Evaluation of Murrell’s EKF-Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Exploiting Multiple Attitude Sensor Configurations

Asundi, Sharanabasaweshwara; Fitz-Coy, Norman; Latchman, Haniph

doi:10.3390/s21196450

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Murrell’s EKF-Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Exploiting Multiple Attitude Sensor Configurations

by

Sharanabasaweshwara Asundi

^1,*

,

Norman Fitz-Coy

² and

Haniph Latchman

³

¹

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA

²

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA

³

Faculty of Engineering, The University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston 7, Jamaica

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Sensors 2021, 21(19), 6450; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196450

Submission received: 1 August 2021 / Revised: 19 September 2021 / Accepted: 23 September 2021 / Published: 27 September 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Attitude Estimation Based on Data Processing of Sensors)

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Abstract

Pico- and nano-satellites, due to their form factor and size, are limited in accommodating multiple or redundant attitude sensors. For such satellites, Murrell’s implementation of the extended Kalman filter (EKF) can be exploited to accommodate multiple sensor configurations from a set of non redundant attitude sensors. The paper describes such an implementation involving a sun sensor suite and a magnetometer as attitude sensors. The implementation exploits Murrell’s EKF to enable three sensor configurations, which can be operationally commanded, for satellite attitude estimation. Among the three attitude estimation schemes, (i) sun sensor suite and magnetometer, (ii) magnetic field vector and its time derivative and (iii) magnetic field vector, it is shown that the third configuration is better suited for attitude estimation in terms of precision and accuracy, but can consume more time to converge than the other two.

Keywords: picosatellites; nanosatelllites; extended Kalman filter; EKF; Murrell’s EKF; satellite attitude estimation

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MDPI and ACS Style

Asundi, S.; Fitz-Coy, N.; Latchman, H. Evaluation of Murrell’s EKF-Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Exploiting Multiple Attitude Sensor Configurations. Sensors 2021, 21, 6450. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196450

AMA Style

Asundi S, Fitz-Coy N, Latchman H. Evaluation of Murrell’s EKF-Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Exploiting Multiple Attitude Sensor Configurations. Sensors. 2021; 21(19):6450. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196450

Chicago/Turabian Style

Asundi, Sharanabasaweshwara, Norman Fitz-Coy, and Haniph Latchman. 2021. "Evaluation of Murrell’s EKF-Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Exploiting Multiple Attitude Sensor Configurations" Sensors 21, no. 19: 6450. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196450

APA Style

Asundi, S., Fitz-Coy, N., & Latchman, H. (2021). Evaluation of Murrell’s EKF-Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Exploiting Multiple Attitude Sensor Configurations. Sensors, 21(19), 6450. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196450

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

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Evaluation of Murrell’s EKF-Based Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Exploiting Multiple Attitude Sensor Configurations

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