Observability and Autonomous Navigation for Two Satellites Using Relative Position Measurements
Yong Li, Zhang Ai, Hui Wang · 2018
Autonomous operation of multi-satellite is an enabling technology for a variety of future space missions. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the observability of autonomous navigation system of two satellite system using relative position measurements only. K-order local weak observability as a new concept is proposed and introduced into analysis of nonlinear system. Sufficient and necessary conditions of 4, 5 and 6-order local weak observability of the autonomous navigation system are presented and mathematically proved respectively. The relationships between these three conditions as well as the sufficient and necessary condition of local weak observablity for the autonomous navigation system are given and proved. A navigation algorithm using an unscented Kalman filter for simultaneously estimating the two satellite orbits has been designed. Several simulations are shown to verify the result on observability analysis, and to demonstrate that the navigation algorithm can significantly improve the accuracy of the proposed system.