ELCANO: Constellation Design Tool

E. Herraiz Monseco, A. Mozo Garcia and M. M. Romay Merino

Abstract:	Over two years ago, GMV began developing a constellation design tool, ELCANO, for the optimisation of satellite constellations, particularly navigation and communication constellations. Currently, it is capable not only of optimising the constellation design, but also of assessing the performances and analysing their stability over time. The main characteristics of ELCANO are: ! High reliability: ELCANO has been used extensively for Galileo contracts with both ESA and EU, and is currently used by several institutions around the world. ! High flexibility: ELCANO has a modular architecture. It is easy to maintain and to readapt to new requirements. ! ELCANO algorithms have been optimised to be robust and to reduce the computation time. They are state of the art algorithms. The main functions of ELCANO are: ! Constellation Optimisation: Optimises navigation constellations, in terms of DOPs and positioning accuracies, and communication constellations, in terms of number of satellites in view. For each of these functions it is possible to specify the availability and the continuity risk. ! Performances Computation: # Computes DOPs, positioning accuracies and number of satellites in view at a given availability. In addition, it calculates the continuity risk associated with these performances. # Computes the availability and the continuity risk at a given DOP or positioning accuracy or number of satellites in view. # Additionally, at a given daily availability, ELCANO computes DOPs, positioning accuracies and number of satellites in view. Also, it calculates the number of days out of service and the outage time over the constellation lifecycle. ! Analysis of the stability of the orbit over time: The orbit propagator uses a complex dynamic algorithm to analyse the orbit perturbation and how the constellation performances evolve with time. In addition, for MEO orbits, ELCANO is able to propose slight changes in the initial orbit parameters in order to reduce the number of manoeuvres.
Published in:	Proceedings of the IAIN World Congress and the 56th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2000) June 26 - 28, 2000 The Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	140 - 150
Cite this article:	Monseco, E. Herraiz, Garcia, A. Mozo, Merino, M. M. Romay, "ELCANO: Constellation Design Tool," Proceedings of the IAIN World Congress and the 56th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2000), San Diego, CA, June 2000, pp. 140-150.
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