Filtering for precision pointing and tracking with application for aircraft to satellite tracking

Many aerospace problems include the requirement for precision pointing and tracking from one accelerating vehicle to another. This paper considers the use of Kalman filtering for a general class of high precision pointing and tracking applications and the application of the general framework to a specific problem. A general framework which contains all known error sources is developed for a particular Kalman filter. With a covariance sensitivity analysis, this framework can be used to determine the performance of a reduced order filter and conduct a hardware requirements analysis and trade off. In particular, the paper addresses the application of the general framework for an aircraft to satellite precision tracking problem.