Patent ID: 7205935

Claim:
A method for processing at least one signal sent by a transmitter, said signal preferably being used for measuring the range, i.e. the distance between said transmitter and a receiver, said signal comprising a carrier signal modulated by a pseudo random noise (PRN) code, said method comprising the steps of: mixing said signal with a replica of the carrier signal, to acquire a baseband signal, said baseband signal representing said PRN code, multiplying said baseband signal respectively with M+N+1 PRN code replicas (P −M , . . . , P +N ), comprising one punctual replica (PO), M early replicas, and N late replicas, said replicas being shifted in time with respect to each other, the value M+N+1 being at least equal to four, calculating the M+N+1 correlation values (I −M , . . . , I +N ) of said baseband signal with respect to each of said M+N+1 PRN code replicas, calculating from said M+N+1 correlation values (I −M , . . . , I +N ), an estimate of the multipath error, said calculation being based on a predefined formula, said formula equating said multipath error to a predefined linear combination of said M+N+1 correlation values (I −M , . . . , I +N ), each of said values being normalized by the correlation value I 0 of said punctual replica P 0 .