Novel Approach to Intersatellite Distance Measurement with High Accuracy

Wang, Chunhui; Zhou, MengChu

doi:10.2514/1.g000646

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The major sources of measurement errors of the multi-satellite joint measurement method proposed in this study include the frequency deviation of the frequency source and satellite motion-induced dynamics. In addition, because the measurement system uses PN code measurement signals, PN code phase jitter noise, receiver thermal noise, and dynamic stress error are inevitable, which are hereafter referred to collectively as phase tracking noise [11,21]. Moreover, the ionosphere delay and hardware delay need to be corrected.…”

Section: System Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precision Joint RF Measurement of Inter-Satellite Range and Time Difference and Scalable Clock Synchronization for Multi-Microsatellite Formations

Hou

Jin

Zhou

et al. 2023

Sensors

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The rapid development of multi-satellite formations requires inter-satellite radio frequency (RF) measurement to be both precise and scalable. The navigation estimation of multi-satellite formations using a unified time reference demands the simultaneous RF measurement of the inter-satellite range and time difference. However, high-precision inter-satellite RF ranging and time difference measurements are investigated separately in existing studies. Different from the conventional two-way ranging (TWR) method, which is limited by its reliance on a high-performance atomic clock and navigation ephemeris, asymmetric double-sided two-way ranging (ADS-TWR)-based inter-satellite measurement schemes can eliminate such reliance while ensuring measurement precision and scalability. However, ADS-TWR was originally proposed for ranging-only applications. In this study, by fully exploiting the time-division non-coherent measurement characteristic of ADS-TWR, a joint RF measurement method is proposed to obtain the inter-satellite range and time difference simultaneously. Moreover, a multi-satellite clock synchronization scheme is proposed based on the joint measurement method. The experimental results show that when inter-satellite ranges are hundreds of kilometers, the joint measurement system has a centimeter-level accuracy for ranging and a hundred-picosecond-level accuracy for time difference measurement, and the maximum clock synchronization error was only about 1 ns.

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Section: System Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precision Joint RF Measurement of Inter-Satellite Range and Time Difference and Scalable Clock Synchronization for Multi-Microsatellite Formations

Hou

Jin

Zhou

et al. 2023

Sensors

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“…The delays include the ionosphere delay and hardware delay (as shown in figure 4). The measurement error in the transmission and receipt times is affected by transmitter code-phase jitter noise, receiver thermal noise, and dynamic stress error, which we refer to collectively as the phase tracking error [14,15]. Considering the above factors, T rdA , T rdB , T reA , T reB can be replaced by TrdA , TrdB , TreA , TreB , which can be expressed as:…”

Section: Measurement Performance Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance analysis and validation of precision multisatellite RF measurement scheme for microsatellite formations

Chen¹,

Jin²,

Mo³

et al. 2021

Meas. Sci. Technol.

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Almost all existing studies on inter-satellite radio-frequency (RF) measurement have focused on two-satellite formations. Although some frequency division multiple access and code division multiple access multisatellite RF measurement schemes have been proposed, their poor scalability does not satisfy the inter-satellite measurement requirements of multisatellite formations, especially large-scale formations. Two-way ranging (TWR), which is based on a time division mechanism, is an effective solution that has been used for inter-satellite links in the global positioning system and Beidou navigation constellations. However, the high measurement accuracy achieved with TWR in these navigation constellations is heavily reliant on high-performance atomic clocks and the assistance of navigation ephemeris, which are not available on microsatellite platforms. This work focuses on a scalable multisatellite measurement scheme that adopts a distributed broadcast-based time division multiple access mechanism as the media access control layer and uses an asymmetric double-side TWR method as the physical layer. The measurement performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated through in-depth theoretical modeling, simulation verification, and experimental validation, along with a comprehensive comparison with the conventional TWR method. The experimental results show that centimeter-level measurement accuracy can be achieved with the proposed scheme when only a common miniaturized frequency source is used. This accuracy level is two orders of magnitude better than that of the TWR method, and thus satisfies the application requirements of general large-scale microsatellite formations.

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