Robust Initial Orbit Determination for Surveillance Doppler-Only Radars

An initial orbit determination algorithm for surveillance Doppler-only radars with embedded quantification capabilities is presented. The method is based on a combination of Gauss' and Lambert's solvers formulated in the differential algebra (DA) framework, which provides the Taylor expansion of the state estimate with respect to the measurement uncertainties. This feature makes the approach particularly suitable for handling data association problems. The first part of the article describes the mathematical formulation of the method, while an extensive analysis of its performance and a comparison with a reference algorithm are carried out in the second part, using both simulated and real data. The proposed approach is shown to be accurate and robust and particularly suited to short-arc observations.