Designing and Evaluation of an Experimental Attitude Determination System Using Sun Sensor and Magnetometer

Evaluation of the satellite attitude determination system is very complicate because of need to simulate space environment on the ground. In this paper a laboratory Implementation of attitude estimation using sun sensor and magnetometer is reported. The test setup includes a sun simulator installed in a dark room. The magnetometer measures the local magnetic field. Sensors are rotated using a 2 DOF table. The reference models are adapted with the test setup. Attitude determination using classic and extended kalman filter methods is implemented by sensors data fusion. The test results verify the controlled motion of sensors in the limits of setup accuracy order.