Vision-Based Relative Attitude and Position Estimation for Small Satellites with Robust Filtering Technique †
Engineering Proceedings, cilt.133, sa.1, 2026 (Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 133 Sayı: 1
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.3390/engproc2026133020
- Dergi Adı: Engineering Proceedings
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus, Applied Science & Technology Source, Directory of Open Access Journals
- Anahtar Kelimeler: formation flight, multiplicative extended Kalman filter, relative navigation, robust filtering, small satellites, visual navigation
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Relative satellite navigation is critical for formation flying, rendezvous, and docking. This study augments a vision-based relative navigation framework with a robust multiplicative extended Kalman filter (RMEKF) that adaptively scales the measurement covariance using innovation-based covariance matching and a chi-square fault-detection test. A two-spacecraft scenario is simulated in which a deputy monocular camera observes six active beacons on a chief spacecraft. To evaluate fault tolerance, constant line-of-sight (LOS) errors are injected on two beacon measurements during a fixed interval. Over the fault-centered evaluation window, the RMEKF reduces attitude root mean square error (RMSE) by approximately 71–73% compared to the conventional multiplicative extended Kalman filter (MEKF), while also improving relative/orbital state accuracy by 19–93%. These results indicate improved robustness to LOS measurement faults without degrading overall estimation stability.