A Submillimeter-Level Relative Navigation Technology for Spacecraft Formation Flying in Highly Elliptical Orbit

Spacecraft formation flying (SFF) in highly elliptical orbit (HEO) has attracted a great deal of attention in many space exploration applications, while precise guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) technology—especially precise ranging—are the basis of success for such SFF missions. In this paper...

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Published inSensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 20; no. 22; p. 6524
Main Authors Wang, Xiaoliang, Gong, Deren, Jiang, Yifei, Mo, Qiankun, Kang, Zeyu, Shen, Qiang, Wu, Shufan, Wang, Dengfeng
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 15.11.2020
MDPI
Subjects
Accuracy
Bias
Data transmission
Design
highly elliptical orbit
Ionosphere
microwave ranging
Noise
Receivers & amplifiers
relative navigation
Satellites
Science
spacecraft formation flying
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ISSN1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI10.3390/s20226524

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Summary:Spacecraft formation flying (SFF) in highly elliptical orbit (HEO) has attracted a great deal of attention in many space exploration applications, while precise guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) technology—especially precise ranging—are the basis of success for such SFF missions. In this paper, we introduce a novel K-band microwave ranging (MWR) equipment for the on-orbit verification of submillimeter-level precise ranging technology in future HEO SFF missions. The ranging technique is a synchronous dual one-way ranging (DOWR) microwave phase accumulation system, which achieved a ranging accuracy of tens of microns in the laboratory environment. The detailed design and development process of the MWR equipment are provided, ranging error sources are analyzed, and relative orbit dynamic models for HEO formation scenes are given with real perturbations considered. Moreover, an adaptive Kalman filter algorithm is introduced for SFF relative navigation design, incorporating process noise uncertainty. The performance of SFF relative navigation while using MWR is tested in a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation system within a high-precision six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) moving platform. The final range estimation errors from MWR using the adaptive filter were less than 35 μm and 8.5 μm/s for range rate, demonstrating the promising accuracy for future HEO formation mission applications.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s20226524