ATTITUDE DETERMINATION BY KALMAN FILTERINGnVOLUME I

摘要

To improve the reliability of satellite attitude determination systems, it is desirable to replace complex instrumentation by crude measuring devices with sophisticated data processing. A minimum variance scheme using magnetic and solar measurements is evaluated in a unified simulation applicable to spin¬ning and nonspinning earth or sun orbiters. The simulation program obtains linearized ensemble statistics of the rotational uncertainties, and also gen¬erates a Monte Carlo sample which contains the effects of dynamic and geomet¬ric nonlinearities.nThe Monte Carlo sample is a reasonable member of the linearized statis-tical population, provided that certain favorable conditions are maintained. Specifically, the above-mentioned sources of nonlinearity must be minimized through the use of an appropriate dynamical formulation and through method¬ical restriction of measurement geometry.