Determination of integrated orbit and attitude of satellite based on geomagnetic field measurements

A new method for both orbit and attitude determination of satellite simultaneously based on Three-Axis-Magnetometer (TAM) and gyro data is presented, which is a breakthrough in traditional pattern of treating orbit and attitude of satellite separately. Utilizing the differences between the measured and computed magnetic field components and the angular rate from gyro, an extended Kalman filter algorithm for integrated orbit and attitude determination is developed. Based on the local observability theory, the condition number of local observability matrix is computed to deeply analyze the observability of system. Numerical simulations are performed, and the proposed algorithm is confirmed to be feasible and effective.