Attitude determination from triaxial ellipsoid of unknown orientation

Author
Waldecker, Cody
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Other Contributors
Christian, John; Anderson, Kurt S.; Wen, John T.;
Date Issued
2020-12
Subject
Aeronautical engineering
Degree
MS;
Terms of Use
This electronic version is a licensed copy owned by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. Copyright of original work retained by author.; Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
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URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13015/2641
Abstract
Presented is the derivation for the rotation matrix describing the principal axis of a celestial body of unknown attitude relative to a spacecraft of known attitude. Through the use of the lit limb of an ellipsoidal body and the body’s principal axis, a modified orthogonal Procrustes problem can be solved for attitude determination. Due to the natural symmetry of triaxial ellipsoids, the solution method presents a twofold equivocacy in the attitude of the observed body. In addition, it presents a different method for mapping the quadric surface of an ellipsoidal body to the projection on an image plane. Then, through matrix factorization, the position relative to the celestial body can be derived. The method presented offers an exact solution and avoids the error associated with ellipse fitting an image.;
Description
December 2020; School of Engineering
Department
Dept. of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering;
Publisher
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Relationships
Rensselaer Theses and Dissertations Online Collection;
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CC BY-NC-ND. Users may download and share copies with attribution in accordance with a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. No commercial use or derivatives are permitted without the explicit approval of the author.;
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CC BY-NC-ND. Users may download and share copies with attribution in accordance with a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. No commercial use or derivatives are permitted without the explicit approval of the author.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as CC BY-NC-ND. Users may download and share copies with attribution in accordance with a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. No commercial use or derivatives are permitted without the explicit approval of the author.