Abstract:

Attitude determination is a key that affects the performance of a micro satellite platform.An adaptive extended Kalman filtering algorithm is presented in this paper for attitude determination consisting of a pseudo gyro, a magnetometer and an earth sensor.Attitude determination performance of a satellite on two orbits with different inclination is studied by simulation.The results indicate that roll and pitch accuracy is about 0.05ånd heading accuracy is better than 0.4°.The accuracy is improved as inclination decreases.When the earth sensor fails, roll and pitch accuracy of the satellite on the orbit with large inclination is better than 0.5°, and heading accuracy is about 1°.The adaptive Kalman filter can evidently enhance attitude determination performance.

Key words: pseudo gyro, magnetometer, earth sensor, micro satellite, adaptive Kalman filtering