An Algorithm for Micro-Satellite Attitude Determination Using Solar Panels and Magnetometer

If the current generated by solar panels are used as measurements for attitude determination,not only the observability is low,but also it is disadvantageous to the decrease of computation.In this paper,the principle of the attitude determination using solar panels was analyzed.Taking the hexahedral micro-satellite as an example,the solar vector estimation problem based on current generated by solar panels was analyzed,and the limited least-square method was proposed.By combining the estimated solar vector with the magnetometer output,the double-vector attitude determination filtering was proceeded.The algorithm was simulated based on STK(Satellite Tool Kit) data,and the results were compared with those got from the algorithm which using the current generated by solar panels as measurement directly.The results show,the proposed algorithm improves the performance of attitude determination effectively.