ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Astronomical Instrumentation
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1664938
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements and Challenges in Time-Delay Interferometry for Space-Based Gravitational Wave DetectionView all articles
Adaptive extended Kalman filter and laser link acquisition in the detection of gravitational waves in space
Provisionally accepted
Jinke Yang1,2
Yong Xie1Yidi Fan3Pengcheng Wang2,3,4Xue Wang1,2Zhao Cui1Jianjun Jia1,2
Yucheng Tang1*
Yun Kau Lau1,5*- 1Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
- 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- 3Key Laboratory for Satellite Digitalization Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
- 4Innovation Academy for Microsatellites, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
- 5Institute of Applied Mathematics, Morningside Center of Mathematics, LSSC, Academy of Mathematics and System Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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An alternative, new laser link acquisition scheme for the triangular constellation of spacecraft (SCs) in deep space in the detection of gravitational waves is considered. In place of a wide field CCD camera in the initial stage of laser link acquisition adopted in the conventional scheme, an extended Kalman filter based on precision orbit determination is incorporated in the point ahead angle mechanism (PAAM) to steer the laser beam in such a way to narrow the uncertainty cone and at the same time avoids the heating problem generated by the CCD camera. A quadrant photodetector (QPD) based on the Differential Power Sensing (DPS) technique, which offers a higher dynamic range than differential wavefront sensing (DWS), is employed as the readout of the laser beam spot. The conventional two stages (coarse acquisition and fine acquisition) are integrated into a single control loop. The payload structure of the ATP control loop is simplified and numerical simulations, based on a colored measurement noise model that closely mimics the prospective on-orbit conditions, demonstrate that the AEKF significantly reduces the initial uncertainty region by predicting the point ahead angle (PAA) even when the worst case scenario in SC position (navigation) error is considered.
Keywords: Gravitational waves detection in space, intersatellite laser link establishment, adaptive extended Kalman filtering(AEKF), point ahead angle(PAA), Colored measurement noise
Received: 13 Jul 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Xie, Fan, Wang, Wang, Cui, Jia, Tang and Lau. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yucheng Tang, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
Yun Kau Lau, Institute of Applied Mathematics, Morningside Center of Mathematics, LSSC, Academy of Mathematics and System Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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