GPS-Based Leo Satellite Position and Attitude Determination Augmented by Pseudolites on Earth

Abstract

GPS‐based navigation and attitude determination of LEO satellites is presently considered as an alternative to the conventional systems which utilize earth sensors and magnetometers. The onboard GPS receiver determines the orbit position of the LEO satellite by the conventional system of linearized navigation equations, requiring the simultaneous reception of ranging signals from four GPS satellites by a single antenna. For attitude determination, pairs of antennae, suitably mounted on the satellite and feeding a common receiver, form several interferometric baselines. The baselines vectors, defined in a given coordinate system, determine the attitude of the satellite. For each baseline and each GPS satellite, the difference in phase of the received signal carriers is measured. The differencing operation eliminates the receiver clock bias. Solutions for the baseline vectors can be obtained with signals received from only three GPS satellites. If the coverage of a receive antenna is restricted to less than the hemisphere it will not have four GPS satellites in view all the time. It is demonstrated that a GPS pseudolite transmitter located on earth supplements the system, which then provides a usable geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) for position determination and an improved position dilution of precision (PDOP) for attitude determination. Pseudolites can be co‐located with the gateways which provide access to the public switched telephone networks (PSTNs) for the LEO communication satellites.