Orbit uncertainty propagation and sensitivity analysis with separated representations

Abstract

Most approximations for stochastic differential equations with high-dimensional, non-Gaussian inputs suffer from a rapid (e.g., exponential) increase of computational cost, an issue known as the curse of dimensionality. In astrodynamics, this results in reduced accuracy when propagating an orbit-state probability density function. This paper considers the application of separated representations for orbit uncertainty propagation, where future states are expanded into a sum of products of univariate functions of initial states and other uncertain parameters. An accurate generation of separated representation requires a number of state samples that is linear in the dimension of input uncertainties. The computation cost of a separated representation scales linearly with respect to the sample count, thereby improving tractability when compared to methods that suffer from the curse of dimensionality. In addition to detailed discussions on their construction and use in sensitivity analysis, this paper presents results for three test cases of an Earth orbiting satellite. The first two cases demonstrate that approximation via separated representations produces a tractable solution for propagating the Cartesian orbit-state uncertainty with up to 20 uncertain inputs. The third case, which instead uses Equinoctial elements, reexamines a scenario presented in the literature and employs the proposed method for sensitivity analysis to more thoroughly characterize the relative effects of uncertain inputs on the propagated state.