A Uav Aided Method For Ship Attitude Estimation

The telernetering accuracy of a spacecraft tracking, telemetermg and control (TT&C) ship relies on the 11&C ship's attitude accuracy directly. Thus it is quite necessary to obtain the TT&C ship's attitude as accurately as possible. A united system combined with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and TT&C ship is considered here. The UAVs are equipped with accurate self-positioning modules and take the role of instant calibration points for the TT&C ship's attitude in the united system. With the measurements of the UAVs' position through the photoelectric theodolite on the TT&C ship, a ship attitude estimation method based on least squares estimation is proposed. A more accurate ship attitude estimation is obtained through the fusion of the direct attitude measurements from the Inertial Navigation System on the ship. The simulation results show that the proposed method can help to improve the ship attitude measurement's accuracy obviously.