A moving platform photometric observation based attitude and angular velocity estimation method for space target

Abstract

Based on the photometric information, a method is proposed for estimating space target attitude and angular velocity under the condition of moving observation platform. Firstly, according to the dynamically changing relative pose relationship among the target, the observation platform and the sun, photometric measurement model is established. Then, in the framework of Unscented Kalman Filter, the joint estimation of target attitude and angular velocity is realized by combining use of quaternion and Modified Rodriguez Parameters. Finally, the feasibility and estimation accuracy of the method are verified by numerical simulation experiments. The results show that the proposed method achieves high accuracy and has certain value in practical application.