Novel Approach to Intersatellite Time-Difference Measurements for Microsatellites

Xu, Jiuling; Zhang, Chaojie; Wang, Chunhui; Jin, Zhonghe

doi:10.2514/1.g002394

Cited by 3 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 9 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%

“…where f pn is the PN code rate; T u is time slot; and σ Allan is the short-term Allan deviation (ADEV) of the satellite frequency source, see [11] for a detailed analysis of the equation.…”

Section: Phase Tracking Errormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the existing RF measurement research has gained some achievements, two prominent problems still remain. One is that the high-precision inter-satellite RF ranging and time difference measurement have only been investigated separately in existing studies [10,11]. This means that a satellite needs to be equipped with two separate devices, one for inter-satellite ranging and the other for inter-satellite time difference measurement (for example, the GRAIL formation), resulting in an excessively complex space-borne navigation system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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%

Section: Phase Tracking Errormentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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 chief satellites perform both inter-satellite range and angle measurements, while the deputy satellites only perform inter-satellite range measurements. For the range measurements, a distributed multi-satellite measurement scheme proposed by the authors [ 18 ] is adopted. Accordingly, K time slots are assigned to K nodes and the measurement signal is broadcast within each time slot by the corresponding node.…”

Section: Proposed Multi-satellite Relative Navigation Schemementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Under the assumption that time synchronization, which can be performed with the radio frequency measurement method [ 18 ], has been completed among the formation satellites, the relative states of the deputy satellites can be estimated using the trilateral positioning method. Specifically, inter-satellite angle measurements are carried out among the chief satellites (

), and inter-satellite range measurements are conducted among all satellites ( Figure 1 ).…”

Section: Proposed Multi-satellite Relative Navigation Schemementioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Satellite Relative Navigation Scheme for Microsatellites Using Inter-Satellite Radio Frequency Measurements

Jin

Chen

et al. 2021

Sensors

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The inter-satellite relative navigation method—based on radio frequency (RF) range and angle measurements—offers good autonomy and high precision, and has been successfully applied to two-satellite formation missions. However, two main challenges occur when this method is applied to multi-microsatellite formations: (i) the implementation difficulty of the inter-satellite RF angle measurement increases significantly as the number of satellites increases; and (ii) there is no high-precision, scalable RF measurement scheme or corresponding multi-satellite relative navigation algorithm that supports multi-satellite formations. Thus, a novel multi-satellite relative navigation scheme based on inter-satellite RF range and angle measurements is proposed. The measurement layer requires only a small number of chief satellites, and a novel distributed multi-satellite range measurement scheme is adopted to meet the scalability requirement. An inter-satellite relative navigation algorithm for multi-satellite formations is also proposed. This algorithm achieves high-precision relative navigation by fusing the algorithm and measurement layers. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme requires only three chief satellites to perform inter-satellite angle measurements. Moreover, with the typical inter-satellite measurement accuracy and an inter-satellite distance of around 1 km, the proposed scheme achieves a multi-satellite relative navigation accuracy of ~30 cm, which is about the same as the relative navigation accuracy of two-satellite formations. Furthermore, decreasing the number of chief satellites only slightly degrades accuracy, thereby significantly reducing the implementation difficulty of multi-satellite RF angle measurements.

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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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Novel Approach to Intersatellite Time-Difference Measurements for Microsatellites

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

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

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

Multi-Satellite Relative Navigation Scheme for Microsatellites Using Inter-Satellite Radio Frequency Measurements

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

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