HPC & GPS Based Autonomous Navigation System for Future Generations of Satellites

Anwar Dawood, Yanming Feng and Neil Bergmann

Abstract:	This paper elaborates on the development of a space born autonomous navigation system utilising the advanced Global Positioning System (GPS) and High Performance Computing (HPC) technology for future generations of satellite systems. GPS is a device integrated into the satellite system to sense spacecraft trajectory and attitude, measure the relative distance between space vehicles, deliver precise time synchronisation to spacecraft electronics, and sound the atmosphere. However, the advances in GPS technology are not sychronised with the current capability of a standard spacecraft system to handle all the measurements and provide on-board processing capacity to use these measurements for autonomous navigation. Current spacecraft systems provide very limited on-board computing capability, and therefore these satellites rely on other devices to provide information about the spacecraft position such as star cameras and some times require ground processing of data to give instructions on appropriate positions of the satellite. HPC systems consist of reconfigurable logic circuits added to a conventional processor to generate a powerful system for handling intensive computing tasks.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2001 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 22 - 24, 2001 Westin Long Beach Hotel Long Beach, CA
Pages:	115 - 123
Cite this article:	Dawood, Anwar, Feng, Yanming, Bergmann, Neil, "HPC & GPS Based Autonomous Navigation System for Future Generations of Satellites," Proceedings of the 2001 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Long Beach, CA, January 2001, pp. 115-123.
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