Kalman-filter-based Attitude and Parameters Estimation for Noncooperative Spacecraft

A novel quaternion variational integrator Kalman filter (QVIKF) is presented to estimate the attitude and relative ratios moment of inertia (MOI) for noncooperative spacecraft in the absence of angular velocity information. As a stepping stone, by employing the augmented state vector including attitude and inertial parameters, the linearized time derivative equations are formulated. Specially, it does not need angular velocity measurements. Furthermore, a typical EKF incorporating with a quaternion variational integrator method is proposed to achieve high accuracy estimation without sampling rate constraints. Finally, the effectiveness and real-time performance are validated via a set of numerical simulations and analyses.