Improving Angles-Only Navigation Performance by Selecting Sufficiently Accurate Accelerometers

Improving Angles-Only Navigation Performance by Selecting Sufficiently Accurate Accelerometers

In order to make future satellites both smaller and smarter, more navigation information must be extracted from simpler, smaller sensors. One of the simplest sensors is an optical or infrared camera. With a camera, a satellite can track a second satellite located within its field-of-view. This simple measurement is the foundation of angles-only navigation. By its very nature, angles only navigation cannot determine the relative range to an object. Even as the dynamics associated with orbital rendezvous and proximity operations unfold, the relative range will generally remain unobservable. In this paper we confirm that an angles only navigation system can observe range if small maneuvers can be executed, and we show that the level of accelerometer accuracy determines how well the range can be observed.