Abstract
To keep the global navigation satellite system functional during extreme conditions, it is a trend to employ autonomous navigation technology with inter-satellite link. As in the newly built BeiDou system (BDS-3) equipped with Ka-band inter-satellite links, every individual satellite has the ability of communicating and measuring distances among each other. The system also has less dependence on the ground stations and improved navigation performance. Because of the huge amount of measurement data, the centralized data processing algorithm for orbit determination is suggested to be replaced by a distributed one in which each satellite in the constellation is required to finish a partial computation task. In the present paper, the balanced extended Kalman filter algorithm for distributed orbit determination is proposed and compared with the whole-constellation centralized extended Kalman filter, the iterative cascade extended Kalman filter, and the increasing measurement covariance extended Kalman filter. The proposed method demands a lower computation power; however, it yields results with a relatively good accuracy.
Highlights
For the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), the master control station (MCS) currently collects the satellite to monitor station measurement data, estimates the satellite ephemeris and clock offsets, and generates a time stream of navigation messages
In order to enhance the viability of satellite navigation systems under the potentially fatal conditions, as early as in the 1980s, autonomous navigation techniques using inter-satellite link (ISL) measurements without support from the MCS were investigated for the global positioning system (GPS) [3]
The WCCEFK technique processes the measurement data for orbit determination by a main satellite while the other three algorithms distribute the computation on every satellite in the constellation
Summary
For the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), the master control station (MCS) currently collects the satellite to monitor station measurement data, estimates the satellite ephemeris and clock offsets, and generates a time stream of navigation messages. The MCS as well as the other ground-based segments including monitor stations and ground antennas have the risk of destruction during a warfare or natural disaster This is the case especially for the monitor stations which are distributed globally for increasing the accuracy of satellite orbit determination [2]. This problem can be addressed by setting up a few ground anchorage stations (GASs) which provide a reference coordinate system and a time system [5] Combining both the ISL and satellite-to-GAS measurements, the autonomous navigation system has several features: firstly, data processing will be completed by satellite onboard computers rather than the MCS; secondly, Sensors 2019, 19, 1031; doi:10.3390/s19051031 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors. Together with whole-constellation centralized extended Kalman filter (WCCEFK), four different autonomous navigation algorithms are conducted in simulations for comparisons of accuracy and computation loads
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