Relative navigation in autonomous spacecraft formations

Spreading of spacecraft formations and constellations made up by affordable platforms as cubesats poses the issue of technologically simple navigation subsystems, mandatory to exploit these missions. This paper describes solutions based on hardware that should be either already included or easy to accommodate on these platforms. Specifically, basic radiofrequency link's observables as the signal strength and the Doppler shift, and findings from on-board camera as a coarse positioning of the target are considered. The accuracy in the relative navigation attainable by means of simple estimation processes, easy to implement in the onboard computer, is obtained. The approach could also be used to identify inexpensive back-up solutions to more complex and accurate main navigation subsystems.

[1]  Bradford W. Parkinson,et al.  Global positioning system : theory and applications , 1996 .

[2]  G. Palmerini.  Guidance Strategies for Satellite Formations , 2000 .

[3]  Karsten Danzmann,et al.  Intersatellite laser ranging instrument for the GRACE follow-on mission , 2012, Journal of Geodesy.

[4]  W. H. Clohessy,et al.  Terminal Guidance System for Satellite Rendezvous , 2012 .

[5]  Jordi Puig-Suari,et al.  CubeSat: A New Generation of Picosatellite for Education and Industry Low-Cost Space Experimentation , 2000 .

[6]  Paul Zarchan,et al.  Fundamentals of Kalman Filtering: A Practical Approach , 2001 .

[7]  M. Sabatini,et al.  Autonomous State Estimation in Formation Flight , 2007, 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[8]  Oliver Montenbruck,et al.  The Navigation and Occultation eXperiment GPS Receiver Performance On Board a LEO Satellite , 2014 .

[9]  Jian Guo,et al.  Survey of worldwide pico- and nanosatellite missions, distributions and subsystem technology , 2010 .

[10]  Janise McNair,et al.  A Survey of Communication Sub-systems for Intersatellite Linked Systems and CubeSat Missions , 2012, J. Commun..

[11]  D. Izzo,et al.  Minimum control for spacecraft formations in a J2 perturbed environment , 2009 .

[12]  F. Reali,et al.  Estimate Problems for Satellite Clusters , 2008, 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[13]  Daniele Borio,et al.  Doppler Measurement Accuracy in Standard and High-Sensitivity GNSS Receivers , 2010 .

[14]  Frank H. Bauer,et al.  Relative Navigation of Formation Flying Satellites , 2002 .

[15]  Robert Zee,et al.  Precision Formation Flight: The CanX-4 and CanX-5 Dual Nanosatellite Mission , 2007 .

[16]  Giovanni B. Palmerini,et al.  Spacecraft Orbit Control using Air Drag , 2005 .

[17]  J. Garrett Jernigan,et al.  The Development of a 3P PocketQube , 2013 .

[18]  M. Swartwout.  Cheaper by the dozen: The avalanche of rideshares in the 21st century , 2013, 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[19]  Mengu Cho,et al.  Introduction to lean satellite and ISO standard for lean satellite , 2015, 2015 7th International Conference on Recent Advances in Space Technologies (RAST).

[20]  J. R. Vetter.  Fiftey Years of Orbit Determination : Development of Modern Astrodynamics Methods , 2007 .

[21]  Hector Bedon,et al.  Preliminary internetworking simulation of the QB50 cubesat constellation , 2010, 2010 IEEE Latin-American Conference on Communications.

[22]  Daniel J. Biezad,et al.  Integrated navigation and guidance systems , 1999 .