10.13009/EUCASS2019-63
GARCIA-DE-QUIROS, Francisco J.
Francisco J.
GARCIA-DE-QUIROS
RADICE, Giammarco
Giammarco
RADICE
CARRASCO, Jose Antonio
Jose Antonio
CARRASCO
Influence of Oscillator Phase Noise in Frequency-Based Location Methods for Mobile Exploration Robots.
Proceedings of the 8th European Conference for Aeronautics and Space Sciences. Madrid, Spain, 1-4 july 2019
2019
Article
AEROSPACE SYSTEMS
ROBOTICS
NAVIGATION
2019
5 pages
PDF
CC BY-NC
Multi-Robot systems for Space exploration are an interesting alternative versus traditional large monolithic rovers in terms of performance and reliability. However, for a community of cooperative autonomous robots to achieve complex exploration goals, a solid infrastructure of communications and location determination (as a supporting resource for navigation through the scenario) must exist in advance, which traditionally is built over radiofrequencybased technologies due to its robustness and suitability for extreme environmental conditions, such as in typical Space exploration scenarios. This contribution discusses on the impact of electronic oscillators phase noise in the error introduced in the relative location and velocity determination based on frequency measurement techniques, such as Frequency of Arrival (FoA) or Frequency Difference of Arrival (FDoA). A noise model is obtained for a hypothetic scenario consisting in a system for position and relative speed determination on a lunar surface exploration mission, where different options for local oscillators are proposed, considering practical aspects such as size, volume and power consumption against phase noise. The impact of the phase noise in global velocity and position error is determined, analysed and discussed for different commercial oscillators and configurations.