X-ray pulsar navigation based on two-stage estimation of Doppler frequency and phase delay

Abstract

In X-ray pulsar-based navigation (XPNAV), the appearance of Doppler effects caused by the dynamic motion of the spacecraft would severely degrade the navigation accuracy. In this paper, we develop a new XPNAV method based on a two-stage estimation method of Doppler frequency and phase delay to overcome the Doppler effects. Based on the pre-established phase model of the pulsar at the SSB and the predicted states of the spacecraft, the real-time phase model at the spacecraft is modeled with respect to the initial position and velocity errors of the spacecraft. It turns out that within an observation interval, a constant Doppler frequency can be estimated to overcome the effect of the initial velocity error, and then the phase delay caused by the initial position error can be estimated by using the computationally efficient methods based on epoch folding. Under this frame, the H-test for uniformity, which needs no prior knowledge of the light curve, is used to estimate the Doppler frequency and the fast maximum likelihood method is used to estimate the phase delay. The dynamic model and measurement model of the proposed navigation method are also given. Photon-level simulation results obtained by using the ground-based semi-physical simulation system for X-ray pulsar signals show a significant improvement over the traditional XPNAV method.