The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 31, 2016
Filed:
Oct. 30, 2013
Raytheon Company, Waltham, MA (US);
Gary D. Coleman, Redondo Beach, CA (US);
John F. Silny, Playa Vista, CA;
Raytheon Company, Waltham, MA (US);
Abstract
A methodology for initial orbit determination of an object about an astronomical body searches a grid of possible boundary values on the range-to-object over the observation interval to find the grid point and corresponding initial orbit that best fits all of the more than three (N) angles-only observations according to an error metric. The search is conducted by solving a boundary-value problem for different grid points. The state vector is propagated to determine estimated observation directions for the remaining N−2 observations. The grid point (and initial orbit) that best fit all of the observations is selected. For efficiency, the search may start with a broad but coarse initial grid and increase the resolution of the grid as the search converges to a solution.