Navigation and maneuver requirements determination for elliptical rendezvous operation

A novel navigation and maneuver requirements determination approach for elliptical rendezvous operation is developed in this paper. This approach can quickly determine the required navigation and maneuver performance that can meet trajectory dispersion requirements with the lowest sensor and actuator cost. It combines linear covariance analysis with convex optimization to describe and solve this problem. First, the trajectory dispersion of the closed-loop guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) system with navigation error and maneuver execution error is modeled using linear covariance analysis theory. Using the trajectory dispersion as the optimization constraint, the navigation and maneuver requirements determination problem is formulated as a second-order cone programming (SOCP) problem and solved, based on Kronecker product theory. In order to apply this approach on a perturbed elliptical orbit rendezvous mission, a new state transition matrix is calculated to model the relative motion of two spacecraft in arbitrarily eccentric orbits perturbed by J2 harmonic, aerodynamic drag. Finally, a series of simulations are carried out, showing that the proposed navigation and maneuver requirements determination approach works well.