Effect of navigation constellation incompleteness on dilution of precision of autonomous orbit determination using inter-satellite link

Navigation satellites Autonomous Orbit Determination (AOD) using inter-satellite link is the key technology of the constellation autonomous navigation. In conditions such as uncompleted constellation establishment on the early construction, malfunction and destruction of satellites, several satellites of the constellation may be unavailable, therefore the research of constellation incompleteness' effect on satellites AOD is valuable. Based on presenting the AOD method of weighted least squares solution one by one, this paper introduced the AOD Dilution of Precision (DOP) values as merit index and analyzed the effect of the Galileo constellation by simulations. The results show that the visual satellites are quite redundant in satellite's AOD process of the Galileo constellation, and there is no prominent effect of constellation incompleteness on the AOD dilution of precision. Only when the number of satellites is reduced by 2/3, there will be several satellites whose DOP values of AOD exceed the threshold. The method is also adoptable in analysis of other navigation constellation.