Designing observation scheme in X-ray pulsar-based navigation with probability ellipsoid

Abstract

The accuracy in pulsar-based navigation system can be improved with a well-designed observation scheme. In this paper, based on the idea that minimises the size of position probability ellipsoid at each updating time, four strategies are put forward for determining observation order. As the calculation of posterior probability ellipsoid only requires a priori orbit information, the observation scheme can be designed during preliminary mission analysis. These strategies can be employed in both situations with single detector and multiple detectors. Numerical simulations show that the proposed observation strategies achieve good performance.