Patent 7161977 was granted and assigned to Trimble navigation, Ltd. on January, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A GPS receiver having a ratio-based signal acquisition method. The GPS receiver has a tentative signal acquisition when a first ratio of the largest GPS signal correlation value to the second largest in a first time period exceeds a selected qualification ratio. The GPS receiver verifies signal acquisition when the average of iteration ratios for largest to second largest correlation values in iteration time periods exceed the qualification ratio.