Pulsar Navigation in the Solar System Jiang Dong, ∗† October 29, 2018 Abstract ous position in deep space, that means we can freedom fly successfully in the solar sys- The X-ray Navigation and Autonomous posi- tem use celestial navigation that include pul- tion Verification (XNAV) is tested which use sar and traditional star sensor. It also can less the Crab pulsar under the Space Test Pro- or abolish the dependence to Global Naviga- gram that use starlight refraction. It pro- tion Satellite System (GNSS) which include vide the way that the spacecraft could au- GPS, GRONSS, Galileo and BeiDou et al. tonomously determine its position with re- spect to an inertial origin. Now we analy- sis the sensitivity of the exist instrument and 1 Introduction the signal process that use radio pulsar nav- igation and discuss the integrated navigation The gigantic success of celestial navigation which use radio pulsar, then give the different is Christopher Columbus awareness of the navigation mission analysis and design pro- American continents in the Western Hemi- cess basically which include the space, the sphere in 1492, even if it first be discovered airborne, the ship and the land of the planet in 1421 by ZhengHe or Viking, they all use or the lunar. Our analysis show that we will celestial navigation in the road. The history have the stability profile (signal-to-noise is 5 of navigation use celestial origin from the an- cient activity which include hunting and back arXiv:0812.2635v3 [astro-ph] 4 Feb 2011 ) that use a 2 meters antenna observe some strong sources of radio pulsar in 36 minutes to home in the night. The base principle of which based on the today’s technology. So celestial navigation is used the moon, stars, the pulsar navigation can give the continu- and planets as celestial guides assuming the sky was clear in that times. ∗DJ is in YunNan Astronomical Observatory, E- With the period of the Age of Discovery or mail: [email protected], and Scientific and appli- Age of Exploration (the early 15th century cation center of lunar and deep space exploration, NAOs, China. The content of this paper have ap- and continuing into the early 17th century), plied the patent. many new technique be invented which in- †Manuscript received —; revised —. clude water clock, quadrant Sextant (1731, 1 John Hadley), Chronometer (1761, John Har- navigation aid that uses the computing and rison), the Sumner Line or line of position motion sensors to continuously track the posi- (1837, Thomas Hubbard Sumner), the In- tion, orientation, and velocity (direction and tercept Method or Marcq St Hilaire method speed of movement) of a moving object with- (1875, Marcq St Hilaire) et al. The Sum- out the need for external references. The gy- ner Line and Marcq St Hilaire method con- roscopic compass (or gyro compass) was in- struct the foundation of modern nautical nav- troduced in 1907. In 1942, the first INS be igation. The lighthouse are used to mark applied in V2 missile, then it be used in aero- dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals and nautics, nautical and space widely. reefs, safe entries to harbors and can also assist in aerial navigation. For the physics and chemistry development, Gustaf Dal´en in When GPS and INS is still not ripe, Ce- recognition of his remarkable invention of au- lestial Navigation System (CNS) be spread tomatic valves designed to be used in combi- to aeronautics by US (B-52, B-1B, B-2A, C- nation with gas accumulators in lighthouses 141A, SR-71, F22 et al.) and Soviet (TU- and light-buoys (the noble prize in 1912). 16, TU-95, TU-160 et al.) (Pappalardi et al., After Guglielmo Marconi achieve the radio 2001; AnGuo, 2007). Then the star tracker communication in 1895, navigation that use (i.e. track one star or planet or angle be- radio as an aid has been practiced in Ger- tween it) (McCanless, 1963) be used to de- many since 1907. Scheller invent the com- termine the attitude of the spacecraft in help plimentary dot-dash guiding path, which can orient the Apollo spacecraft enroute to and be seen as a ‘landmark’ for several decades from the Moon. Now the advanced star sen- of navigational aids. The first practical VHF sor (i.e. sense many star simultaneous) has radar system be installed on French ship in been developed for the application of optical 1935. Radio navigation grow fast for the de- CCD technique (Kennel, Havstad and Hood, fense technique need in the World War II, 1992). the LOng RAnge Navigation (Loran) system is invented. In 19 century, it is proposed that use artificial stellar navigation. Until 1960, Although GPS and INS almost can finish the first satellite navigation system, Transit, any job in this planet now, someone still think is first successfully tested, used by the United celestial navigation is important for it can be States Navy. Then it evolve to Global Posi- used independently of ground aids and has tioning System (GPS). The soviet also build global coverage, it cannot be jammed (ex- the similar system - GLONASS for the same cept by clouds) and does not give off any sig- reason. Now the Global Navigation Satellite nals that could be detected by an the others. system (GNSS) in the realism or dreams still The traditional maritime state which include have BeiDou, GALILEO et al. US, Russia, UK and French, all spend many An Inertial Navigation System (INS) is a money in CNS for its unique advantage. 2 2 X-ray Pulsar-based (Hanson, 1996). Then in the USA Exper- Navigation System in iment on the ARGOS, the X-ray Pulsar- based Navigation System (XPNAVS) be first Spacecraft tested which use the Crab pulsar between Feb 1999 and Nov 2000. In fact, USA experi- After radio pulsar be discovered by Bell, J. ment is Not Real X-ray pulsar-based navi- and Hewish, A. in 1967, Downs, G. S. give gation experiment for it is based on occul- the advice that use radio pulsars for inter- tation method that depend on the earth at- planetary navigation in 1974 (Downs, 1974). mospheric models (Wood et al., 2002). Dr But in that time, both the radio and opti- Sheikh, S. I. et al. construct the X-ray cal signatures from pulsars have limitations pulsar-based autonomous navigation theory that reduce their effectiveness for spacecraft which based on modern spacecraft navigation navigation. At the radio frequencies that pul- technique that include Kalman filter et al. sars emit (from 100 MHz to a few GHz) and (Sheikh, 2005). In the same time, Woodfork, with their faint emissions, radio-based sys- D. W. show that the accurate of the position tems would require large antennas (on the and the clock will be improved if using pul- order of 25 M in diameter or larger) to de- sars to aid in a constellation Signal-In-Space tect sources, which would be impractical for Range Error (SISRE) reduction (Woodfork, most spacecraft. Also, neighboring celestial 2005). objects including the sun, moon, Jupiter, and In XPNAVS, the stability of pulsar as close stars, as well as distance objects such one beacon and kalman filter to represent as radio galaxies, quasars, and the galac- the vehicle state lay the foundation for tic diffuse emissions, are broadband radio the navigation. Figure. 1 show the prin- sources that could obscure weak pulsar sig- ciple of Sheikh’s pulsar navigation theory. nals (Ray, Wood and Phlips, 2006; Sheikh, Pulsar as the nature lighthouse provide a 2005; Sheikh et al., 2006). So Chester, continuous periodic signal. Then all signal T. J. and Butman, S. A. describe space- be normalizing to solar system barycenter craft navigation using X-ray pulsars in 1981 coordinates (SSBC). Though calculate the (Chester and Butman, 1981). Dr Wood, K. phase difference of pulsar’s times-of-arrival S. design the NRL-801 Unconventional Stel- (TOA), that observed by spacecraft, we lar Aspect Experiment (USA) experiment, will have position and velocity by a vector give strategies for using information gathered computing in SSBC (Sheikh and Pines, by X-ray detectors to determine attitude and 2006; Golshan and Sheikh, 2007; position that use occultation method of tra- Sheikh, Ray, Weiner, Wolff and Wood, ditional celestial navigation, and timekeep- 2007; Sheikh, Golshan and Pines, 2007; ing (Wood, 1993). Dr Hanson, J. E. give Sala et al., 2004). The satellite’s amplitude the plan of attitude determination algorithm will gain by the same way of star sensor and timekeeping that use phase-locked loop (Ray, Wood and Phlips, 2006; Sheikh et al., 3 2006). that use the dynamic state estimate the system. (Though Thiele, T. N. and Swerling, 2.1 Pulsar Clock for Timing P. developed a similar algorithm earlier, that is Kalman suggest the applicability In 1971, Reichley, et al. de- of his ideas to the problem of trajectory scribed using radio pulsars as clocks estimation for the Apollo program, leading (Reichley, Downs and Morris, 1971). With to its incorporation in the Apollo navigation researching in-depth, radio astronomer computer.) Kalman filter is an important build a stand template to pulsar timing topic in control theory and control systems (Downs, 1981; Backer and Hellings, 1986). engineering, and an important method of The character of pulsar spin be under- least-squares estimation (Sorenson, 1970). stood more deeply with the timing time It is used in a wide range of engineering increase. Pulsar especially millisecond applications which include radar tracking, pulsars (MSP) be thought the natures most control system, communication, guiding and stable clock (Taylor, 1991). The data show navigation, computer vision, prediction in some pulsar stability than atomic clock weather and economy, biomedicine, robot in the timescale greater than one year et al.