GPS based attitude determination for the flying laptop satellite

Abstract

This paper introduces the GPS based attitude determination system (GENIUS) onboard the university small satellite Flying Laptop. The attitude determination algorithm which is based on a Kalman Filter and processes single differences of the C/A-code and carrier phase measurements is shortly described. The algorithm uses the LAMBDA-method to resolve the integer ambiguities of the double differences of the carrier phase measurements. These resolved ambiguities are then used to fix the single difference ambiguities in the filter. The results of ground based tests and numerical simulations are introduced and the accuracy of the attitude determination algorithm is assessed. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.