A Study on Flight Vehicle's Attitude Changes with Respect to a Ground Station by Considering Earth Curvature

When a ground station is tracking a flight vehicle, flight vehicle’s aspect angle with respect to a ground station is required to predict a received signal strength and determine an optimal time to conduct radar handovers. When determining a flight vehicle's aspect angle with respect to a ground station, range/azimuth/elevation coordinate system referenced to a ground station and attitude(roll/pitch/yaw) of a flight vehicle are needed. If tracking range between a ground station and a flight vehicle is sufficiently far, additional compensation for roll and pitch angles should be considered. In this paper, angular compensation method for roll and pitch is proposed in a consideration of earth curvature. And then, flight vehicle's aspect angles with respect to the ground station are obtained and flight vehicle's attitude changes with respect to three ground stations are visualized.