Design and Performance Analysis of GPS Based Precise Relative Navigation for Rendezvous and Formation Flying Missions in Low Earth Orbit

Abstract

Precise relative GPS navigation is essential technology for rendezvous and formation flying of spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit. Key design issues of precise relative GPS navigation software are studied and a novel formulation is proposed for the mission which requires high accuracy when the separation distance is up to several km. The navigation filter estimates float navigation solutions by extended Kalman filter with elaborate dynamics models, and resolves ambiguities of integer carrier phase biases to achieve high accuracy fix navigation solutions. A relative navigation software with the proposed formulation is implemented and evaluated in two different ways. One is a test using spacebourne GPS receivers and a GPS signal simulator to evaluate the performance and sensitivity of the software against variation of parameters. The other is a test using actual telemetry data from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to demonstrate the software performance. The design, implementation, and results of the evaluation are presented and discussed on this paper.