Using Chebyshev polynomial interpolation to improve the computational efficiency of gravity models near an irregularly-shaped asteroid

Abstract

we compare four different interpolation schemes to obtain the best precision with the identical initial parameters. An error-adaptive octree division is combined to improve the interpolation precision near the surface. As an example, we take the typical irregular-shaped near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis to show the advantage of this method, as a result, we show that the efficiency can be increased by hundreds to thousands times with our method. In a word, this method can be applicable to other irregular-shaped asteroids and can greatly improve the evaluation efficiency.

A new method to determine the gravity field of small bodies from line-of-sight acceleration data

“…Our GM value Our experiment validates the reliability of the total LOS acceleration method in planetary gravity field estimation. This method has the potential to be combined with theoretical analysis for future planetary and asteroid exploration (Hu & Ji 2017;Hu et al 2015;Matsuoka & Russell 2017;Lauretta et al 2017). It is also possible to reprocess the radio tracking data of Toutatis to study its mass information by employing this method Huang et al (2013) and such a work will provide reference for Chinese asteroid exploration missions.…”

New approach to Generate, Re-Generate, Encode, and Compress 3D structures using polynomial equations

“…Irregular shapes of asteroids may lower the efficiency of calculating the gravitational field that is experienced by it. Hu et al [7] studied and proposed a method to use Chebsyshev polynomial interpolation to adapt and divide the space near the asteroid along spherical co-ordinates. Then it represents gravitational acceleration in each cell.…”