Providing accurate time information to a radio base station via a GPS receiver emulator

Sammanfattning: In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the use of Global Positioning Satellite system (GPS) technology, consequently the usage of GPS receivers has increased. These GPS receivers can be used as a synchronization source for radio base stations by generating precise 1 pulse per second signals and providing National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) data. The prototype developed in this thesis, implements a GPS receiver emulator to emulate a GPS receiver which is to be used for radio base station synchronization. Hardware and software have been used to generate the NMEA messages and to generate a precise 1 pulse per second signal. A graphical user interface (GUI) has been created in order to allow the operators of the emulator to input various parameters to the system used to emulate a GPS receiver. Using this emulator avoids the need for expensive GPS receivers and their connection to an antenna with a good view of the GPS satellites. More importantly, this GPS receiver emulator makes it easier to set up a lab environment for testing different situations with regard to signaling with NMEA data between the emulated GPS receiver and the radio base station equipment that is under test. For example, this allows tests involving incorrect NEMA messages or non once per second pulses.