A comparative study of new non-linear uncertainty propagation methods for space surveillance

We propose a unified testing framework for assessing uncertainty realism during non-linear uncertainty propagation under the perturbed two-body problem of celestial mechanics, with an accompanying suite of metrics and benchmark test cases on which to validate different methods. We subsequently apply the testing framework to different combinations of uncertainty propagation techniques and coordinate systems for representing the uncertainty. In particular, we recommend the use of a newly-derived system of orbital element coordinates that mitigate the non-linearities in uncertainty propagation and the recently-developed Gauss von Mises filter which, when used in tandem, provide uncertainty realism over much longer periods of time compared to Gaussian representations of uncertainty in Cartesian spaces, at roughly the same computational cost.