Sparse data association for low earth orbit tracking
Résumé
Abstract--This paper deals with the association problem of sparse data provided by a ground-based radar system for space surveillance. The method we propose and investigate aims at correlating sets of short arcs originated from successive orbits. The orbital states being unavailable due to too few information contained in each report, metric distances are introduced and used jointly with a time window for the gating, which contributes significantly to reducing the number of association possibilities. Resulting tracks should contain enough information to deduce sufficient initial guesswork for the initial orbit determination step.