Radio-Based Relative State Measurement Algorithm for Micro-nano Satellite Formation

For micro-nano satellite formation to operate autonomously, how to determine the position, velocity and attitude of the slave satellite (SS) relative to the master satellite (MS) is very important. In this paper, a two-time estimation algorithm (TEA) is proposed for multiple micro-nano satellites formation. Firstly, the relative distance measurement information between MS and SSs is used to obtain the initial estimates of each SS’ relative state by Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) algorithm. Then the initial estimates are estimated for the second time by combining the relative distance measurement information between each SS. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively improve the relative state measurement accuracy of micro-nano satellites and meet the requirements of formation flying for micro-nano satellites.