A Comprehensive Evaluation Approach of Navigation Signal Performance Based on Multi-attribute Group Decision Making

Abstract

In the process of comprehensive performance evaluation of new-structure satellite navigation signals, some problems may be encountered including the wide varieties of performance indicators/attributes, the lack of a clear attribute system, the complex relationships and strong correlations among different attributes, the differences in user preferences of the significances of various attributes, and so on. Based on the comparative analysis of different models and methods for the fuzzy multi-criteria Group Decision Making (GDM) problems, this paper proposes a comprehensive signal performance evaluation approach that integrates multiple methods seamlessly. Firstly, a three-level signal attribute system is established based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Next, the attributes at the bottom level are decorrelated and reconstructed by Fuzzy Clustering and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Then the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is employed to obtain the Relative Membership Degree (RMD) of each alternative signal option to each attribute unit. Finally, the overall performance of each alternative is calculated using the multi-attribute GDM model. The evaluation of six alternative modulations for GPS L1C signals based on theoretical analysis demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach. The approach provides an efficient means for the comprehensive performance evaluation of satellite navigation signals.