The study of how an aircraft's inter satellite antenna tracks a relay satellite is an important and foundational problem. This paper researches the tracking law from the view of an engineering application. Firstly making a reasonable and simplified model of inter satellite antenna's pointing mechanism, which is placed on a aircraft, in accordance to the structural characteristics and movement constraint of the pointing mechanism. In which, the kinematics of the pointing mechanism may be studied. Secondly establishing the model's kinematic model through geometric methodology. This kinematic model can calculate the needed angular displacements of the pointing mechanism placed on the aircraft when tracking the relay satellite whose coordinates are known. Furthermore, an analytical interface on the basis of the kinematic model was established. Through the interface, the demanded solutions of the inter satellite antenna's pointing mechanism are conveniently and quickly obtained. Finally, the degree of error regarding the analytical interface of the kinematics model was analyzed. The results show that the built kinematic model is able to meet the requirements of engineering.

The relay satellite system (Image from the paper)

Zhu SS,Chang Y,Song YF,et al. The kinematic analysis of inter satellite antenna of user aircraft[C]. 见:6th Annual IEEE International Conference on Cyber Technology in Automation, Control and Intelligent Systems, IEEE-CYBER 2016. Chengdu, China. June 19-22, 2016.