An autonomous celestial navigation method for LEO satellite based on unscented Kalman filter and information fusion

A reliable and secure navigation system and assured autonomous capability of satellite are in high demand in case of emergencies in space. Celestial navigation is a fully autonomous navigation method for satellite. To near earth satellite, the earth direction is the most important measurement and the horizon sensing accuracy is the most important factor which effects celestial navigation accuracy. According to the mode of acquiring horizon measurement, satellite celestial navigation methods can be broadly classified into two approaches: directly sensing horizon using earth sensor and indirectly sensing horizon by observation of starlight atmospheric refraction. For these two methods are complementary to each other, a new Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) based information fusion method is proposed here for hybriding them. Compared to the traditional celestial navigation method, this method can provide better navigation performance and higher reliability. The hardware-in-loop test results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this method, in most cases the accuracy is sufficient for near earth civilian satellite and moreover it can be used as a backup system to provide redundancy.