A fast satellite selection algorithm: Beyond four satellites

Satellite selection is an important executive logic to prevent unnecessary navigation signals in the first place for Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers with limited number of channels and real-time processing power, such as those used in mobile phones, cars, and space crafts. In this paper,we propose a fast satellite selection algorithm to select more than four satellites based on the optimal geometries, which can obtain the smallest geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) values. The main idea of this fast algorithm is to select a subset of all satellites in view whose geometry is the most similar to the optimal geometry. Computer simulation shows that the consumed time of this algorithm is very close to that of the quasi-optimal satellite selection algorithm and obviously lower than that of the traditional optimal satellite selection algorithm to minimize GDOP factor, but the increased GDOP values relative to the minimal GDOP values are much smaller than those of the quasi-optimal satellite selection algorithm.