Navigation in Space by X-ray Pulsars

Dr. Emadzadeh is a design engineer with Vantage Surgical Systems Inc. As a student he won the UCLA graduate division fellowship award in 2005.

Jason Speyer is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a joint appointment in Electrical Engineering. He received his B.S. degree in (Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT in 1960 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1965 and 1968. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

This book will consist of two parts. One is on modeling of X-ray pulsar signals. The second part explains how X-ray pulsar signals can be used to solve the relative navigation problem. This book formulates the problem, proposes a recursive solution, and analyzes different aspects of the navigation system. This book will be a comprehensive source for researchers. It provides new research results on signal processing techniques needed for X-ray pulsar based navigation in deep space.

Provides a comprehensive framework for X-ray pulsar signal processing techniques

1 Prologue 1.1 Current Spacecraft Navigation Systems 1.2 Pulsar-Based Relative Navigation 1.2.1 Why Relative Navigation? Why Celestial-Based Systems? 1.2.2 Pulsars 1.2.3 Why Use X-ray Pulsars for Navigation? 1.2.4 History of Pulsar-Based Navigation 1.3 Proposed Navigation System Structure 1.4 Thesis Outline 2 Signal Modeling 2.1 X-ray Detectors 2.2 X-ray Pulsar Signal 2.2.1 Constant-Frequency Model 2.2.2 Time-Dependent-Frequency Model 2.3 Discussion 2.4 Epoch Folding 2.4.1 Effect of Velocity Errors 2.5 Generating Photon TOAs 2.6 Simulation 3 Pulse Delay Estimation 3.1 Pulse Delay Estimation 3.2 The Cramér-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) 3.3 Discussion 3.4 Simulation 4 Pulse Delay Estimation Using Epoch Folding 4.1 Cross Correlation Technique 4.2 Nonlinear Least Squares Technique 4.3 Simulation 5 Pulse Delay Estimation via Direct Use of TOAs 5.1 Maximum-Likelihood Estimator (MLE) 5.2 Numerical Determination of the MLE 5.3 Simulation . 6 Recursive Position Estimation 6.1 System Dynamics 6.2 Measurements 6.3 Discrete-Time Estimation Process 6.4 Discussion 6.5 Simulation 7 Epilogue References