Twistor-Based Relative Navigation of Satellite Rendezvous in Close Proximity Operations Using Unscented Kalman Filter

This paper presents an innovative relative navigation system specifically designed for satellite rendezvous during proximity operations involving target and chaser satellites. The chaser satellite is responsible for tracking the target’s position and attitude, necessitating a navigation system that can accurately estimate the chaser’s relative position and attitude. Our research emphasizes the development of a relative navigation system for satellite relative motion by employing the twisor approach, a comprehensive mathematical model integrating both rotational and translational motion. We utilize the Additive Unscented Kalman Filter (AUKF) to estimate the chaser satellite’s states in the coupled model. The chaser satellite gathers data from various instruments, including a star tracker, accelerometer, gyro, Position Sensing Diode (PSD), and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). The proposed system’s efficacy is validated through numerical simulations within the MATLAB environment and real-time experiments using thed SPACE processing unit.