SE(3) based extended Kalman filter for attitude estimation

The attitude estimation problem has been investigated making use of the concept of matrix Lie group. Through formulation of the attitude and gyroscope bias as elements of SE(3), the corresponding extended Kalman filter, termed as SE(3)-EKF, has been derived. It is shown that the resulting SE(3)-EKF is just the newly-derived geometric extended Kalman filter (GEKF) for spacecraft attitude estimation. This provides a new perspective on the GEKF besides the common frame errors definition. The simulation test shows that the proposed SE(3)-EKF performs quite similar with GEKF and can both outperform the traditional multiplicative EKF with large initial misalignment. In this respect, the SE(3)-EKF can relax the requirement of initial attitude accuracy for the linearized model approximation. © 2020, Editorial Department of Journal of Chinese Inertial Technology. All right reserved.