Autonomous Navigation and Attitude Determination System Design for Micro-Nano Satellites with Limited Sensors

Autonomous system design has received extensive attention for orbit and attitude determination, since the traditional ground station-based orbit determination is difficult to meet the multi-satellite needs. With a combination of limited sensors, this article presents an autonomous navigation-attitude determination system for low-earth-orbit micro-nano satellites. By adding the area-to-mass ratio to state vector, the atmospheric resistance is effectively considered. By introducing an infrared earth sensor, the limitations of the orbit type and eclipse period are compensated, with the consideration of computational burden. Simulation based on ZDPS-2 satellites show the estimation accuracy of this paper is improved by 23% compared with the magnetometer/sun sensor combination, reaching 1.08 km, 1.16 m/s (RMS); whereas for an equatorial orbit, estimation accuracy remains 1.11 km (RMS). While completing navigation estimation, the system attitude pointing accuracy reaches 0.347° (RMS), which meets the basic mission requirements of micro-nano satellites.