Abstract

Presented within this work is a new method for inertial orbit estimation of an object, either known or unknown, adaptable to a network of low-cost observation satellites. The observation satellites would only require a monocular camera for line of sight measurements. Using the line of sight measurements of each observer, a pair of orthogonal geometric planes that intersect both the observation satellite and the target are created. The intersection of the two planes in the inertial frame defines the new measurement model that is implemented with multiple observation nodes. Total system observability is analyzed and the instantaneous (per node) observability is used to remove "bad" measurements from the system. The measurement model is used in an extended Kalman filter framework and the measurement noise nonlinear transformation is addressed. Three cases are presented; first, the minimum number of required observation nodes to produce accurate results if determined. Then, a smaller number of observation nodes is analyzed to highlight the use of the instantaneous observability and its deleterious effect on the filter performance. Finally, the method is expanded out to multiple observation satellites in a constellation. For all cases, the results show that this method is capable of producing accurate orbit estimation that converges in a short time.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2020

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Elgohary, Tarek

Degree

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering (M.S.A.E.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Degree Program

Aerospace Engineering; Space System Design and Engineering

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0008412; DP0023848

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0023848

Language

English

Release Date

November 2020

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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