threedimensional position of an unknown point to be determined and the dissemination of GPS time. This is only possible provided the receiver has an accurate knowledge of the position of the four satellites and the time offsets between each satellite and GPS time. The estimation of these parameters is the key function of the GPS control segment. Once this information has been determined it is uploaded to the satellites and then broadcast to the users in the navigation message.