In-flight real-time altitude-independent magnetometer-bias determination for micro-satellite

In this paper a new real-time algorithm is proposed for in-flight magnetometer bias determination without altitude knowledge for a micro-satellite. This approach introduces iterative algorithm to the traditional statistical calculation and extends the batch method to satisfy real-time application. It makes the estimation of magnetometer bias simple using iterative calculation instead of large-scale matrix computation. Experiment results indicate that the new real-time algorithm is more accurate and faster compared with other algorithms, even with real noise data. With the new real-time algorithm, a magnetometer calibration can be taken on-orbit and will reduce the demand of computing power.