The Formation Flying Testbed (FFTB) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) provides a hardware-in-the-loop test environment for formation navigation and control. The facility is evolving as a modular, hybrid, dynamic simulation facility for end-to-end guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) design and analysis of formation flying spacecraft. The core capabilities of the FFTB, as a platform for testing critical hardware and software algorithms in-the-loop, have expanded to include S-band Radio Frequency (RF) modems for interspacecraft communication and ranging. To enable realistic simulations that require RF ranging sensors for relative navigation, a mechanism is needed to buffer the RF signals exchanged between spacecraft that accurately emulates the dynamic environment through which the RF signals travel, including the effects of the medium, moving platforms, and radiated power. The Path Emulator for Radio Frequency Signals (PERFS), currently under development at NASA GSFC, provides this capability. The function and performance of a prototype device are presented.


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    Title :

    Characterization of a Prototype Radio Frequency Space Environment Path Emulator for Evaluating Spacecraft Ranging Hardware


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference and Exhibit ; 2007 ; Hilton Head, SC, United States


    Publication date :

    2007-08-20


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English





    Characterization of a Prototype Radio Frequency Space Environment Path Emulator for Evaluating Spacecraft Ranging Hardware AIAA Paper

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