SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ESTIMATING A SATELLITE ANTENNA POINTING ERROR

摘要

System for estimating a pointing error of an antenna (ANT) of a satellite, the satellite comprising a payload (CU) comprising a multi-channel transmitter or receiver comprising a multi-channel antenna (ANT), an analog processing chain per channel and a set of digital integrated circuits (PN), the system comprising a device for estimating (EST) an antenna pointing error implemented on board the satellite or in a ground station, the device for estimating a pointing error being configured to: Acquire, for at least two channels of the transmitter or of the receiver, at least two test signals, each test signal having been transmitted or received by the antenna in a different direction (θA, θB), for at least one pair of acquired test signals, determine, for each test signal, a relative complex gain between the test signal received or transmitted respectively on two separate channels, determine a measurement comparison between the two test signals among the ratio between the two relative complex gains and / or the difference between the phases of the two relative complex gains, determine a pointing error (dθ) of the antenna from the comparative measurement, from the directions of emission or reception of the test signals (θA, θB) and a model of antenna gain for each channel and in a plurality of directions. Figure 1