{"id":12254,"date":"2021-04-30T08:55:12","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T12:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=12254"},"modified":"2021-05-13T15:25:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T19:25:13","slug":"satellite-trajectory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2021\/04\/30\/satellite-trajectory\/","title":{"rendered":"Satellite Trajectory"},"content":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/fileexchange\/authors\/76890\">Will<\/a>'s pick this week is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/fileexchange\/85273-satellite-trajectory\">Satellite Trajectory<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/profile\/authors\/13765960\">Huy Nguyen<\/a>.\r\n<br><br>\r\nThis submission provides an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/discovery\/matlab-apps.html\">app <\/a>that you can install and add to your toolstrip. A panel on the left enables the user to specify the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Orbital_elements\">orbital elements<\/a> of a satellite orbiting a central body. The Earth and Mars are built-in options for the central body, but the user can specify parameters to orbit about other planetoids. Finally, the app enables the user to specify a ground station to track the satellite from.\r\n<center><br><br>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_ui.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"246\" height=\"967\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_ui.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12262\" \/><\/a>\r\n<br><br><\/center>\r\nYou push the plot button, and a simulation runs behind the scenes that predicts the motion of the satellite for a specified amount of time. Six tabs of information are presented, a mix of 2D and 3D plots. There's even an animation button that plays the motion back for you. Here are some screenshots from a Mars run I tried.\r\n<center><br><br>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_3D.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"556\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_3D.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12264\" \/><\/a>\r\n<br><br>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_mcmf.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"347\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_mcmf.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12268\" \/><\/a>\r\n<br><br>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_azel.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"394\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_azel.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12266\" \/><\/a>\r\n<br><br><\/center>\r\nDecades ago while a student, I dabbled with a similar concept. I never got very far; Huy has fulfilled my vision! Still, there's always room for more bells and whistles. Here are some ideas:\r\n<ul><li>Provide the user documentation on how the orbits are calculated\r\n<li>Give the user the option to define spherical harmonics that affect the orbit\r\n<li>Present the azimuth and elevation on a polar plot\r\n<li>Place a surface map of Earth and Mars onto the sphere when displaying the reference object<\/ul>\r\nIf you're into this sort of thing, I recommend you check out the new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/products\/satellite-communications.html\">Satellite Communication Toolbox<\/a>. It makes use of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/help\/satcom\/gs\/satellite-scenario-overview.html\">Satellite Scenario<\/a> feature to perform various communication analyses. And of course there are plenty of goodies in the Aerospace Toolbox and Blockset.\r\n<br><br>\r\nLet us know what you think <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=12254#respond\">here<\/a> or leave a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/fileexchange\/85273-satellite-trajectory#comments\">comment<\/a> for Huy.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"overview-image\"><img decoding=\"async\"  class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/trajectory_ui.jpg\" onError=\"this.style.display ='none';\" \/><\/div><p>Will's pick this week is Satellite Trajectory by Huy Nguyen.\r\n\r\nThis submission provides an app that you can install and add to your toolstrip. A panel on the left enables the user to specify the... <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2021\/04\/30\/satellite-trajectory\/\">read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12254"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12278,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12254\/revisions\/12278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}