Research on a New Constellation of Regional Satellite Navigation System Covering China

Based on the idea of covering China area, a novel constellation consisting of one geostationary satellite and five inclined elliptic geosynchronous orbit satellites is proposed in this paper. Through a number of simulation tests, the orbital elements of each satellite are designed concretely, and navigation performance of the constellation is analyzed. Moreover, its coverage performance is also evaluated under some factors, such as the geometric dilution of precision (GDOP), orbital perturbation, space transmission loss and eclipse. What’s more, this constellation is compared with other constellations. Finally, simulation results show, in this constellation, the number of satellites is small, and the navigation precision is relatively high. Therefore, this is a kind of high performance and economic regional navigation system for China.