Hardware and software architecture of a novel spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) based on smartphones using Variable Speed Control Moment Gyroscope (VSCMG) as actuator is proposed here. A spacecraft ground simulator testbed for Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) attitude estimation and control with VSCMG is also described. The sensor breakouts with independent micro-controller ...

Filtering algorithms are the workhorse of spacecraft attitude estimation but recent research has shown that the use of batch estimation techniques can result in higher accuracy per unit of computational cost. This paper presents an approach for singularity-free batch estimation of attitude in continuous-time using B-Spline curves on unit-length quaternions. It extends existing theory of unitlen...

In this paper, a real-time predictive filter is derived for spacecraft attitude estimation without the utilization of angular rate measurements from gyros. The formulation described in this paper is shown using only attitude sensors (e.g., three-axis magnetometers, sun sensors, star trackers, etc.). The new real-time nonlinear filter predicts the required torque modeling error input in order to...

A novel split field of view star tracker is being developed for the EO-3 GIFTS mission (2004). The camera is designed to be autonomously self-calibrating, and capable of a rapid/reliable solution of the lost-in-space problem as well as recursive attitude estimation. Two efficient Kalman filter algorithms for attitude, camera principal point offset, and focal length estimation are developed. The...

The mobile robot localization problem is decomposed into two stages; attitude estimation followed by position estimation. The innovation of our method is the use of a smoother, in the attitude estimation loop that outperforms other Kalman ter based techniques in estimate accuracy. The smoother exploits the special nature of the data fused; high frequency inertial sensor (gyroscope) data and low...

An accelerometer-array attitude-calibration method is proposed here. Being based on the compatibility of rigid-body point accelerations, this method can be applied to determine and account for the accelerometer installation errors with a high degree of accuracy. It is assumed that the number of three-axis accelerometers in the array is redundant in order to help reduce the effect of sensor nois...

We present two results on attitude estimation using vector and rate gyro measurements, when both sets of measurements are biased. The first result concerns an observer for attitude and gyro bias that has previously been presented by Hamel and Mahony, and by Mahony, Hamel, and Pflimlin, with proven almost-global stability results when either (i) the reference vectors in the inertial frame are st...

In this paper we consider the problem of localizing a mobile robot on uneven terrain. The localization problem is decomposed into two stages; attitude estimation followed by position estimation. The innovation of our method is the use of a smoother, in the attitude estimation loop that outperforms other Kalman lter based techniques in estimate accuracy. The smoother exploits the special nature ...

The objective of this work is to study and compare nonlinear attitude estimation methods to be used for a quadrotor state estimation and control. We begin by introducing the QuavIST quadrotor Unamnned Aerial Vehile (UAV) platform, alongside with the mathematical equations that govern the aircraft motion in flight. The nonlinear equations of motion are linearized about an operating point, and fi...

An efficient Kalman filter based algorithm has been proposed for the spacecraft attitude estimation problem using a novel split-field-of-view star camera and three-axis rate gyros. The conventional spacecraft attitude algorithm has been modified for on-orbit estimation of interlock angles between the two fields of view of star camera, gyro axis, and the spacecraft body frame. Real time estimati...