An Analysis of Radio Frequency Geolocation Techniques for Satellite Systems Design

Abstract

This research 1) evaluates the effectiveness of CubeSat radio-frequency geolocation and 2) analyzes the sensitivity of different RF algorithms to system parameters. A MATLAB simulation is developed to assess geolocation accuracy for variable system designs and techniques (AOA, TDOA, T/FDOA). An unconstrained maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and three different digital elevation models (DEM) are utilized as the surface of the Earth constraint to improve geolocation accuracy. The results presented show the effectiveness of the MLE and DEM techniques, the sensitivity of AOA, TDOA, and T/FDOA algorithms, and the system level performance of a CubeSat geolocation cluster in a 500km circular orbit.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 23, 2017
Accession Number
AD1055305

Entities

People

  • Daniel R. Barnes

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Angle Of Arrival
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Astronautics
  • Computational Science
  • Department Of Defense
  • Geometry
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Grids
  • Navigation
  • Payload
  • Satellite Orbits
  • Small Satellites
  • Spacecraft
  • Spacecraft Orbits
  • Systems Engineering
  • World Geodetic System

Readers

  • Adaptive Control and Estimation with Uncertainty in Dynamic Systems.
  • Radar Systems Engineering.
  • Radio communications and signal processing.

Technology Areas

  • Space