Pico-satellite Autonomous Navigation with Magnetometer and Sun Sensor Data

This article presents a near-Earth satellite orbit estimation method for pico-satellite applications with light-weight and low-power requirements. The method provides orbit information autonomously from magnetometer and sun sensor, with an extended Kalman filter （EKF）. Real-time position/velocity parameters are estimated with attitude independently from two quantities： the measured magnitude of the Earth’s magnetic field, and the measured dot product of the magnetic field vector and the sun vector. To guarantee the filter’s effectiveness, it is recommended that the sun sensor should at least have the same level of accuracy as magnetometer. Furthermore, to reduce filter’s computation expense, simplification methods in EKF’s Jacobian calculations are introduced and testified, and a polynomial model for fast magnetic field calculation is developed. With these methods, 50% of the computation expense in dynamic model propagation and 80% of the computation burden in measurement model calculation can be reduced. Tested with simulation data and compared with original magnetometer-only methods, filter achieves faster convergence and higher accuracy by 75% and 30% respectively, and the suggested simplification methods are proved to be harmless to filter’s estimation performance.

Space Flight Validation of Design and Engineering of the ZDPS-1A Pico-satellite

The ZDPS-1A pico-satellites are the first satellites in China within the 1-10 kg mass range that are successfully operated on orbit. Unlike common pico-satellites, they are designed to be ＂larger but stronger＂ with more powerful platforms and unique payloads so as to bear a better promise for real applications. Through their space flight mission, the functionality and perform- ance of the two flight models are tested on orbit and validated to be mostly normal and in consistency with design and ground tests with only several inconforming occasions. Moreover, they have worked properly on orbit for one year so far, well exceed- ing their life expectancy of three months. Therefore, the space flight mission has reached all its goals, and verified that the design concept and the engineering process of the pico-satellites are sufficient in allowing them the desired functionality and perform- ance in, and the adaption to the launch procedure and the low-Earth orbit space environment. In the foreseeable future, the plat- form together with the design concept and the engineering process of the pico-satellites are expected to be applied to more com- plicated real space applications.

Magnetometer-only linear attitude estimation for bias momentum pico-satellite

Satellite attitude information is essential for pico-satellite applications requiring light-weight,low-power,and fast-computation characteristics.The objective of this study is to provide a magnetometer-only attitude estimation method for a low-altitude Earth orbit,bias momentum pico-satellite.Based on two assumptions,the spacecraft spherical symmetry and damping of body rates,a linear kinematics model of a bias momentum satellite's pitch axis is derived,and the linear estimation algorithm is developed.The algorithm combines the linear Kalman filter(KF) with the classic three-axis attitude determination method(TRIAD).KF is used to estimate satellite's pitch axis orientation,while TRIAD is used to obtain information concerning the satellite's three-axis attitude.Simulation tests confirmed that the algorithm is suited to the time-varying model errors resulting from both assumptions.The estimate result keeps tracking satellite attitude motion during all damping,stable,and free rotating control stages.Compared with nonlinear algorithms,such as extended Kalman filer(EKF) and square root unscented Kalman filer(SRUKF),the algorithm presented here has an almost equal performance in terms of convergence time and estimation accuracy,while the consumption of computing resources is much lower.

Magnetometer Compensation Scheme and Experimental Results on ZDPS-1A Pico-satellite

In a pico-satellite with small volume, measurements from on-board three-axis magnetometer （TAM） are not accurate, as it can be easily disturbed by other electronic systems. To improve its accuracy, a scheme of compensation methods is introduced in this article. The scheme is based on an improved meast, rement model of pico-satellite TAM, and it mainly consists of three steps. First, in satellite design stage, several techniques are recommended to simplify the afterwards compensations. Then after satellite assembly, TAM ground tests and pre-launch calibration with least-square batch filter are introduced to improve magnetometer performance. At the end, a post-launch calibration with unscented Kalman filter （UKF） is implemented with in-orbit data. The compensation scheme is used in the development of Chinese pico-satellite ZDPS-1A made by Zhejiang University. Results show that with the introduced compensation scheme, the maximum error of ZDPS-1A TAM can be reduced from 80 mG to 6 naG （1 G=10^-4T）.

Graph-tree-based software control flow checking for COTS processors on pico-satellites

This paper proposes a generic high-performance and low-time-overhead software control flow checking solution, graph-tree-based control flow checking （GTCFC） for space-borne commercial-off-the-shelf （COTS） processors. A graph tree data structure with a topology similar to common trees is introduced to transform the control flow graphs of target programs. This together with design of IDs and signatures of its vertices and edges allows for an easy check of legality of actual branching during target program execution. As a result, the algorithm not only is capable of detecting all single and multiple branching errors with low latency and time overheads along with a linear-complexity space overhead, but also remains generic among arbitrary instruction sets and independent of any specific hardware. Tests of the algorithm using a COTS-processor-based onboard computer （OBC） of in-service ZDPS-1A pico-satellite products show that GTCFC can detect over 90% of the randomly injected and all-pattern-covering branching errors for different types of target programs, with performance and overheads consistent with the theoretical analysis; and beats well-established preeminent control flow checking algorithms in these dimensions. Furthermore, it is validated that GTCGC not only can be accommodated in pico-satellites conveniently with still sufficient system margins left, but also has the ability to minimize the risk of control flow errors being undetected in their space missions. Therefore, due to its effectiveness, efficiency, and compatibility, the GTCFC solution is ready for applications on COTS processors on pico-satellites in their real space missions.