Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 267875, 16 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/267875
Research Article

Analysis of Filtering Methods for Satellite Autonomous Orbit Determination Using Celestial and Geomagnetic Measurement

Xiaolin Ning,1,2,3 Xin Ma,1,2,3 Cong Peng,1,2,3 Wei Quan,1,2,3 and Jiancheng Fang1,2,3

1School of Instrumentation Science & Opto-electronics Engineering, Bei Hang University (BUAA), Beijing 100191, China
2Science and Technology on Inertial Laboratory, Beijing 100191, China
3Fundamental Science on Novel Inertial Instrument & Navigation System Technology Laboratory, Beijing 100191, China

Received 15 July 2011; Revised 30 September 2011; Accepted 5 October 2011

Academic Editor: Silvia Maria Giuliatti Winter

Copyright © 2012 Xiaolin Ning et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Satellite autonomous orbit determination (OD) is a complex process using filtering method to integrate observation and orbit dynamic equations effectively and estimate the position and velocity of a satellite. Therefore, the filtering method plays an important role in autonomous orbit determination accuracy and time consumption. Extended Kalman filter (EKF), unscented Kalman filter (UKF), and unscented particle filter (UPF) are three widely used filtering methods in satellite autonomous OD, owing to the nonlinearity of satellite orbit dynamic model. The performance of the system based on these three methods is analyzed under different conditions. Simulations show that, under the same condition, the UPF provides the highest OD accuracy but requires the highest computation burden. Conclusions drawn by this study are useful in the design and analysis of autonomous orbit determination system of satellites.