Speaker:
Dr. Joshua Horwood, Numerica Corporation
Title:
Uncertainty Quantification in Space Situational Awareness
Abstract:
The space situational awareness (SSA) mission encompasses
intelligence, reconnaissance of all space objects, and the
prediction of space events, possible collisions, threats, and
activities. A common requirement for many SSA functions
such as tracking, conjunction analysis (probability of
collision), and resource management is that of uncertainty
quantification (UQ). This talk will provide an overview
of some of the key issues and challenges surrounding the
problem of UQ including that of properly characterizing the
uncertainty in the orbital state of a space object. In
particular, a new class of multivariate probability density
functions will be introduced called the Gauss von Mises (GVM)
family of distributions. The distinguishing feature of the
GVM distribution is its definition on a cylindrical manifold,
the underlying state space in which systems of orbital element
coordinates are more accurately defined. Such
coordinates, when used in conjunction with the new
GVM distribution, can provide a statistically rigorous
treatment of uncertainty needed for uncertainty propagation and
non-linear filtering, orbit determination, and tracking.
Results will be shown that demonstrate that the uncertainty
propagation algorithm implicit in the new GVM filter has the
same computational cost as the traditional unscented Kalman
filter, with the former capable of maintaining a proper
characterization of the uncertainty for up to eight times as
long as the latter.
Short Bio:
Dr. Horwood graduated from the University of Waterloo (Canada) with
a Bachelor's of Mathematics degree in applied math in
2003. He received the Certificate of Advanced Studies in
Mathematics in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in 2008 from the
University of Cambridge (UK). His technical background
and interests include classical mechanics, astrodynamics,
non-linear estimation, and multi-target tracking. In
2009, Dr. Horwood joined Numerica Corporation and is currently
engaged in leading and managing the company's program in
space situational awareness.