Fast angles-only relative navigation using polynomial dynamics

Abstract

A fast and efficient method for initial relative orbit determination from bearing-angle measurements is introduced. The range ambiguity problem for angles-only relative navigation is addressed by modeling nonlinear effects with a novel second-order mapping from relative orbit elements (ROE) to relative position coordinates. This model is used to form a system of polynomial constraint equations linking the line-of-sight measurements to the ROE. An efficient method for solving this system is developed around the insight that the ROE scale with the ratio of the inter-spacecraft separation to the orbit radius and are therefore small for most applications of interest. The method uses a truncated expansion of the quadratic formula to recursively eliminate unknowns, reduce the dimension of the system, and ultimately acquire an approximate solution. Strategies for improving robustness, efficiency, and accuracy are developed and the method is applied to general second-order systems as well as to a broad range of intial relative orbit determination scenarios. Modifications to the constraint equations and a solution algorithm are introduced to address the challenge of bias in the bearing-angle measurements.