An Attitude Heading and Reference System for Marine Satellite Tracking Antenna

One of the most challenging problems for marine satellite tracking antennas (MSTAs) is to estimate the antenna attitude, which is affected by the ship motion, especially the ship vibration and rotational motions caused by ocean waves. To overcome this problem, an attitude heading and reference system (AHRS) for MSTA is presented in this paper, including hardware architecture, estimation algorithm, and calibration. The hardware structure is designed such that it increases the vibration resistance of AHRS and estimation accuracy. Besides multiplicative extended Kalman filter for normal working conditions, an attitude estimator based on virtual horizontal reference is introduced for situations of accelerometer malfunction, where the ship is suffering from wave shocks in high sea states. The performance of the designed AHRS for MSTA is assessed through hardware experiments using a Stewart platform and a high-precision commercial AHRS.