Precise Orbit Determination on LEO Satellite using Pseudorange and Pseudorange-Rate Measurements

Nowadays, along with the trend of developing highly autonomous satellites, there is a strong motivation to improve real-time Precise Orbit Determination (POD), in particular for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. The development of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) sensors allows to obtain low-noise measurements and provide a satellite with autonomous continuous tracking onboard. Following the deactivation of Selective Availability, a representative real-time positioning accuracy of 10 m is presently achieved by means of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers on LEO satellites. The introduction of dynamical filtering methods has opened a new way to improve this accuracy by making use of measurements such as pseudorange or carrier-phase. This paper presents a Kalman filtering approach using pseudorange and pseudorange-rate measurements instead of pseudorange and carrier-phase ones, with advantages in terms of storage and processing requirements. An error of around 0.2 m and 1e-3 m/s for position and velocity is obtained, which is in line if not better w.r.t. other approaches.