A comparison of spacecraft attitude estimation filters

The application of moving horizon estimators (MHE) and particles filters (PF) for spacecraft attitude estimation is investigated. Their performance is compared to the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) through simulations. Due to the nonlinear spacecraft dynamics, the EKF and the UKF are suboptimal. Recently, Moving Horizon Estimators (MHE) and Particle Filters (PF) have been introduced in the process industry and in tracking applications. We show that these new filters can cope better with the nonlinear system dynamics, and result in a higher accuracy.