On-orbit calibration of satellite antenna-pointing errors

A pragmatic approach is presented to the on-orbit calibration of the spaceborne gimbaled parabolic reflector antennas to enhance their pointing and tracking accuracies in the presence of unknown structural deformations and other errors. The technique described is based on the second-order extended Kalman filter. Except for some knowledge of Kalman filtering, the work is self-contained and tutorial in character, developing necessary error models and deriving most pertinent equations from first principles. Preliminary simulations, from which covariance analysis results have been obtained, indicate a 66% improvement in the accuracy of the antenna pointing angles