A Preliminary Development of Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Testbed for the Satellite Formation Flying Navigation and Orbit Control

The main purpose of the current research is to developments a real-time Hardware In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation testbed for the satellite formation flying navigation and orbit control. The HIL simulation testbed is integrated for demonstrations and evaluations of navigation and orbit control algorithms. The HIL simulation testbed is composed of Environment computer, GPS simulator, Flight computer and Visualization computer system. GPS measurements are generated by a SPIRENT GSS6560 multi-channel RF simulator to produce pseudorange, carrier phase measurements. The measurement date are transferred to Satrec Intiative space borne GPS receiver and exchanged by the flight computer system and subsequently processed in a navigation filter to generate relative or absolute state estimates. These results are fed into control algorithm to generate orbit controls required to maintain the formation. These maneuvers are informed to environment computer system to build a close simulation loop. In this paper, the overall design of the HIL simulation testbed for the satellite formation flying navigation and control is presented. Each component of the testbed is then described. Finally, a LEO formation navigation and control simulation is demonstrated by using virtual scenario