Speaker
Description
The rapid proliferation of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and space debris presents increasing challenges to orbital sustainability, collision avoidance, and astronomical observations. As of February 2026, approximately 14,000 active satellites are in orbit, with an additional 1.23 million proposed, highlighting growing concerns over orbital congestion and long-term space environment stability. To support space situational awareness, this study leverages the Taiwan Meteor Detection System (TMDS), a ground-based optical observation network developed at National Central University, together with a fully in-house orbit determination framework, enabling an integrated hardware and software solution for high time-resolution nighttime observations. The system implements Batch Least Squares (BLS), Square Root Information Filter (SRIF), and Square Root Cubature Kalman Filter (SRCKF) to process angle-only right ascension and declination measurements. Under a 300 s observation arc with a 20 s sampling interval, single-station estimation yields a position error of about 1.3 km, whereas three-station simultaneous observations with Jacobian-based triangulation covariance reduce the error to ~94.4 m. The current phase focuses on software development and validation under simplified simulation assumptions, without yet including higher-order effects such as atmospheric refraction, atmospheric drag, Earth oblateness, light-time correction, and relativistic effects. Future work will extend the framework to real TMDS image data for operational tracking of LEO satellites and debris, contributing to safer satellite operations, protection of astronomical observations, and a more sustainable near-Earth space environment for humanity.
Keywords: Space situational awareness; Orbit determination; Optical tracking; Triangulation; LEO debris
| Participate the oral/poster presentation award competition | No |
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