Estimating Satellite Navigation Broadcast Ephemeris via Inter-Satellite and Ground-to-Satellite Ranging

Abstract

This paper investigates the potential of performing orbit determination directly in the Earth-fixed frame based on Inter-Satellite Ranging (ISR) measurements as primary observables, combined with Ground-to-Satellite Ranging (GSR) measurements from a small regional ground network. Current Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) use L-band pseudo-range and carrier phase measurements from global or regional ground station networks to perform dynamic Orbit Determination and Time Synchronization (ODTS), whereas sparse Satellite Laser Ranging measurements are mainly used for validation. Future GNSSs may be equipped with inter-satellite links (ISLs) to enable inter-satellite clock offset estimation, ranging and data relay. These capabilities carry the potential to significantly improve ODTS procedures. In this work, we assume a fully connected constellation via pair-wise ISLs, with measurement topology assigned by appropriate link schedulers. The satellite orbits are parametrized with the standard 15 Galileo broadcast perturbed Keplerian elements, estimated by using ISR and GSR measurements. This processing strategy eliminates the complex modeling of gravitational and non-gravitational forces, making it particularly suitable for on-board applications and offering an alternative to classical GNSS orbit determination processing architectures. The proposed orbit determination scheme can be used in case of a ground segment failure as a back-up procedure to estimate the orbits of the GNSS satellites onboard of each satellite and guaranteeing a continuous navigation message generation for the system users. The performance of the proposed method depends on a number of factors, such as the length of the data fitting interval, the measurement quality (precision and accuracy), the scheduling and geometry of ISR and GSR measurements, the number and distribution of ground stations, and the accuracy of the ground station coordinates. Preliminary results show that an orbit-only Signal-in-Space Range Error (SiSRE) in the order of 7–9 cm can be obtained by processing 2 to 3 h data with a limited set of supporting ground stations. In this study, the orbit determination scheme proposed is tested on different scenarios, providing a first assessment of attainable performance.

Keywords

• on-board orbit determination
• inter-satellite links
• laser ranging
• ground-to-satellite ranging
• perturbed Keplerian elements
• signal-in-space range error