Simple Orbit Determination Using GPS Based on a Least-Squares Algorithm Employing Sequential Givens Rotations

摘要

A low-cost computer procedure to determine the orbit of an artificial satellite by using short arcdata from an onboard GPS receiver is proposed. Pseudoranges are used as measurements toestimate the orbit via recursive least squares method. The algorithm applies orthogonal Givensrotations for solving recursive and sequential orbit determination problems. To assess theprocedure, it was applied to the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite for data batches of one orbitalperiod (approximately two hours), and force modelling, due to the full JGM-2 gravity field model,was considered. When compared with the reference Precision Orbit Ephemeris (POE) ofJPL/NASA, the results have indicated that precision better than 9?m is easily obtained, even whenshort batches of data are used.