A Study of Optimization of a CAPS Constellation of iHCO Communication Satellites of Different Orbit Heights

The Chinese Area Positioning System (CAPS) is a satellite positioning system based on communication satellites. A set of inclined Highly Circular Orbit (iHCO) satellites, which are on orbits about 200 km above the Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), can be among the CAPS navigation constellation. In this paper we present simulations of a CAPS navigation constellation consisting of iHCO communication satellites of different orbit heights. We analyze the performance of the constellation using the simulation results and find the optimized scheme of the CAPS system covering China.