Unscented Kalman Filtering for Spacecraft Attitude and Rate Determination Using Magnetometer

An Unscented Kalman Filter(UKF) for estimation of attitude and rate of a spacecraft using only magnetometer vector measurement is presented. The dynamics used in the filter is nonlinear rotational equation which is augmented by the quaternion kinematics to construct a process model. The filter is designed for low Earth orbit satellite, so the disturbance torques include gravity-gradient torque, magnetic disturbance torque, and aerodynamic drag. The magnetometer measurements are simulated based on time-varying position of the spacecraft. The filter has been tested not only in the standby mode but also in the detumbling mode. To stabilize the attitude, linear PD controller is applied and the actuator is assumed to be thruster. A Monte-Carlo simulation has been done to guarantee the stability of the filter performance to the various initial conditions. The UKF performance is compared to that of EKF and it reveals that UKF outperforms EKF.