Research on spacecraft formation relative position measurement based on laser tracking

To realize spacecraft formation flying, the accurate relative position determination of spacecrafts is required. A method of real-time laser tracking is offered to measure the relative positions of spacecrafts, accordingly the measurement model is established. The Hill-equation is used to describe the relative motion model of formation flying spacecrafts. To improve the measurement accuracy, the method of debiased converted Kalman filter is used to process measuring data. Simulation results indicate that if the range accuracy is 5 cm and angle accuracy is 0.1 degree, the relative position determination accuracy is up to the order of centimeter.