SE(3) based Extended Kalman Filter for Spacecraft Attitude Estimation

Abstract: In this paper, the spacecraft attitude estimation problem has been investigated making use of the concept of matrix Lie group. Through formulation of the attitude and gyroscope bias as elements of SE(3), the corresponding extended Kalman filter, termed as SE(3)-EKF, has been derived. It is shown that the resulting SE(3)-EKF is just the newly-derived geometric extended Kalman filter (GEKF) for spacecraft attitude estimation. This provides a new perspective on the GEKF besides the common frame errors definition. Moreover, the SE(3)-EKF with reference frame attitude error is also derived and the resulting algorithm bears much resemblance to the right invariant EKF.