Abstract
The aim of this work is to test an algorithm to estimate, in real time, the attitude of an artificial satellite using real data supplied by attitude sensors that are on board of the CBERS‐2 satellite (China Brazil Earth Resources Satellite). The real‐time estimator used in this work for attitude determination is the Unscented Kalman Filter. This filter is a new alternative to the extended Kalman filter usually applied to the estimation and control problems of attitude and orbit. This algorithm is capable of carrying out estimation of the states of nonlinear systems, without the necessity of linearization of the nonlinear functions present in the model. This estimation is possible due to a transformation that generates a set of vectors that, suffering a nonlinear transformation, preserves the same mean and covariance of the random variables before the transformation. The performance will be evaluated and analyzed through the comparison between the Unscented Kalman filter and the extended Kalman filter results, by using real onboard data.
Highlights
The attitude of a spacecraft is defined by its orientation in space related to some reference system
The attitude estimation is the process of calculating the orientation of the spacecraft in relation to a reference system from data supplied by attitude sensors
These sensors are on board of the CBERS-2 satellite China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite, and the measurements were collected by the Satellite Control Centre of INPE Brazilian Institute for Space Research
Summary
The attitude of a spacecraft is defined by its orientation in space related to some reference system. The attitude estimation is the process of calculating the orientation of the spacecraft in relation to a reference system from data supplied by attitude sensors. The satellite attitude is described by Euler angles, due to its easy geometric interpretation, and the method to estimate the attitude used is the Unscented Kalman Filter. This method is capable of performing state estimation in nonlinear systems, besides taking into account measurements provided by different attitude sensors. In this work there were considered real data supplied by gyroscopes, infrared Earth sensors, and digital sun sensors These sensors are on board of the CBERS-2 satellite China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite , and the measurements were collected by the Satellite Control Centre of INPE Brazilian Institute for Space Research
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