A carrier tracking technique based on a convex combination of two adaptive filters for EDL
Shengbo Hu, Yao Xiujuan, Na Zhao · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2007
For planetary lander missions, the most challenging phase of the spacecraft-to-ground communications is during the entry, descent, and landing (EDL). Due to the EDL events, the extreme acceleration and jerk cause extreme Doppler dynamics on the signals received on Earth. In order to support spacecraft-to-earth communications during the EDL phase, we develop a robust and low complexity carrier frequency estimation and tracking technique that is able to operate under low SNR and highly non-stationary conditions, common to the adverse EDL scenario. The method comprises two adaptive filters supervised by a convex combiner. By simulating, it is shown that the investigated convex combination of individual adaptive predictors is able to outperform the best individual predictor.