Research on the strategy of angles-only relative navigation for autonomous rendezvous

This paper considers the problem of angles-only relative navigation for autonomous rendezvous. Methods for determining degree of observability (DOO) and latent range information of orbital maneuver are proposed for analyzing and enhancing the precision of relative position and velocity estimation. The equations of angles-only relative navigation are set forth on the condition that optical camera is the only viable sensor for relative measurement, and expressions for the DOO of relative navigation are obtained by using the Newton iterative method. The latent range information of orbital maneuver is analyzed, which is employed to enhance the DOO of angles-only relative navigation. Simulation result shows that DOO is effective to describe the observability level of relative position and velocity, and the latent range information is useful in enhancing the DOO of the angles-only relative navigation.