GPS RECEIVER ARCHITECTURE AND EXPECTED PERFORMANCE FOR AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION IN HIGH EARTH ORBITS

Michael C. Moreau, Penina Axelrad, James L. Garrison, and Anne Long

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	GPS is an enabling technology for autonomous spacecraft navigation, including mission concepts involving formation flying in highly eccentric orbits. However, to date most spaceborne GPS applications have been limited to low earth orbits or postprocessing applications. This paper describes the problems associated with using GPS in the high earth orbit HEO environment and presents a GPS receiver design optimized for these applications. The design builds upon the PiVoT receiver developed by Goddard Space Flight Center by incorporat-() ing the GPS Enhanced Orbit Determination GEODE navigation filter, a high-quality clock, and enhancements to basic receiver acquisition and tracking algorithms. Predicted navigation performance for several representative missions, including geosynchronous and geosynchronous transfer orbits, is presented. The analysis shows that a modest reduction in the acquisition threshold of the receiver enables reliable navigation performance even in very high orbits with unfavorable antenna placement restrictions.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 47, Number 3
Pages:	191 - 204
Cite this article:	Moreau, Michael C., Axelrad, Penina, Garrison, James L., Long, Anne, "GPS RECEIVER ARCHITECTURE AND EXPECTED PERFORMANCE FOR AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION IN HIGH EARTH ORBITS", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 47, No. 3, Fall 2000, pp. 191-204.
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In