Giuseppe Avellone

• Systems Engineer - Member of Techcnical Staff at STMicroelectronics

The increase of electronic content for advanced features such as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and autonomous driving, the use of Over-The-Air (OTA) for updating the related software (SW) combined with the increased number of reported hacking attacks to these systems have highlighted the need of introducing cybersecurity features in au...

New high accuracy PPP/PPP-RTK services, like Galileo High Accuracy Service (HAS), BeiDou PPP-B2b and QZSS-CLAS/MADOCA are designed to broadcast GNSS corrections directly through specialized signals components. Galileo and QZSS use the E6/L6 carrier (1278.75 MHz), whereas BeiDou broadcast from BDS-3 GEO satellites on E5b carrier (1207.14 MHz). These...

Among on-board sensors, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver plays a key role because of its unique capability of absolute and precise localization. Autonomous vehicles guidance and assistance, resilient timing and an increased demand for higher safety levels are motivating a rapid evolution toward multi-band GNSS receivers in the...

Emerging autonomous driving applications are setting the pace of the innovation for the on board GNSS receiver. Position accuracy, high availability, robustness of operation and formal integrity of the observables are the priorities, which are giving rise and shaping a new class of automotive receiver components and architectures. Moreover, because...

The new regulations for Smart Tachograph (EU - No 165/2014 and 799/2016 and 502/2018) requires the use of GNSS receivers that have to be compatible with the services provided by Galileo and EGNOS. The regulation also requires that such receivers are capable to support the upcoming OSNMA service when it will be provided by Galileo. At the time of wr...

The deployment of autonomous vehicles in our roads within the next future requires high accurate positioning information. It allows for vehicles to navigate in the correct lanes, position themselves correctly so to be able to affect future manoeuvres. For this purpose, several solutions have been developed to estimate the absolute and relative posi...

Autonomous driving applications are raising the requirements for onboard GNSS receivers to new highs. Position accuracy, protection levels, high availability, robustness of peration and integrity are the priorities shaping a new class of automotive components and architectures. Autonomous driving deals with life-critical issues: the expectation of...

This contribution introduces a new configurable Radio-Frequency (RF) Front-End (FE) in CMOS 40nm developed in the ESCAPE project framework for the new STMicroelectronics GNSS receiver supporting concurrent processing of signals from at least two constellations on two different frequency bands (e.g. GPS and Galileo on L1/E1 and L5/E5a). It will be a...

Autonomous vehicles are becoming a reality. One of the most critical functions of an autonomous vehicle is to be able to obtain an accurate and reliable estimation of the position and attitude of the vehicle. This is even more critical when operating without human supervision as for the SAE Level 4. This paper presents an innovative positioning eng...

Localisation is a primary function for autonomous driving. Its performance is critical to ensure the safe navigation of autonomous vehicles, particularly when operating without human supervision as for the SAE Level 4 driving. In this paper, the design of an innovative engine based on a safety-oriented paradigm by leveraging on the availability of...

The patent discloses an approach and an architecture for concurrent receiving of GPS, Galileo, Glonass and Beidou in L1 ensemble using a conventional low cost solution for all the blocks, so that may be feasible with a low cost silicon technology.

Multi-level road junctions are becoming increasingly popular in several major cities. In order to cope with such scenarios, car navigation systems require positioning units to supply accurate slope information. This knowledge allows correct matching to one of the options available from 3D maps. For cost reasons, slope needs to be obtained using con...

Emerging mass-market and automotive applications are requiring GNSS receivers with enhanced accuracy. In order to meet this requirement, either some approach developed for professional (geodetic) GNSS receivers has to be adapted or new approaches have to be devised, taking into account the low-cost constraints. In this contribution, precise positio...

This paper presents a low-power RF front-end designed for GNSS signals in L1 band, implemented on 65nm CMOS technology. In GNSS mode, it draws about 19mA (14.5mA in GPS/Galileo mode) on external voltage supply at 1.2V, with power consumption of roughly 23mW. The device integrates a two-stage high performance low noise amplifier (LNA), an automatic...

In December 2012, the Galileo In-Orbit Validation IOV3 and IOV4 started their test transmissions, bringing the constellation to four satellites. The I/NAV navigation message of the Open Service E1-B signal was switched on shortly after, such that in early 2013 a Galileo-only live positioning could be achieved by the authors using a compact mass mar...

An electronic device includes an analog-to-digital converter adapted to receive a radio-frequency signal and adapted to provide therefrom a digital signal, wherein the radio-frequency signal may include an interference signal. The electronic device has a controller adapted to perform a digital measure on the digital signal and adapted to generate t...

In this paper, a design approach for gm-C complex filter for intermediate frequency (IF) is formalized. It is based on decoupled first order gm-C sections, each one centered at a different frequency with respect to the others that can be stacked in series to get the final band pass filter response, with order equal to the number of stages. A simple...

This paper presents a low-power RF front-end designed for L1/E1 GPS/Galileo and GLONASS, implemented on 65nm CMOS technology. It draws 28mA on external voltage supply at 1.2V, with power consumption of 33.6mW. The chip could work also at 1.8V using a chip-embedded low dropout regulator (LDO). The device integrates a high performance low noise ampli...

A method and a system for the acquisition and tracking of BOC(m,n) modulated codes, m/n equal to an integer, in which a correlation function is calculated of the BOC(m,n) modulated code received from a remote transmitter with a local code properly generated at a receiver terminal according to the equations listed in the patent.

In this paper, we present a low-power RF front-end designed for L1/E1 GPS/Galileo, implemented on 65 nm CMOS technology. It draws 16mA on external voltage supply of 1.2V, with power consumption of less than 20mW. The chip could work also at 1.8V using a low dropout regulator embedded in the chip. The device integrates a high performance low noise a...

In this paper, an adaptive complex intermediate frequency filter for L1/E1 GPS/Galileo RF front end is briefly highlighted. It is based on decoupled first order gm-C sections properly stacked in series to get the final band pass filter order. The filter is characterized by two operative modes: the first one for GPS/Galileo signals based on a 4th or...

In this patent proposal we address a different point of view for fading attenuation estimation in transmit diversity scenario. We introduce a simple architecture, based on modified phase locked loops (PLLs), which has excellent performances. The proposed idea makes use of analog circuits and very simple digital units. The transmission model conside...

A phase recovery and decoding method for decoding signals (S`(t)) comprising encoded symbols (uk) over a respective symbol interval (T) which modulate a carrier, for example in a TCM system. The method envisages performing (20 to 26) a phase locking of the signal to be decoded so as to obtain a phase-locked signal which can present, during each sym...

A receiver in a Telecommunication system based on the 3GPP W-CDMA TDD mode HCR (3th Generation Partnership Project Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access), after signal acquisition (1st cell search step), needs slot synchronizer and codegroup identifier (2nd cell search step) and scrambling code identifier (3rd cell search step), in order to allow...

Encoded digital symbols (S1 S2 S3 S4 ) are transmitted via a first pair of antennas (Tx1, Tx2) and at least one second pair of antennas (Tx3, Tx4). The sets of symbols used for the transmission via the second pair of antennas (Tx3, Tx4) are re-ordered temporally (S3 S4 S1 S2 ) into subsets of symbols with respect to the symbols used for the first p...

A receiver for receiving digital signals exposed to intersymbol interference as well as multiple access interference the method including linearly detecting said signals by combating said intersymbol interference by equalizing said received digital signals as well as mitigating said multiple access interference by detecting said digital signals by...

In a first step, slot synchronization is obtained by setting in correlation (210, 220) the received signal (r) with a primary sequence (SG), which represents the primary channel (PSC), and by storing said received signal. During a second step, the said correlator (210, 220) is re-used for correlating the received signal (r) with a secondary sequenc...

The growing interest on location based and vehicle tracking services, but also regulatory as e-911 and road tolling, has driven the expansion of the positioning and navigation devices and their integration in a wide range of products such as a commodity, even outside their primary use. This wide adoption has also pose new requirements for the recei...

To obtain frame synchronization and identify the cell codegroup in a cellular communication system (such as a system based upon the standard 3GPP FDD), there are available the synchronization codes (SSCH) organized in chips or letters transmitted at the beginning of respective slots. Slot synchronization is obtained previously in a first step of th...

Described herein is a method for parallel generating Walsh-Hadamard (WH) channelization codes and Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor (OVSF) channelization codes, which are channelization codes formed by a plurality of strings of antipodal digits, each having a given length L and being identifiable by respective indices I formed by strings of bina...

Binary offset carrier, BOC, modulated signals are at the moment candidates both for new civil (free) signal in GPS update and for part of the European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Galileo. They present better multipath mitigation and, potentially, better tracking characteristic but they have a multiple peak autocorrelation function. Th...

Binary Offset Carrier, BOC, modulated signals are at the moment candidates both for new civil (free) signal in GPS update and for some of the European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Galileo signals. They present better multipath mitigation and, potentially, better tracking characteristic. Unfortunately they also exhibit a multiple peaks...

Once slot synchronization has been obtained in a first step, during a second step there is acquired, by means of correlation (111, 117) of the received signal (r) with the synchronization codes, the information corresponding to the codegroup and to the fine slot synchronization. The synchronization codes are split into codesets. In a first step, a...

In order to execute the cell-search procedure in a cellular communication system (such as a system based upon the 3GPP TDD standard), there are available identification codes for the second step (slot synchronization) and for the third step (identification of the scrambling codes). Said identification codes are identified by means of a process of c...

In a mobile telecommunication system the received signal envelope has a very large dynamic range. A gain control is then required to adjust the signal amplitude at the input of the Analog to Digital Converter, ADC. The Automatic Gain Control, AGC, must control such amplitude to avoid (or limit) ADC saturation and, at the same time, to ensure an eff...

In order to generate the main scrambling code of order N and the secondary scrambling code of order K within the set identified by the primary scrambling code of order N, a first m-sequence and a second m-sequence are generated using Fibonacci linear feedback shift registers (LFSRs). Then said first m-sequence and said second m-sequence are modulo-...

In third generation communication systems currently in standardization process, a number of multi-antenna schemes, derived from the well-known Bell Labs layered space-time (BLAST) approach, are being considered in order to improve performance in both communication reliability and system throughput. Among these schemes there is growing interest on s...

The device can be used for generating, in the framework of a CDMA communications terminal, both Walsh-Hadamard channeling codes and OVSF channeling codes. The device comprises a code generator preferably configured for generating Walsh-Hadamard codes. When the device is used for generating Walsh-Hadamard codes, the corresponding index values, appli...

Amongst the different receiver structures proposed for interference suppression in code division multiple access systems, the G-Rake receiver introduced in G.E. Bottomley, et al (2000) presents some interest for its simple structure and relatively low complexity. This receiver has the same structure of the classic Rake receiver but it inserts extra...

This contribution presents a joint linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) equalizer for full-rate space-time transmit diversity multi-code schemes based on W-CDMA, featuring two and four transmit antennas. Specifically, high-rate, high load systems are targeted, in order to analyze the high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) of 3GPP Release 6....

This paper presents a novel architecture for pseudo-noise (PN) sequences generation. We briefly review some theoretic aspects of the finite field arithmetic applied to the PN sequences generation, showing the most commonly used generator structures, and developing some techniques aimed at reducing the generators' memory requirements. The proposed a...

This paper presents an overview of codes used in CDMA systems. It briefly reviews theoretical aspects of pseudo-noise sequences as well as orthogonal spreading codes for CDMA cellular systems, focusing on both scrambling and channelization code generation suitable for 3GPP FDD UMTS. For each code generator, we point out architectural aspects as wel...

In this paper, the initial cell-search procedure for a Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mode system is presented under the impairment of frequency errors. A basic algorithm for all three steps of the cell search is given to demonstrate the functionality of ce...