Geometry Optimization of Stratospheric Pseudolite Network for Navigation Applications

A stratospheric pseudolite (SP) is a pseudolite installed on a stratospheric airship. A stratospheric pseudolite network (SPN) is composed of multiple SPs, which shows promising potential in navigation applications because of its station-keeping capability, long service duration, and flexible deployment. Most traditional research about SPN geometry optimization has centered on geometric dilution of precision (GDOP). However, previous research rarely dealt with the topic of how SPN geometry configuration not only affects its GDOP, but also affects its energy balance. To obtain an optimal integrated performance, this paper employs the proportion of energy consumption in energy production as an indicator to assess SPN energy status and designs a composite indicator including GDOP and energy status to assess SPN geometry performance. Then, this paper proposes an SPN geometry optimization algorithm based on gray wolf optimization. Furthermore, this paper implements a series of simulations with an SPN composed of six SPs in a specific service area. Simulations show that the proposed algorithm can obtain SPN geometry solutions with good GDOP and energy balance performance. Also, simulations show that in the supposed scenarios and the specific area, a higher SP altitude can improve both GDOP and energy balance, while a lower SP latitude can improve SPN energy status.