High-Order Pulsar Timing for Navigation

Suneel I. Sheikh, Ronald W. Hellings, and Richard A. Matzner

Abstract:	Proposed concepts of spacecraft navigation that utilize timing information from observational data of variable celestial sources, including pulsars, require appropriate inertial reference frames and well-defined time transfer techniques. These timing methods must be operational for any potential spacecraft position and must reach high performance to achieve accurate navigation. Algorithms that can process the signal from these sources throughout the solar system and beyond are presented here. These algorithms include the high-order relativistic effects on the propagated signal that must be incorporated to attain precise timing. A comparison is presented of existing pulsar-timing algorithms in current software codes, as well as the time-transfer algorithms defined here.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2007) April 23 - 25, 2007 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	432 - 443
Cite this article:	Sheikh, Suneel I., Hellings, Ronald W., Matzner, Richard A., "High-Order Pulsar Timing for Navigation," Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2007), Cambridge, MA, April 2007, pp. 432-443.
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