Abstract

A rawinsonde system embodiment of the present invention includes a digital GPS snapshot buffer and a serial communications controller for transmitting message frames formed of a combination of digital GPS data from the snapshot buffer and digitized hardwired meteorological data input from a humidity-temperature-pressure instrument. The message frames are telemetered at a relatively low rate over a meteorological radio band to a ground station. Substantially all of the conventional GPS digital signal processing is performed by the ground station, including carrier recovery, PRN code locking, pseudo-range extraction, ephemeris data extraction, almanac collection, satellite selection, navigation solution calculation and differential corrections. Ground processing further includes Kalman filter wind velocity calculation.