The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 02, 2001
Filed:
Dec. 16, 1998
Rongsheng Li, Hacienda Heights, CA (US);
Yeong-Wei A. Wu, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA (US);
Garry Didinsky, Niles, IL (US);
Hughes Electronics Corp., El Segundo, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method of estimating the attitude of a spacecraft is disclosed. A three-axis inertial-based estimate of spacecraft attitude is produced and is compared to a stellar-based estimate of spacecraft attitude. A Kalman filter having states associated with gyro scale factor and/or misalignment errors compares the stellar-based attitude estimate to the inertial-based estimate of attitude and apportions the total error into three time varying matrices. A first time varying matrix is associated with gyro scale factor and misalignment errors, a second time varying matrix is associated with gyro bias errors, and a third time varying matrix is associated with attitude errors. The time varying matrices are applied as corrective feedbacks to the inertial-based estimate of spacecraft attitude and are adaptively adjusted to minimize the error therein.