The shift of focus from ground-based architectures to reliable on-board autonomous systems is a prime necessity for navigation of small satellites if they are to venture beyond Earth. Apart from state determination, navigation systems would need to provide higher accuracy levels, generally constrained by stringent transfer trajectories. Planetary and Interplanetary small satellite mission profiles, can primarily be classified into the cruise and orbiting phases. This division has been considered for onboard navigation systems. Research on autonomous navigation by Spaceflight Dynamics division at SRM University considered an articulated navigation technique with the goal to maximize accuracy at each phase of the mission. Optical navigation is considered as primary navigation method for orbiting profile phases and Milli-Second X-Ray Pulsar based navigation for the cruise phase. The navigation methods are theoretically investigated in Lunar WSB transfer trajectory, which is being considered in the mission design for SRMSAT-2, a student designed lunar orbiter. This paper presents outcomes of a feasibility study on pulsar-based navigation for translunar cruise. It covers hardware mainly, x-ray detector and on-board signal processing and future trends in the development of necessary hardware. The following sections comprise of pulsar selection strategy, complying to optimum Orbit Determination performance in the selected trajectory along with orbit scheduling for maximum visibility. Final sections of the paper give simulation results and performance analysis of the acquisition of navigational state parameters. The basis of filter selection and needs of modifications to traditionally used Extended Kalman Filter are specified with the performance characteristics.
Autonomous navigation: Accommodating pulsar based navigation system in small-micro class satellites
2017-03-01
513304 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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