Abstract:

Formation autonomous navigation is the basis for the collaborative observation of the distributed remote sensing formations. In order to realize the accurate determination of the relative state between the different spacecraft, a relative state estimation approach is proposed based on the MEMS LiDAR and nano star tracker. An unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is established based on the relative attitude and orbit kinematics equations. The coupling issue between the measurement of the MEMS LiDAR and the attitude of the reference spacecraft is solved. The high precision orbit propagator (HPOP) model is used in the simulations. The results show that the proposed method is feasible and practicable, and the accuracy of the estimation meets the needs of the distributed remote sensing tasks. It is a good candidate to solve the relative state estimation problem for long-and middle-distance formation.

Key words: Distributed remote sensing, MEMS LiDAR, Unscented Kalman filter (UKF)