Enhanced DME Carrier Phase Tracking Approach for Alternative PNT in UAV Applications

The demand for reliable Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) solutions is rapidly increasing due to the growing need for precision, efficiency, and safety in unmanned systems. As operations become more autonomous, the reliance on accurate and continuous PNT data becomes critical for maintaining system integrity. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), while serving as the primary global PNT service, is vulnerable to interference, jamming, and spoofing attacks. This raises serious concerns, particularly for safety-critical applications, and requires an urgent need for resilient Alternative PNT (A-PNT) solutions.
Leveraging an existing worldwide infrastructure, the Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) system is considered one of the most promising candidates for A-PNT to address GNSS vulnerabilities. Utilizing the carrier phase of the DME signal enables distance measurements with centimeter-level accuracy. However, due to the pulse system nature of DME transmissions and the sparsity of phase observations, conventional carrier tracking loops such as PLLs and FLLs struggle to maintain a reliable phase lock. To address these challenges, this work proposes a zero-crossing-integrated Kalman filter-based approach to track the DME carrier signal at an irregular rate. The performance of the proposed algorithm is validated through a series of drone tests at Cranfield University, UK. The validation results demonstrate that the proposed enhanced carrier tracking approach consistently delivers stable and accurate performance.