Regularized Optimal Control Based Estimator

Abstract

The modern day growth in satellites and debris in orbit around Earth is resulting in ever increasing requirements for state estimation systems used to avoid collisions and ensure safe operations as part of space situational awareness initiatives. While there are many methods to perform state estimation, the optimal control based estimator (OCBE) provides unique benefits, such as the ability to perform in the presence of mis-modelled accelerations while allowing for reconstruction of unknown maneuvers from the target spacecraft.
However, the method suffers from high computational costs. This thesis covers the implementation of a new variant of the OCBE, focused on propagation and estimation of state in terms of regularized "EDromo" elements.
The method showcases benefits in terms of estimated state error, and reduced sensitivity to the time gaps between measurements, at the cost of further computational complexity. For future work, suggestions to improve efficiency of the method are also presented.