A miniaturised sensor for satellite attitude and orbital determination

我们建议开发一种质量小于400克的微型传感器，该传感器能够为近地轨道(LEO)应用确定航天器的方向、运动和轨道位置。该传感器将使用惯性陀螺和速率传感器以及周围空间的相机图像来获取和维护四维姿态四元数和时间导数，以确定唯一的方位。它还将利用包括全球定位系统网络在内的全球定位航天器广播的定时信号，以得出相对于地球的地理空间位置和速度。传感器将使用预测航天器姿态的14维随机状态估计器，在这些参数随时间演变时估计这些参数的高精度预期平均值，并通过串行数据流将该信息广播到航天器总线。我们建议进一步在我们的姿态估计器中使用地球运动模型，以提供第一个机电设备，以提供关于太阳系或地球参考系的姿态坐标预测，以及预测太阳、月球和地球位置。我们的恒星相机研究还将检查可能从相机图像中的运动模糊中提取的额外信息。

We propose to develop a miniaturised sensor with mass less than 400 g that is able to determine spacecraft orientation, motion and orbit location for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) applications. The sensor will acquire and maintain a four-dimensional attitude quaternion and time derivative using inertial gyro and rate sensors and camera images of the surrounding space to determine uniquely orientation. It will also utilise timing signals broadcast by global positioning spacecraft including the GPS network in order to derive a geospatial location and velocity with respect to Earth. The sensor will estimate high-precision expected mean values of these parameters as they evolve in time using a fourteen-dimensional stochastic state estimator that predicts the spacecraft attitude and broadcasts this information via serial data stream to the spacecraft bus. We propose further to utilise an Earth-motion model in our attitude estimator to provide the first mechatronic device to provide attitude-coordinate predictions with respect to either solar system or Earth-based reference frames as well as predict solar, Lunar and Earth location. Our star-camera research will also examine additional information that may be extracted from motion blur in camera images.