ION Technical Content
The DORIS System
| Abstract: | The DORIS system is a satellite-based orbit determination and radio-positioning system that was designed and developed by the French space agency CNES. Doris stands for Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite. It was ini- tially meant to serve two purposes : precise determina- tion of the orbit of satellites, such as the TOPEX- POSEIDON oceanography mission spacecraft, and precise location of ground beacons, whether fixed or slowly moving. In both cases, the accuracy is in the order of 10 cm. More applications have since been thought of such as radar station calibration, verifica- tion of satellite manoeuvres or autonomous navigation. A new Doris development called DIODE will enable real-time on-board satellite orbit determination using DORIS measurements and a Kalman filter, with a precision in the order of a few tens of meters. The system includes : a satellite on-board equipment ; a network of “Orbit Determination Beacons”, precisely located with respect to an international Earth referen- tial ; a “Master Beacon” which enables to control the system together with the DORIS Control and Processing Centre ; “Ground Location Beacons” for the location service. The Doppler measurements performed by the on-board receiver are transmitted to the ground and processed together with models of the forces that affect the satellite - such as the Earth gravitational field, the satellite drag, the solar pressure, etc.. . - by the DORIS Processing Centre. A very complete model of all the effects has been developed to enable to achieve the best precision on the orbit determination ; this software available at CNES is called ZOOM. Knowing the precise orbit of the satellite carrying the on-board receiver, the system is able to locate the ground beacons with a very good accuracy too. DORIS on-board equipement is flying on the French Earth observation satellite SPOT 2 since 1990 and on the TOPEX oceanography satellite since 1992. The whole system performs very well, yielding results as expected. It will also be flown on-board SPOT 3 and SPOT 4, the latter also being equipped with the DIODE extension of DORIS that will enable the satellite position to be calculated on board and sent to the ground together with the satellite shots of the earth. Several location determinations have been performed over the world, for example a DORIS beacon is installed on the Everest mountain to help determine the altitude of the roof of the world together with GPS. Further developments include so-called sa- tellite autonomous navigation and station keeping, which would help do away with ground control costs. |
| Published in: |
Proceedings of the 1993 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 20 - 22, 1993 Parc 55 Hotel San Francisco, CA |
| Pages: | 95 - 97 |
| Cite this article: | Agnieray, Patrick C., "The DORIS System," Proceedings of the 1993 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Francisco, CA, January 1993, pp. 95-97. |
| Full Paper: |
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