Attitude estimation and stabilization of a rigid body using low-cost sensors

Abstract

We consider the attitude and gyro-bias estimation as well as the attitude stabilization problem of a rigid body in space using low-cost sensors. We assume that a biased measurement of the angular velocity of the rigid body is provided by a low-cost gyroscope, and the attitude measurements are obtained using low-cost (low-pass) sensors such as accelerometers and magnetometers. We provide an attitude and gyro-bias estimation algorithm using the biased gyro measurement and the attitude measurements - which represent the true attitude only at low frequencies - provided by the low-cost attitude sensors. Finally, the proposed estimation algorithm is coupled with a quaternion-based attitude stabilization scheme, and simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.