Phase tracking for pulsar navigation with Doppler frequency

Abstract Doppler frequency in pulsar navigation is an effect caused by spacecraft and pulsar motion, which would worsen the pulsar navigation accuracy. To describe this influence, we establish the Doppler frequency measurement model based on pulsar timing. With this model, we describe the relationship between the phase estimation performance and the observation time when Doppler frequency exists. To reduce the pulsar navigation error due to the Doppler frequency, we designed the phase tracking loop for the pulsar navigation. The pulsar frequency can be modified before the phase estimation. As a result, the impact of the Doppler frequency could be lessened, and the observation interval lengths can be lengthened to improve the phase estimation performance.