CubeSat Autonomous Orbit Determination Based on Magnetometer and Sun Sensor Data  

作　　者：Wesam Mohammed Elmahy Zhang Xiang Lu Zhengliang Liao Wenhe 

机构地区：[1]School of Mechanical Engineering,Nanjing University of Science and Technology,Nanking 210094,P.R.China

出　　处：《Transactions of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics》2017年第6期700-709,共10页南京航空航天大学学报（英文版）

基　　金：supported by the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China(No.20113219110025)

摘　　要：CubeSats have evolved from purely educational tools to a standard platform for technology demonstration,scientific instrumentation and application in less than a decade.They open the door to new challenges and interplanetary missions which lead to the direct realization of autonomous orbit determination(AOD)which has been investigated before with different integrated sensors combined with various filters.Mostly these studies were carried out for larger satellites with more accurate sensors.Magnetometer and sun sensor combined with extended Kalman filter(EKF)are chosen to complete AOD task considering their light weight.For the purpose of AOD and the computational cost requirements imposed on CubeSats,it is important to develop and apply low cost on-board models.In this perspective,a magnetic model based on a table look up is proposed to generate the reference magnetic field with a low computational burden.In current article the simulations through Matlab and Satellites Tool Kit(STK)especially focus on the accuracy of the AOD system provided by this model.For analysis three EKFs are carried out with different calculation models and data types.The system based on the proposed model is fully autonomous,low-cost and has moderate-accuracy required by most CubeSats missions.The AOD system can be applied as main or backup system depending on the space missions′demands.CubeSats have evolved from purely educational tools to a standard platform for technology demonstra- tion, scientific instrumentation and application in less than a decade. They open the door to new challenges and in- terplanetary missions which lead to the direct realization of autonomous orbit determination （AOD） which has been investigated before with different integrated sensors combined with various filters. Mostly these studies were car- ried out for larger satellites with more accurate sensors. Magnetometer and sun sensor combined with extended Kalman filter （EKF） are chosen to complete AOD task considering their light weight. For the purpose of AOD and the computational cost requirements imposed on CubeSats, it is important to develop and apply low cost on-hoard models. In this perspective, a magnetic model based on a table look up is proposed to generate the reference mag- netic field with a low computational burden. In current article the simulations through Matlab and Satellites Tool Kit （STK） especially focus on the accuracy of the AOD system provided by this model. For analysis three EKFs are carried out with different calculation models and data types. The system based on the proposed model is fully autonomous, low-cost and has moderate-accuracy required by most CubeSats missions. The AOD system can be applied as main or backup system depending on the space missions＇ demands.

关 键 词：CUBESAT autonomous orbit determination(AOD) MAGNETOMETER sun sensor 

分 类 号：V412.4[航空宇航科学与技术—航空宇航推进理论与工程]