Simulation of dual transponder carrier ranging measurements

The most dominant error source for microwave ranging is the frequency instability of the oscillator that generates the carrier phase signal. The oscillator noise is very difficult to filter due to its extremely low frequency. A dual transponder carrier ranging method can effectively minimize the oscillator noise by combing the reference phase and the to-and-fro measurement phase from the same single oscillator. This method does not require an accurate time tagging system, since it extracts phases on the same satellite. This paper analyzes the dual transponder carrier ranging system by simulation of the phase measurements with comprehensive error models. Both frequency domain and time domain noise transfer characteristics were simulated to compare them with dual one-way ranging. The simulation results in the two domains conformed to each other and demonstrated that a high level of accuracy can also be achieved by use of the dual transponder carrier ranging system, with relatively simple instruments.