All-Electric Aircraft Localization Performance Study via Space Solar Power Satellite Constellation

The all-electric aircraft (AEA) is a fully battery powered aircraft that has a low engine noise and carbon dioxide mission level. However, the AEA requires space solar power satellite (SSPS) enabled mid-air recharging technology to allow high payload capacity and long flight duration. In addition, the rectenna size of AEA requires the SSPS to accurately beam the microwave energy to the rectenna. Therefore, high performance AEA localization and tracking (LAT) by SSPS is essential. This paper studies the AEA localization performance via SSPS constellation. We assume the AEA broadcasts its position information via the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) channel. In addition, each SSPS located within the field-of-view measures the time-of-arrival (TOA) of the ADS-B signal for fusion purpose. Furthermore, the signal traveling time delay effect and SSPS position error are considered. A Montel Carlo simulation has been conducted to study the AEA localization performance with respect to SSPS altitude and measurement error magnitude. The results show that the SSPS altitude and positioning errors have higher impact on AEA localization accuracy. Also, the results show that the AEA localization via SSPS constellation can meet the target accuracy.