Analysis on pulsar based inter-satellite link autonomous navigation

Autonomous navigation based on the inter-satellite links is a hot issue in the present study. Due to its relative measurement mode, the system has the problem that the integrated rotation of the whole constellation can not be measured, which becomes the bottleneck influencing the accuracy of autonomous navigation. In this paper pulsar observations and inter-satellite ranging measurement are synchronously applied. With distributed Kalman filtering algorithm, the satellite constellation integrated rotation of autonomous navigation relative to inertial frame are effectively controlled. On this basis, the pulsar observation errors and the influence of the number of observed pulsars on the accuracy of autonomous orbit determination are analyzed. In the end, the author draws some instructive conclusions. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH.