Multipath Effects on Frequency-Locked Loops (FLLs) and FLL-derived Doppler Measurements

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and multipath signals on frequency-locked loops (FLLs), which are commonly used to obtain Doppler shift measurements for velocity estimation in radio navigation. A salient result is that, in the absence of a direct signal, a single NLOS signal does not corrupt Doppler observables if the angle-of-arrival (AOA) is known. Another striking result is that, in a multipath environment involving two signals, the arctangent discriminator (averaged over the beat frequency) tracks only the higher amplitude signal. Our investigation has particular significance for radio navigation in urban environments, either using global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals or ground-based cellular signals.