Attitude Determination of Nano Satellite Based on Gyroscope, Sun Sensor and Magnetometer

With the fast development of nano-satellite applications, higher requirements on the method and accuracy for determining attitude of Nano-satellite are presented. Aiming at the accuracy requirements of attitude determination of sun-oriented mode of the nano-satellite, an integrated attitude sensor is built with combining of gyroscope, magnetometer and sun sensor. Furthermore, the extended Kalman filter is used to fuse measurement data from gyroscope, magnetometer and sun sensor. A simulation model of attitude determination is built, and a few simulations are performed. The simulation results show that the accuracy of the integrated attitude determination sensor proposed in this paper can meet the accuracy requirement (0.05. Deg.) of nano-satellite attitude determination. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of [CEIS 2011]