• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.357-366
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• 2020

This paper addressed a relative navigation method for autonomous rendezvous and docking of cube-satellites using single frequency Differential GPS (DGPS) under the intermittent communication between satellites. Since the ionospheric error of GPS measurement is variable depending on the visible satellites, a few meters error of relative navigation is occurred in the Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) environment. Therefore, it is essential to remove the ionospheric error to perform relative navigation. Besides, an intermittent communication period for receiving GPS measurements of the target satellite is limited for getting information every sampling time. To solve this problem, a method combining range domain DGPS and orbit propagation is proposed in this paper. The proposed method improves the performance of DGPS by using Hatch filter and solves an intermittent communication problem by estimating the relative position and velocity using Hill-Clohessy-Wiltshire Equation. Through the simulation, it is verified that the suggested algorithm provides the relative position error within RMS 0.5 m and the relative velocity error within RMS 3 cm/s. Furthermore, it has the advantage that it is suitable for real-time implementation using single-frequency GPS measurements and is computationally efficient.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.287-293
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• 2018

This paper presents a satellite relative navigation strategy for formation flying, which chooses an appropriate navigation algorithm according to the operating environment. Not only global positioning system (GPS) measurements, but laser measurements can also be utilized to determine the relative positions of satellites. Laser data is used solely or together with GPS measurements. Numerical simulations were conducted to compare the relative navigation algorithm using only laser data and laser data combined with GPS data. If an accurate direction of laser pointing is estimated, the relative position of satellites can be determined using only laser measurements. If not, the combined algorithm has better performance, and is irrelevant to the precision of the relative angle data between two satellites in spherical coordinates. Within 10 km relative distance between satellites, relative navigation using double difference GPS data makes more precise relative position estimation results. If the simulation results are applied to the relative navigation strategy, the proper algorithm can be chosen, and the relative position of satellites can be estimated precisely in changing mission environments.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.77-88
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• 2015

The dynamics of relative motion in a perturbed orbital environment are exploited based on Gauss' and Cowell's variational equations. The inertial coordinate frame and relative coordinate frame (Hill frame) are used, and a linear high fidelity model is developed to describe the relative motion. This model takes into account the primary gravitational and atmospheric drag perturbations. Then, this model is used in the design of a navigation, guidance, and control system of a chaser vehicle to approach towards and to depart from a target vehicle in proximity operations. Relative navigation uses an extended Kalman filter based on this relative model to estimate the relative position/velocity of the chaser vehicle with respect to the target vehicle. This filter uses the range and angle measurements of the target relative to the chaser from a simulated LIDAR system. The corresponding measurement models, process noise matrix, and other filter parameters are provided. Numerical simulations are performed to assess the precision of this model with respect to the full nonlinear model. The analyses include the navigation errors and trajectory dispersions.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2016

This paper presents an algorithm for Real-Time Orbit Determination (RTOD) of navigation satellites for the Korean Regional Navigation Satellite System (KRNSS), when the navigation satellites generate ephemeris by themselves in abnormal situations. The KRNSS is an independent Regional Navigation Satellite System (RNSS) that is currently within the basic/preliminary research phase, which is intended to provide a satellite navigation service for South Korea and neighboring countries. Its candidate constellation comprises three geostationary and four elliptical inclined geosynchronous orbit satellites. Relative distance ranging between the KRNSS satellites based on Inter-Satellite Ranging (ISR) is adopted as the observation model. The extended Kalman filter is used for real-time estimation, which includes fine-tuning the covariance, measurement noise, and process noise matrices. Simulation results show that ISR precision of 0.3-0.7 m, ranging capability of 65,000 km, and observation intervals of less than 20 min are required to accomplish RTOD accuracy to within 1 m. Furthermore, close correlation is confirmed between the dilution of precision and RTOD accuracy.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.59-74
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• 2009

Relative navigation system is presented using GPS measurements from a single-channel global positioning system (GPS) simulator. The objective of this study is to provide the real-time inter-satellite relative positions as well as absolute positions for two formation flying satellites in low earth orbit. To improve the navigation performance, the absolute states are estimated using ion-free GRAPHIC (group and phase ionospheric correction) pseudo-ranges and the relative states are determined using double differential carrier-phase data and singled-differential C/A code data based on the extended Kalman filter and the unscented Kalman filter. Furthermore, pseudo-relative dynamic model and modified relative measurement model are developed. This modified EKF method prevents non-linearity of the measurement model from degrading precision by applying linearization about absolute navigation solutions not about the priori estimates. The LAMBDA method also has been used to improve the relative navigation performance by fixing ambiguities to integers for precise relative navigation. The software-based simulation has been performed and the steady state accuracies of 1 m and 6 mm ($1{\sigma}$ of 3-dimensional difference errors) are achieved for the absolute and relative navigation using EKF for a short baseline leader/follower formation. In addition, the navigation performances are compared for the EKF and the UKF for 10 hours simulation, and relative position errors are mm-level for the two filters showing the similar trends.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.59-64
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• 2012

Precise Point Positioning (PPP) has been widely used in navigation and orbit determination applications as we can obtain precise Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite orbit and clock products. Kinematic PPP, which is based on the GPS measurements only from the spaceborne GPS receiver, has some advantages for a simple precise orbit determination (POD). In this study, we developed kinematic PPP technique to estimate the orbits of GRACE-A satellite. The comparison of the mean position between the JPL's orbit product and our results showed the orbit differences 0.18 cm, 0.54 cm, and 0.98 cm in the Radial, in Along-track, and Cross-track direction respectively. In addition, we obtained the root mean square (rms) values of 4.06 cm, 3.90 cm, and 3.23 cm in the satellite coordinate components relative to the known coordinates.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.34.3-34.3
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• 2008

Relative navigation system is presented using measurements from a single-channel global positioning system (GPS) simulator. The objective of this study is to provide real-time relative navigation results as well as absolute navigation results for two formation flying satellites separated about 1km in low earth orbit. To improve the performance, more accurate dynamic model and modified relative measurement model are developed. This modified method prevents non-linearity of the measurement model from degrading precision by applying linearization about the states from absolute navigation algorithm not about a priori states. Furthermore, absolute states are obtained using ion-free GRAPHIC pseudo-ranges and precise relative states are provided using double differential carrier-phase data based on Extended Kalman Filter. The software-based simulation is performed and achieved meter-level precision for absolute navigation and millimeter-level precision for relative navigation. The absolute and relative accuracies at steady state are about 0.77m and 4mm respectively (3D, r.m.s.). In addition, Integer ambiguity algorithm (LAMBDA method) improves simulation performances.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• v.2
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• pp.251-254
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• 2006

A precise real-time method of using the IGS ultra rapid products (IGU) and the GPS broadcast ephemeris to calculate the VRS orbit corrections was presented here which was suited for GPS/VRS reference station network based positioning. Test data acquired from both the SGRSN (Sichuan GPS Reference Station Network) and SCIGN (Southern California integrated GPS network) were used to evaluate the performance of the modeling techniques. The new method was proven to be more precise and reliable compared with the existing conventional network-based orbit error interpolation method. It was shown that 0.004ppm relative accuracy was reached, namely the influence from the orbit bias for the RTK positioning within 100km area can be of sub-millimeter level.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2013

As GNSS(Global Navigation Satellite System) is used in various filed, many countries establish GNSS system independently. But GNSS system has the limitation of accuracy and stability in stand-alone mode, because this system has error elements which are ionospheric delay, tropospheric delay, orbit ephemeris error, satellite clock error, and etc. For overcome of accuracy limitation, the DGPS(Differential GPS) and RTK(Real-Time Kinematic) systems are proposed. These systems perform relative positioning using the reference and user receivers. ETRI(Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) is developing precision navigation system in point of extension of GNSS usage. The precision navigation system is for providing the precision navigation solution to common users. If this technology is developed, GNSS system can be used in the fields which require precision positioning and control. In this paper, we introduce the precision navigation system and perform design and algorithm verification.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.99-110
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• 2009

The main purpose of the current research is to developments a real-time Hardware In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation testbed for the satellite formation flying navigation and orbit control. The HIL simulation testbed is integrated for demonstrations and evaluations of navigation and orbit control algorithms. The HIL simulation testbed is composed of Environment computer, GPS simulator, Flight computer and Visualization computer system. GPS measurements are generated by a SPIRENT GSS6560 multi-channel RF simulator to produce pseudorange, carrier phase measurements. The measurement date are transferred to Satrec Intiative space borne GPS receiver and exchanged by the flight computer system and subsequently processed in a navigation filter to generate relative or absolute state estimates. These results are fed into control algorithm to generate orbit controls required to maintain the formation. These maneuvers are informed to environment computer system to build a close simulation loop. In this paper, the overall design of the HIL simulation testbed for the satellite formation flying navigation and control is presented. Each component of the testbed is then described. Finally, a LEO formation navigation and control simulation is demonstrated by using virtual scenario.