ANALYSIS OF AN HORIZON SCANNER AUTONOMOUS ORBITAL NAVIGATION SYSTEM.
Abstract
The performance of an autonomous orbital navigation system which utilizes an horizon scanner package to determine the direction of the local vertical relative to an orbit plane measurement reference frame and which may be augmented by a radar altimeter is considered. Discrete, optimal, linear filtering is assumed in processing the horizon scanner and radar altimeter data to estimate vehicle position and velocity. A brief discussion of navigation filtering theory is presented. Requirements for observability in both the presence and absence of measurement bias are developed using results from optimal filter theory. System performance is assessed by conducting error analyses with the following quantities as parameters: measurement configuration (i.e., horizon scanner alone, or horizon scanner plus radar altimeter), variances of sensor random measurement noise, magnitude of sensor measurement bias, covariance matrix of navigation error at the initiation of navigation, and navigation measurement interval. A total of 16 separate cases is analyzed. Plots of rss position and velocity navigation errors as functions of the above parameters are presented and discussed in detail. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1965
- Accession Number
- AD0469349
Entities
People
- J. L. Lemay
- J. P. Janus
- J. S. Meditch
Organizations
- The Aerospace Corporation