Integer Ambiguity Free Attitude Determination from GNSS Carrier Phase Double Differences by Means of a Hyper-Dome Quaternion Search Grid

Roberto V.F. Lopes, Adenilson R. da Silva, Hélio K. Kuga

Abstract:	This paper deals with GNSS based three-axis attitude determination of LEO satellites. One presents a new algorithm that takes advantage of the increasing expected number of satellites at sight from multiple GNSS foreseen constellations and the increasing spaceborne processing capacity of next generation host satellites to avoid the integer ambiguity problem that often arises when using carrier phases. The algorithm relies on the design of a quaternion search grid that fully covers the attitude domain, namely the Hyper-Dome. A statistical analysis is performed to establish the minimum necessary number of GNSS locked satellites to make the proposed method reliable in terms of probability of false solutions. Numerical results from realistic test scenarios including hardware in the loop confirm the algorithm capacity.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2008) September 16 - 19, 2008 Savannah International Convention Center Savannah, GA
Pages:	746 - 757
Cite this article:	Lopes, Roberto V.F., Silva, Adenilson R. da, Kuga, Hélio K., "Integer Ambiguity Free Attitude Determination from GNSS Carrier Phase Double Differences by Means of a Hyper-Dome Quaternion Search Grid," Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2008), Savannah, GA, September 2008, pp. 746-757.
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