ACCURACY OF SINGLE STATION TRACKING

Abstract

The accuracy is described that can be expected in tracking a missile in unpowered flight by means of a single station, in a specified geometric configuration. The single station consists of either a UDOP station or a telemetry dish, or the combination of both. The tracking method rests on the calculation of the orbit parameters. A least squares analysis was employed to find the errors in position and velocity relative to a local coordinate system for several values of the input errors; the errors in the orbit parameters are obtained as an intermediate step. The results show that the errors are very large when pure doppler data are used due to degeneracy caused by the geometric configuration. The data from the telemetry dish, although less accurate than the doppler data, give much better accuracy, because the phenomenon of degeneracy is absent. Combination of the two sets of data removes the degeneracy of the doppler data to a large degree and promises a satisfactory solution to the tracking problem. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 22, 1962
Accession Number
AD0285516

Entities

People

  • Pieter S. Dubbeldam

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Errors
  • Telemetry

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Adaptive Control and Estimation with Uncertainty in Dynamic Systems.
  • Aerospace Engineering.
  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Satellites