A GPS Relative Navigation Filter for Automatic Rendezvous and Capture

Jorge Galdos, Triveni N. Upadhyay, A.Wayne Deaton and James J. Lomas

Abstract:	NASA, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), is planning a space experiment in- volving the Space Shuttle and two spacecraft in low Earth orbit to demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and capture (AR&C). This paper presents the results of the preliminary design of a GPSbased relative nav- igation filter for AR&C. The domain of operation of the GPS relative navigation filter, considered in this paper, is from a 2 km ,separation to 100 m proxim- ity operation. The relative navigation filter processes GPS measurements from both the target vehicle (TV) and the chaser vehicle (CV) to estimate the CV - TV relative position and velocity and also the CV abso- lute position and velocity. The paper describes the navigation filter algorithm and the truth models em- ployed in the evaluation of filter performance in a re- alistic environment. Relative navigation filter perfor- mance results obtained by simulation show a relative position accuracy of about 2 m (l-u) in the presence of selective availability (SA) errors.
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:	83 - 94
Cite this article:	Galdos, Jorge, Upadhyay, Triveni N., Deaton, A.Wayne, Lomas, James J., "A GPS Relative Navigation Filter for Automatic Rendezvous and Capture," Proceedings of the 1993 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Francisco, CA, January 1993, pp. 83-94.
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