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Front. Inform. Technol. Electron. Eng.  2013, Vol. 14 Issue (6): 425-432    DOI: 10.1631/jzus.C1200291
    
Feasibility analysis for attitude estimation based on pulsar polarization measurement
Nan Luo, Lu-ping Xu, Hua Zhang, Qiang Xie
School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
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Abstract  One of the important characteristics of pulsar radiation is polarization. It is considered not only as a probe for recognizing the structure of a magnetic field, but also as a lighthouse for estimating spacecraft attitude via orientation information between the pulsar and the detector. Although polarization of a pulsar has been studied for decades, until recently applications to determination of spacecraft attitude have been seldom reported. This paper deals with analysis of the feasibility of applying polarization information to attitude estimation. The stability factor (SFR) and observation fluctuation factor (OFR) are introduced to analyze the stability of a pulsar’s polarized position angle. Based on European Pulsar Network (EPN) data, several simulated instances are used to demonstrate that the accuracy requirement of attitude determination can be met via polarization measurement. The SFR of a pulsar is evaluated using simulated polarization data, and the OFR is used to analyze the relationship between fluctuation extent and observation time. Simulation results show that the polarized measurement of candidate pulsars PSR B0470-28 and PSR B2319+60 reaches the specification for attitude determination.

Key wordsPulsar      Polarization      Attitude determination      Stable factor     
Received: 15 October 2012      Published: 04 June 2013
CLC:  TP2  
  V52  
Cite this article:

Nan Luo, Lu-ping Xu, Hua Zhang, Qiang Xie. Feasibility analysis for attitude estimation based on pulsar polarization measurement. Front. Inform. Technol. Electron. Eng., 2013, 14(6): 425-432.

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http://www.zjujournals.com/xueshu/fitee/10.1631/jzus.C1200291     OR     http://www.zjujournals.com/xueshu/fitee/Y2013/V14/I6/425


Feasibility analysis for attitude estimation based on pulsar polarization measurement

One of the important characteristics of pulsar radiation is polarization. It is considered not only as a probe for recognizing the structure of a magnetic field, but also as a lighthouse for estimating spacecraft attitude via orientation information between the pulsar and the detector. Although polarization of a pulsar has been studied for decades, until recently applications to determination of spacecraft attitude have been seldom reported. This paper deals with analysis of the feasibility of applying polarization information to attitude estimation. The stability factor (SFR) and observation fluctuation factor (OFR) are introduced to analyze the stability of a pulsar’s polarized position angle. Based on European Pulsar Network (EPN) data, several simulated instances are used to demonstrate that the accuracy requirement of attitude determination can be met via polarization measurement. The SFR of a pulsar is evaluated using simulated polarization data, and the OFR is used to analyze the relationship between fluctuation extent and observation time. Simulation results show that the polarized measurement of candidate pulsars PSR B0470-28 and PSR B2319+60 reaches the specification for attitude determination.

关键词: Pulsar,  Polarization,  Attitude determination,  Stable factor 
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