State estimation strategies for space object tracking in the context of space situational awareness

Due to increased human activity in the last two decades, near-earth space has become congested from functional/non-functional satellites and space debris. These space objects of human origin, along with natural asteroids and space weather, pose natural, accidental, or intentional threats to functional and expensive satellites. It is imperative to track space assets continuously as well as assess collision threats to take necessary actions, which is termed Space Situational Awareness (SSA). Assessing the risk of collision of these space debris with active satellites requires estimation of the positions and velocities of both objects. In this talk, we will briefly discuss some recent advancements in non-linear state estimation techniques – computationally efficient Unscented Kalman Filter and Particle Filter, and their effectiveness in various space vehicle tracking. We will also examine the possibility of using the underlying efficient uncertainty propagation technique used in these estimators for long-term position uncertainty propagation of a space object. We will then focus on space debris below 10 cm in diameter, which is difficult to track. In this context, we will present a Physics Informed Neural Network (PINN)—based approach for estimation of the trajectory of space debris after a collision event between an active satellite and space debris.

Speaker: Dr. Sanat K. Biswas

Biography: Dr. Sanat K. Biswas is an Assistant Professor at IIIT Delhi. He received the B.E. degree from Jadavpur University in 2010, the M.Tech. degree in Aerospace Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2012, and a PhD degree in computationally Efficient Unscented Kalman filters for space vehicle navigation from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, in 2017. At IIIT Delhi he leads the Space Systems Laboratory and is involved in developing algorithms for Space Situational Awareness, NavIC reflectometry receiver for remote sensing applications and Precise Point Positioning (PPP) of Low Earth Orbit Satellites. Dr. Biswas serves on the technical committee on Space Communications and Navigation (SCAN), and the technical committee on Space Traffic Management (STM) of the International Astronautical Federation. He was the recipient of the 2014 Emerging Space Leaders Grant from the International Astronautical Federation, the 2019 Early Career Research Award from the Department of Science and Technology, India and the Young Scientist Award 2020 and 2021 from the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) and 2020 Harry Rowe Mimno Award from the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society.