Performance of a novel heat based model for spacecraft attitude estimation

This paper presents a novel heat based measurement model for attitude determination (AD) using temperature data via two filtering techniques. Within the space environment, the Sun and Earth are considered as the major sources of external radiation that affect satellite surface temperature. In order to perform the required AD task, the satellite surface temperatures are related to its attitude via a proposed heat model (HM), assuming that the satellite navigational data is available. The proposed HM relates the net heat flux of three satellite orthogonal surfaces to its attitude. Filtering implementation of the proposed HM using the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for AD is the key contribution of this paper, while the results are compared with those of the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for performance assessment. The results demonstrate the positive applicability of the proposed HM for AD via filtering, while performance evaluation of both filtering techniques is performed using a Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, threshold boundaries for the satellite initial attitude and rates error for which the proposed HM is able to produce acceptable AD results are outlined. The study is completed with a pertinent conclusion and future research directives.