Abstract:

An algorithm based on the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) parameter estimation is proposed for the fast and efficient solution of the spacecraft aeroassisted orbital transfer problem. Firstly, the problem is converted to a two-point boundary value problem by using the maximum principle. Then the two-point boundary value problem is transformed into a parameter estimation problem which sets the initial values of the costates as the parameters to be estimated and the boundary values as the desired observations, and the converted problem is solved by using UKF. This algorithm is based on the theory of probability, so the derivation of the gradient matrices required by the traditional numerical methods is avoided. Moreover, the difficulty of guessing the initial values of the costates is overcome. Therefore, the difficulty of solving the spacecraft aeroassisted orbital transfer problem is greatly reduced. The numerical simulations indicate that the algorithm is simple, efficient and robust.

Key words:  Spacecraft, Aeroassisted orbital transfer, Two-point boundary value problem, Unscented Kalman filter, Parameter estimation