Abstract:

An extended Kalman filter with the Singer tracking model for gyroless attitude and attitude rate estimation is presented. In the filter, the attitude and attitude error are parameterized by a quaternion and an error quaternion respectively, while the angular acceleration is modeled as a first order Markov process, thus avoiding the use of the attitude dynamics model. Numerical simulations are used to test its performance. The filter shows fast convergence ability in all the runs. The steady state estimation errors are mainly determined by the measurement update frequency and measurement accuracy.

Key words: extended Kalman filter, Singer tracking model, attitude and rate estimation, attitude quaternion