TY - JOUR
T1 - Performance analysis of crosslink radiometric measurement based autonomous orbit determination for cislunar small satellite formations
AU - Turan, Erdem
AU - Speretta, Stefano
AU - Gill, Eberhard
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Recent advances in space technology provide an opportunity for small satellites to be launched in cislunar space. However, tracking these small satellites still depends on ground-based operations. Autonomous navigation could be a possible solution considering the challenges presented by costly ground operations and limited onboard power available for small satellites. There have been various studies on autonomous navigation methods for cislunar missions. One of them, LiAISON, provides an autonomous orbit determination solution solely using inter-satellite measurements. This study aims at providing a detailed performance analysis of crosslink radiometric measurements based on autonomous orbit determination for cislunar small satellite formations considering the effects of measurement type, measurement accuracy, bias, formation geometry, and network topology. This study shows that range observations provide better state estimation performance than range-rate observations for the autonomous navigation system in cislunar space. Line-of-sight angle measurements derived from radiometric measurements do not improve the overall system performance. In addition, less precise crosslink measurement methods could be an option for formations in highly observable orbital configurations. It was found that measurement biases and measurements with high intervals reduce the overall system performance. In case there are more than two spacecraft in the formation, the navigation system in the mesh topology provides a better overall state estimation than the centralized topology.
AB - Recent advances in space technology provide an opportunity for small satellites to be launched in cislunar space. However, tracking these small satellites still depends on ground-based operations. Autonomous navigation could be a possible solution considering the challenges presented by costly ground operations and limited onboard power available for small satellites. There have been various studies on autonomous navigation methods for cislunar missions. One of them, LiAISON, provides an autonomous orbit determination solution solely using inter-satellite measurements. This study aims at providing a detailed performance analysis of crosslink radiometric measurements based on autonomous orbit determination for cislunar small satellite formations considering the effects of measurement type, measurement accuracy, bias, formation geometry, and network topology. This study shows that range observations provide better state estimation performance than range-rate observations for the autonomous navigation system in cislunar space. Line-of-sight angle measurements derived from radiometric measurements do not improve the overall system performance. In addition, less precise crosslink measurement methods could be an option for formations in highly observable orbital configurations. It was found that measurement biases and measurements with high intervals reduce the overall system performance. In case there are more than two spacecraft in the formation, the navigation system in the mesh topology provides a better overall state estimation than the centralized topology.
KW - Autonomy
KW - Crosslink
KW - Navigation
KW - Radiometric
KW - Small satellite
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85144059288&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.asr.2022.11.032
DO - 10.1016/j.asr.2022.11.032
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85144059288
SN - 0273-1177
VL - 72
SP - 2710
EP - 2732
JO - Advances in Space Research
JF - Advances in Space Research
IS - 7
ER -