An unbalanced QPSK-based integrated communication-ranging system for distributed spacecraft networking

The spacecraft tracking telemetering and command (TT&C) system plays an essential role in celestial and terrestrial networks, requiring relative ranging and communication, particularly in satellite formation flying networks and distributed spacecraft networks. To achieve precious ranging and high-data-rate communication in a Master/Slave satellite architecture, an integrated communication-ranging system (ICRS) is introduced. ICRS is based on the inter-satellite spread spectrum ranging and spread/non-spread spectrum communication modulated by unbalanced quadrature phase shift keying (UQPSK). In both uplink and downlink, the in-phase (I) branches and the quadrature (Q) branches undertake the tasks of ranging and communication, respectively. In addition, a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) like signal is adopted in I branches for the sake of better ranging accuracy, and binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation is employed in Q branches for a higher data rate. Therefore, the key point of the ICRS design is the power resource allocation between two branches via the selection of a suitable power distribution factor (PWDF). Simulation results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed approach in ranging error and bit error rate (BER). In addition, a reasonable PWDF is recommended. Furthermore, the influence of clock offset is also taken into consideration.