Precision Joint RF Measurement of Inter-Satellite Range and Time Difference and Scalable Clock Synchronization for Multi-Microsatellite Formations

被引：1

作者：

Hou, Cong ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Jin, Xiaojun ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Zhou, Lishan ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Wang, Haoze ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Yang, Xiaopeng ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Xu, Zhaobin ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Jin, Zhonghe ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

机构：

[1] Zhejiang Univ, Sch Aeronaut & Astronaut, Hangzhou 310027, Peoples R China

[2] Key Lab Micronano Satellite Res, Hangzhou 310027, Peoples R China

[3] Zhejiang Univ, Microsatellite Res Ctr, Hangzhou 310027, Peoples R China

来源：

SENSORS | 2023年 / 23卷 / 08期

基金：

中国国家自然科学基金;

关键词：

multi-satellite formations; time difference measurement; ADS-TWR; joint RF measurement; clock synchronization; LOCALIZATION;

D O I：

10.3390/s23084109

中图分类号：

O65 [分析化学];

学科分类号：

070302 ; 081704 ;

摘要：

The rapid development of multi-satellite formations requires inter-satellite radio frequency (RF) measurement to be both precise and scalable. The navigation estimation of multi-satellite formations using a unified time reference demands the simultaneous RF measurement of the inter-satellite range and time difference. However, high-precision inter-satellite RF ranging and time difference measurements are investigated separately in existing studies. Different from the conventional two-way ranging (TWR) method, which is limited by its reliance on a high-performance atomic clock and navigation ephemeris, asymmetric double-sided two-way ranging (ADS-TWR)-based inter-satellite measurement schemes can eliminate such reliance while ensuring measurement precision and scalability. However, ADS-TWR was originally proposed for ranging-only applications. In this study, by fully exploiting the time-division non-coherent measurement characteristic of ADS-TWR, a joint RF measurement method is proposed to obtain the inter-satellite range and time difference simultaneously. Moreover, a multi-satellite clock synchronization scheme is proposed based on the joint measurement method. The experimental results show that when inter-satellite ranges are hundreds of kilometers, the joint measurement system has a centimeter-level accuracy for ranging and a hundred-picosecond-level accuracy for time difference measurement, and the maximum clock synchronization error was only about 1 ns.

引用

页数：23