Aerostats/orbiters radiometric measurement based integrated navigation for Mars descent and landing

Autonomous navigation is considered as a key technology for Mars landing missions. The traditional inertial navigation system (INS) and optical measurement based integrated navigation mode is quite incompetent to provide effective navigation for Mars terminal descent and landing phase with low visibility. As a necessary part of Mars lander, radio equipment can be used to support navigation system by providing beacon measurement(s) without dedicated sensor(s). This paper developed inertial measurement unit (IMU) and orbits/aerostats beacons based integrated navigation scheme for Mars powered descent and landing. The range and Doppler information sensed from orbiter and aerostats beacons and the lander´s state information derived from IMU are integrated in extended Kalman filter (EKF) to correct the inertial constant bias and suppress the navigation measurement noise. Simulation results show that the localization precision is better than 10 m and the velocity precision is better than 1 m/s when the trajectories of orbiter and aerostats are set appropriately. So it is a promising and attractive autonomous navigation scheme for Mars lander even if low visibility and sandstorm occur.